Essentially I agree but it was also obvious that we were lacking direction in the halves and Frawley & JMK are only fill ins in the halves at best.

When Manly went down to 12 men we decide to play out a set of 6 rather than kick the goal, we should have kicked the goal.
What followed was an insipid set of 6 and after that a succession of lame kicks etc.

Klem was also much worse in his 2nd stint after a great first stint, he put too much into the first stint and momentum had turned against us. 

There are lots of good things we can build on, and a few small things that if we do them better could change the result.

For example if Lewis plays we might do much better, possibly even win the game.

This year we are mainly playing to avoid the spoon and set up next year. Avoiding the spoon will not be easy but at least that gives us a challenge to aim for.

I don't think Pay got the team selection / rotation quite right in this game, but in some areas we just don;t have the cattle, the halves this season without Lewis & Foran are problematic, we don't have a star half running around in reserve grade.

The only equal on the totally fekked scale would be Nacho in "Better Call Saul"

Steve, there's a new series of Saul supposed to start soon.

I watched series one of "Get Shorty". It seemed to be the same sort of show as BB/Saul.
It probably sits somewhere between BB & Saul as far as action/tension goes.
It was odd that it starred Chris O'Dowd & Ray Romano. Surprisingly Ray looked the part, he grew a beard & played the struggling producer caught up in it all quite well.
Chris, apart from a few tatts & being a complete b'stard, looked similar to his IT Crowd appearance, but so be it.
They had the Cop (brother-in-law, whatever) from BB in it. I wasn't sure if it was meant to be associated with the BB universe but I don't think it is, just a similar show.

And another show due to start soon is "Sick Of It", starring Karl Pilkington as himself & his conscience (sitting next to himself in the car etc).

Just started mate hence comment about Nacho, who is probably the only nice cartel footsoldier in tv history with a great expectation of being a "was" in near future. Netflxi and Stan so painful to watch with s-house internet connection. NBN due soon.

Does Karl have any other claim to fame apart from "Idiot Abroad"..a great show

"The Moaning Of Life".

Also a bit part in "Derek" (As far as I know, his first scripted role).

The new one is supposed to be scripted, so it'll be different again.

You're judging Penrith on Hook's Penrith.

They got a great chance at finishing 4th now, 3 games from the title. And that's when Gus will end all pretending and take on coaching them 100% - if not earlier.

He'll treat the semi series like a SOO series and just try and win 3 games as if everything that happened before didn't happen and certainly don't matter now. Nobody's better in the game for a "series" coach, not even Mal with his record, and there's not much better preparing a team to play simply and to their strengths.

They're as wild as a wildcard could be. They could go bounce bounce, they could destroy them all... easily. That roster can not be over-stated, which is why Gus is desperate for a comp before has to start paying for it and so dismantling it due to SC space.

Where Trex these day. 

Jim Dymock is at the Sharks. Just made an appearance in the sharks dressing sheds. 

the wooden spoon battle is going 2 be interesting 
round 23
bulldogs last 2018 season games   left     
round 23
bulldogs  vs warriors
st george  vs  bulldogs 
bulldogs  vs sharks  

round 24
cowboys   vs  parramatta   one of these look set 2  lep the dogs 

round 25
titans  vs cowboys
parra  vs  roosters
bulldogs  vs  sharks

To avoid the spoon we need to win 1-2 games.

If will not be easy to beat the Warriors, but if we do, we are more or less clear of the spoon.

Yes indeed. don't want to be playing the Sharks in last round to avoid it.
Parra's win wasn't surprising, neither was NQL. But for parra to win by 40 meant they nullified their poor F/A compared to us.
We probably need Parra to beat the Cows and beat them well in Rnd 24 to make the Cows need 2 wins to overtake us

The Sue signing officially announced. He played great yesterday for the Tigers.  Tony Ayoub to be High Performance Manager.

Good siging for booth BUT still short of
1 centre for next year

The Sue signing shows some smarts. An above value for money player. The sort of signing Melbourne makes.

I like the thinking, now think about some outside backs.

What are people thinking about the centres next year?

I imagine Meaney will be playing fullback.

With Lewis/Cogger and Foran the first choice halves options.

So at present we have Hoppa/Lewis and Holland as centre options.

I'm also thinking Montoya will be a centre option and we have Harper who is class.

Finally Smith could play in the centres at a pinch.

There are lots of good options for the wing.

I'm not thinking we need a fill in depth type centre, we have a few options like that.

I would rather go with a young guy with the potential to be a long term partner for Harper.

Good to have Ayoub back. I agree that we did look fitter/faster prior to when Idiot Des took over & brought in all his mates....

Not fussed about Sue, good depth signing & much better than Priest.


We need a decent No.9

We need a decent assistant coach/Attacking coach

We need a strike centre

Thoughts? Protected?
https://coupler.foxsports.com.au/api/v1/article/amp/nrl/nrl-premiership/cameron-smith-is-under-the-microscope-for-a-chicken-wing-tackle-on-sosaia-feki/news-story/278d09957f5876c80d028d49ca146216

I agree with Villi.
The focus needs to be in positions we will lack depth in, not strengthen already backed up positions.

