Storm Exposed.

[Mr Invisible]

Not sure how many watched the game tonight, but take away Slater, Cronk and Smith and the Storm are terrible.

All 3 players are 28 these days, so you'd expect maybe one more contract 2-3 years before they decide to retire. I think the Storm need to start some serious recruiting now to line up suitable replacements. Tonight was a perfect example of a team with no leadership, and they need to try and make the team work without these 3.

I guess it's much the same situation Manly face. They've had a reign over the competition with the Storm for a number of years now, but with a solid but ageing side, everyone knew it wouldn't last forever.

Will be interesting to see in the next year or two how these sides handle an ageing squad.

 

[the_gamee]

Not sure how many watched the game tonight, but take away Slater, Cronk and Smith and the Storm are terrible.

All 3 players are 28 these days, so you'd expect maybe one more contract 2-3 years before they decide to retire. I think the Storm need to start some serious recruiting now to line up suitable replacements. Tonight was a perfect example of a team with no leadership, and they need to try and make the team work without these 3.

I guess it's much the same situation Manly face. They've had a reign over the competition with the Storm for a number of years now, but with a solid but ageing side, everyone knew it wouldn't last forever.

Will be interesting to see in the next year or two how these sides handle an ageing squad.

I dont think they done that bad, considering they are missing 3 of there best and tigers only losing 1, there defence was pretty solid considering how much ball tigers had on there line, i thought they done well. I think the tigers sucked and hopefully they start losing more, i cant stand them.

 

[Mr Invisible]

After tonight the headlines will start blowing off about Tigers looking like finals contenders. Tigers were average tonight, but a better attacking side would have put on a big score against the Storm. Their left (?) side defence was horrible and exposed a few times by Ryan and Utai, and their halves just seemed lost and confused.

 

[OTTO]

Nearly won it at the end, O'neill (I think) just slid a little to far before batting it back.

If they are terrible as you say, thats a massive backhand to the tigpies

 

[Trendsetter]

Didn't watch the game tonight, but I checked out the stats as they went along. The storm looked pretty good in the stats department, 96% completion rate isn't half bad, the only thing they lost in the stats board was that 1 extra try and a 40/20. Otherwise they dominated the Tigers, I'm surprised they played as bad as your saying..

 

[Özil]

Im not sure what you were watching Mr I, the tiggers are one of the best attacking teams in the NRL and they were only missing Farah while the Storm lost 3 of their top players.

One thing Bellamy is really good at is identifying talent

 

[Rodzilla]

Mr Invisible are you suggesting that slater, cronk and smith will all retire at 30-31 years of age?

 

[Stoofy]

I think the Storm will be in the same situation in a few years as the Dragons are now.

The Dragons should be called Dads Army!

 

[w00t]

Defensively the Storm were as solid as they've ever been. Limiting a good attacking side in the Tigers to 0 tries and only 2 points in one half is impressive.

Btw take the best 3 players out of ANY team and they'd struggle, disregarding the Storm's best three are in the most crucial positions of 1,7 and 9. They'll definitely go down the pecking order when their 3 stars retire, but given Bellamy's coaching and the fact the Storm still didn't look all that awful (They were decent in defence, absolutely clueless in attack), they'll be fine.

And LOL @ thinking Manly will go down on the playing field...Two of the most crucial spots in no.6 and no.7 are filled by the two of the brightest, youngest halves in the competition. If Manly disintegrate into a further mess of a club it'd have a lot more to do with their infighting in the boardroom rather than anything on the playing field

 

[Dex]

i'm really starting the think Mr Invisible has NFI. No offence, but take out Barba, Ennis and Keating from our current side and guess what will happen ? We will get ripped.

Cronk's replacement played his FIRST NRL first grade game! He did really well considering. He had a brain snap on his last set but thats what happens when you dont have FG experience.

That side did really well to nearly win it in the last few moments considering the Tigers have been on a good roll. I'm sure you are smarter than this Mr Invisible. You are sounding exactly like the journalists. You need to stop reading the SMH & DT a little...

 

[(((((SMACK)))))]

This thread looked interesting until I read the first post.
MR Invisible: The Storm could have won that game on at least 2 occasions in the last 10mins. Far from struggling. You take those 3 players out of the Queensland or Austarlian team and they would struggle but the Storm hung in. As for retirement....... Those 3 players could easily play well into their 30's, so maybe 5 years minimum. That's a long time in Rugby League.

 

[doggieaaron]

I actually thought it was a terrific effort from the storm ,tigers almost full strength ,storm minus 3 best players and almost won ,if we were without kasiano ,barba and Reynolds I'd be so happy if we played like that

 

[Raysie]

Give Bellamy an off seaaon with that line up they had last night, and I guarantee you the Storm still finish a top 4 team.

 

[PantherPower83]

Take away the starting fullback, half and hooker from any team and watch how crippling it is.

 

[El_Magic]

Storm easily had there chances to win it. Earlier in the game widdop tried a run around with Hoffman but Hoffman kep the ball and went the other way. Had he given the ball to widdop, storm were 3 on 1 and a guaranteed try.

There last play, they had numbers to the left and looked certain to score but the young kid kicked straight to a tiger.

I thought the tigers were below avg last nite. I think Beau Ryan and Utai saved them. As much as he annoys me, Beau Ryan is having a stellar season

 

[EXPLORER]

the wet conditions didnt help either team, but imo if it were a dry night the tigs would have won by plenty

 

[Almobro]

Lol obviously they aren't going to play well without the three best players in the game which play in the most important positions. There's one thing that Craig Bellamy is good at and that's getting the best out of his players. Also i thought they didn't play too bad in wet weather footy against an inform Tigers.

 

[Q-Tip]

Dat der stupid thread.

 

[w00t]

i'm really starting the think Mr Invisible has NFI. No offence, but take out Barba, Ennis and Keating from our current side and guess what will happen ? We will get ripped.

Cronk's replacement played his FIRST NRL first grade game! He did really well considering. He had a brain snap on his last set but thats what happens when you dont have FG experience.

That side did really well to nearly win it in the last few moments considering the Tigers have been on a good roll. I'm sure you are smarter than this Mr Invisible. You are sounding exactly like the journalists. You need to stop reading the SMH & DT a little...

Taking away Keating won't nearly dent us as much as taking out guys like Pritchard and Kasiano who have been laying the platform for our backline to work their magic. Barba, Ennis and Kasiano/Pritchard gone and we'd struggle, hell we see this when Kas or Pritchard is benched and we have guys like Payne and Stagg on at the same time

 

[Berries]

I thought Storm played awesome considering they lost the 3 most important positions. Their forwards are monsters, no wonder the big 3 have so much room to work with, the Tigers forwards got rolled.