Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:12 pm  

I got the impression Hadley was carrying a leg injury. He didn't come on and warm up with the rest of the squad initially. Came on later and did some runs by himself whilst being watched. Joined in with the rest of the squad for a few minutes.

[PopTart]

Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:14 pm  

Thought it was a good game.
We played well on the whole.
I thought Max added safety under the high ball but couldn't attack like Grix does. He made some mistakes but did a lot good too.
MCB was not the guy you want in front of Webster but to be honest they made it a 1 on 1 by pulling us in.
Hadley did ok at hooker but we missed Wood.

Game changer was Eden's try. BJB was an inch from an interception and could have put a lot of pressure on Cas.

We'd still beat most teams plating like that.

Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:16 pm  

Can't fault the effort but I think we really missed Grix tonight

Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:27 pm  

PopTart wrote:

Thought it was a good game.
We played well on the whole.
I thought Max added safety under the high ball but couldn't attack like Grix does. He made some mistakes but did a lot good too.
MCB was not the guy you want in front of Webster but to be honest they made it a 1 on 1 by pulling us in.
Hadley did ok at hooker but we missed Wood.

Game changer was Eden's try. BJB was an inch from an interception and could have put a lot of pressure on Cas.

We'd still beat most teams plating like that.

Dont know if I agree with you there PT.
We were ok in patches but, getting beaten 45 - 20 is too far away from being play off standard RL.
Maybe "only" getting done by 25 points by the top team in the comp isn't shocking but, we were a distant second in a 2 horse race.
One thing really puzzled me with Chester's team selection and that was playing MCB at centre, opposite Webster ??
Surely Tupou should have played centre, with MCB outside him, which may have given us a fighting chance of defending and left us with our fastest player on the outside.

Credit has to go to Cas' defence which was excellent but, despite being 4th in the comp, we are a long way behind Cas.

We certainly missed Wood around the ruck and made too many errors to give ourselves a chance plus, a couple of dumb plays (Williams interfering on the last tackle was unforgivable).

Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:45 pm  

Very poor for large parts of the game, several key players are totally off form. I think that may be our chances of a top 4 finish over now, our points difference has been killed in the 8s and I can't see where another win is coming from.

Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:07 pm  

Bags of effort, of that there is no doubt but we were second best for large periods and Cas' right side attack of McMeeken, Roberts and Webster tore miller and Caton-Brown a new one, you could have driven a bus through the gaps. Why Tupou wasn't inside with MCB on the wing i'll never know. Our kicking game was dire after the first 15 minutes and Williams just doesn't work as a hooker. I hope Randall hits the ground running otherwise we could struggle as we missed Wood and it sounds like he'll miss a few. We can still get that 4th spot but we need to smarten up and play eith more consistently week in week out.

Re: Thursday and Cas : Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:12 pm  

Sacred Cow wrote:

Bags of effort, of that there is no doubt but we were second best for large periods and Cas' right side attack of McMeeken, Roberts and Webster tore miller and Caton-Brown a new one, you could have driven a bus through the gaps. Why Tupou wasn't inside with MCB on the wing i'll never know. Our kicking game was dire after the first 15 minutes and Williams just doesn't work as a hooker. I hope Randall hits the ground running otherwise we could struggle as we missed Wood and it sounds like he'll miss a few. We can still get that 4th spot but we need to smarten up and play eith more consistently week in week out.

And what would 4th give us, another chance to be shown up by Cas again. Three times is more than enough for 1 season for my liking

Re: Thursday and Cas : Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:18 am  

Wouldn't it give us more money for next year?

Re: Thursday and Cas : Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:19 am  

djcool wrote:

Wouldn't it give us more money for next year?

Exactly this.
AFAIK the money is split dependant on final finishing position. I think we got nothing last year for 8th. We need to finish as high as possible. It could be an improved player contract for next season.

Re: Thursday and Cas : Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:50 am  

PopTart wrote:

Thought it was a good game.
Game changer was Eden's try. BJB was an inch from an interception and could have put a lot of pressure on Cas.

.

I thought he took the wrong option going for glory. The line had moved across nicely and he was perfectly placed to tackle Eden.

Think Huby losing the ball on the 40 metre line was just before that Cas set. That changed the momentum of the game when we had just got back to 18-16. He really has poor ball retention at times.
As said by many, the whole game revolved around Caton-Brown versus Webster.