After last night's game suddenly there is a chorus of support for larger props in our team. As any long term supporter on the site will testify I've been banging on about this for several years now, usually with little support.
To all those 'experts' who have pooh poohed me it has become glaringly obvious that our pack lacks the necessary size and punch to compete with the other good packs in the comp. If anybody here thinks our pack is top 8 let me say you have rocks in your head! Yes we might make the top 8 but I'll be surprised if we are only there to make up the numbers.
Cleary in a little over a month has bought players to completely overhaul the Tigers team for next year. This year Barrett has bought reserve graders and rejects from all over to turn them into a top 4 team atm. What has BA done for next year? Bought one forward so far, Evans, a latte sipper from way back, who in my opinion won't help us much, but I hope to be proved completely wrong.
It appears that we are trying to build a team on a shoe string, determined to not pay overs, and relying on cheaper juniors and reserve grade players. Unfortunately it will be a few years until our good juniors come thru from Ball and Matts, that is if any of them make the grade.
Currently our team has Mannah, who is a shadow of his former self, and Edwards who has constant brain explosions. Both need to go, surely BA can see this, and replaced with better players, if we have any in ISC. That might help for this year.
But what about next year? Simply we need to have bigger players in the team. Unless teams are forced to shed players due to cap restrictions, or BA recruits will in the next few months, I can see us again being the inconsistent team we have been for the last few years.
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Enjoying blowing your own trumpet there Glenn? Would it be nice to have some bigger forwards? Yep. Are there any available at the moment? Nope. So where do you propose we find these big forwards? I'm not aware of a large forward farm anywhere.
Besides, you see stuff like this after most games where we are down our end for large chunks of time and often it boils down to this. We got pinned down there because we kept turning the ball over. Doesn't matter the size of your pack if they've got to consistently come off their own line. Canberra have Shannon Boyd and Junior Paulo yet they're 6 points behind us. You've got the Rabbitohs with a big pack yet they're 6 points behind us as well.
The Dragons supposedly have a big pack with Vaughan and Packer. We finished with a 50% share of possession yet averaged more metres per run than they did and had two players run for more than 200 metres, one being Guth and the other being Brown.
Our biggest issue with consistency is simply holding the goddam ball. If we hold the ball against pretty much any side we can score points.
So true Putty. In fact it was the backline that was doing most of the hit-ups because the forwards were spent.
MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
10 minutes after the game finishes and a LONE chorus voice croaks in the darkness.
It is NOT the size of our pack that matters - it is the pea sized PARTY attitude.
Edwards was smashed off his face on something and the rest were still on holidays.
Kiss any chance of reaching the top 8 when it counts with an attitude like last night.
We have held our own (and won) against bigger packs before, so this BS is simply runny BS.
Drug and Alcohol testing before EVERY game - especially after a week off.
Haha I was actually waiting for a blog from you Glenn. Good on you mate, yes you have been saying this for a long, long time about the lack of size in our pack.
Canberra have a MASSIVE pack . . . . . . Saints are pretty big too . . . . . .
One thing for sure is that we are always woeful after a bye. As Col said - we always seem to be half asleep after a week off.
Difference last night was we got the win - Golden Point is a lottery but we hung in and got the result. A year or so ago the Dogs would have got the win and we woulda got nothin'
It's a positive sign.
I would love to see them get a quality prop - but I can't say who because who's actually available?