Also don't forget missing one of the in form players in the comp now Critter . He somehow holds the team together . 

Im still in Spain....
Off to Barcelona tomorrow and then Greece.
We are 1 win, 1 loss and a bye while im away so far. Need afew more games to determine if Mock range is a thing.

One thing i can say so far is Spanish girls are far better looking than Parisian girls who are far better looking than London girls....

Damn a good theory shot down.

CC would have needed to play a young guy in the centres, either Clark or Samarini.

I would have had Farmer and Samarini in the side in place of Hutch and Turpin.

If Patolo was fully fit I would have had him instead of Morrin. In the wet the game slows down and size matters.

We beat big sides in the wet previously, but they didn't play as well as the Chooks. The combination of size and high completions in the wet is hard to beat.

 CC didn't want to throw too many young guys in at once. Gus believes in bringing players along slowly.

Team selection was slightly wrong, but if the opposition didn't play that well we get away with it.

In order the factors were, 1. Opposition played very well first half. 2. Team selection wrong. 3. 2-3 lucky bounces of the ball, 4. A bit of dropped ball from our guys.

Skelton was good, seems improved. If it is wet I prefer Skelton,  dry I prefer Wilson. 

I didn't think that we were that bad, just not our day and a few lessons to learn.

If West beat Faiders by more than 9 points we remain in 6th and the Eels drop to 17th..... dead last.
Go tigpies.

#sackCC...

Shame we couldn't get the win the way the ret of the games have panned out... 4th and a buffer between the logjam would've been nice... Anyways... Onwards and upwards!!!...

The way I see it the chooks were going to get a lions share of the favouritim and 50/50 calls regardless. The only problem was we gifted the chooks a shit load of possession through poor handling thus reducing the refs involvement. Come to think of it, we couldn't even buy a favourable bounce of the ball. I hope that's our last shocker for the year.

Sure it wasn't one of our better performances, but I don't think that the scoreline reflected the contest.

Roosters got 2 trys off kicks.

Goal kicking, general play kicking and bounce of the ball a factor.

Apart from that the Chooks ran harder and won more collisions.

Our combinations on the left side in attack and defence were unstandably off.

And linespeed pressure from the Chooks was a factor.

Xerri should be back next game.

Samarini scored another 2 good trys in reserve grade,  hopefully CC has seen enough of the Burto to centre experiement and has blocked Dr Marki. 

We are still in the 8 and perhaps learned some valuable lessons. Skelton was good, our depth on the wing is excellent. 

Win our games and the rest takes care of itself. 

Sharks will not be easy. 

Assuming Xerri and Critter are right to play centre.  IMO more Kiraz to fullback, have Skelton and Wilson on the wings, Taafee on the bench or 18th man.

We played poorly with the ball but defended very well. The Roosters kicking game was just too good. On paper the Roosters have us covered in almost every position. Just to be in the competition is a win. 

Very much agree with this.

The biggest disappointment in that game is we were dominated quite badly around the ruck. It was a very wet weather game and that negated any benefit a mobile pack has. Not having Burton doing the kicking, also took away any chance of wrestling field position back.

The other disappointment (and concern) is not being able to score agsinst 12 and 11 men, late in the game, with re-shuffled halves, and a heap of set restarts on their line. Wouldnt have won the game, but would have at least indicated to all that the game was lost due to ruck domination. 

As it is now, there's too many issues and concerns with that loss that may not get rectified within 1 game and may lead to afew more losses before CC can pinpoint the issues. 

One or two tries in the end there would have restored my faith in the loss being an aberration.

Gee...we were against 12 men from the 74th minute and against 11 men for just over a minute. Tracy would have probably been involved in any set move.why not mention the fact Walker was not binned for a blatant head high tackle on Kiraz or the incorrect bunker decision where it was ruled Walker hadn't had an air swing when the referee actually called it correctly. And no comment about the galoot who was having kittens that we weren't playing Burton in the centre.Who could it be making such a daft statement? 

Marki, I habe reeived report from a supporter who was st the game the chooks were allowed the skinniest 10 metres (more like 8) all night. Yeah we gifted them possession and field position all game through poor handling but in the last 10 minutes when they were down to 12 then 11 in the last 3 minutes we were too gassed to do any attack. Don't hang sh!t on the team, they were down on troops playing out of position no captain, no go forward in the wet, couldn't buy a bounce of the ball and the poor handling was just the crown jewel in a sh!t show of a night. Credit where credits due, they defended their "We're the only team no one has put 30 on yet" tag. That's a positive!

I think that they were off their line fast, held us down a lot in tackles, the combination resulted in a skinny 10 and fast line speed for the Chooks. 

The other factor was that we couldn't move the fall fast in the wet and run their big forwards around.

A big positive for me is in spite of all of that we moved the ball well when Hayward was on the field, right up to the point where Tracey was hit high.

I don't rate Turpin in attack or defence, if Mann or Salmon start at lock we don't concede so many meters up the middle.  While Hutch didn't kick well he did make some critical tackles. 

