Butch playing middle/ball distributor role could have worked very well mid season. A shame we haven’t seen it. 

I was wrong Hutch is 18th man. 

Underhill left out.

Cirro doesn't make many changes. 

Nah... Well just do what we do.. and put 30 on em in the process...

Good for Crutch... He ain't in our best 17... Though I suspect it's a fresh legs thing for U... U love a harry fresh leg...

C'mon boys!!!...

They should be down to 12....

We would be...

Oh 7exy....
On both sides of ball....

Takes a good try to get pat us 90% of the time...

Clear 'no strip' on Critter ..
Did the ref waste his new rule 'inadvertently'....

Manncrush!!!!...

Great win,  Kiks murdered a certain try, 

Karaz close to scoring. 

Totally shut-down the Dragqueens in the second half. 

Opposition tried hard and scored 2 good trys.

Mann try was great, just what we needed. 

Mann had a great game.

Sexton probably our best, Mann 2nf.

Hayes and Tracey great as usual. 

Kiraz...

What was the coverage from the opposite side of the field???...with a millisecond look... What was that call???...with a 3:sec

We landed on the moon...

sorry Dman what  are you getting at here??

Obviously the Dogs were not allowed to humiliate them.
10 weeks ago all I was hearing was that 7exy was good but not good enough to win us a GF.
Well dman, you have been on the money all along because the nay sayers were wrong. 7exy IS good enough to take us all the way.

The ball touched the tryline.... it was a dead set try..(see previous post).

Was a 50-50 probably touched the line. 

We could easily have scored another 2-3 trys.

Shame  Hayes was held up.

Great win,  let's just enjoy it. 

Harry Hayes. Going to be great for us from now until he retires. Unlucky not to have scored. 

I hope Flanno jnr isn't suspended for biting Critter, that might increase the Dragqueens chances of winning. 

I am glad Flanno snr isn't our coach and his reserve grade hooker son isn't playing in our halves. No other team in the NRL would have him in the halves.

As for size, reserve grade had Farme, Patolo,  Fifita, Knight and a few others in the forwards they still lost.

Patolo and Fifita need a few games to get up to speed.

Wilson and Skelton on the wings.

Young hooker, young half, Perham filling in at 5/8.

It is possible to have size and still lose, as funny as it seems Hutch adds a lot to reserve grade.

As for the NRL side, I keep thinking that we need more size, Cirro ignores that and we keep winning. 

Curran 208 metres - amazing how many metres he makes.
Hughes - 124, Kiks - 128, Presto - 110, 
Mann - 138, Hayes - 145 - exceptional game from both lads.

DeBellin - 156 - only Dragqueens forward over 100 metres.
Dragqueens outside backs made plenty of metres.

They way we play it doesn't seem like having a smaller pack is a disadvantage,  it seems to happen every week that our forwards look smaller but we still win.

When fit Max "the real" King comes straight back in probably for Hopoi. If Patolo or Fifita can get fit and start to dominate in reserve grade key are an outside shot as is Underhill who I hope gets a run this year. 

The Mann / Hayward rotation showed is merit this game with Hayward being able to cover at hooker and Mann being probably our best forward.  Stiff competition from Hayes and Curran. 

The only guy that could be squeezed out of the side to make room for more size is Moz. For that to happen another prop needs to bash the door down regularly in reserve grade. 

Apologies Doc...
The Kiraz no try they looked at for half a second...

Imagine what this bloke will do with the team he builds rather than the team he’s got.

I already have him in the top four coaches in the game and that’s only for Marki’s benefit, I think he’s top three, better than Cleary. If you disagree I’ll say if we had Cleary junior, we win the comp this year and the three or more after that. Cleary snr has Clear junior and that’s what pumps his tyres up. He could not do with our current team what Cirro’s done, not even close and history proves it.

I think in less than five years he’ll be #1 by pleeeenty.

And Jason Taylor is the perfect foil. 

Sexton is a vastly improved player,  our coaches have to have something to do with that.

In addition to Sexton we have 2 very good young halves, O'Neill and Woods. Woods in particular could end up being just as good as Cleary.

We are still building but seem to be building faster than the Panthers did.

Few remembered that they went Cleary-Hook-Cleary as coach, or that Jimmy Mahoney was part of the Panthers rebuild.

Karl O is recovering well from surgery and is now more or less right to play.  I doubt that he will be on the field this season, but he should do the entire off season. Will slot right into lock in our team. 

Tom Amone should improve our side, Toups will definitely improve the side.

We should start 2025 with a settled proven spine. Next season should be better than this season. 

And then there’s Gus.

Really, the stars have aligned to deliver us the perfect trio.. and with Travis and the rest even more. With ZERO ego getting in the way, they all know their place and don’t step into each others.

I said about 5 years ago, Saints had got it right when Millward was given authority over recruitment and retention and McGregor was “relegated” (if that’s the right word) to an employee. This is the American sports model. And the Saints stupidly dropped it.

It’s not to say that the coach should’nt have a say in recruitment and retention, but it’s only a say, not THE say. THE say should be with those who’ll be with the club when and if the coach leaves, looking forward 3-5+ plus years rather than a coach looking only as far as his contract.

I hope soon the club puts someone under Gus’s wing for him to teach how to take this model forward after his time, which I hope is for another ten years, but I want us to prepare as if it’s not.

This is the model, other clubs will soon copy us. The days of the all powerful coach are over.

Club first, team second, individual third. Only works when The Top Dog is Club first, team second, individual third.

And we have that, we are the new benchmark.

Teams are also going to try to copy our style of attack and defence, 

But teams need to be really fit, skilful and connected to play like that. 

A lot of hard work and no room for egos.

Getting a group of fit players prepared to work hard and work together isn't that easy.

If it was easy, most NRL teams would have better defence. 

I know some may argue the coach should have complete authority because results depend on him.

To that I’ll counter - Des.

At the same time there’s a good argument for Bellamy, and ONLY Bellamy.

Why. Because for 20 years - Club first, team second, individual third. He’s lived it, he’s proved it. Even now in the twilight of his career he looks five years ahead with no ego of his own results.

Same can’t be said about Bennett. He wouldn’t be going to Souths, or any other team, if he didn’t think he had a premiership ready roster and he’ll only be looking forward as far as his contract. He gives f*** all about what’s left when he leaves.

Cirro might be that man to take over the Club first, team second, individual third mantra from Gus. In fact I think he might. But it’s a rare occurrence, there’s Bellamy, Ciro looks possible, and then….

….. nobody

I am not that concerned about life after Gus because the board and management are way better than 1998-2018.

I know we won a comp in 2004, but the top brass had little to do with that.

Management were smart enough to hire Gus and then get out of his way.

They will know that we need succession planning. 

Cirro could be the man to take over from Gus and one day Josh Jackson will probably be a great NRL coach.

Bashing the door down was a quote from the great Walter Payton.

"They were dogging me out everyone was saying this guy is going to be a bust, ... we're not going to knock on the door,  we are going to bash the damn door down".

There is a bit of Walter in our team this year, particularly Moz.

Walter was a small guy who regularly beat lots of tacklers, including palming off much bigger guys and leaving them lying on the ground.