Opinion Only Positive

[lovemachine]

That's just a trial. Well drilled teams are going to pump us when the season starts.

FACTS

 

[cookieman909]

I don’t get it. People sooking about our attack. Is that what needed work in the off season was it? Our defence was top notch last season? Say what you want about who we played. But we only conceded four tries in 2 games. That’s an improvement and I saw enough in the two games to show we’ll be more competitive this season.

Start of the season is always focused on defence. And the attack will flow off the back of that. We’ll be better than last season. You could see the commitment and attitude in defence tonight. And it was just a trial. Ciraldo wouldn’t have given a shit about our attack. He’d want to see the defence side of things.

 

[kmr07]

Taaffe had a bad night, but he is a better player than that. Our problem is throwing panic passes when we make a break.

I think Sexton suits our attack.

Burton needs to run the ball more.

Blake Taaffe is just a backup player and that’s all he’ll ever be. Can’t believe people talking him up after a good performance against us last year featuring Ethan Quai Ward

 

[bricktamland]

Fuck all you negative **** here. Damned if you do damned if you don’t here

 

[Sir dogeth style]

Everyone tipped their forwards to run over the top of us though

i think one of the biggest positives to take from this game was the fact we matched the sharks forward pack for 80mins and they have a very strong set of forwards so i see that as a very good sign

 

[King Gus]

I don’t get it. People sooking about our attack. Is that what needed work in the off season was it? Our defence was top notch last season? Say what you want about who we played. But we only conceded four tries in 2 games. That’s an improvement and I saw enough in the two games to show we’ll be more competitive this season.

Start of the season is always focused on defence. And the attack will flow off the back of that. We’ll be better than last season. You could see the commitment and attitude in defence tonight. And it was just a trial. Ciraldo wouldn’t have given a shit about our attack. He’d want to see the defence side of things.

I said I earlier today’s game plan was about matching up to the forwards, last week was about attacking.
We’ve had 2 different game plans vs 2 different teams.

 

[Matthew G]

Sharks threw very little at us

says this but in the first 10 mins of second half they were on our line 3 times, kills you to be positive in any way , same side battered us in a trial at belmore last year

 

[CrittaMagic69]

says this but in the first 10 mins of second half they were on our line 3 times, kills you to be positive in any way , same side battered us in a trial at belmore last year

They threw nothing at us. If you actually watched the Sharks you'd realise they didn't even play their brand of footy and just played through the motions.

 

[InGusWeTrust]

It was a trial and we treated it like trial. More good than bad TBH. I reckon we are a shot for top 8. Fck everyone

Fuck yeah bro, bring the noise to this mofo! See how we were hitting?! Kiks was on a mission, Critta got one in from his short stint and there was plenty of starch in general. That’s all I care about feom the trials. It’s a whole different ball game when we have our best 17 playing the while match. Just hope Ciro makes the right selections.

 

[InGusWeTrust]

no offense to sexton but if he was what we all wanted he would’ve carved up with all the other players in the game were tired. He only had kind of one break that I thought he would score a try. But other than that didn’t really say much of him, posing a threat, which was concerning considering the game was at a point where someone fresh could of done some damages

I don’t think it’s fair to judge Sexy on that. You could see he was anxious to try and do whatever he could to win the number 7 jersey in very limited minutes. I still think he’s a slightly better choice over Hutch, because he’s more agile and straightens the attack. I put more faith in his debut game for us where he transformed the attack.

 

[beastwood89]

Honestly fk all the negativity on here. Was way more positive than negative from this game. People forget they have had barely any game time together to gel a lot of chopping and changing also. In the second half sharks had 15 tackles in our 20 and we turned them away. Defence has improved heaps. My biggest disappointment has been reed, his favoured the right side a lot not sure if it’s his doing or part blame on burto not calling the ball, even last week we went right a lot and probably left a few try’s out there vs Melbourne. With critta and fox on the left I expected we would’ve favoured the left more with kiks critta and fox in the first half.

 

[KLil]

Sharks threw very little at us

They threw everything they could without Hynes tbh... Hynes alone is worth 18 points in that game though.

 

[KLil]

Our defense & forwards were way improved over 2023. Attack was terrible.

Stoked with the defense... Attack will come... Only thing im worried about is will the line break after a few loses and much blood, sweat and tears?

