I thought we were very courageous ... we did a lot of what good football teams do.
We could've packed it in after going down 12-0, but no-siree-BOB ... we stuck to our guns in sh*tty conditions and pressured them into multiple mistakes to get back into it.
Think of it this way ...
- After they scored the first two (scrappy) tries, we out-scored them 22-2 (for tries to none) in the last hour of football.
- None of their tries were off line-breaks.
It was ugly, but we ground it out, and systematically choked the life out of them.
On the players, I thought Guvna Graham with his 40 tackles + dozen hit-ups, was just EPIC numbers.
Joel Romelo looked like the pre-season has done him the world of good (that being said, had those two forward passes been called, you'd all be screaming for him to go to NSW Cup
... so I'll acknowledge he was a little lucky). Bummer he never go the try eh ?
I like how Stagg runs in attack these days, as opposed to just making 60 tackles ... Barba looked crisp .... Eastwood looked fantastic and tackled a few with extra starch !
I'm confident going in against the Dragons. Our games against them follow the same pattern. They score early, and hold us out as we peg their advantage back. We've lost a couple of close ones against them recently (video ref at Kogarah in '09 and SCG intercept last year come to mind as games where we were nearabouts). The core of the squads has been the same the last 3 seasons. The longer the game goes, the more likely we'll run 'em down.
It'd be nice to score first and disrupt their shizz ... that'd make life interesting, especially once they start b*tching among each other.