I'm now of the firm opinion that this team can only move forward with Sexton and KO in the halves and Burton either at centre or out of the team altogether.

I'm so pissed off Averillo has been let go. 
Black mark against Gould and CC.

He's the only eyes up footballer.. He has excelled in all 3 positions of 5/8th, FB and Centre and we chose to let him go.

This club has lost me. I am in no way confident we were heading in any right direction.. None.

You can be dumb and lucky… 😜

Sorry that you couldn't tough it out. We will miss your maniacal rants, but I guess one must follow their convictions. Where to next?........ Phins maybe!

Meant for the Mock…

Presser confirmed what I expected.

Reed, Presto,Okunbor and others had the flu.

Needing to move Flanno to hooker caused a cascading shuffle.

We had 15 players out 7 back next week.

The game was a mixed bag, a lot of dumb/ poor play from us, but also patches of good play and a fair bit of effort.

We played Penrith and they were at full strength. Or at least close to it. We had plenty out. Honestly did anybody think we would do better. I was impressed we kept trying till the end. And it could have been closer if the bounce if the ball went with us and we didn’t give away so many penalty’s or bake those silly mistakes. 

Burto was the best player we had today. He lacked quality around him. Sexton makes him much better. A good fullback will help even more. As will Kiks and JAC running off him. 

Jerome Luai anybody? 

Flu aside… Reed playing in whatever position that was is still baffling…

They were short of middles, Reed volunteered to play 30 mins.

All things considered we were never a chance this game.

 Next week week I hope that we have players in the correct positions.

We have the Dolphins next then a bye.
A win next week would be great.

He won’t be going anywhere…
And we have a 6…

No more Penriff players.

I think the team dug deep in the second  half not to get 50 put on them .. those  late tries in the end would put a bit of confidence back . Having Sexton , Kicks and Fox back next week they could win it as Dolphins are starting to wane now .Your right Burton should go back to centre even I would try him at Fullback see how he goes . 

Agree don’t need anymore we need the Bulldogs DNA..
We need to breed jt from pups like the club use to.
I thought Gus would know but he obviously had been out of the seen too long now and wants to turn the club into  another Panthers . For a cheap price he could had saved the club money and kept Potter as coach . Would not had been any worse position .

The truth is that Potter would have had less expectation on him than what CC did with the same team. 

As fans however, we would have had the same expectations with the new recruits, regardless of whether the head coach was Potter or CC.

But CC wanted to take on a head coach role this year and we couldn't take the risk of him signing with Tigers or Dragons so got him as soon as he was committed to leaving the Panthers. 

CC's persistence with Perham is giving me the shits more than Flanagan - or close to it.

There's very few players I wouldnt wish not even on our enemies, and Perham is one of them. To think he came from one of our enemies makes my blood boil. Parra must be laughing their ars'es off.

CC seemed to know already who the 2024 fullback would be.

I am not certain that Chricton or Xeri will be a better fullback than Averillo.

This season CC is making a few mistakes, but hopefully is learning.

Averillo probably should have been fullback all season.

With the squad we have and the injuries we have had it was very unlikely that we would make the 8 this season.

The Roosters just got back on track, their depth is better than ours but injuries knocked them down a rew rungs.

I like Avo as much as any dogs fan. But he was not safe under the high ball and struggled to organise the defence. Unfortunately we never gave him an offseason at fullback and have moved him around too often. He should have been trained at fullback from the time he moved into under 21’s. Massive failure from the club. 

Our biggest problem this year has been injuries. New players won’t necessarily fix that. 

I agree, but specifically injuries depth in middle forwards has been an issue.

If we didn't have all of the injuries, we probably have sufficient depth 1-2 middle forward injuries is OK, 4-5 is simply too many.

I think that if we replace Tommo with 2 quality props, in addition, with 2 good  young middles who might be development players next season we have it covered.

I think Critter is a better player than Averillo in every aspect except for 1, Averillo may be faster. Wilson is also fast but may be suspect under the high bsll. 