 

[Berries]

Honestly fk all the negativity on here. Was way more positive than negative from this game. People forget they have had barely any game time together to gel a lot of chopping and changing also. In the second half sharks had 15 tackles in our 20 and we turned them away. Defence has improved heaps. My biggest disappointment has been reed, his favoured the right side a lot not sure if it’s his doing or part blame on burto not calling the ball, even last week we went right a lot and probably left a few try’s out there vs Melbourne. With critta and fox on the left I expected we would’ve favoured the left more with kiks critta and fox in the first half.

It was 75% negative to 25% positive. No idea how you got the percentages any different. Negatives can always be fixed, I don’t understand why everyone gets so worked up about it

 

[Dogs Of War]

I don’t think it’s fair to judge Sexy on that. You could see he was anxious to try and do whatever he could to win the number 7 jersey in very limited minutes. I still think he’s a slightly better choice over Hutch, because he’s more agile and straightens the attack. I put more faith in his debut game for us where he transformed the attack.

And Hutchinson just looked out of place. Bad read for the first sharks try. Silly pushed passes. He is very vanilla. I’d go sexton from what I’ve seen.

 

[D.O.W.]

Burto needs to engage and dig into the line if he’s to be a successful 6…. He’s passing too early (not as early as Flanno did, but not far off).

It’s only a trial, but I think Ciro may get close to pulling the trigger on Burto centres with Critta. The more I think about it, we may have a better dynamic with Hutch/Sexy halves and Burton/Critta centres. I hope Ciro avoids the temptation to stick Critta at 1, we need his defence and defensive reads out in the centres where no one is better. We can make do with Tracey or Taaffe at FB, although Papalii looks very sharp, he’ll get a run at 1 sometime this year…

Middles are holding their own from what we’ve seen so far, I thought they would get dominated in these trials in all honesty…. Hughes shapes to have a break out year, King is going to be consistent and Poasa/Kautoga have been a bit of a surprise packet in the two trials. Our backrow is solid, but we need to get Kiks more touches.

We looked sharper in trial #1 for some reason, could be that Sharks fielded a strong roster and didn’t allow the shape as we created vs Melbourne last week? Who knows. All-in-all, positive signs.

 

[bradyk]

Taaffe will most likely be Perham 2.0.

JAC, Crichton and Kikau (a lot of our cap) will struggle to get good ball/involvement due to our spine struggling. Preston shouldn't be out shinning Kikau.

Reed and Burton looking pretty much the same as last year. Maybe less errors/mistakes in Burton.

Xerri is ready for 1st grade.

King and Hughes will try their best but most likely are going to struggle against every other pack. We're crying for a quality alpha middle.

Way too many errors/terrible completion rate (been an issue for ~5 years).

Hutchison or Sexton isn't going to change much. We might as well go with experience because Sexton hasn't shown enough to suggest anything potential wise.

I think Curran, Mann, Salmon and a couple of our other recruits will make us look more competitive but it's most likely going to be another tough year.

 

[senshidog]

Three reasons we lost:
1. Taaffe had dicks for fingers and allowed Sharks way too much possession in our half.
2. We kept chopping and changing our lineup, meaning we couldn't get settled in the backline.
3. If Hayward wasn't garbage and tossing a completely shitarse pass from dummy half to a Sharks player, allowing him to run untouched to score.

 

[rexest]

We KNOW what there attack looks like when Hynes is there and tonight they were far far from that.
It had nothing to do with our D.
Our attack looks pure trash. Nothing has improved on the left.
Burton has no clue how to be a half. None at all.
The rest are all rejects from other clubs. Under sized.

They ran straight through the middle for multiple trys last year in the trial and during the season, Major diff tonight.

 

[Alan79]

I don't much care about the pre season challenge. I was more hopeful that we'd be committed in defence and that seems to be the case here. From the match report the game was pretty tight until an error ten from the end gifted the Sharts the game.

Sounds like we were up against their full strength squad (minus Hynes). So not a bad hit out really. No amount of trial wins are as important as a single NRL win. But knowing we can keep scores low is good. Our attack is eventually going to work itself out with the talent in our roster. I think if we're keeping opponents to 12 points through the regular season we're a big chance of winning.