The hope is that refs even out over the course of the season.

Dropped balls and bad defensive misses are what we need to fix.

Baz is querying the refs, but nothing ever happens.

The smart teams can adjust and make it work for the them.

The dumb treams will play the same way and hope for a different outcome.

Smart teams will always beat dumb teams

Ok Parra....
Put another 3 tries on them now.....

Milford makes break...Mead along side him unmarked...Milford hogs ball...end result no try...can't believe it...barracking for Broncos

I don't  believe  in evening  out over the season. The referee's job is to apply the rules consistently and equally  for both teams.  Regardless of whether  a team plays well or not that is the standard they are entitled to expect.  A bad deal in a GF and a good deal in a trial don't equate.

It shouldn't happen, but home ground advantage sometimes counts.

The lesson tonight is to watch the difference in line speed between the eels and us.

Eels probably made twice the amount of errors than us, but they didn't die wondering. They just kept playing at speed and pushing up in attack. 

On their day, they can beat a team by 60. Not so much because of talent. Simply because of the way they play.

My mate mentioned that watching the game. Probably the yuckiest jersey I have ever seen

They also have two wingers and two props and a much more experienced spine that would all walk into our side. 

We lost tonight and will see a few more this year. But I think we have found our halfback. He was one of the best on the ground. Cotric is so much better than what we have. Allen looks promising but I’m a little doubtful. Avo looks good but Burton is much better. The future does look good for the backline. 

Well..... we seem to not only lack the players, but lack the ability and mindset to play a winning formula.

I rate TB though and strongly believe he identifies this problem and given time, he will fix it. I just cant believe how bad if a disease Desball is...

It makes Covid-19 look like a fake headache.

I think it's time Jacko, Napa and Hoppa are let go.
Averillo may need to move into the centres when Burton arrives. 
B Smith would be a very good acquisition in this team. I also wouldnt mind Matterson or getting Lane back. Was cursing when Des swapped him with RFM....

It is week 1, our squad has limitations, but can play better.

With a smaller more mobile pack, we should be defending well running hard and having good linespeed.

The 6 agains and dropped ball sapped our energy levels.

Defense needs work, but Flanagan threw some nice passes, Cotric is a dangerous ball runner.

Recruitment wise props and a big winger are priorities.

We will have the Fox and Burton for 2022 they will help.

We get Okunbor back on deck later this season, hopefully RFM can return to form.

Elliott and Cotric look like our only dangerous ball runners. Averillo will be dangerous if he gets some space.
Tommo has good speed.

Overall I hope we have potential improvement in the side, but a miracle turnaround looks unlikely we will have to work hard to improve.

New coach,  new halves, basically almost everything new. It will be a couple of months before we get a handle on this teams potential. I don't  expect  miracles though.

Bwahahahaha!!!...

pretty disappointing, we started off well and looked the goods. then then we lacked possession, dropped ball, compounded by the repeat sets. 

If v'landys is going to fvck around with the rules, then he needs to let the fans know what's going on. If a six again is called then let the fans know why. I have lost following the game with constant "6 again" it's like the referee is making it up as he goes and frankly could easily direct the result of the game to wherever he wants. Already I am starting to lose interest, not in the Bulldogs but what the V'RLol are trying to peddle. If people don't or can't understand the basic rules and structure of the game then they will lose interest. As someone in here mentioned earlier "it is a simple game" but I feel the current administration are unnecessarily complicating it.

Reckon we went backwards when Napa came on...he makes Bill "Herman" Hamilton look positively toey. Hetherington was okay...Ogden a tad disappointing. Renouf Whatshisname looks to have lost a bit of poundage. We were out bopped and that will be the case until we get a dominating forward. 

I reckon every prop in the club who’s played NRL excepting Hetherington and Thompson have had their chance. Ogden, Renouf are never gonna make it, Napa’s past it.

And I don’t necessarily think “size” is the answer. Napa has size, so does Klemmer, but they’re two styles of prop I think the modern game is gonna pass by, too much just hit ups and nothing else, no steps, no skills and then tiring out.

The prototypes for the future can bend the line yet still have mobility and have skill - Paulo and Papa are two good examples, and yeah I know their big, but there’s bigger.

Thommo’s got a great chance of joining them.

