Australia well on top mentally.
Kohli has no idea what field to set.
He protects 3rd man and aussies start playing pull-shots and attack anything short.

It's all about the run rate. 
It forces pressure on the bowling team to defend runs rather than play for wickets.

Farking hell Travis Head.... another wicket given away to a pathetic stroke

Mark Waugh is right.
It wasnt so much a bad choice of shot, but poor execution.
Head refused to hit the part-timer Vihari who bowled every ball outside off stump and frustrated himself into lashing out at a ball with the field set for any miss-hit.
He was better off going after the part-timer or just waiting for a straighter ball and played a risky hook or pull rather than a lofted cut.
Still not the end of the world. They'll creep into a 200 lead early tomorrow and then will be a matter of how much is enough...

Marki, what I don’t get is why do the tailenders look more comfortable & score more freely batting than some of our top order batsmen?


At present it’s more enjoyable watching Cummins, Lyon etc batting than seeing Marsh & co

Cricket even, some dumb shots by our batsmen.

Like I said in an earlier post, the aussie batsmen seem in limbo on how to play Test cricket. 
The lower order hasn't changed their mentality do are unaffected. 
I would say that if we had at least 1 stable and consistent player in the top 3 it would make the world of difference. 
That player is Smith. He is so vital it's not funny.
But it would be good if it were an opener as it gets the entire innings going. 
I'm not convinced we have found a true opening pair. If Warner doesnt return, we will have a lot of soul searching. 

I do think that the ball is doing a bit more for the Indians.

But our batsmen were not great working out when to leave defend or attack.
Perhaps Harris got a good ball, the other 3 got themselves out.
Head and Harris are young guys they might learn from this.
Hanno was very poor, all good bowler will get him LBW everytime if he plays like that.
Most of all, I hate being the mock.
I'm glad Marki does the NRL season.

Smith is vital as he is our only world class batsman at present.
Smith is a 9.7 out of 10 our next best is a 6.5.
Normally we would have 2-3 players rating at least 7.5. And 2 rating 9 or more.
These are just my gut feel ratings, Khawaja is the 7.5, Hanno 4, Marsh 5.
I'm tentatively rating the other 3 around 6. They have potential to rate higher. 
I think Hanno and Marsh are probably a lost cause.

Finch is fine..... I’d love for him to come back and snare another 40/50+ runs for us

Its called pressure..
You and marki dont know what it is cos no ones ever expected anything from yous...
Watching tbr Indian batsmen toil ain't exactly been aesthetically pleasing... 
Its a war of attrition out there... 250 might, might be enough...
.

Should be at 6 if at all...

Warner?... Banno?
Stamp of approval for hanno if you've written him off...

Its not all about the run rate.... Are you running out of time\balls????....

Again you fail to understand batting quick loses quick wickets 99% of the time... And India... Well.. They can bat time... And score runs... And bat time...

No batsmen has 'set the tone', and no batsmen will... Time to credit some really tight bowling from both teams.. . Not to mention a cracking pitch...

The 'villi scale'... The measurement you use when know less than nothing about everything...

Pressure..... we’re playing at home, coach given players full backing by not dropping anyone, up on first innings, with still 2.5days of play remaining..... What Pressure Dman?


Dman, you should get back to focussing on how to dodge Andrew Symonds shoulder next time you streak, and leave the serious stuff to me


#ShaunMarshOutLachlanCooteIn

I'm trying to help 😉

Just getting back to footy for a minute...and Roy Masters explains the many layers of player payments. It's not just "official" TPA's that nrlol recently published, but the other layers where teams like Rorters must funnel their paper bags etc.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-data-suggests-salary-cap-isnt-distorted-by-thirdparty-agreements-20180219-h0wayc.html

It's time the NRL just adopted a sink or swim attitude and just abolished salary cap.

Who cares if your team is mismanaged and goes bust. It's just another business. 

A well run club with its books open to scrutiny by the members who vote for them will not fall into monetary hardship unless they arent cut out for it in the first place. And if they do, they dont deserve to be in NRL.

All problems solved.

If Roosters and Broncos have huge TPA's paying 80% of players income - good on them.

If Bulldogs and Parra have 80% coming from gambling/leagues clubs- good on em.

If souths have no revenue streams but have a rich owner - good on em.

If Manly have no revenue streams.... kick them out. 

I wasn't aware of the multi layered system of extra payments that can make up player payments.

Publishing 2017 tpa's by the nrlol proved nothing cos obviously the smarties like Broncs, Storm, Rorters, Souths etc (maybe even us) know how to work the non disclosure payment layers. A joke of a system if it's meant to even out the competition.

I don't completely agree with you there Marki. A few of the foundation teams have gone by the wayside due to this new "model" and there are some other "traditional" teams that could go the same way. There is a solution out there that will give all teams an even playing field, it just hasn't been discovered yet. When it does I'll bet those that want an unfair advantage will be all out to find loopholes. Bottom line for me is, if the nrlol decide to remove the Dogs from the nrl or even try to re-invent it in another location they will be one more fan less. It may sound insignificant on this page but just imagine if thousands of others felt the same.

