Round 5: Newcastle Knights vs Melbourne Storm

What is your prediction for this game ??

  • Knights 13+

    Votes: 5 33.3%

  • Knights 1-12

    Votes: 7 46.7%

  • Draw

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Storm 1-12

    Votes: 3 20.0%

  • Storm 13+

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
Poor 1st half but I’m confident we can beat them when it matters. A few things go our way and it’s a totally different game.

How good is Daniel Saifiti? He’s twice the player he was when he made Origin last year. We can build a club the brothers, Klemmer and Ese.
 
No shame in losing that one. We played relatively poorly in the first half and gifted Melbourne way too many chances at our line. You just can't do that. Poor ball control really hurt us, a bit of lazy defense a few times cost us also.

But, we hung in there and worked our way back in to the game. Dud penalty put it out of reach but really the better team on the night won the game.

Good signs for us though in that one.
 
I thought our defense for the most part was great.
Macca 65 tackles 1 missed.
Sione 53 tackles 0 missed.
Glasby 34 tackles 0 missed.
 
Just watched the presser and Bellamy saying how they got a bunch of 6 again penalties against them and he doesn't know how, didn't see much of a difference between them and us.

I get he is going to say whatever he wants in the presser, but he has to be kidding himself. Melb pushed the boundaries routinely in the ruck with the wrestle and niggle, they get off sure, but they make sure they keep hands in there slowing things down still. Or they just hold down well past what has been acceptable so far this season. Lucky not to get the bin at the end of the first half, and a period in the second half they gave away 2 or 3 6 again in very quick succession. I thought the ref tonight did a poor job of policing Melbourne in the ruck holding down and generally interfering with the player trying to get up.

Didn't cost us the game, just one of those 50/50 calls we didn't seem to get much of tonight.

Just on the squad. Got to get Guerra out of there, he was gassed after 15 minutes of first half and again after 15-20 of the second half. Offers nothing in attack. He was the only player tonight I saw totally gassed.
 
I thought Best was really tested in this game, more than he was in his previous 2 games this year, and he stood up.

Coach said in the presser that Fitz is back next week and Barnett the week after. Sione picked a good week to have one of his best games.
 
Levil Kinevil said:
Agreed. Abit of a reality check for the side. Hope the boys come together after this loss.
Click to expand...

we were always going to lose at some point, guys like Guerra and Glasby can’t keep up that work load week after week after week without some kind of dip. Think we desperately need fitzy and Barney back for some fresh legs, gives a chnace to move bench around and spell some blokes. It’s a long season
 
ASJ82 said:
we were always going to lose at some point, guys like Guerra and Glasby can’t keep up that work load week after week after week without some kind of dip. Think we desperately need fitzy and Barney back for some fresh legs, gives a chnace to move bench around and spell some blokes. It’s a long season
Click to expand...

Going to make a big difference having Frizell next year. Allows us to have a log stronger bench.

14. Watson
15. Barnett
16. Ese Ese
17. Jsaf

etc
 
Side can be improved with Fitz, surely fit, in for Guerra, Mann looked injured so with short turn around bring in Crossland, yet to be convinced with Hoy who might struggle to keep Randall out of 14
 
I was really impressed with the effort, the execution under fatigue let us down, due to errors.
Esse'esse' lack of effort on the first try really answered some questions about his character and application?
That was a very weak minded effort, especially early in a game!
The response will be the key!
 
Just my thoughts on the game. No matter what happened after or during, can't give Melbourne an 18 point headstart. With that said very proud of their effort to get into the battle and work their way back into it. Newcastle of last year would've tried to win in one play after half time and ended up losing by 40. The end score wasn't a reflection of their second half effort.
As for the refs, I thought there were 3 calls which were fairly crucial in the game and we got none of them:
1. The penalty before halftime. Should've been a sin bin, blatant professional foul.
2. Edrick Lee high tackle. Unbelievable decision. On the replay it even looked as though first point of contact was chest.
3. The Klemmer penalty. Enough said, Finucane ran straight into him.

Still not the reason we lost. Too much dropped ball. I'd like to see us get Ponga and Best some earlier ball. Thought we struggled with that tonight.
All in all a really positive night, they hung in there and kept a respectable scoreline. We're still in the top 4, as we get healthier over the next few weeks we'll continue to improve.
 
Have to say we were definitely off our game and looked rubbish in that first half. However when we decided to turn it on we came within 6 points and they knew we were coming for them.

If Cummins didn't kill off the contest with his BS calls I think we score another and then who knows.

So much to build on, and let's face it we were off against one of the premiership favorites and went with them when we decided to play.

With that loss out of the way, let's looks forward to the Broncos.
 
On the bright side, how good is our left attack looking. Best is a machine, Lee is doing his job and finishing most, and when we get Fitzgibbon back it's going to be unstoppable (Nothing against Guerra, he just lacks a bit of strike power).
Would like to see us attack the right a bit more though, Ponga has a great right pass as well, I'm not sure why he didn't use it on the 4 on 2 overlap.
 
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