Darkness, my friend, popped his rear head up in my vicinity after Easter Monday. But darkness knew what i did not, can only get worse from here. 41-8, that's it. Not much else to say. There is no excuse to have 41 points put on you. Moses and Cartwright are no excuse, no reason with forwards like Paulo, RCG, Hopgood, Matterson, Lane and also Gutherson, Penisini and Brown. All on big money, forwards considered top 4 quality, get dominated by a Canberra line up missing Hosking and Whitehead in the back row and Rapana on one leg making a 30m break! ONE LEG!!!!!!!!!!
Now is season over? Statistically no, far from it actually. We avoided conceding 50, the record stands that the high conceded total of points a premiership winning team gave up in a year is still 49 from Newcastle in 2001. Teams have conceded 40 before and gone onto win the comp. Roosters in 2002 (48), NQ in 2016 (44), Wests in 2005 (44), Newcastle did four times times in 2001 (40, 42, 46 and 49). Souths conceded 50 twice in 3 weeks in 2021 and made GF. But i feel it is season over for now since we cannot score points and cannot get a win in next few weeks so we will be so far behind by the time Moses comes back we will be playing catch up. Now, if by some form of miracle, we beat NQ at CommBank we could redeem ourselves, but a loss to NQ is the final nail in the coffin since that is 3 in a row and the morale is low as it is.
Overall, it is frustrating as the first 3 rounds, i felt BA had has going well and was coaching well. Now, just fallen apart. If they come out and beat NQ then the pressure surely is off him quickly, as it should be if he can do it. Let's give it til bye week. Though if he get slaughtered by NQ it gets worse and the Bennett sweep stakes begin. Though people have heard my view on BA situation in the past and wont go down it again. I am happy to let him see out the year and go from there, at the end of the day he has made a GF.
Stats: Canberra dominated possession 56% to 44%. Completions level somewhat at 78% to our 77%. Canberra averaged well over 10m per run making 1,958m off 193 runs. While we had a putrid 1,299 off 140 runs. 9 line-breaks to you 3, while we missed 38 tackles to their 20. Oflloads we lost 9 to 7 which is an indicator of how out of sync we were. Tackle effeciency was still 87% which is a surprise. Im over it let's just get through it.
Most Impressive:
J'maine Hopgood: Only one that can really hold his head up high. Yes he gave away a few penalties but overall he was our best player. He was the one that was pushing us forward. No missed tackles out of 42 is a terrific effort. Just make this bloke a captain already. Plus surprised they havent used him as a link man more without Moses, Cronk suggested that too.
Most Disappointing:
Brad Arthur: Good lord it was a poor week for him. Going through the weeks pressers smiling and laughing over the Lomax meeting, poor bastard didn't know what to expect. The thing overall is not how he stuffed up the bench like last week but he preached 'attitude' as the main thing they are working on and need to beat Canberra. The attitude i saw was poor, they looked as though they could not wait for the game to finish and go home. Considering he called them out as soft, they get even softer. Then to add salt to the wound, goes onto saying he was not too upset with performance. For an 11 year coach i expected better. Fans expect better. Apologise to us for a change but they have this attitude of "We'll be right" and they might be but the arrogance is an issue that is not being fixed at the moment.
Ryan Matterson: 5 runs in 67 minutes. Pure and simple it is not good enough. Granted ball did not go his way a lot but go in one and look for the ball.
Joey Lussick: His passing has shown he is either fatigued, carrying an injury, lacking focus or all of the above. The distributing against Wests was poor, a lot of passes either too high or too low. Slow passing also which puts Talagi and Brown on the back foot early on. With Moses out i expected Lussick to step up a little more and lead the forwards around but he is just poor across the ground. The bad miss on Ethan Strange for first try, the poor kick from dummy half giving Canberra great field position and just looking tired after 10mins like last week. It is just making me hope Matt Arthur is ready soon.
Blaize Talagi: The honeymoon period is well and truly over. But though he was poor, i do not blame the kid entirely. Mentioned in other blogs, he has not played 6 since SG Ball, even then he was primarily a Centre. He trained at Fullback and Centre all pre-season then as he is learning to be an NRL player you get him to learn even more to be an NRL Five-Eighth. 7 missed tackles, 2 errors and only 8 runs.
Back 5: Just not setting us up for success at the start of sets. I am quite tired of our runners getting pushed back on every run yet light wingers on opposition side make 10m PCM. Plus Savage turned both Penisini and Russell inside out all night, rushed reads and just poor execution.
Enough said and want to move onto the possible massacre that could be NQ Cowboys. As for team changes, there will be no forced changes but i would like to see Asi come into 6 and Hands to 9. Hands is steady, his distributing is a lot better than Lussick's and though Lussick offers more in attack, Hands steadiness is needed more for Brown and whoever the 6 will be. If BA throws Sanders in then i will support the kid and if he proves me wrong then great as it means Parramatta have done well. I don't think they should as coming off two bad performances, is this the type of morale to blood a 19 year old where all eyes on him to save Parramatta?
Overall, this game could offically be the final nail in the 2024 coffin that has been built over the last fortnight. Old boys night, back at commbank, bit dragged through mud, glass and pretty much anything imaginable. They should be up themselves. If they do lose but give their all then not much else you can ask for can you, last few weeks we haven't been able to say that.
Enjoy your week and god bless Parramatta.
Replies
After what I saw from Grieg and how shit we are on outside backs, I would be offering Bulldogs if they want Grieg for any of their outside backs. Perhaps B Wilson. We were chasing him earlier.
At the moment I'll take any bulldog outside back, even some of their reserve graders in Skelton or Xerri