NRL Round 4- Bulldogs Vs Knights - 3:00pm Saturday, 28th March - Accor Stadium

slotmachine said:
Last week it was Lucas that had apparently forgotten how to defend. No coincidence that was with Smith playing on the left. McEwen had a really poor miss on Burton and a few other questionable efforts with first up contact but a lot of the other stuff might have been a result of having to cover for a half who isn't exactly Trevor gillmeister?
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He wouldn’t cause the same issues in D if he didn’t shoot out of the line so hard Sandon. That’s something he’s picked up at the Roosters, Robbo wants his halves doing it, but his centres & wingers rarely flying in, which I confess I don’t really understand. You’re going to have a lot more time to recover out wide and the half flying up so aggressively is far more likely to leave an exploitable gap. Not that the half should never fly up to apply pressure but gee Sandon defaults to it constantly, and Sam Walker is the same.
 
Quite enjoyable going back and listening to Commentators before the game expecting Dogs to put a massive score on Knights. Highly enjoyable re-watch that will be.

Want to mention some unsung heroes.

Saulo was super, super impressive in first half. in D and his runs was very impactful.
Crokes was huge as well, he had a huge amount of post contact meters each time. Our defence shored up in second half with him back on too.
Fletch Hunt, whilst still making a couple mistakes is putting in a strong effort at FB. I still don't think that's his position (be a great first Grade winger/Center). But his confidence even after mistakes is high which is a nod to his mentality, physically his contact is much improved and bal play much improved. His move on Crighton to force a one vs one miss was enjoyable.
McEwen had his career best game with hitting like a truck and running like one. Still some mistakes but generally against a top team, running over Sitili was awesome.

Mentally that was one of the better performances by the club, enemy territory, missing two of our best in the spine, the other still not perfect with his Knee and went out with full confidence and still executed some great attacking plays.

We haven't even regularly opened up Best yet, very right side attack current, which isn't a surprise with Gags executing good balls to Dom who needs just a slither of a chance. So good seeing him so happy here.
 
Such an encouraging display and you can see the difference Holbrook has made to the players basic skills and IQ. He said at the start of preseason Holbrook “these guys don’t need an army camp, we need a footy camp” and you can just see the improvement across the board. Honestly I reckon there is no way McEwen puts Dom away for his second try last year. If we can get to 5 wins by the time KP is back we could be set for a really good season.
 
waynesworld said:
Such an encouraging display and you can see the difference Holbrook has made to the players basic skills and IQ. He said at the start of preseason Holbrook “these guys don’t need an army camp, we need a footy camp” and you can just see the improvement across the board. Honestly I reckon there is no way McEwen puts Dom away for his second try last year. If we can get to 5 wins by the time KP is back we could be set for a really good season.
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I think even just do our best next two (three if he needs an extra one) games, will be completely different with Brown back.
 
I’ve gone from thinking Croker would make a good reserve middle if the team came good over the next few years to thinking, nope, this guy’s actually just a good first grade middle. We are far from the only team he’d be starting for on current form. I didn’t think he had this in him.
 
waynesworld said:
Such an encouraging display and you can see the difference Holbrook has made to the players basic skills and IQ. He said at the start of preseason Holbrook “these guys don’t need an army camp, we need a footy camp” and you can just see the improvement across the board. Honestly I reckon there is no way McEwen puts Dom away for his second try last year. If we can get to 5 wins by the time KP is back we could be set for a really good season.
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Totally, and someone else said it, but in that second half when the Bulldogs scored twice, you just knew under AOB we’d have reacted with set after set attempting one out football, no counter pressure, probably mess up because we’d be so easy for the Bulldogs to pick off, and end up collapsing in a heap.

Was fantastic to see us continue to counter punch yesterday. Our tries might have been long distance and against the run of play, but we did turn the tide after the Bulldogs got on top.
 
Couldn’t remember if Croker had a one or two year deal, the two year deal looks way better now. Still if he keeps it up he should get decent offers. He’s definitely the kind of guy if we didn’t keep would go over to the Storm and kill it. Interesting to see how they play that one out when Nov 1 comes
 
R_A said:
Couldn’t remember if Croker had a one or two year deal, the two year deal looks way better now. Still if he keeps it up he should get decent offers. He’s definitely the kind of guy if we didn’t keep would go over to the Storm and kill it. Interesting to see how they play that one out when Nov 1 comes
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He should be re-signed now till 29 so the Bears and PNG can't make him any offers.
 
krustykraz said:
He should be re-signed now till 29 so the Bears and PNG can't make him any offers.
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I agree, would love for them to do the same with Ponga but he will likely test the open market.
I can’t see him going to teams that will miss the finals for a few years even with the tax free PNG temptation. That means living in a **** hole like PNG at times
 
Looking back at the numbers it feels like the Bulldogs did a lot of things better then us overall but felt they were more in momentum swings their way. However, five forced drop outs, 800 kicking metres (ummm thats handy without Brown and Ponga), and forcing them to miss 57 tackles (with 57 tackle breaks) helps. That's one thing we would have missed without a guy like Ponga, to some extent Brown. Going back to an over 80% completion rate helps compared to the Warriors game, especially in these 'tough' games.
 
I would say the club and POS have factored in extending Ponga. Based on what he has repeatedly said he wants to win a premiership.

Two factors. If we are looking like genuine premiership contenders this year and I would assume he takes some unders to stay at Newcastle. Because he will more than likely be getting some big offers. Although with his injury history maybe not? Not sure.

It’s still a bit early to tell if we are going to be a top side this year. For us to be serious about winning a premiership we need to extend Ponga.
 
I can’t remember the last time I saw everyone running hard and more impressively hitting as hard as they were in the first half in particular. I know I never saw it under AOB

What was also very pleasing see was that the hard clearly identified an issue with the Dogs left hand side defence so they went after it again and again. Previously I generally had no idea what they were trying to achieve and they rarely persisted with attacking the same spots (2023 was probably the only exception)

Overall, it’s just very impressive to put 5 tries on what’s a very good defensive side and they did it without 2 of their best players
 
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