You could tell that our kickers were not that familiar with the ground, Burto and Sexton should be doing more kicking, 

This is the first game in a while where our forwards didn't finish on top and our halves didn't out play the opposition halves.

I also think that we needed more size in the forwards, especially starting or more line speed.

I think there were lessons for us in that game,  but we need to learn fast.

Papalii,, Todd and Knight all back in reserve grade. 

Sutton and Fifita the only long term injuries not back yet.  And KO who will not be playing this year.

I keep looking at reserve grade, because I keep thinking that we need more size in the wet. 

When we dominate the first 20 mins in the wet against a bigger pack I will relax.

While we were down in Sydney it poured Saturday,  fined up on Sunday and was good Monday and apparently today.

I am less concerned about size in the dry.

But the same thing applies to Semis,  lose the first 20 mins, it can be hard to turn that into a win.

Steve, we were against 12 men with multiple sets on their tryline. We didn't have the ball in our own 10m zone. It was then 11 men with a near 2mins on the clock.

We looked terrible in that last 10min period. Even the catch and pass from Tracy before he got clobbered was a dead play to our set. 

In any case, looks like Crighton had a great game in origin and hopefully with his inclusion we play to a better standard.

Im not writing them off ODF...
I also thought we defended well given the amount of possession roosters had on our line. Other teams would have been thrashed.

But i still think its a fail for any team to not score when they have a 1 man let alone 2 man advantage. That needs to be addressed. We should be able to strip opposition for numbers. Granted, we had Crighton missing, Tracy and Mahoney out of the game, but still, we had enough players out there to score and didn't. 

If we want to be playing finals, we need to be taking advantage of situations where we have numerical advantage on the field. 

The roosters halves (in particular Walker) were miles ahead of any of our halves throughout the game. Walker steered them very well and his kicking was on song. Abit like Moses in SOO 2 tonight.

Roosters forwards (although depleted due to Origin) played very well and compared to our first game, they handled the conditions far better.

We may have been slightly complacent thinking they might have another shocker but waant the case. They were very much up for the game and we simply looked flat from the outset.

You are correct HD, in that size really only comes into the equation in wet weather footy. Dry conditions, and a mobile hard working pack can do the job routinely.

Ive been advocating this for years and seems CC has gone with it this year through necessity more than anything, but its paid off so far. 

Chooks might be the team to beat this season, all of their SOO players were impressive and they have some good players still out injured/suspended.

Panthers next in line, followed by Storm.

We could finish 4th behind these sides as all other sides are fairly even.

For the Sharks game I am unsure about Taaffee, if Crichton can play, then Kiraz starting at fullback and Taaffee on the bench is the way to go. 

If Chricton plays 80, bring Taaffee on at fullback for the last 15, move Kiraz to the wing and Skelton to lock IMO.

Sharks not as big a test as the Roosters and the conditions should not be as bad. But we can't afford to screw this game up,  a winis vital. 

If I am a QLD SOO selector, I am starting Marhoney at hooker in in place of Hunt, perhaps bringing back Cobbo and finding a better bench / starting second rower.

I don't care who wins SOO,  I would prefer Marhoney to be playing for us.

If QLD can fix thier defence, they still have the attacking fire-power.

You forget Sharks are our bogey team of late.
No matter how badly they night be playing, we struggle with them, and i dare say, we give Mulitalo the last laugh.

Pisses me right off.

QLD will respond in game 3, dont worry.
It just had to be a decider.

Funny, i dont hear Dman sticking the boot into Moses after his stellar performance in gane 2... This is the guy that supposedly hasnt done anything in big games....

Probably owned an origin game more than Cleary has with that performance.

Can't stick the boot in... Probably his best game ever... Behind a pack that dominated and against an awful QLD effort... There won't be a flat track in game 3... I hope he has another great game... But the odds a heavily against that based on big/tight game history...

Yes I am well aware, but our team has been improving over the course of the season. 

Last game was a step backwards, but the Chooks were really good and the conditions didn't help us.

If the Chooks play like they did in the first half, they beat most NRL teams most of the time.

Goal kicking and trys off kicks were big factors..

We need to play better than that to beat the Sharks.  A repeat of our performance against the Eels would do it.

Sharks are good, but not as good as the Chooks their recent form has been patchy.

Apart from Taaffe at the back, their forwards winning the battle in the middle does worry me. 

Like the Chooks game this game is vital for both teams. 

Finally I think that the Chooks jumped out of the blocks and surprised us with their desire, energy, intensity and line speed. Having played against that once,  we know the level that we must rise to and we know attention to detail and execution is important. 

A win gives us a shot at top 4, a loss puts us in danger of dropping out of the 8. Everything to play for, for both teams. 

Is this the 5th team we have played coming off the bye in 17 rounds???... Seems a lot...

Wow...
Jammer jut said we are 16th for penalties against... 15th for 6 agains...

Tonight a great gauge on how far we've come since rnd 2...

Nice!!!... And at 26/1 with $10 on (also had $10 on Burto)...
C'mon lads!!!....

Sutton with the whistle worries me.