We need more forwards like Thommo and TPJ. It’s a shame we didn’t sign Leinu from Penrith. These kind of middle forwards are perfect for us. Vaughan will be good and is needed because we lack go forward and can stiffen up the defence. 

That is the silver lining, I'm very impressed with BBO.
It may be worth trying him as a starter.

JMK is another one of our players who has the odd great game and a lot of ordinary games. Overall a good performer but doesn't hit the real highs often enough to be a first choice starting 9.

The stronger teams typically have well established options a first choice team of players used to playing together.

At the Dogs we need to develop some talent to climb the table, no reserve grade, covid bubble, top 30 etc, make thst more difficult. We had to throw some players into NRL with limited reserve grade.

Other players like Flanno need to work on their game, but don't have an opportunity.
Okunbor was rusty and needed  a few weeks in reserve grade.

Souths, Manly, Storm and Panthers no such issues, baring injuries they know who they are picking all of the key players are experienced, many have played lower grades together.

Key players organise teams, often the fullback, hooker and halves, most of our players in those positions are inexperienced very few have played any lower grade football together.

I think Wakeham and Averillo work better together becuase they have played in the lower grades together.

When a club is thin on talent and lacking experience lower grades are more important. 
It isn't an excuse, just a hurdle to clear.

It is also why injuries and suspensions and even errors in games cost us more, when you start out running on fumes, there is no margin for error.

Agreed. We really need reserve grade under under 21’s. Hopefully the lower grade comps start up again next year. 

Bingo.
Zef rates him highly. Not sure why.
He has been around for a while and reminds me of Mbye. Has 1 good game but then just cant rise when you need him most. Time to move on and give BBO the reigns who has outplayed him already.

I rate Averillo also. It's like this though any prospective gun no matter who they are would fail to thrive behind this pack.

I think blaming the pack all the time is a cop out.
We get inside the opposition 20m through penalties, 6 agains or opposition errors. But its 4 hitups or crash plays most of the time or backline movements where we end up running out of field width.

I'd like to see us be more adventurous and try to score between tackles 1 - 5 and not rely on the Hail Mary 6th tackle play. BBO offers the best chance of that but I'd like to see our halves and edges come into play with diagonal runs or offloads or cutout passes. 

The problem is Marki, we have a very inexperienced player who has had the fortunes of the team dumped on him because he showed promise earlier in his First Grade career. Now we don't often get the chance to attack and when we do there aren't too many putting their hand up. Now if we had a decent pack that could get us more time in the opposition 20 maybe our "gun" wouldn't have the added pressure to try and score on every play because these opportunities are few and far between. You get my drift.

You could’ve stopped there...

So the Pfizer vaccine is making bigger boobs... Damn toxic patriarchal society will stop at no end!!!...

They'll do anything to get us to vaccinate.....
I'm waiting till they throw a set of steak knives in.
I was tempted to wait till they threw in 2 sets (you know, 1 for me and 1 for my extended family) but I'm thinking.....do I really need that 2 set? 

It's quite amazing how they just happened to have a "safe" vaccine ready for this virus. Being a Frank Zappa fan the first thing that came to mind with the Pfizer/Astra shot was "Thing Fish".

That is my fault, I told the boffins to throw that in.

Averillo and Wakeham know how to ball play, they know what pass to throw and what kick to do.
Executing it under pressure in the NRL is hard with poor service from dummy half or a slow play the ball.
A good dummy half like BBO does 3 things-
1. Gets runners into good positions resulting in more fast play the balls or ideally linebreaks.
2. Represets a direct threat via a kick / run and hence engages defenders.
3. Hopefully provides the halves with good service, the right pass at the right time.

Aside from dummy half our team just needs to build combinations and have more dangerous ball runners with support and players in motion.

Building combinations is a muili-season project, this year I have seen some improvement in the attack.

It is a team game and young halves can't be exoected to work miracles with limited support.

Equally it is a team game in defence and that is the area we need to improve, when wingers and centres are regularly trying to shutdown overlaps, jt isn't all their fault. When linespeed is slow up and in defence is impossible.
Some players like Jacko and Thompson are working themselves into the ground. Everywhere in the side, but particularly in the forwards we need the right mix of size and work rate.

Thought the second lot was to plunge into Aiden Tolman....for old time's sake.

Covid in Liverpool Hospital Geriatric Ward - that is the last place we want it.

Getting the vaccine is like wearing a seat belt - most of the time it makes no difference - but occasionally it is the difference between life and death. 

With this new variant most of us are eventually going to get covid, just like most of us occasionally travel in fast cars.

Science and medical experts are better sources of information than radio shock jocks.

Why I say we will all get it is simple, even double vacinated people can catch and spread covid, but mostly they stay out of hospital.

