2022 season

Also I know it was a long time ago in the attention span of the average rugby league fan, but this historically terrible, embarrassing, fraudulent Sharks team was a bounce of the ball away from winning last week against the apparently much, much better Cowboys 😂
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I mean you can’t be a Cowboys fan this year and talk **** about soft draws. And I think the Cowboys have a much stronger roster overall, more dominant pack, better strike weapons. But they haven’t been at their best as consistently as the Sharks have.

My argument is purely based on how well each team did relative to roster strength and for me Fitz is on top. I don’t know how you can possibly say every Sharks player is terrible compared to the Cowboys equivalent, especially the halfback, but also deny that it’s a sign of a good coach that said terrible team full of fraudulent players finished above the Cowboys.
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No body was saying they had a stronger roster then the Sharks to begin the season yourself included. Shall I bring to the fore what you were saying before a ball was kicked? We have a plethora of young rep players now due to the coaching of Payten. It’s a non contest as to who should be coach of the year.
 
Okay fine the Cowboys roster is terrible, Chad Townsend is a joke, Nanai has no talent, Val Holmes doesn’t know where he is most of the time, Scott Drinkwater is a Coastie so is always high on meth. Jason Taumalolo is a little *****. Take Payten away and these cowards wouldn’t make the finals in the Super League let alone the NRL. Payten is the coaching GOAT, absolutely miraculous to carry these frauds as far as he has.

Happy now?
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Who’s your pick then? And why would it be ridiculous for Fitz to win it?
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Cronulla I don’t even feel have improved a whole heap, they could always beat the non top-eight sides under John Morris. With that draw they would have had a similarly successful season under him.

For me it would be out of the other names that have been mentioned, Payten the frontrunner, Demetriou who has done what nobody else could and keep his side successful once Bennett left, all while his halfback, and Cleary for keeping his side consistently a level above the rest.
 
jamesgould said:
Cronulla I don’t even feel have improved a whole heap, they could always beat the non top-eight sides under John Morris. With that draw they would have had a similarly successful season under him.
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I mean I feel like this is empirically wrong? They had that record of never beating even one top 8 side under Morris, and they have 4 wins over top 8 opponents this year. And leaving that aside, they’ve also won all their other games and have had a massive improvement in points conceded per game. All while carrying the worst halfback in the comp 😂

jamesgould said:
For me it would be out of the other names that have been mentioned, Payten the frontrunner, Demetriou who has done what nobody else could and keep his side successful once Bennett left, all while his halfback, and Cleary for keeping his side consistently a level above the rest.
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See this is my confusion. Payten the front runner? There’s exactly 1 game difference in number of games vs top 8/bottom 8 opponents between Cronulla and North Queensland. And what a coincidence, North Queensland finished 1 game behind Cronulla.

Furthermore it seems like the Cowboys barely ventured south of the Tropic of Capricorn all season, two teams took their regional home games up north basically turning them into home fixtures for North Queensland FFS which I think gives you a strong argument that the Cowboys actually had the softest draw overall.

I’ve said before I don’t like the “soft draw” chat cos you can only beat the teams in front of you, I bring this up in response to the sentiment that Payten should obviously win but the idea that Fitz even has a shot is laughable. That makes no sense at all IMO.
 
Just my opinion 🤷🏻‍♂️

I can’t say I’m hugely bothered who wins any of the Dally Ms, I don’t even usually bother watching it
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I mean I feel like this is empirically wrong? They had that record of never beating even one top 8 side under Morris, and they have 4 wins over top 8 opponents this year. And leaving that aside, they’ve also won all their other games and have had a massive improvement in points conceded per game. All while carrying the worst halfback in the comp 😂



See this is my confusion. Payten the front runner? There’s exactly 1 game difference in number of games vs top 8/bottom 8 opponents between Cronulla and North Queensland. And what a coincidence, North Queensland finished 1 game behind Cronulla.

Furthermore it seems like the Cowboys barely ventured south of the Tropic of Capricorn all season, two teams took their regional home games up north basically turning them into home fixtures for North Queensland FFS which I think gives you a strong argument that the Cowboys actually had the softest draw overall.

I’ve said before I don’t like the “soft draw” chat cos you can only beat the teams in front of you, I bring this up in response to the sentiment that Payten should obviously win but the idea that Fitz even has a shot is laughable. That makes no sense at all IMO.
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Took their games up north but we still had to travel a longer distance to those games then any of your trips to Sydney so really the Knights had a way easier schedule with so little travel and playing in big stadiums that aren’t utilised by the home side to get an advantage. Also playing extra games in high humidity/temperature. Can spin it both ways.
 
Yes, the Knights sure did suck this year. Relevance?

The extra games in the high humidity/temperature is an advantage for the Cowboys in my opinion, because they’re used to it. I’m sure it’s not fun to play in but you can deal with it better if you train in it all summer and the opposition doesn’t.

It’s for this reason I disagree with what a lot of people are saying about the prelim this weekend, I don’t think Parra are gonna go up and beat them. I reckon the Cowboys will win.

It definitely does go both ways because I think having to play the Grand Final in Sydney the week after is a huge advantage for (I’m assuming) Penrith.

But just in the for and against season, the Cowboys schedule including only, what was it, 5 games outside of Queensland would have helped them this year. I can’t imagine anyone will be taking their regional home games up north next year - they’re not easybeats anymore.
 
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Most likely and probably help in the game for sure but that will be taxing towards the end playing an extra 2 games then normal in that heat.

Wowee only played 5 games out of Queensland this year. Bet that is still more interstate travel then 80% of the NSW sides that do 5/6 at the absolute max per year while 5 is probably the minimum we have done. But because we have had a “soft” draw it gets brought up.

Penrith have romped this comp in. No team is beating them no matter what this year.
 
Well on that at least we can agree.

I reckon the Cowboys will make the grand final and they’ll get absolutely hammered. But I won’t be sticking the boot in when it happens. Penrith are just too good.

Will be very interesting to see how good they go without Api and Kikau next year. Likely still great of course but if they’re just a bit worse at scoring points that might bring them back to the field a bit - more close wins rather than breaking teams over their knee and winning by 30 all the time.
 
I hasten to add I’m only mentioning the “soft draw” stuff because it’s the argument against Fitzgibbon doing a good job at Cronulla. I don’t personally like looking at it that way. You can only beat the teams in front of you and there’s no chance at all the Knights win 17/18 games this year if they

If I the draw has helped Cronulla/NQ this year I think it’s only added a couple wins at absolute maximum in both cases and it’s all a hypothetical so you don’t really know for sure.

Yeah Parra and the Roosters should have finished above them but they have themselves to blame more than the draw - Parra are the clear 2nd best team when they actually show up IMO but they tossed a bunch of winnable games (they should have won 19-20 and secured themselves an easier path to the GF, they’ve ****ed themselves over IMO), and the Roosters also pissed a lot of games away on Robbo big-braining it with team selection and how he wanted them to play. Souths are also better at their best IMO but injuries rather than the draw hurt them this year.
 
Parra can have claims to being the best team when they show up as shown this year. Sadly for them they are just as likely as being worse then the Tigers then they are as being the best. Can never trust them. They will either bottle this weekend or next week it’s in their DNA.
 
If anyone is looking at getting into sports journalism in the future please don’t go to work experience with Paul Crawley of the daily telegraph. The joker thinks we lost to the Eels in round 23 this year.
 
cowboyman said:
If anyone is looking at getting into sports journalism in the future please don’t go to work experience with Paul Crawley of the daily telegraph. The joker thinks we lost to the Eels in round 23 this year.
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Rare journalist I can't stand, just something about him, so smug.
 
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