Dont stress.. We could have won that game.

[KLil]

Considering Melbourne haven't lost an opening round since 2004 they were extremely lucky to get out of this one.

18-12 Melbourne leading, dogs swing the ball in attack left to right creating an overlap. Mbye with ball in hand and instead of passing to Hoppa who would fall over kicks the ball dead. Melb then go up field and muster breaks the line putting a team mate under the post making it a 12 point turn around 24-12 instead of 18-18.

Dogs swing the ball left to right again and Montoya is down the sideline... Montoya decides to kick the ball back in instead of looking in and seeing an unmarked Hoppa again who would have fallen over the line again.

Dogs swing the ball left to right again and this time after a freakish pass from Jacko Mbye loses control with a 3 man overlap into the quickest guy on the field. Another 12 point turn around when Hoppa could have had his hatrick.

Dogs play hot potato on the last and ball goes to man with vision Frawley. Frawley man with vision has 3 on his left against 1... decides to kick back to right were everyone is offside.

Fualalo goes close, great effort but that was another try.

We could have honestly put 40+ on Melb and I'm pretty sure they know that.... A bit of match fitness and experience and we'll shake it up.

 

[bells76]

We could have put 40 on them but they could have put 50 on us and that sums up our problem . Not Pays fault at all but we are paying the price for shit retention and recruitment, players like Eastwood, Tolman , Elliot add absolutely nothing to our side and to make matters worse are defensive liabilities laterally. Will take a few off seasons and years to get our cap in order and the side to have balance . People tipping us for the top 4 are seriously kidding themselves, our bench is terrible and our reserve grade is even worse.

 

[Oatley Dog]

Considering Melbourne haven't lost an opening round since 2004 they were extremely lucky to get out of this one.

18-12 Melbourne leading, dogs swing the ball in attack left to right creating an overlap. Mbye with ball in hand and instead of passing to Hoppa who would fall over kicks the ball dead. Melb then go up field and muster breaks the line putting a team mate under the post making it a 12 point turn around 24-12 instead of 18-18.

Dogs swing the ball left to right again and Montoya is down the sideline... Montoya decides to kick the ball back in instead of looking in and seeing an unmarked Hoppa again who would have fallen over the line again.

Dogs swing the ball left to right again and this time after a freakish pass from Jacko Mbye loses control with a 3 man overlap into the quickest guy on the field. Another 12 point turn around when Hoppa could have had his hatrick.

Dogs play hot potato on the last and ball goes to man with vision Frawley. Frawley man with vision has 3 on his left against 1... decides to kick back to right were everyone is offside.

Fualalo goes close, great effort but that was another try.

We could have honestly put 40+ on Melb and I'm pretty sure they know that.... A bit of match fitness and experience and we'll shake it up.

I agree with most of what you say here. At the ground, I thought we were pretty strong for most of the game, even allowing for our poor bench efforts. That Frawley kick though was a cracker. We'd already kicked it once, got it back and everyone was out of position. Somehow Frawley gets it on the left and bananas it into a hole on the right what about 5m from their line and we almost score. I was on the left side where he kicked from and he was under plenty of pressure with that one. I didn't get the feel that there was a good shot down the left. It seemed to me the Storm had that covered. The Danny F "try" was the killer for us though. He did all the work and then loses control. We score and its all square and we have the ball.

 

[KLil]

We could have put 40 on them but they could have put 50 on us and that sums up our problem . Not Pays fault at all but we are paying the price for shit retention and recruitment, players like Eastwood, Tolman , Elliot add absolutely nothing to our side and to make matters worse are defensive liabilities laterally. Will take a few off seasons and years to get our cap in order and the side to have balance . People tipping us for the top 4 are seriously kidding themselves, our bench is terrible and our reserve grade is even worse.

They took their chances we didn't... They ended up putting 36 on us and we could have put 40+.

We created much much more than Melb regardless of our bench and without Carr and Munster Melb would have been nowhere last night.