Napa is well past his best.
We are missing a good starting prop.
Odgen and Renouf are ok off the bench and occasionally starting, both have improvement in them, NRL bench props of their quality are not common. Best to keep what we have.
Tommo should be starting lock, unfortunately that means Jacko coming off the bench.
But like Odgen and Renouf, Jacko is a more than handy squad player.
We need a bit more size impact and skill, mobility is important for the starting prop, but no necessarily long minutes.
If that prop helps set the tone the rest of side can keep it going.
Essentially replace Napa with a proper senior prop we are mostly there.
We also need a couple of young guys with a bit of size to contend for bench positions.

You guys are still missing the point.

We have too few players that have the urgency to hit the line and go for a quick run.

Thompson, RFM, Elliott, Dietz and DWZ.

The rest just dont have it and never will. If they play in a team full of players that hit the offence line running, they might lift themselves to do the same. But to take the initiative themselves - no chance.

Inability to win the territorial battle has been hindering this team for the last 20 years.

Dietz needs to work on his defence.

About 3 bad missed tackles in a row, a big part of 2 second  half knights tries.
Came off HIA, so might have been affected. 

His attack is good, defence is a potential problem.

The team actually attacked way better than games in recent seasons, but defence up the middle was soft.
Posession, Dietz, a lack of Tommo and Tolman all problems.

In fact Tommo will do a lot to improve  this side in attack and defence.

We need to do a bit of work on defence and cutting out silly dropped balls.
Our side has points in it for the first time in ages, stop the last Knights try in the first half and get a bit more possession in the first 20 of the 2nd half, we might have been right in it.

But no team can afford soft defence up the middle, that is why no NRL coach picks 17 Ben Barbas.

Jackson Topine played 9 in reserve grade.
Played some 9 growing up.
Training at 9, lock and backrow.
Kind of like homegrown Cheese.
Great kid and a real talent.

If he can put some good games together he is a chance of an NRL bench spot.

HD I'm sure every coach thinks "if we just did abit more of this or abit less of that, it would have been a different result.

Well duh....

Rugby league is about preparing yourself to beat the opposition and if the game is in the balance, taking your chances when they present themselves or forcing the chances to come.

At the moment, we cant force anything. Barrett knows this. Pay knew this. The challenge is to change the way the team plays to be able to adjust to whatever the situation is.

It was disappointing to have lost yesterdays game well before the 60min mark. No doubt the 6 again rule played a part, but we need to be better at nullifying it

So Des is responsible for at least  2 losses this weekend 😎

Most intelligent utterance of yours since the season started... ;)

Actually Pay and Baz are reasonably good a pinpointing what went wrong.

Baz has more options and quality in key spine positions.

We need more of the defensive grit we had last year.

Most disappointing for me was Hoppa's miss on Best, I think a centre should make that one-on-one stop, I don't expect Hoppa to make that kind of miss often.

For one other try Dietz was left posted with a low one on one on a prop. Many players miss that kind of tackle, but JMK, Wakeham and Lewis have at least a 50% success ratio.

Defense is easier to fix, a lot of it was bad reads, leaving a team mate posted in a one on one, and a lack of numbers and shoulders in tackles.

However we did also make some good try savers...

I'll be happy if we score onky  3-4 tries each week, provided we only concede 1 or 2. 

One key difference is Lewis and Flanagan, Lewis will prevent opposition points, Flanagan might concede a few, but hopefully sets up more tries than he concedes. Ditto for Averillo

We had limited ball at the Newcastle end, in spite of that 3 tries and another couple of good opportunities.

Marki are you really a Bulldogs supporter? One game, one fvcking game and you're thrusting the knife into Barrett. Yes we were our own worse enemy yesterday. The referee helped starve us of possession but when we did have the ball we either were too gassed to do anything or we handed it back to them. All the preparation in the world will not save you if the person who is calling the shots is only scrutinising one side. The way I saw the game, as bad as we were it would have only been a matter of us stopping two very soft tries, and a bit of luck going our way with a no try and the result would have been so much different, even with all that possession they had.

You have completely misread my posts.
I'm fully in support of Barrett.
It's the ingrained style of play I have a problem with and some of the individuals that just fall into bad habits.

I have faith in Barrett transforming this team.