Commonsense will tell you more about the SC than the NRL apparently knows. 

If TPAs are only having a minor impact why do some teams have a lot of imported rep players, while some lose all their rep players to other teams?

No one believes the myth about taking less money ... 

Not joking, I really don't rate our batsmen ... India are targeting winning this series 4-0, they are right to do so.

They have probably the best pace attack an Indian team has every fielded, but their batting is really only 1-2 rungs above average for an Indian team.

I do rate our bowlers and if our batsmen and tail can give them a chance our bowlers can win it for us.

I'm not claiming to be a cricket genius,  it is all fairly obvious.

We got thrashed by the great West Indies a few times in the Clive Lloyd era, but that was an absolutely legendary fast bowling attack, I maintain we had good batsmen, but the bowlers were too good.

The Poms have also been a bit too good on a few occasions, mainly in England ,and SA have a good bowling attack for Australian conditions.

But typically Australian batsmen in Australian conditions regularly post good totals say 350-450 in at least one innings of a test and the top 6 typically make most of the runs. No only is this not happening, it doesn't look like happening.

I don't blame the players they are trying. 

I only half blame the selectors, there are not a lot of quality young batsmen bashing the door down.

But I do say the selectors need to make the tough decisions, give a few more young guys a chance, don't keep recycling past failures. 
 

Oh yeah no salary cap sounds good when you can dismiss other teams without care. But what are you gonna say when it's The Dogs that will be perennial mid table never able to compete with the big guns side?

And we will be, don't kid yourself about rivers of gold from the Leagues club, not only will it not be enough, but most of the members of that League's club are there for the pokies and cheap feeds and once a footy team starts draining the money from that it'll be the end of that.

So make sure your push to abolish the salary cap argument accepts that we'll be one of those struggling clubs, not one of the heavy-weights.

Still on board?

You are not wrong HD.
I struggle to find a century maker in this team.
Maybe Khawaja - that's it.

In the halcyon years, we had at least 4 if not 6 that you could bank on to get a century in at least 1 of the innings.

I'm on board because the SC achieves very little apart from being a bit of a PR smokescreen.

The rules do prevent us benefiting from having a strong leagues club, but it is not the 1980s and a strong leagues will only take you so far. 

Regardless of whether or not we have an SC the formula for success is the same, processional management, make smart decisions, good scouting, recruitment and development, good coaching. Or in other words be good at everything, if possible be the best at everything.

In recent times the Leagues Club has been a bit of a mixed blessing, lazy people have thought it was the solution to all our problems, and greedy people have noted a big pile of money which might be handy to control. 

So IMO if they abolished the SC, nothing much would change, as it achieves close to zero.

What it does do is give the clubs some sort of barging chip of salary negotiations, and the NRL some visibility into the club player payments. 

It could be that without it more poorly run clubs would go broke, or they might go broker faster. Even that argument is a stretch.

Our club has a passionate supporter base.
I'm not sure what entails in these TPA's that other clubs get... but I cant imagine we would not be able to get some form of sponsorship....

I mean....us our demographic that bad that no o e wants to touch us with a stick?

Well said HD.
It's not much different for our club in the current environment. 
Whether we are successful or not is the probably the only question. But at least we will have a chance to either retain our good talent or snare unwanted talent.
Right now, we lose both and seem to just try to unearth the next big thing by smart recruitment and junior development. 
I can't see us ever being a dominant force in this game again. We might manage to put a cracking side together if all moons align but it quickly be dismantled within 1 or 2 years as we cannot retain good players and lose them to teams with good 3rd party arrangements unaffected by SC.

Scrap the cap and we might have a chance.

It's no different in EPL and soccer in general.

Marki the big money is corporate sponsorship, teams like the Broncos and Storm as the single team in a city have a big advantage, teams like the Roosters with a lot well connected businessmen as supporters  and a lot of wealthy people living in the area, have an advantage.

The image of the club and the current difficulties in getting sponsorship are mainly due to poor management 1998-2017, there is no quick fix.
A lot of our supporters are small businesses, some of them might grow into bigger businesses overtime.

I don't doubt that bad press is a problem, and some of that press stems from assumptions about the racial composition of our fan base.
it is also true that some of our Leb fans in the past have been poorly behaved an let the club down, I say some, as most  were well behaved.

It is also true  that we have had some problems with player behaviour mainly 2002-2006, but that is a problem for all clubs and our current crop  of player are probably some of the best behaved in the comp. 

All of the problems we have had have stemmed from being poorly managed, good management is the fix, but not a quick fix.

I can't see how we will ever be on a equal footing with e Broncos, Roosters and Storm in terms of money to spend, but I don't see any reason why we can't be successful.
But success is winning a few comps here and there and being in the semis most years, we are not going to be running out a star-studded side chock full of rep players.
And if we do money will talk and they will take the money sooner or later. 

Went for a quick shower, returned to the cricket & 2 wickets had fallen!
HD, what did you do?  :)