2020 Pre Season and Trial Games

I saw Dylan Phythian do his knee both times, and both times he went down like someone had shot him from the grandstands - no one near him at the time.
 
Kurriboy said:
That was the first one wasnt it? He could have passed to Ross but instead put on a step and his knee went?
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My memory could be playing tricks on me, but I think we bought him when he was rehabing and he spent his whole first off season in rehab except for a few weeks at the end. He started the season very rusty and with no confidence, and after about 4 games he was starting to look OK and his knee went again, and then the doctor found his previous operations were no good, so he did both his knees. It took till half way through last season to get back on the field and he was very careful to look after himself in reserve grade, and didn't get stuck in too much in firstgrade either.
So to cut a long story short, he only did his knee once for us, nearly 2 years ago now, but we've put him through 3 knee rehabs.
 
He had a healthy season with Brisbane in 2017, healthy pre-season with us leading into 2018, and then did his ACL again 3 or 4 rounds in while scoring a try
 
mullenmagic said:
He had a healthy season with Brisbane in 2017, healthy pre-season with us leading into 2018, and then did his ACL again 3 or 4 rounds in while scoring a try
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I'm pretty sure it was him, Phythian and 1 other - Jake Saifiti maybe - who were rehabing all through the 2018 pre season. Moga played short minutes in one opposed session and one trial I think.
Our left side was supposed to be Ponga, Fitz, Moga and Ross, but since Moga wasn't in the opposed sessions they used Cory Denniss.
 
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mullenmagic said:
He had a healthy season with Brisbane in 2017, healthy pre-season with us leading into 2018, and then did his ACL again 3 or 4 rounds in while scoring a try
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Moga did his shoulder at Brisbane in 2017 and they chose to keep playing him when he should have had an operation.
He then had a shoulder operation leading into the 2018 preseason and was on light duties for most of the preseason.
 
So of the 29 players we can use in round 1, 23 played in the trial.
4 are injured Best, Crossland, Sione and we'll assume Moga is injured, although I've seen in 3 or 4 articles that he should have been fit.
So the two who missed out - Momoisea and King.
Momoisea is still learning his position.
So I think we can assume that King is on the outer.
 
Agreed Momoisea is still learning but King seems to be struggling, been with us a few years, has his moments but fails to grab a spot, good reserve grader, gives it his best but bottom line is - just not quite good enough- he is about 5th or 6th rating of props with young blokes climbing over him. Don’t think he will make it so spend the money elsewhere.
 
Kurriboy said:
King was never good enough, and was never going to be.

He is a handy reserve grade player that can fill a spot if he has to, won't embarrass himself in 1sts, but also won't do much towards winning either.
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I was always a critic of King over the years. Thought he was way to soft with his hit ups and lacked any footwork or ball playing ability. Also didn’t like his impact in D but admittedly that really got better in 19 and I thought maybe that would appeal to OB. A bit like why we heard Shibatime would have a good crack at centre. Alas it wasn’t to be though. As already mentioned, it seems our young aggressive props have shown a way more complete package and King will be there in the reggies which is the right place for him to be.
 
https://www.newcastleknights.com.au/news/2020/03/06/aob-speaks-from-season-launch/

O'Brien again talking about defence.
He says that, but guys I thought he might like because of their defence - Glasby, Guerra, King, Jones, Hosking and even Chris Randall - don't seem to be in favour, while guys who are a bit suss in defence like fitz, eseese, Saulo and the twins all seem to be in favour.
so he says defence, but picks the big, hardrunning, attacking players over the workhorses in defence.
Maybe the message is that he wants the big guys to pick up their work in defence to match their work in attack.
 
It appears as though he is referring to effort, you often hear them talk about "effort on effort" where just because you make the first tackle you still need to stay involved and committed to the in defensive structure for the full set.

It becomes a slippery slope, we all acknowledge with good Defense the oppositions find it difficult to win games , with this new emphasis on a smaller more mobile forwards you lose the bulk and fatigue factor associated with "big body loads" to attacking behemoths when "they ruck it up" and everyone piles on , some times when these smaller mobile forwards get it wrong they look more like jockeys than defensive rocks.

Will be interesting to see if the Big Forwards end up playing more minutes due to less leg loads.
 
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