I hope it’s Avo. And I hope they play him there for the rest of the year. It’s time to find out if he has the skill set. 

I am thinking Allan and Morrin were promoted for a reason, but that doesn't mean Averilo won't get a chance at fullback.

Morrin promoted over Topine is quite strange if Morrin isn't playing, but maybe it is just to give him the experience of being around the squad.

Apart from the halves Panthers have a strong side. Shows how strong the club is when they loose players to SOO and someone like Staines steps in as a replacement.

Not an easy game, Go Dogs we will win one sooner or later.

Villi for PM.

Easy 2 wrongs make a right.

Next time we are off-side, hit the guy with a high tackle.

Well this is looking crap. Their b side is twice as good as our top side. 

We are doing fairly well here, this is a high standard game.

This could not get any worse could it ?

We are being out muscled badly in the forwards and are struggling against their line speed.

Apart from that, the spine looks good with Averillo at fullback.

We need a mountain of ball at the start of the 2nd half to be any chance.

The Kicks try was disappointing the 2 players in the frontline didn't slow him up at all.

We need to do something different on yardage sets, first or 2nd play, after that it is too ls late.

Avo should stay at fullback initial we sign somebody who is much better. He certainly looks better there then any player since Barba. It is annoying it has taken this long to put him in his best position. 

same ineffective one out  running  without energy coming off our line - rare to see a 2 pass play or an early shift and when we do eg Avarillo to Ado Carr  and we get stage fright and panic - more early shifts please please please!

We need to be fitter. And have a hooker that Pushes the line forward and screams at the forwards. 

Our forwards are chihuahuas not bulldogs 

Flanagan needs to stsnd a bit deeper and give Averilo early ball.

I know Burton scored, but the play earler Flanagan gave Averillo the ball far too slowly.

This team is down a few troops, but we are definitely lacking quality props and 2nd rowers.

No go forward a massive problem tonight.
Flanagan has been horrible also

Some of these tackled in the air penalties are pretty soft and I don't mean just against us 

I hope Flanno cops a suspension. With Wakeham suspended no odvious replacement.

Otherwise better than most of our games over the last 5 years.

I wonder how this season would have gone without Flanagan and Duffty, we murdered some games against weak opposition.

Probably not much different, it's  not like they were  holding back any super stars.

Agreed. Our backs are not the problem. We are clearly lacking go forward. We need more bargain signings like Vaughan. 

Yes I noticed that.
Unless you are actually "tackling" I.e both arms wrapped around the player in the air  it shouldn't be deemed as such. It's just "touching"

I hope he does too and coach is forced to play Dufty there. Zef mentioned it early on, I think in Round 2 or something. I wasn't in favour of it as I didn't think Averillo was the issue at HB. But now that Averillo appears good enough for FB, we need Dufty's play making skills at half.

Flanno is atrocious. Worst signing ever. Even TRex and Napa weren't this bad as they werent in a spine position to drag the whole team down with them. 

Time to roll the dice.

Oh....and like I've said in the past..... can we learn how to gang tackle and take the legs ? We lost our 2 best leg tacklers in Lewis and Elliott and are a joke when it comes to getting a player down

Averillo looks like an improvement on Duffty.

Flanagan could be replaced by a borderline NRL standard halfback and it would make a difference, he is well short of borderline.

We were not flogged in many games, some of thise 6-10 point losses could have been wins.

I hope Potter keeps tinkering with the side.

I would like to see Casey and Morrin get a brief taste of NRL, also Credence if he is still here.

Topine deserves a shot seems like he has been back on deck a few weeks.

For halfback, I would propably start ZDC and add BBO to the bench.
Let BBO come on and play half after 30 mins with ZDC moving to lock.

Therr is a big question mark on BBO in defence, but he isn't as bad as Duffty.

Attack wise BBO is a lot better than Flanagan especially if he keeps his head.

BBO and Averillo need to remember that they are not playing lower grades, the rest of the team doesn't have the same skill levels and in the NRL posession is all important. Players with a lot of attacking flair sometimes need to turn it down and be smart.

Potter is already on Averillo's case. But if we are behind with 10 minutes to play, turn it on,

I don't necessarily agree here and believe the gap is much larger. The scoreboard has often not reflected the complete domination in some games.

Last night was a perfect example. It might look like it was only a 12 point game but I felt Panthers had us the whole time. Same as Manly... we actually had no answers on how to win the game in the last 15mins. We could have played another hour of footy and still no gameplan to win it.

What is most disappointing for me with this club, is the continual failure to recognise how important a good and effective #9 is and that our 80's style of 1 out footy diesnt cut it in the modern game.
We finally have Mahoney and so as far as I'm concerned, the rebuild starts from next year.

The last 7-8 years need to somehow be forgotten

I agree, we were never in last night's game and everything we did in attack was pedestrian. Our defence was passive at best and the panther's top team would have put 50 on us.

It defies logic that we stand flat footed all the time even with a deep backline set.

We have played flat for so many decades that have forgotten how to time our runs and run onto the ball. 

Hope Mahoney  and the new coach can fix this in the off season

That Panthers side wasn't much of a step down from the top side, it was certainly a much better side than the Newcastle, Tigers and Dragons sides we played recently.

But they had us well covered for energy in attack and defence.

Aside from adding Thompson and TPJ, the main areas where we can improve is the spine and our yardage sets.

JMK is a problem, service is too slow, not accurate enough and often not flat enough.
Players also have to have intent to run onto the ball, it is hard for the hooker to look good if they don't.

Flanagan is often too flat especially against fast line speed, he looks better against slow moving defence as any half would. Service from dummy-half is also an issue.

For yardage and in general JDC seems to bring runners on to the ball much better than JMK,

I didn't buy the false narrative that we were playing a weak Panthers side, their team would have beaten most of the bottom 8 and possibly some of the top 8.

Potter is improving the side, and so far we are making progess at the rate I expected, this is as good as it will get this season. If each week the side is a bit better than the previous week we eventually get there.

Last night's side plus Thompson would probably beat the Dragons at least 60% of the time. Without Thompson or a suitable replacement they were little hope of beating anyone. But we had chances to beat the Panthers or at least score another try or 2. Chances that often died with Flanno getting swamped by defence coming off their line.