I have to question whether we have learnt anything in this salary cap mess.

And bench is one of those positions we lack depth in. We need bodies to come in and lift the tempo, atm once the rotation starts with Danny Fudololololololo we grind to a halt. 

Real shame for Chris Smith to get that injury..was looking forward to seeing him develop his game.

Gotta agree with Zef

Danny F.... built like a Mac Truck yet is the only forward in our pack that ‘Surrenders’ in tackles constantly each game

He’s yet to develop anything.... a step before the line, an offload in traffic, pull off big hits.... nothing in 2018



Another in the Michael Lichaa category... pulls out the odd good game and still gets picked in 1st’s each week.... won’t be upset if he leaves in the off-season


If Peni Teripo is still off contract at the Eels.... another cheap alternative with great strong hit ups and good leg drive would be a handy pick up too to go with Suaso Sue I believe

Michael Lichaa...we win in spite of him and lose because of him...well he did throw a nice selective pass for our only try...oh I see you don't mention that.

You say it as if everybody knows...I for one didn't watch the game against Manly after I knew the result...wear a loss very poorly

I thought Frawley went well enough against Brisbane, also in ISP during recent weeks, but against Manly it was one of his not so good appearances for the club, very similar to what happened in the early round against the Storm.
It's important for a teams chances to finish strongly by maintaining possession early & controlling field position early to wear out the opposition at the start, build pressure/make them defend a lot, before they do it to you. Tragically Frawley threw a bad pass early that gave away possession while they were attacking the try line. Then compounded the error by giving away a penalty straight away whilst making a tackle. Then if that wasn't enough, after the Manly kick for touch, they were attacking the C'bury try line & he gave away another penalty whilst making a tackle. Instant 2 points all within the first 6 mins.
C'bury did well & played strong to keep the damage to just 2 points & also went on to be the first to get a try to make it 6-2, but by then they'd used up far to much energy, far too early & had nothing left for the last half an hour of the match. They just didn't get enough early points on the board to compensate for Manly finishing stronger with more in the tank.
Guys like Elliott & Klem ran hard as ever in the first half but just didn't have it left in them during the 2nd half. The rest of the forwards were solid enough & didn't really do anything too wrong, but there wasn't much in the way of impact & apart from the Lichaa try assist pass there was nothing in the attack really at all at Brookvale.
They tried, but Manly were too good.

 

Fair summary BN.

Overall the NRL is fairly close this year and even teams down the bottom of the table like Manly have some good players and can put it together on the day.

Frawley looked good against Brisbane, but part of that was Lewis doing a lot of the kicking.

JMK looks like a good 14 at this stage, Frawley looks like the guy who mostly plays ISP, and occasionally fills in at NRL level.  

We always need some depth but I would not want either player playing more than 1-2 games in the halves in the NRL in 2019.

JMK does have the potential to be a good 14, and I would be happy to see him in 14 each week. 

I would not put the Manly loss entirely down the the halves, but the rot started there.

I was a shame Smith was injured and could not play.

I agree we need more out of our bench forwards, funnily enough Danny F was very good starting against the Broncos, but did not go so well against Manly. I'm not as critical of him, but I don't think he can turn the momentum in a game. 2019 is a critical year for him, he needs to step up to be an NRL regular.

What we could try is starting Danny & Klem with Tolman on the bench, worth a try IMO but we might leak early points. Definitely worth a try against the Warriors. 

You are right in that Frawley didn't have a good game, but I was more disappointed in JMK. Normally very good in defence, he fell off some tackles that resulted in direct tries. Frawley for all his errors, didn't result in any direct points against.

My biggest criticism of him was not the errors you mentioned, but rather him running the ball and getting tackled on 5th which then allowed manly to focus on JMK as the only kicker. Frawley is a poor kicker anyway so it may not have made much difference if he kicked instead of JMK but at least we should be putting some doubt into the defensive line to not rush our kickers.

Once again, not having kicking options at hooker and fullback also compound this issue.

I think the game against Manly taught our team (not me, ive been preaching this since Kimmorley retired) that we need a top kicker in the team to remain competitive. Its has always been the case with rugby league and always will. 

The 3 people that shouldn't be caught running the ball on last tackle are the halfback, the 5/8th and Tolman

HD what you have identified right there is that there is a loss of impact with our bench, but more importantly our team is significantly worse when we don't have our halves firing.
In my opinion, we have made good yards with our forwards and I admit we lose some go-forward when Klem, Elliot come off but we still are OK. Its only when Lewis and our kicking game is shot to bits that we look like wooden spooners.

Fixing the halves and kicking game issue should be the #1 priority in this club. 
I reckon Frawley + Lewis is one of our best halves combo. Lewis and Foran may also be. Not sold on Cogger although im sure I have seen him kick better than Frawley.
If we have our kicking game on song, we can stay competitive in any game. But if we don't, it doesn't matter whether we have 13 Klemmers, Elliots and Jackson we will lose.

"Overall the NRL is fairly close this year and even teams down the bottom of the table like Manly have some good players and can put it together on the day."
More so than any other year. Many games go down to luck and corruption...in Rorters case...