Finals Week 3 vs Panthers - 4:00pm Sunday 27th of September - Accor Stadium

Matty James said:
We need our guys to get under Liam Martin’s skin early. He lives for these types of games. Need to shut him out of the contest.
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Absolutely. If he gets folded that will throw a spanner in the works if whatever their plan is.

Also I’d like to see Cleary get no breathing room. Seems every game we’ve played against him for years he catches he’s the ball and the attack stops and waits for him to do something or come to them in the line. He doesn’t need half a second to do anything amazing so don’t give him 3-4 seconds! Does my head in.
 
MBQLD said:
Absolutely. If he gets folded that will throw a spanner in the works if whatever their plan is.

Also I’d like to see Cleary get no breathing room. Seems every game we’ve played against him for years he catches he’s the ball and the attack stops and waits for him to do something or come to them in the line. He doesn’t need half a second to do anything amazing so don’t give him 3-4 seconds! Does my head in.
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That’s Manu’s job. He’s the man.
 
Few pundits brought up our last game Penrith who easily dealt with us 44 - 12.
But failed to mention we were missing Ponga, Best, Marzhew and Lucus.

So, this time we have all those players in the side. The past Knights are not this Knights team. History and stats will change over the coming years. We are all so confident of that now. We will push these guys this time.
 
Id love to have Mooney and JSaf for this, but have to commend how well Hopwood, Crouch, Croker and Friz have done in the middle the past few weeks.

Regardless of the result, to come from wooden spooners to this far is an amazing achievement considering our injury toll this season, we are truly back.

and AOB was and always will be a fraud haha.
 
frankLauda said:
Few pundits brought up our last game Penrith who easily dealt with us 44 - 12.
But failed to mention we were missing Ponga, Best, Marzhew and Lucus.

So, this time we have all those players in the side. The past Knights are not this Knights team. History and stats will change over the coming years. We are all so confident of that now. We will push these guys this time.
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we also only played them once this year, never got them when we were playing good footy.
 
frankLauda said:
I’m sure Lucus will get more game time this week. 14mins last game. Would say he will play double that this game. McEwen into prop? Or he spells one our young second rowers.

You could say to Manu go as hard as you can, pressure Cleary and fold Martin, you will get a spell during the game.
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He needs to do it in a way that he doesnt give away penalties or 6 agains, hes done that the last few games and it swung the momentum against us.
 
Afternoon footy gives us a massive advantage as well. Firstly, we get a lot more afternoon games than Penrith because they’re always playing Thursday/Friday prime time games. Secondly obviously our ball movement and expansive game plan is a lot easier to execute in dry conditions.

We will have to be better than we were against the Wahs, we made a lot of sloppier errors and they are too organised to throw poor shape and also a prop won’t be getting into first receiver on 5th tackle (thanks Barney 😂).
 
waynesworld said:
Secondly obviously our ball movement and expansive game plan is a lot easier to execute in dry conditions.

We will have to be better than we were against the Wahs, we made a lot of sloppier errors and they are too organised to throw poor shape and also a prop won’t be getting into first receiver on 5th tackle (thanks Barney 😂).
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Yep, if when we win it's going to be because we've executed our game better than we have all year.
 
frankLauda said:
Few pundits brought up our last game Penrith who easily dealt with us 44 - 12.
But failed to mention we were missing Ponga, Best, Marzhew and Lucus.

So, this time we have all those players in the side. The past Knights are not this Knights team. History and stats will change over the coming years. We are all so confident of that now. We will push these guys this time.
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What missing our whole left edge had an impact on the result? Wasn't Frizz also out that game.
 
The NRL posted on Insta that at present 65% of tickets have been purchased by Knights supporters.

Looks like the Riff supporters have been spoilt by their team winning 4 premierships in a row, their complacency is great for us!
 
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After the buzz of Sunday has died down a bit, this is going to be a very difficult task.

The last month or so sides have had quite a bit of success rushing up and shutting down our early spreads. The Raiders, Manly and the Warriors have all done a good job. Panthers will be even better. Going to be interesting to see how we handle that.

And the territory battle, the Panthers aren't the Warriors, if they get down our end constantly, they are so efficient with the ball, they will score plenty of points. We really need to be faultless in term of errors, set restarts and penalties.

On top of that, they're coming off a fortnight's rest, we've seen how much that's helped us over the last two games. On the other hand, we would have to be at least slightly drained from Sunday.

All that said, they are battling a few fitness challenges, Yeo can't be 100% and it wouldn't surprise me if Cleary is worse than they're letting on. Daytime will help us. We have momentum.

It's hard to see a win, but there's an outside chance. We're really going to have to have the game of our lives. This may actually be this year's Grand Final, because I think both these sides can get it done against the Roosters or Dolphins (and they've both conceded 50, sooo 💁🏻‍♂️).
 
I'm not minding the match ups to be honest. The wingers work well for us. Jenkins v Young and To'o v Marhew doesn't expose Marz as much. McClean v Gags is a key, Dane needs to be on his game again but I think he realises this is the last chance saloon for him. Cleary may not be running as much as usual. Martin v McEwen is an interesting one for me. McEwen took him on at home last year in what was his best game for us at the time. He held his own for a good 60 minutes in a badly beaten pack before wilting in the back end of the game. He is a much more mature player now. We have already done well against highly credentialled middles these finals, just need to keep going there.

We are going to to play our own game. Obviously the passes need to stick, both to pressure their defence and to protect ours. I think the Penrith defence is most vulnerable to players with footwork around the edges. Enter Sharpe and KP.
 
The biggest worry for me is their aerial threats, Jenkins can leap and grab a try....I think he is marking up against Dom which makes me somewhat more comfortable.

We also can't be giving them cheap metres with our end of set plays, kicking game needs to improve out of sight.
 
Owey said:
I'm not minding the match ups to be honest. The wingers work well for us. Jenkins v Young and To'o v Marhew doesn't expose Marz as much. McClean v Gags is a key, Dane needs to be on his game again but I think he realises this is the last chance saloon for him. Cleary may not be running as much as usual. Martin v McEwen is an interesting one for me. McEwen took him on at home last year in what was his best game for us at the time. He held his own for a good 60 minutes in a badly beaten pack before wilting in the back end of the game. He is a much more mature player now. We have already done well against highly credentialled middles these finals, just need to keep going there.

We are going to to play our own game. Obviously the passes need to stick, both to pressure their defence and to protect ours. I think the Penrith defence is most vulnerable to players with footwork around the edges. Enter Sharpe and KP.
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Actually, I got that wrong, it won't be Martin v McEwen. My memory of last years game is correct, but after coming back from injury it was one of Martin's rare appearances on the left.
 
MBQLD said:
Ok so I’ve noticed something with that team and it’s from watching years of MMA and other contact sports where performance enhancers have raised eyebrows. Also have a mate that’s been using for years😰. I’m not accusing Penrith but just observed how much a lot of those guys look like users. Half the team have traps, delts and pecs that would put Brock Lesbar to shame.

Again, not an accusation, just an interesting observation.
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Are you suggesting this jawline may not be 100% natural

IMG_6894.jpeg
 
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