That game was proof that Burton is our most important half. And should only play in the halves. This ridiculous argument that he should kick from the centres was put to bed last night. Centres need to chase the kick. It also showed how weak our halves are with Burto out. 

Foxy should be back.

I think that if we play Sexton at half we can use Hutch as a forwards utility, he often plays more like a forward.

O’Neill is also a good half.

The Chooks had momentum and a lot of ball in the second half, with the injuries and the conditions we ran out of legs.

Best from my point of view Hughes played a lot of minutes and looked good on most carries. I noticed that he made a lot of post contact metres often with a defender or 2 hanging off him. Bumped off JWH and I think left him on the ground once.

Mann also excellent before the unfortunate injury and the best performance from Burto and Kiks in dogs colours.

So far except for Edwards none of the injuries seem long term, King and Kiks might be a chance. 

My biggest issue with moving Hutch is defence. Sexton isn’t a great defender and it showed last night. 

Hughes is a very good prospect. Could be great for us. Just need a couple more. 

Yuck...

Hutch does a lot of good work in defence. 

I didn't form an opinion on Sexton in defence. Hutch slipped up a bit second half but so did most of our team. The main problem with Hutch was running the ball too much, but at least he doesn't force the pass very often. His kicking in general play was ordinary but even in the first half our kicking wasn't great. We didn't score a try off a kick, or get many repeat sets.

A lot of our impact in attack comes from Kiks. He was kicked so the injury is more likely to be  bruising. But regardless he might miss a game.

That is probably why this game is a good time to try Sexton and Papalli we need to offer something a bit different in attack because without Kiks and Taaffe we don't have a lot of attacking threats. Burton will be heavily marked.

Regardless of the team selection we need to play some footy in attack and we need to maintain linespeed in defence.

I will be happy if we win one of the next 2 games. So just pick the best available team against the Storm and have a crack. Lots of times it comes down to the team that wants it more on the day.

Bloody South’s. Saved their best game of the season for us. If they drop this much ball against us last week we put fifty on them. Such a frustrating game league is. 

10 all in reserve grade at half-time. 

Very young dogs side.

I think HIA and suspensions sometimes mean that reserve grade looks like this.

There is a case for slowly expanding the top 30 to a top 35, will keep some experienced players in the game longer.

Reserves won 20-14 and the Japanese Dark Lager I had with dinner was great... Heads of Noosa ... you might not have it in civilisation. 

Is there a secret NRLol directive to not give penalties for markers offside to dissuade dummy halves taking advantage and keep the game flowing???... A la the passing into bloke not attempting to clear the ruck???... Or is it just some shit refs???...

*Not square...

Update on the injury carnage, definite broken hand for Max The King. 

So Taffee, Edwards, Mann, King and Tracey probably out.

Patolo and Kiks probably OK.

Turpin and Farmer didn't play reserve grade, could be injury, HIA or suspension, but I think they are probably OK.

We need to be wary of Coates catching bombs so Kiraz or Skelton. I would consider Skelton with Kiraz in the centres or same as last game.

We can also consider 13. Turpin 14. Hayward both guys are top 30. As far as I can tell Papalli isn't top 30 and can't play before round 10?

Either we need a top 35 or development players must be able to play. I am not sure about the rules for development players.

If Kiks is OK, I still think we can field a good side. IMO the Storm pack doesn’t have the size and power of the Roosters pack. Anyone who has played hooker can fill in at lock and do a good job. Both Hayward and Turpin can do it. We may only need one of them. 

Pretty sure development can play straight away .. then there's selling dispensation for outside that if required... 

For a team with so many utility type players, we should be the best at adjusting to varisble changes (injury, HIA, sin bin / send offs etc).

I also would prefer not much chopping and changing but its hard to swallow 3 losses in a row and keep faith in the same team. Sonething has got to give.

Im a fan of dark lager beers and stouts...(But not Guinness)

This might sound weird but our loss to Souths might actually play a bigger role in Souths' demise this year than had we won.

At 0-5 they probably sack Demetriou and a new voice or team selections might trigger a change.

But by keeping Demetriou in the role, we probably gurantee more misery to them and their season may end in afew weeks time! Fantastic!

I see on WWOS that Latrell has copped 3 weeks for thst vicious strike to the face of a playmaker. He's lucky its 3 weeks only. I hope he fights it and they extend it to 6 after the uproar in the nect couple of days and NRL360 on Monday.

They've also lost Ilias who unfortunately broke his leg in reserve grade. Poor guy. 

They play Sharks, Storm and Panthers next with a bye in between. Hopefully they keep Demetriou and Cody Walker in this time. That should be the end of them.

Sorry i forgot the punchline.....

Sucked in Souths.

Sucked in Souths, they were very lucky that we couldn't execute in attack.

The only way to drink Guinness or better still Murphy's is to drive around Ireland stopping for regular sheep crossing and have a pint at lunchtime and a few at night.

It is much better on tap, can or bottle is like drinking tar. And the stuff in Ireland, well that is why the Irish are always happy and lucky.

When in Germany - Dunkells beear or something like that for great dark beer.

You can find great beer all over the world, except for America where the crap beer, goes with the crap food and the crap coffee.

I do think our win over the Chooks might be a source of positive inspiration.

Multiple players played on with injury Mann and King both came back on with broken hands.

The coaching staff should mention that, and I am sure it went down well with the watching 2004 team players.

The team has shown a lot more grit this season.

