oddly enough i don’t share the mood of many by that win.
certainly wasn’t our flawless execution in attack but i think we responded to a game plan set up by Barrett and his team were in it for a bit but our processes were on full display and i think the defensive effort by us especially late in the first half will stand us in good stead later in the season.
I think we sorely missed Edwards and Capewell and i think this showed a bit in our attack and attack options.
I continue to have a concen over Eisenhuth who really doesn’t offer much in my opinion, and share some concern over Luai, just think he maybe overthinking what he does or his mind is on the SOO jersey
Just on the SOO jerseys, we will lose Cleary,Luai,Capewell,Martin and i believe Burton.
Oustide the clunkiness, i believe Cleary will be filthy about them scoring late
It was a win and its important to keep winning, its encouraging to think we can score 30 and keep the other mob to 4 , even if we are not playing at 100%
In all my years of watching RL, I can’t recall a game where a team played, not even trying to win the game, but just playing to minimise the margin. The negative tactics employed by the dogs, aided and abetted by the ref & flag guys made for a poor advertisement for RL. It was the slowest game I can ever remember & made for a poor spectacle.
We were never going to lose the game, but it was clear that we were not at our best and yet a win by 26 points. Again I’ll say some of you are tough markers.
We will now face another poor team this week without some of our players. It will be a shame if the streak is broken due to SOO commitments.
Best for us were Critter, Fish & NC, but again a pretty comprehensive display across the park.
Special call-out for the idiot in charge of the venue who ‘arranged’ for not all the turnstiles to be open, leading to long queues trying to get into the ground in the 30 mins leading up to kick-off.
Can’t agree more regarding the turnstiles, and is just me who cringes with angst when the ground announcing tries to fire up the crowd with a pathetic “Penrith” chant, during a quiet phase of play?
The start of the game was bit ho-hum as well with both teams on the field and no hells bells.
Speaking of which, I’d love to see an actual large bell to be rung out (maybe by a former player or a lucky fan) when the song starts. Sit it on a platform at the back of the family hill.
With a sleep under my belt after the game, I’m not as critical as I was yesterday. We are getting the job done and winning in every way possible, and convincingly at that.
I reckon he did. He did agree with someone question in the presser about how slow the game was.
Whilst the rule changes to have the ball in play more, may be having that effect, the game itself is getting slower & slower with elapsed time for the game running close to 2 hours routinely now. On Fri night the players were running out of the 8 o’clock game with the 6 o’clock game just finishing.
The poorer teams are learning to slow the game down to keep the game closer & the refs have no clue.
Agree with most, it wasn’t our most polished display, but from what I saw, it was more of the dogs knowing what plays were on in the first half. They were in our face at critical points and I simply put this down to Barrett’s knowledge of our game plan.
Re the refereeing, not only our game but across most of the weekend, it was horrible. If I was loaded financially, I would have given Des Hasler the 20k to unload, that game was farcical and the result was driven by the refereeing. For mine that is a dark moment in rugby league. Gotta say, It was the first time I have considered not watching rugby league, especially other teams play.
Agree with the refereeing, it has been going downhill over the last few years, but the last few weeks have been a shocker. A 9-1 penalty count (against Manly yesterday) is almost unheard of these days. It is usually a lot more even than that. All we want is consistency.
Slowing the game down was the Bulldogs only tactic.
Make sure we couldn’t return the ball on the first tackle (a lot of kicking into touch), a lot of stopping for players staying in the ground, a lot of penalties, laying in the tackle and slow peel off.
It was breaking up the play the ball and slowing the roll on momentum we rely on to get the metres up the field. It turned out to be effective.
Much as I detest the Scumdogs, they defended ferociously and had a very high completion rate. So that made for a good test; and we seemed to be able to smarten up our performance in the 2nd half.
Funny that I was talking about that with other fans that sit around me. I joked that they should use the guy who did the announcements of the “Six Again” infringements to rev up the crowd… it couldn’t be LESS robotic right?
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