The answer is simple....when you don't get the two points, you get fcuk all running second or is there a consolation. I think we have the next best result.
We looked at the individuals for excuses and if reading a summary of those opinions and you didn't know the score and circumstances then you would think we were outclassed.
The reality was we lost 18/10, 12/10 would be a more indicative score. We led twice at important and winnable parts of the game. The game/opposition was led by the worlds best player and 4 other origin players with similar arguments in their respective positions
We had to counter that Moses, who carried a calf injury into the game and was valuable in the first half as he helped create the speed of our attack. He obviously came out worse for wear in the second half wearing a quad ? support, where he acted like, as someone said, an on field coach.
Anyone with half a brain and Moses himself acknowledges Cleary as the best. Doesn't mean he cannot be effective in beating Penrith (he has in the past).
The other experienced players we had were Lomax(obviously) Paulo,Brown (who had a great game) and JAC. Throw in Walker,Hopgood, Matterson (also good).
Our centre pairing showed up Samrani badly and in the forwards Hautonga. The rest of the team rookies alike were solid with Smith outstanding.
My view was that we showed two specific things, Potentionally that we are good enough to match anyone and two they just lack that big match experience, which only comes with a team of experienced winners..... Penrith knows how to win clutch games! if you were thinking they are now not that good, I think you need to look again. The quality of that game last night was universally hailed as finals type speed and quality.
The way some of our supporters turned on the individuals was quite disgusting IMO.
Read the summaries of specific negative posters, during the match day blog, EA's summary and the idiots like Merkin.
Please understand it is fine to be critical if it can be done constructively and in context. Not being outclassed needs to be put into the context I am trying to demonstrate here.
Finally I believe if we could put our top side on the paddock, all injuries aside then I believe we can beat that Penrith side with the experience we have learnt and learning.
Special Note. Watched Sandon Smith from Roosters last night....he is the perfect replacement for Dyllan Brown....I would pay up to what we were prepared to pay for Galvin. Roosters will not be blind to him regardless of who they have coming back (walker) so we need to make an offer too good to refuse! i.e. We probably would have paid 1m to retain DB and 800 to get Galvin. We lose nothing with this guy in comparison, plus he can play half, 5/8 and supposedly hooker.
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I felt a bit deflated at the end, because I felt we could have won that. Some of the execution and errors cost us dearly, and a 40/20 from Cleary which turned out to be a match turner. It took their best game with 5 Origin starts to beat us so I give that a big tick.
The Riff have fixed up their edge defence, which is where they have been giving up so many points this year. They were desperate and had their best game of the year. And we are in a rebuild with an inexperienced spine and nearly got the job done. So I think there is amazing potential in this team and it will only get better.
Thanks BBS, I'm glad you see it the same way and totally agree execution and errors did cost us dearly. With that experience under the belt, I imagine we can only get better. In that first half the speed (passing) from Moses and Brown had Penrith at sixers and sevens.
Don't particularly care about losing as I can see the positive impact JR is having on the team and baby step improvements.
Onward Christian soldiers Frankie! ......good to see your positiveness.
Reflecting on it the pain of losing like that maybe settleing within reason. The 2 guys that probably showed more of their inexperience were Samrani and Hautonga who tried to keep a pace they could basicly not handle.
Replace Samrani with Simmonsson and Hautonga with "someone" and it takes most of the mistakes we made in that game.
Good summary Pops.
ive said this in my previous posts. Our average centres were easily marked and got owned by Penrith. This is where both our halves should have shown more vision and provided more variety in attack. It is not the execution. A better short kicking game would have yielded results, especially considering world class wingers out wide like Fox and Lomax.
Too much praise for Mosses long kicks and not enough criticism of his shitty short kicking game. Let's not mention DB, he doesn't have a kicking game at all. He's one dimensional with just the running game.
we have a quality centre JAC scores plenty
I'm a lot more positive right now than I was at this stage last year. The improvement is clear since the start of the year. Early on we were conceding 30 points per game in the first 4 weeks. In the last 4 games we're conceding 13.5 per game, while scoring 21 per game.
That's a massive improvement in such a short period of time.
Agree Pops, keep in mind we pushed the 4 premier's really hard, player like Yep, Cleary, & To'o eat up key moments and always know what to do and when - keys moment
1. Samrani had to be decoy or you could the pass was great and should have hit the winger instead of Jordan - bombed try we take the lead
2 . Cleary 40/20 Isaiah caught out of position, he should have anticipated Nathan this kick given he is a right foot kicker - another crucial moment
3. We had to be more adventurous coming out of our redzone, cant understand why the ball wasn't shifted to JAC - Penrith compressed tthier defensive line and we played into their game plan and big Match explained
Agree a heap of positives and I would be suprised if gave the Bulldogs a hiding this Monday - quality game of footy no doubt, let down in keys moments due inexperience .
Any clowns that can't see this should log out and join another site..
All those points that proved to be game changers are true Mick. Yeo, Edwards and the second rower were big contributers as well.
Yep.
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