Sure we are down on troops particularly for the next few weeks but the Storm and Knights games are opportunities for players to push for an NRL spot or more minutes. After that the bye then players will start coming back.

Sutton and Fifita both due back April/May. We may get cap compensation for KO this season and Gus may be able to add another player.

You know we won right???... Or did U just WATCH the last 5 minutes of the Kayo mini???...

Lol. I watched the full game and im doing the video review right now.

For those that have the game recorded from Fox, im curious as to what Kikau says to Burton with a wry smile just after kick-off at 18-0 when Max Kimg takes the hitup. He is met by Radley amd some other Rooster, with Dom Young coming in to assist the push in the tackle and first to run back.

Kikau with a smile pats Burton on the backside and says something about Young. Not sure if he spotted him moving with a limp but they certainly singled him out on the try before.

Kikau may have said to Burton that Young is still hobbling and that they should keep attacking that side.

We can thank the great cover tackle by Taaffe on Young that hurt him. 

19th minute and the score is 18-0.
King knocks-on the ball on 2nd tackle after punching the line 3m out.

While the Dogs pat him in encouragement, Kikau comes across and slaps him on the face and makes some stern comments to his teammates.

Interesting.....
3mins to go in the first half, we get a penalty on the 20m coming out of our own half right in the middle of the field (if anything 3m to the west of centre)
Reed has the ball, Crighton is asking for it, Reed doesn't give it to him as he searches and gives it to Burton (correctly). This whole time, Mann is telling Crichton and then Burton its best to kick to the Eastern sideline.

Not sure if its because Burton is left footed ? I was under the impression the wind and rain was from the East and kicking that way wouldnt make sense. Or maybe it was to allow them to put on a backline move to the left side?

Either way, Burton looked left and right (probably confused coz the earth is not flat) and eventually kicked it to eastern side.

As i said.....Interesting.

The most interesting part of the game is when the momentum shifted.

We drop down a few levels after Taaffe got injured.

Then we started the second half ok, but Curran dropped the ball.

They got a penalty our linespeed dropped off they got their first try and had any absolute mountain of possession for around 20 minutes.

We did very well to hang in and hit back with the Burton try. At the back end we ran out of gas.

When they had a run of possession in good field position, both sides took their chances well. And both seemed to fumble the ball more when they had limited possession.

I think Cirro is right, we stopped moving the ball and running hard our linespeed also dropped off.

It is important for the coaches and players to understand what went wrong, that is the next step for us keeping momentum longer. We did have it for 30 mins.

I think our performance was good because the Roosters are good, 26-0 over many other teams we would have it won.
I think the Roosters, Panthers, Broncos, Manly, Tigers, Warriors, Cowboys and Warriors are the teams that are likely to turn it around and win. The lesson for us is don't give the opposition a sniff. 

Yep, im right at the part where Curran loses it on 2nd tackle attacking inside their 20m.

Rain starting to team down. The scrum penalty im not too sure of. It was given for jumping the line but with no overhead shot, i couldnt tell if it was legitimate or not.

Curran then poor miss on Keary who puts Butcher through and Chrichton unable to stop him that close to the line (although other FB may have stopped him its hard to blame Critta). 

Couple of poor errors from Curran there.

Curran has been very good this season it is hard to be critical. 

We had momentum before he dropped it, I think that the ref ruled Burto offside from the scrum, don't know if he was.

We started the defensive set well but after 2-3 tackles dropped off in intensity. 

It is worth reviewing this with the team, I think a bit more effort and intensity could have snuffed out the try scoring opportunity. But it was also apparent that players like Curran were getting tired.

It is why I am favouring a player like Turpin or Hayward to come off the bench until Mann and Preston are back. Especially without King. We need to maintain the work rate and mobility.

Ok, the turning point seems to be the Whyte try.
Roosters had 2 set restarts in our 20m but ee handled it well right up until Salmon (playing left centre) is forced to make the tackle on Keary 1m out after Radley punched through. 

This forced Hughes to find himself at left centre with Kikau inside him as Salmon was at marker. Its a nothing play but Whyte gets the better of Kikau and Hughes and if anything, Hughes pulls him towards the tryline in a motion that frees his arm to put it down.

Hughes only moments previously got penalised for a head slam in a very similar motion which gave them the field position. 

I hope the coaches see what i see and that is a tackling technique that needs immediate attention. He is not only tacking a risk with head slams, but on the tryline he is the reason Whyte scored. There was never a try there and im sure Kikau and Chrichton would hold him up. But that fling action allowed him to fall over the tryline and it also freed him arm to score.

Hope this gets looked at and addressed. 

F Me Kiraz....
I nearly threw my schooner at the pub TV and nearly did the same just now on my own TV!

I cant believe he attempted to play at that useless bomb. It was such a small margin for error for either winger to take that bomb and he should have been in fefence mode waiting to either bundle Tupou over the sideline or stop any bat back.

Again, there was no try there. It was poor decision making on a nothing play that allowed them to score.

Manus try is a legitimate try based on the 2024 pre-season rule change.

I know TK was funing about it, and as much as i wanted it to be a double movement, Manu does not extend (promote) the ball beyond ita normal position. His momentum and the tackle is what forces the ball into the goaline.

If anyone is unaware of the rule change, it allows you to bounce or slide into the ingoal if it was under momentum and under the natural holding of the ball (i.e no promotion of the ball)

Im ok with it being awarded as long as other similar ones are also adjudicated the same way.