Sooner or later the lock downs will end, but it will be like the flu, will continue to circulate and mutate for the forseeable future.

You will never know when someone nearby has covid, the flu, a common cold or just a dry throat, and if you want to live a normal life, you will be out and about mixing with lots of people.

Wow, Bellamy signed with the Storm for another FIVE years. Head coach next year, maybe more, then football manager.

Interesting team changes this week - Flanno back.

Allan to fullback.

Elliott back which will please Villi.

Still odd that Wakeham isn't in contention.

The big test for Flanno is defence, Lewis made some good one-on-one tackles.
I think Flanno and Averillo might go ok in attack.

Seafood dropped to the bench, Tommo to prop and Jacko to lock. This is about more mobility and linespeed at the start. We need Tommo to beat the rap.

The Tits are a great attacking side, I don't think we can have  much confidence about either of our halves stopping Fifita one-on-one, 2nd rowers need to help out.

Overall not confident, but interested to see how Flanno goes.

I dont think it was "ready" ODF.
Remember the virus was rampant globally from March last year and you basically you had all countries around the work working around the clock to come up with a vaccine. It took them best part of 3 months just to develop it and another few months of clinical trials along with subsequent trials.

Now im not discounting the possibility that the virus is man made and released only to seek funding for a vaccine or ongoing funds to a pharmaceautical company.... but i think this showed that global collaboration and government funding support can make things happen and make them happen fast.

I use pins and a Tolman doll for that.....

Im afraid your are right.
The key words i heard lately were from the PM who emphasized that vaccines alone will not combat the virus spread and that lockdowns are really the most efficient way to stem the spread. 

I know he is using it as an excuse for his failings in securing Pfizer in sufficient timeframe, but realistically he is correct.
The UK, Israel and other parts of Europe and USA who have high vaccination rates will likely go back into lockdowns or some sort of restrictions as the virus spread is huge and even though the death rate may be relatively low, the hospitals will still become overloaded.

And that is the main issue for governments. Not deaths, but overflowing hospitals.

Sack GUS!!!

He had 1 job to do....ONE
LOL

I would have given Lewis another week and Meaney another week at fullback.

I hope Gus is having an input here, becuase otherwise team selection seems a bit random.

It is quite lucky this delta strain wasn't first cab off the rank, otherwise we might have 10xed the global death rate, but on the other hand countries might have closed their boarders earlier.

In terms of humans deliberately engineering a destructive virus, they could make one worse than covid. At the limit science and technology can be used for great good or great  evil.

We still don't have a proper quarantine set up for overseas arrivals, or a well organised vacination program. Hospital staff have to organise vaccinations in their own time and often can't get bookings in suitable time slots.

We can see the populace is already getting restlessness with lockdowns and the ecomony is getting harder to keep afloat. The way forward is everyone gets a good chance of vacination then we open up regardless and only lockdown, highly targeted areas for limited durations if at all.

There is an element of randomness where not every infected person is affected equally, even when vacinated, sooner or later we are rolling that dice, becuase life has to go on.

I hope Gus picked this team otherwise im starting to lose faith in Barrett.
How you can possibly drop Lewis is beyond me. Why you would move Man of Match Thompson from edge to middle is equally baffling. Swapping Meaney and Allan is less mystified but still questionable nonetheless. 

We clearly did some silly errors in defence early against the Sharks but there was no need to make wholesale changes.
Even if we win this game, what does it tell the coach?
Does it mean that ALL changes were necessary? Does it mean 1 or 2 changes were needed? Or perhaps NO changes were needed and only some adjustments were needed to the defence line as that is all/....

Wether it was Tom or Gus don’t matter, there’s a bigger picture here.

Some of it’s about winning this game, some of it as many as possible for the rest of the year, some of it about deciding who’s staying and who’s being punted.

And I’d bet in Gus’s mind the latter is more important than the rest.

Covid is not a conspiracy theory and it's not "manufactured" as germ warfare. I believe they were experimenting with a virus that normally is not infectious to humans but as a result engineered it to be able to cross infect species. Just like a good 50's horror sci-fi it escaped the lab, infected the planet and here we are.

It’s bad enough we’ve got Napa who for some reason continues to get selected each week despite costing his team during games… but rather than drop him, T Baz gives the other idiot of the team, Elliott a saloon passage back into the starting line up!

Elliott…. Waddell…. Would have to be the 2 worst edge backrowers in the competition! There’s no aggression about their game, both offer zilch towards attack or setting up their outside men & both have feet for hands too!

Hopefully there’ll be a desperate team out there in the off season that can find a need for either of them

Thank you. Very well said. If you’re not vaccinated, book in now. It could save your life, and will save the life of many others.