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

De Courcey on the extended bench and not named in reserve grade for what it's worth. Schiller and Salesa-Leaumoana are both still named there.
 
knights80 said:
Sharpe won’t be at 1 as he would be running 10x what he would at 6 coming back from injury , But he probably won’t play anyway as is still only 50/50 at moment

I would swap Cant and Graham in the position listing also

Think Grahams speed and ball playing as 9 allowing Phoenix to ball play at 13 would be more beneficial and then leave Francis,Hopwood and Saulo as bench as will need those bigger guys to help the way we got rolled in middle last week and Cant had a fair stinker last week and was only 50/50 against manly also
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Think thats a bit unfair on Cant mate. He didn't play against Manly for one, and had a statistically almost identical game to Frizell against the Warriors.
With that being said, I do agree Graham should be getting a shot, at least to relieve a bit of workload off Crossland who is being run ragged. You wonder if the 2 sin bins last week may have changed the plans.
 
Les Misérables said:
I like Flunt but he isn't a better 1 than Gamble is a 6.

And Sharpe isnt a better 6 than he is a 1.

So the team as it appears on the team sheet isn't the strongest team we can field imo
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I agree with your first sentence but I suspect that the reasoning is that they want to move Gamble on while continuing to develop Hunt.
 
If Sharpe is for and ready he should be f/b with Hunt on bench, Gamble did enough last game to be 6.
Sharpe 1 and Gamble 6 or Hunt 1 and Sharpe 6, fit or not quite ready?
Expect a few changes come game time
 
Having a rethink, 1 Hunt, 6 Gamble, Sharpe round 4.
Can’t believe with Mooney out we didn’t select Crouch and Hola at least on bench backing up Saf and Frizell they have been very good in Cup
 
Yeah and I’m glad it’s against the Dogs rather than the Wahs.

Obviously the Dogs are a good team with a good pack but they don’t really have that intimidation factor the Wahs have, to my eye. They work their butts off, they swarm, they scramble, but what they don’t do is belt the **** out of you the way guys like Fish, Barnett etc do (that’s why they’ve fallen short in the finals so far for mine: you want to stuff up the attack of a good team, you need to really hurt them. That’s why they paid up big for Leo, hoping he can be that Leota style enforcer).

Good litmus test I think. Cody is someone where hopefully in a few years a lot of what we want to do in attack will come off his back, his play the balls and offloads. The Dogs will get in his face with line speed and bodies in the tackle, but it shouldn’t be impossible for him to have a few wins in contact the way that it kind of is when you’re running into some of the sentient menhirs who play for the Wahs.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Yeah and I’m glad it’s against the Dogs rather than the Wahs.

Obviously the Dogs are a good team with a good pack but they don’t really have that intimidation factor the Wahs have, to my eye. They work their butts off, they swarm, they scramble, but what they don’t do is belt the **** out of you the way guys like Fish, Barnett etc do (that’s why they’ve fallen short in the finals so far for mine: you want to stuff up the attack of a good team, you need to really hurt them. That’s why they paid up big for Leo, hoping he can be that Leota style enforcer).

Good litmus test I think. Cody is someone where hopefully in a few years a lot of what we want to do in attack will come off his back, his play the balls and offloads. The Dogs will get in his face with line speed and bodies in the tackle, but it shouldn’t be impossible for him to have a few wins in contact the way that it kind of is when you’re running into some of the sentient menhirs who play for the Wahs.
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I still think the Bulldogs’ forwards can belt teams. Their line speed and physicality have been a real strength, especially early in the season this year and last year. But that sort of aggressive style takes a toll over time, particularly when they can’t rely much on their attack or individual brilliance to conserve a bit of that physicality and get them out of trouble. If they don't play aggressively in defence and work hard or get tired, they get found out.
 
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I feel like Sandon needs try kicking for Hunt or Dom for us to score tries. Hopefully he trys a few on 4-5 tackle options. They have the best rushing defence. Short and attacking mid bombs kicking could create opportunities. Hopefully they have been working on that as a game plan at training to break the dogs defence.
 
frankLauda said:
I feel like Sandon needs try kicking for Hunt or Dom for us to score tries. Hopefully he trys a few on 4-5 tackle options. They have the best rushing defence. Short and attacking mid bombs kicking could create opportunities. Hopefully they have been working on that as a game plan at training to break the dogs defence.
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I loved that about Gamble last week. A couple kicks directly intended for Dom. I honestly thought Gamble had such a good game for someone filling in.
 
frankLauda said:
I feel like Sandon needs try kicking for Hunt or Dom for us to score tries. Hopefully he trys a few on 4-5 tackle options. They have the best rushing defence. Short and attacking mid bombs kicking could create opportunities. Hopefully they have been working on that as a game plan at training to break the dogs defence.
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When I was growing up my dad used to tell me “nothing stops a rushing defence quicker than a few good kicks in behind, once you do that you have more time on the ball”

So I agree hopefully if they see the dogs rushing, just a few little kicks in behind and it should make things easier for us when we do want to run plays
 
Aidos said:
I still think the Bulldogs’ forwards can belt teams. Their line speed and physicality have been a real strength, especially early in the season this year and last year. But that sort of aggressive style takes a toll over time, particularly when they can’t rely much on their attack or individual brilliance to conserve a bit of that physicality and get them out of trouble. If they don't play aggressively in defence and work hard or get tired, they get found out.
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I'm not outright saying they're not aggressive at all but the intimidation factor is a fair bit below the very best packs going around.
 
Most teams won’t fear the dogs forward pack, they are good workhorses but in terms of a player that will lay the challenge down to any prop in the comp week after week and say “come get it” than they have no one, they bought Leo as that style of player a “enforcer” if you will, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, we wanted that with Leo as well and he ran from the challenge.

In terms of Wahs and Dogs I agree with Harv, I much prefer Hopwood to come in against the Dogs
 
Presumably they’ll send most of their attack down their left edge if we have McEwen and Smith defending together there (assuming Sharpe goes back to the left).
 
This game will be a real test. Dogs pretty strong favourites. Are we the team of 25 or are we a smarter team under Hollbrook? Do we have an ambush in us?

Need to excute the game plan. Hold on to the ball. No Trey Mooney worries me. Hopwood and Manu need to have good quality games.
 
Still comes down to ball control and discipline. For me Dogs biggest threat is Preston and Kikau on edge line running If Sandon isn't helped by those around him it'll be tough. Sandon might be making poor calls, but people around need to be on as well to assist.

Agree with kicking game mentioned earlier. Burton will bomb the crap out of our back three, so apply good pressure on him and hope our back three perform well. We also have Dom, Hunt, Sharpe and Braddy in the air that are quite effective. Might be our best bet. Lets Hope Obi reaffirms his dislike for attacking bombs.
 
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