I saw a lot of comments on FB of fans happy Cleary will be back for the finals and avoiding surgery.
Iām sure he will be back, but the sceptic in me says itāll be āseason on the lineā footy and weāll find out the real severity of the injury post-season as he goes off for surgery.
Read an article just before (sorry canāt find it again) that quoted Laurie as saying heāll be on the wing and likely to be Cole or Schneider slotting in alongside Romey. I wonder if the approach behind closed doors is thatās the real halves pairing so that Cleary playing is a massive bonus, and if he goes down, a no-panic, business as usual (as trained) manner.
On Laurie v Turuva, I actually thought we missed Turuva last Thursday nightā¦
Turuva wont be at Panthers next season so maybe it was just to see how DL would go with an eye to next season. Obviously hes no DE at fullback but thought he has played reasonably well when given the opportunity just needs to get rid of those little mistakes around his ball security that have cost us possession.
Overall though hes been a good signing.
Mixed first half. You can tell the gameplan by the raiders involve a right side blitz and to slow the attack down as much as possible including making stoppages.
The Panthers need to take control of the game in the second half and set the pace. If they can keep stoppages low and keep the game rolling the Raiders will run out of steam quick.
Certainly is a clear ploy to run down the panthers right edge. Commentators we saying only one tackle combined from McLean, Toāo and Luai after 25mins. Luais first tackle came at 33.5mins!
Turuva needs to be on the wing, a better finisher and stronger runner than Laurie. Just not on the same edge as Tago. I thought both tago and turuva were better on opposite sides.
Edwards still looks to be labouring.
Henry, Garner and Smith have certainly lifted this year compared to previous years. Big shoes have been filled and will be filled next year.
Edwards has looked restricted since coming back from injury. Last week he was very mechanical and (to my unqualified opinion) clearly running in a conscious and restricted way like he was minimising risk of injury.
Today a little free-er but still well off his best.
Turuva got picked apart when paired with Tago. I thought defensively they both looked much better when on opposite sides of the field. I agree with you on Laurie though. In theory he should offer a lot more flexibility, but with Toleau on the bench we should have that covered.
Letās hope Alamoti comes back strong so itās a non thought
Not sure what the plans are for finals though. I said earlier that I think we will see a backup half on the bench come finals incase Cleary goes down. Schneider again didnāt fill me with confidence.
Laurie has got a great line break in him, but apart from that he is not in my eyes up to first grade standard. Dropped balls, poor defence etc etc.
Our halves seemed lost most of the game, with Yeo and Edwards steering most of the attack.
I thought Smith had a great game again.
Canāt blame the refs for this one.
From here on in the formula is pretty simple;
1st is gone - the Storm have wrapped that up
2nd relies on us winning both remaining games, and other results going our way.
3rd or 4th if we win both games, or one game and other results go our way.
5th or 6 if we win one or none games.
I know that at the end of the game, the ONLY thing that matters is the 2 points.
We are at the point now where a spirited team can overcome us with effort & perhaps a bit of good fortune. Throw in an occasional officiating decision & we are back to the field.
For most of the past 5 seasons, we would win based on winning most of the stats, but now we just donāt have āscoring powerā to take advantage of winning the possession & field position. 7 line breaks to 2 should have seen a comfortable victory, but only if these are converted to tries, and a completion rate of 85% is quite acceptable. The kick metres shows just how well we restricted them bringing the ball back.
Closing out games has become problematical with us losing last 2 games after leading well into 2nd half. A speculator long pass when in the lead with less than 10 minutes to go proved costly.
A few players to return for the finals and who knows, maybe it will all come together. Certainly we are not losing thru lack of effort. IC will need to perhaps make a change or two. One guy making 3 errors could be costly in big games as it was yesterday.
Still hoping for the last ride to send Fish & Luai (and Tito) off with the finish they deserve - the other boys got their finish, so should these guys!
Watching the presser gives me confidence that we are not gone!!
A hell of a lot of improvement to come, we have more gears in our kit bag, that is quite evident.
The only issue I have is, we are starting to see a chink when poor decisions are made by the ref, I think it was Lindsay Smith running back shaking his head swearing at himselfā¦that hasnāt been seen before, also a few hands in the air with ref calls. That has not been our DNA for the past few seasons.
It will be interesting to see how we go final 2 rounds in terms of attitude.
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