My Analysis on the game
Firsty It is the first cougar game ive been to this season
I actualy on whole thought the match itself was poor, it was slow and slugish - Maybe Ill put that down to being a pre season match and players still getting fit.
Ill start on the positives
In attack the partnership between Semi and Ritchi was very good I must admit and yes we had some fruitation there but I do feel that the Bulls defence on that side was good to hold us out on other occasions
Sam Obst looked very fit and defensivly quite a good tackle you could tell he was a cut above everyone else in the middle of the park.
The Link between Obst and Jones at times was good, and I feel that is the way to go it could become a very good partnership but what I found is that most of the time it broke down after Jones and that is the make or break pass.
Parrata he wasnt on the pitch long and looked actualy a little tired in defense not chasing back etc but that can be put down to jet lag however good signs are there he took his try very well took 3 guys over the line with him he looked to have very good upper body strength (one thing though as always with Aussie signings they are buit up to be Giants he was a chunky guy but no Giant, reminded me of the the time when we signed Mick Durham a moster of a back rowe yet when he came he was the smallest player we had lol, ok Parrata is not to the same extent lol but you get my drift
Rawlings was the pick of the Forwards he made some good clean breaks I feel he just made some poor choices after the breaks as play broke down all 3 times. He was pretty decent in defense too
Also still one or two guys to throw into the mix one namely figure in particular
Negetively
The play the ball was dreadfully slow along with the play from dummy half, it only ever sped up when one of the outside backs were taking a scoot and especialy Hawthorwaite, but in general this is a worry it must speed up
March - Sorry for me Ive never rated him, If had done some kicking Id say its a Chris Robinson clone, in Attack you could just read everything he was doing and I do feel sorry for some of the Forwards as he got Some of them real cream crackered,
I hope it was just the fact of the high floodlights but all our backs strugled under the high balls come day time games I hope that is eradicated
On defense its hard to tell as yes we yet in two tries one was a total fluke so call it 1 were our defense totaly broke down, I think it was a case of the Bulls did lack ideas near our line rather than our defense being top notch so I think its hard to say it will surely be tested better when we start playing in the Championship
So in general It was OK but we should have put that Bulls team to the cleaners, taking nothing away from them, some of the young lads got through allot of hard work and they deserve credit. Briggs was their lynch pin and that was plain to see, probably the best player on the field and although he was hardly in the game Ainscough caused havoc every time he got the ball