 

[CrittaMagic69]

We weren't winning that game no matter how many positives you try to take out of it. Our bench was piss weak, Pay's rotations were poor, lack of match fitness, poor defensive errors, etc.

There were plenty of positives but like i mentioned there were also plenty of negatives. Hopefully people pit some realistic expectations on the team this season after watchinf this game.

 

[KLil]

I agree with most of what you say here. At the ground, I thought we were pretty strong for most of the game, even allowing for our poor bench efforts. That Frawley kick though was a cracker. We'd already kicked it once, got it back and everyone was out of position. Somehow Frawley gets it on the left and bananas it into a hole on the right what about 5m from their line and we almost score. I was on the left side where he kicked from and he was under plenty of pressure with that one. I didn't get the feel that there was a good shot down the left. It seemed to me the Storm had that covered. The Danny F "try" was the killer for us though. He did all the work and then loses control. We score and its all square and we have the ball.

I just watched the game again... Plenty of video work and rewinds.

It was a great kick but Frawls had RFM and the Mozz's AND could have ran himself against Chambers and Vunivalu standing 20 m deep for a kick, It was a certain try. He was also lucky Tolman chased as he was the only one onside.

 

[KLil]

We weren't winning that game no matter how many positives you try to take out of it. Our bench was piss weak, Pay's rotations were poor, lack of match fitness, poor defensive errors, etc.

There were plenty of positives but like i mentioned there were also plenty of negatives. Hopefully people pit some realistic expectations on the team this season after watchinf this game.

Realistically its not as bad as it looked. I'm with you we never looked like winning but we could have if like you say we were more match fit.

Jacko missed 2 tackles which lead to tries, he was clearly half conscious all game after that knock from Solomona's tree trunk thigh.

Our bench is piss weak, no doubt and our defence in the middle aint all that.... How about Jacko to lock, Elliot to the right edge and Fualalo back to the bench.

 

[XR6T]

Although we lost, I saw a lot of great footy in attack from our side...something completely different to last year where we looked clueless. Once we fix our one on one defense, we will give it a real shake. We also need some impact off the bench with Tualau and maybe To'omaga or Burr for Elliott and Eastwood.

I rather be in our shoes where we lost to the defending premiers than be a Rorters supporter who has a $25million team and lose to the wooden spoon favourites.

 

[justdogs]

We weren't winning that game no matter how many positives you try to take out of it. Our bench was piss weak, Pay's rotations were poor, lack of match fitness, poor defensive errors, etc.

There were plenty of positives but like i mentioned there were also plenty of negatives. Hopefully people pit some realistic expectations on the team this season after watchinf this game.

plenty of positives and plenty of negatives, lets take the positives and work from there. I am still optimistic about this year

 

[M4cca]

Not concerned at all after that game. We looked really dangerous in attack for the first time in many years, online defence was good, just a few individual lapses. If two passes stick from mbye we nearly win the game as they scored immediately after both. Don't understand the logic of people writing us off already when we were very competitive against the premiers. In regards to the bench, it could easily be fixed by bringing in some impact players like tualau or even swapping tolman and fualalo to give some more impact

 

[CrittaMagic69]

Realistically its not as bad as it looked. I'm with you we never looked like winning but we could have if like you say we were more match fit.

Jacko missed 2 tackles which lead to tries, he was clearly half conscious all game after that knock from Solomona's tree trunk thigh.

Our bench is piss weak, no doubt and our defence in the middle aint all that.... How about Jacko to lock, Elliot to the right edge and Fualalo back to the bench.

I hardly want Elliott in the side at all atm, no way on earth would i promote him to the starting side.

 

[KLil]

I hardly want Elliott in the side at all atm, no way on earth would i promote him to the starting side.

I know I know... But we desperately need to sure up the middle and his the closest thing we have to an edge backrower. I even had a look at who is off contract and unless we pick up a reject from another club there is NOBODY on offer.

