2025 Season

HarVeeGee13 said:
He was **** for a fair bit of the season but has been really good in the back end IMO. I dunno maybe the good team has good players on it lol.
Click to expand...
I agree been good tonight but mostly his gone unnoticed for a guy that was meant to be a top class front rower signing for them.
 
Lefty said:
The Sharks are the ultimate perennial premiership pretenders.

The Storm have shut Mulitalo up.
Click to expand...
Don’t think that’s warranted this year. They would have beaten any team we’ve seen in the finals so far besides Penrith and the version of the Storm which showed up tonight. Could not believe how long they defended their line for.

Great team, ran into better opposition, that’s footy.
 
danknights said:
I agree been good tonight but mostly his gone unnoticed for a guy that was meant to be a top class front rower signing for them.
Click to expand...
For once Bellamy may be timing his run a bit. They don’t need his best week to week. They need it for the big games.

Leota is like that these days too, there are games during the season where he literally does nothing pretty much. Keeping the tank full.
 
Newygirl said:
Almost as if prioritising it is very important 🤔
Click to expand...
There’s no single recipe for winning a comp, but yeah if you run the rule over premiership winning sides, elite playmaking talent is, yeah, a bit of a non-negotiable.

Worst premiership winning spine of the NRL era I can think of is probably the 2010 Dragons (Boyd, Soward, Hornby, Young/Fien), and that was still quite good.

Still have a bit of a crackpot idea that the current Storm spine is TOO good/expensive, and two elite spine players is enough (one of them being a half), and you should look to save money somewhere in the spine and spend up on the pack they play behind… but if they win a comp with Josh King and Trent Loiero starting in the middle I may have to concede that yeah maybe just having the best spine by miles and miles does indeed get you most of the way there.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
There’s no single recipe for winning a comp, but yeah if you run the rule over premiership winning sides, elite playmaking talent is, yeah, a bit of a non-negotiable.

Worst premiership winning spine of the NRL era I can think of is probably the 2010 Dragons (Boyd, Soward, Hornby, Young/Fien), and that was still quite good.

Still have a bit of a crackpot idea that the current Storm spine is TOO good/expensive, and two elite spine players is enough (one of them being a half), and you should look to save money somewhere in the spine and spend up on the pack they play behind… but if they win a comp with Josh King and Trent Loiero starting in the middle I may have to concede that yeah maybe just having the best spine by miles and miles does indeed get you most of the way there.
Click to expand...
But even then the Dragons don’t win the comp without the Storm being caught.

The stupid thing about the Storm cheating the salary cap to me was that I don’t think they even needed to. I think they win those comps anyway if they’re cap compliant.

What’s impressive this year is that their actual big money front rower, NAS, isn’t even being used. So if that 900k was going to Tino or someone similar instead, they’d probably be fine. Plus they’d still have the best backrower a top winger and 3 good spine backups. Incredible really
 
Oh yeah 100%. And if Cronulla have an issue - and it’s a rough thing to ding them on, you don’t get to pick players out of a catalogue - but I reckon neither of their halves threatens the line enough. Just makes it that little bit harder to construct stuff, have to do more to earn the right through the middle, particularly striking contrast with Melbourne where Munster and Hughes looked like they might score with every touch.

But that’s nitpicking what is otherwise a very well constructed team.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
For once Bellamy may be timing his run a bit. They don’t need his best week to week. They need it for the big games.

Leota is like that these days too, there are games during the season where he literally does nothing pretty much. Keeping the tank full.
Click to expand...
I mean I kinda get it but we are talking about a 25yr old prop vs a 30yr old prop who's won titles. Bit different hitting your straps at this time of year timing compared to a young buck who should be making a teams job easier by putting his hand up and performing week to week.
 
Celticman98 said:
Still think Penrith win the comp and if not Brisbane. Basically whoever wins Sunday's game I'm tipping to win the GF next week.
Click to expand...
Ha, I’m thinking the opposite. Winner last night is the one who will go on.

But it’ll be a great game tonight.
 
danknights said:
I mean I kinda get it but we are talking about a 25yr old prop vs a 30yr old prop who's won titles. Bit different hitting your straps at this time of year timing compared to a young buck who should be making a teams job easier by putting his hand up and performing week to week.
Click to expand...
Very true & I’m not saying I’m his biggest fan. Tigers fans shouldn’t be rending their garments over him leaving - that Fonua Pole kid is better and more consistent.

At Wests he was a guy who’d sometimes look like a million dollar, elite play 1 prop, and sometimes like a million cent one. At Wests, that ****ed them over a lot. At the Storm, it usually doesn’t matter when he plays bad, and if they get the good games at the right time, it’s Harry Grant etc playing off the back of it. Bellyache hasn’t changed him massively like people predicted. Same player, they just get more value out of him being good.

Definitely an interesting dynamic that their big game go forward middles are a guy who only has a dig 50% of the time, and a guy who only plays 50% of the time because he’s always getting suspended. Bellyache hasn’t “fixed” either of them. That spine Katoa, Coates and all their budget workhorses paper over the cracks.

danknights said:
Trent L offside from tackle 1. Also tackle 3. And tackle 4. đź«Łash klein
Click to expand...
In a crowded field of Melbourne cheats he may be the GOAT. The ******** he comes up with in the ruck is really creative too. Cam Smith feels like Salieri watching Mozart when he sees this guy in action.
 
Interesting stat from last night, Cam Munster led the Storm for running metres with 195 from 20 carries with only the one line break and 2 tackle busts. A lot of carries were just hit ups as far as I could see. More than half I would say.

Cleary 29 carries(!!!) for 212 metres in the 2024 granny, after 22 for 167 in 2023, and you see it a lot from him in prelims too. Every year the game gets faster and even those back 5 yardage carries coming out of trouble aren’t enough, and you need to find new ways to give your workhorses just that little bit of extra gas for their defensive workload.

A lot of water to go under the bridge before we get to the point where it actually matters, but no half in the game is more suited to doing this for their team than Dylan Brown, a guy who has a 29 carries/321m finals game on his resume.

On the Sharks side, Will Kennedy 11 runs for 76 metres. He’s a good player but if that’s the kind of workload you can expect in a big game, can’t win the comp with him in your team.
 
I’m pretty confident Penrith win tomorrow. They are more settled than the Broncos. No Carrigan. Spine shake up, with Reynolds and Mam coming in. I know both guns but not played a lot of football with the team. They were lucky to beat Canberra. Canberra let that one slip. Penrith won’t make the same mistake.
 
Do you guys think they’ll bring back a day GF for NRL some day? The day finals matches were pretty top notch so far. Ratings and crowd wise
 
R_A said:
Do you guys think they’ll bring back a day GF for NRL some day? The day finals matches were pretty top notch so far. Ratings and crowd wise
Click to expand...
I don’t reckon they will while 9 has the rights. Tv ratings are hire when it starts after the news and that’s all they care about
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top