Opinion Get the players the help (and experience) they need.

[Dogzof95]

But WAS IT awesome, or was it just that the understrength Storm had an off day and were flat, and we played the best we can.

In other words it wasn't so much we played really well, but rather Storm were really flat (and that gave us false hope we are better than we actually are), hence the Dragons hiding.

Either way it would have given them confidence, Okunbor ran over a future immortal twice, that's no bad for a kid in his second NRL game. We all need to be realistic this team will have great performances and at other times is going to also have some shockers.... either way it'll be good for their experience.

Friday is another tough game where we're expected to be flogged, just like that game where Smith was supposed to be breaking the scoring record, except the only thing he did was become a speed bump...

 

[Mr Invisible]

I really want the squad to fire, but we can't keep giving ourselves false hope at the same time.

 

[albatross]

How do you go from expansive ball playing, offload after offload, cohesion in the halves , persistance and enthusiasm one week to robotic, boring, lackluster play the following week?

Mostly inexperience I reckon, especially in the spine. For me last week was a game that just got away from us with those 4 straight penalties at the start and all the possession against us. We really need good starts.

 

[Alan79]

I felt pretty confident of a good performance last week. But as has been mentioned the refs put us on the back foot which sapped the confidence of the team early. It was a case of murphies law after that. Anything that could go wrong went wrong and the Dragons had the golden touch to oppose it. Whenever we started making progress we made a critical error.

I mentioned before the game that with a young side errors can easily be compounded which is my main concern with the team. Last week was a good example of it. The old heads in the team should be able to settle the squad down. But unfortunately we don't have enough there to provide that calming influence.

I don't know that we're going to see a solution for inexperience this year. But hopefully the youngsters learn and progress as the year goes on. We will have good and bad games. So get used to some unpredictable performances.

Prior to the season I was hoping to see some early confidence building wins. It hasn't worked out the way I hoped. But the consolation has to be that we seem to have a promising handful of players stepping up. If we find 6-7 youngsters during this initial phase of the rebuild things aren't as dire for the future as some seem to think. Getting our roster up to scratch was never going to be a sprint without the finances available. Players like Sue were a gamble. Guys like CHN Meaney and Cogger are long term prospects. And we probably had to rush our juniors into the team before they reached full match readiness both confidence and fitness wise.

At the end of the day the way we started the season is hard to witness. But as long as we've improved a lot to finish the year it's the best we can hope for. It's a big step up for players who have been in ISP or below to NRL level and we have a squad filled with players making that step. We can't expect miracles.

 

[LordSidious66]

I felt pretty confident of a good performance last week. But as has been mentioned the refs put us on the back foot which sapped the confidence of the team early. It was a case of murphies law after that. Anything that could go wrong went wrong and the Dragons had the golden touch to oppose it. Whenever we started making progress we made a critical error.

I mentioned before the game that with a young side errors can easily be compounded which is my main concern with the team. Last week was a good example of it. The old heads in the team should be able to settle the squad down. But unfortunately we don't have enough there to provide that calming influence.

I don't know that we're going to see a solution for inexperience this year. But hopefully the youngsters learn and progress as the year goes on. We will have good and bad games. So get used to some unpredictable performances.

Prior to the season I was hoping to see some early confidence building wins. It hasn't worked out the way I hoped. But the consolation has to be that we seem to have a promising handful of players stepping up. If we find 6-7 youngsters during this initial phase of the rebuild things aren't as dire for the future as some seem to think. Getting our roster up to scratch was never going to be a sprint without the finances available. Players like Sue were a gamble. Guys like CHN Meaney and Cogger are long term prospects. And we probably had to rush our juniors into the team before they reached full match readiness both confidence and fitness wise.

At the end of the day the way we started the season is hard to witness. But as long as we've improved a lot to finish the year it's the best we can hope for. It's a big step up for players who have been in ISP or below to NRL level and we have a squad filled with players making that step. We can't expect miracles.

I feel the refs just take advantage of our lack of match fitness and penalise us so we can lose. It amazes me how harshly we are penalised in comparison to other teams. And as I have said, the way the refs treat us would be a deciding factor for players deciding if they want to play with us or not.

 

[sgodllubsti]

a good start would be to have new trainers on the fiekd, helping players out like langer does for brisbane, someone like luke patten or brent sherwin is needed

 

[Mr Invisible]

Showed again in todays game.

 

[hulk hogan]

Licha is a disgrace and embarrassment wearing a bulldogs jersey even if we losing he cane on 3 sets in a row and made us look like never scoring what a myth

 

[hulk hogan]

Penalty count hurt us hard refs should be dropped