 

[CrittaMagic69]

I know I know... But we desperately need to sure up the middle and his the closest thing we have to an edge backrower. I even had a look at who is off contract and unless we pick up a reject from another club there is NOBODY on offer.

I just don't trust Elliott atm. He came off the bench and only had 1 run over 8m...like seriously? Tualau needs to come onto the bench, idc how he went yesterday as he showed last season and during the trials that he can contribute in defence and attack off the bench. Pay also needs to make better rotations.

 

[CBDoggies]

as much as I love your positive attitude we still lost and lost well.. yes we will cause some headaches for some teams in the comp but watching teams like knights and tigers we are prob on par maybe a tad better.. we wont make the 8 defending like that... our bench needs to be stronger... I think we will win maybe 50% of our games this year and would be lucky to make the 8 but that's doing well... as someone mentioned here our retention and cap issues will take a while to balance out.

I hope I eat my words and we defend like we always did in previous years as our attack did look better. I guess in time we will see

 

[KLil]

I just don't trust Elliott atm. He came off the bench and only had 1 run over 8m...like seriously? Tualau needs to come onto the bench, idc how he went yesterday as he showed last season and during the trials that he can contribute in defence and attack off the bench. Pay also needs to make better rotations.

Yeah yeah I agree but like I said we have no choice.

Jacko to the middle
Elliot right edge
Tualau / Fualalo / Martin / JMK

I think that will slightly change things up and its the future for now... ​

I wish

Tolman swapped with Coggar
Eastwood medically retired

 

[KLil]

as much as I love your positive attitude we still lost and lost well.. yes we will cause some headaches for some teams in the comp but watching teams like knights and tigers we are prob on par maybe a tad better.. we wont make the 8 defending like that... our bench needs to be stronger... I think we will win maybe 50% of our games this year and would be lucky to make the 8 but that's doing well... as someone mentioned here our retention and cap issues will take a while to balance out.

I hope I eat my words and we defend like we always did in previous years as our attack did look better. I guess in time we will see

We are much better than the tigers and Newie... Both teams won on attitude but couldn't move the ball as well as we did in rnd 1. A couple of video sessions and match fitness we will surprise plenty.

But your on the money with settling our side... I said our premiership window will not open until 2020 and that's the yr everyone comes off contract. We are fcuked unless Pay retains and recruits handsomely.

 

[CBDoggies]

We are much better than the tigers and Newie... Both teams won on attitude but couldn't move the ball as well as we did in rnd 1. A couple of video sessions and match fitness we will surprise plenty.

But your on the money with settling our side... I said our premiership window will not open until 2020 and that's the yr everyone comes off contract. We are fcuked unless Pay retains and recruits handsomely.

yea I agree to a extent but being expansive in attack wont always win you games.. I'm excited we finally seeing some attack from us FINALLY... but they cant forget to defend and back them selves up... some defensive efforts by some of our top players was poor at best. if we can sort out our defence then we will win more games then lose.

 

[silverelvis69]

I’m happy with the performance- combinations will improve.

Some points- mbye decision making is still frustrating me and his kicking game.

That grubber was not on when it should have went through hands was a try gone begging.


Foran and Jackson’s right edge was poor and needs firming.
Woods needs a haircut

Overall- I was happy.

Disaaponted also expected our defence would also have some sting part in the off season pay claiming we are going to hurt in defence.

Felt flat with the aspect

 

[KLil]

yea I agree to a extent but being expansive in attack wont always win you games.. I'm excited we finally seeing some attack from us FINALLY... but they cant forget to defend and back them selves up... some defensive efforts by some of our top players was poor at best. if we can sort out our defence then we will win more games then lose.

2 tries came off the back off Jacko who was knocked out which turned the game.... Don't look to much into it.

 

[CBDoggies]

2 tries came off the back off Jacko who was knocked out which turned the game.... Don't look to much into it.

yea I guess so.... but 30+ score lines no matter how they come is not a good thing.. I guess lets just prepare and see what happens next week... fingers crossed we get the 2 points as I hate the roosters