Get 1-2 more wins, gain some momentum and the focus should be on getting the squad in good shape for the start of 2024. Any players who need surgery should get it before the end of the season if there is any doubt about them being able to complete a reasonable preseason.

I don't think we can be that unlucky 2 years in a row.

Sexton is a better half than Flanno, Critter is a better fullback than Perham, another off season will improve most of our young players. A few smart signings can also make a difference.

If the stars align 2024 could be good, for 2023, we mostly just want to get something out of it and end the season on an upswing.

We have signed Liam Knight effective immediately until the end of 2024.

Goes hard, does some dumb stuff at times including dropped balls, has had a few injuries.

However he fits what we need at present he is only 28 might have some improvement in him.

IMO Gus gets a lot of recruitment and retention right.

I hate whinging Poms as much as I hate the Rorters...and that is a lot...a real lot. Will they concede that we won the Ashes in Australia 5 blot...No but they are content to claim victory in the Old Trafford Test. I hope we thrash the living daylights out of them in the fifth. I hate the fact that some Australia publications goon those lines too. 

Yer. I’m happy with the signing. Not issue is he is injury prone. But if we get him on the park most if not all next year we are a much better team

There are plenty of times when the rain has cost Australia test victories in England.

We didn't play well that game, expecting the rain was part of that.

For the next test I would drop Warner and experiment with Green as an opener, big young Murphy for the experience.

Yes, HD's funky team selections are not limited to NRL.

IMO Green is getting out because he is impatient, if he takes his time and plays himself in he should do better.

The combination of a short left handed batsman and a tall right handed batsman might mix up England's line and length.

Should he get set he can score quickly, Warner isn't doing much anyway and this is probably his last series.

Go all out for a win this test, if we have the intent to bowl the poms out cheaply it might happen.

If we lose the poms will still be whinging and crying in their warm beers, while their wives are all on dating sites trying desperately to meet Aussie guys.... 

Marshall played U19s SOO for QLD and played reserve grade for us last game?

If he is going OK in reserve grade then promote him to top 30.

Replace Tommo with a cheaper prop, let's call that guy X.

With X, Knight, King, Sutton, TPJ, RFM, Paolo, (Hughes,) Morrin, Edwards and (Marshall) that is enough middle forwards 2024.

I would keep Okunbor and Wardell for extra depth in second row and the middle

Second Rowers, Kicks, Presto,  Topine, (Edwards)

Hookers Reed and a backup possibly Flanno.

That would be 19 out of 30 players being forwards we would need to trim that by 1-2, perhaps don't promote Marshall and or let another player go.

I am looking forward to how the 2024 squad shapes up, we are not far away.

Players that looked like duds this year might go better in a stronger team or with one more off season under their belt, if so they will show that in 2024. So most of our forwards should only get a 1-2 year extension.

You would think with the Ashes retained, Warner will be given the chance to go out on (ahem) his terms.

And if he doesn't get the hint and retire after this match, don't even pick him in the squad. 

IMO a team like us, Dragons, Tigers should not be giving away too many contracts beyond 2 years.

We are rebuilding clubs. Alot of it is hit and miss. You are better off paying someone abit extra per season on 2 years rather than abit less over 3.

I'm not a fan of Gus and his 4 year deals. They rarely return value. In fact I can barely remember a 4 year deal at the dogs that turned out to be good value. I can think of many disasters tho....

hd, you can scratch RFM off your forwards list for '24, he's gonski.

BTW, so is Sutton.

I thought both were contacted, but I am happy enough.
Sadly RFM in particular is a shadow of the player he once was.
Young KK from reserve grade is another forward we could promote.

Hughes came on off the bench against the Panthers and looked good, one charge set a defender sprawling backwards and he managed an offload. Patolo has looked good to me at times.

Anyway we need around 17 forwards and we have most of them.

Skeleton had a mixed  game, looked good to me  with Fox, Skeleton and Wilson we have some good wingers.
I would keep Kiraz, Allamotti and perhaps Burns as centres, backed up with some young guys.

Burns is a good player he just has bad luck with injuries.