NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS V CANBERRA RAIDERS - 4.05PM Sun 21st Aug - MJS Newcastle

KnightsUnite said:
But I'm not allowed to see it as it is?

The results show we are a basket case of a club.

Was it a better performance?

Yes!

Does it count after 80 minutes?

Nope!
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I'm very realistic, I call the negatives when I see them. That's all you do though, you were totally silent when we were going well in the first half. I think most people here are pretty balanced tbh, you are just all negative all the time, and it's nothing insightful, it's just the most repetitive boring posts of all time. Sorry but it's actually depressing reading what you post. Not even because of the points you're making, just the constant negativity.
 
Some really positive ball movement in the first half. No-one can't deny we had a considerable amount of starters out.

D-saf, frizzel, best, tuala, ponga, Mann, Barnett, Leo Tomson, Clifford.

Take that many players out of any squad and it's going to effect the performance. The day we have a season were we have half the injuries we will be a better side.
 
I'm hoping they prove me wrong next week. And despite this, on everything we've seen I can't bring myself to even believe they might actually try for 80 mins.
 
Was a good game, overall we were better side, when the game got tough, last 20 we needed our halves to step up. Goalkicking was a problem but most, 4 wingers tries, were wide and difficult, a better kicker may have landed 1 or 2.
Canberra played strong but we outplayed them, hate those that continually claim they didn’t turn up when it was us that outplayed them, nil errors/completed all Sets first half, stop complaining, looking for excuses and appreciate when we play well, very disappointed we lost but we were good. We played a side striving for the 8 while missing quite a few players
 
Good Times said:
Being optimistic is the opposite of sad though. It's not delusion. It's seeing the positive aspects rather than focusing solely on the negative. If you want to be a pessimist, that's fine, but others are entitled to find what joy they can from watching the team that they support.
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I can only see the positives so many times before the negatives simply out weigh them.

I believe there are others who hold the same opinion but wouldn't dare express It for obvious reasons, but l knew a Raiders win was coming after half time.

If I was a gambler and bet on the Knights losing In the 2nd half taking a XX lead Into half time I'd would have a deposit on a house and then some.

When people talk up our players and tell us that we have a top 8 or 4 squad on paper and we get these types of performances delivered, It really does get to a point where we have to ask are there really any positives In being happy with losing?

I don't doubt your not happy with losing but I guess we got to hold on to something otherwise we can't really call ourselves fans can we? 😔
 
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Fitting that the Knights make us believe they’re going to do something after 40 minutes and then kick us all in the d*ck and say “PSYCH!” for the remaining 40.
 
Rupert Murdoch said:
I can only see the positives so many times before the negatives simply out weigh them.

I believe there are others who hold the same opinion but wouldn't dare express It for obvious reasons, but l knew a Raiders win was coming after half time.

If I was a gambler and bet on the Knights losing In the 2nd half taking a XX lead Into half time I'd would have a deposit on a house and then some.

When people talk up our players and tell us that we have a top 8 or 4 squad on paper and we get these types of performances delivered, It really does get to a point where we have to ask are there really any positives In being happy with losing?

I don't doubt your not happy with losing but I guess we got to hold on to something otherwise we can't really call ourselves fans can we? 😔
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Wouldn't dare express it? Cmon, there's threads and posts here about sacking the coach, sacking just about every player, some people on here will tell you pretty much any player you could name in the entire NRL is absolutely hopeless and should retire.

I guess for me it's the difference between looking at things in a realistic way (and definitely being negative a lot of the time!) vs just absolutely deathriding us and seemingly hoping we fail so they can post about how rubbish we are.
 
No Ponga , Mann, Frizell, DSaf, Fitz, Best, Tuala, Barnett, Clifford. That’s 9 out of 13 regular first graders out of a side struggling for form and motivation and leadership.

I thought we were pretty good today, and honestly I thought we were in for a flogging pre match, BEFORE DSaf and Frizell were ruled out. For a young, inexperienced side we played quite well. No doubt we lack finesse and some playmaking abilities, and resilience under pressure, but take into account one Canberra try scored from a blatant forward pass, and poor refereeing in general, and I think the young guys can be proud of what they served up for home fans.

I hope Ponga was paying attention. What Newcastle fans want above anything else, is effort.
If effort like today is maintained over 25 rounds, results follow.
 
I think they played well in the first half, and the second half is the situation where you’d want Pearce, like it or not he was really good at getting us to stick to the gameplan and at drowning out the head noise I’m sure this playing group suffers from when things start going against them. They were in a position to win and had no idea how to do it.

Effort definitely there and I do think it’s one we would have won with a couple fewer injury outs, Tapine, Papali’i, Young and Elliott really ground us down once they got some ball and not having J Saf on the field really messed with our D through the middle third. Definitely one where having D Saf would have made a big difference because like us Canberra are a team who aren’t particularly slick or blessed with really clever playmakers and rely heavily on winning the battle in the middle third.
 
Positives:
- Mapapalangi looks every bit like a first grader despite having only one pre-season behind him. Don’t be shocked to see him in the first choice 17 next year mirroring Dom’s rapid rise.
- They absolutely do have it in them to move the ball it turns out.
- Klemmer played like he was addressing the complaints of the guys on here who think he’s overrated, myself included. Very unselfish performance, ball didn’t die with him and he definitely played to the plan. Still put up monster numbers anyway.
- Adam Elliott didn’t have a big game statistically but he was used to draw defenders and execute the ball out the back a lot, the classic modern ball playing lock play, and looked comfortable doing it. This is good because it’s a key element of how AOB wants us to play and I predict Adam Elliott will be passing the ball far more than he has previously next year. We need a player like that badly and I think he can do it.
- The men’s team formed an honour guard for the women and clapped them onto the ground, which is something which pleases me to see from my club. Really happy with how we’ve gotten behind the women’s game.

Negatives:
- Definitely there’s an ingrained thing of going into their shells under pressure. The ball movement stopped and it’s like they were looking around for someone else to do everything for them instead of doing it together. The impact of years of this team being the Pearce & Ponga show I reckon.
- A lot of what was good in attack came through Milford’s ability to engage multiple defenders & vary the tempo of his runs in a way which creates uncertainty in the D line… but he’s leaving lol.
 
jamesgould said:
Wouldn't dare express it? Cmon, there's threads and posts here about sacking the coach, sacking just about every player, some people on here will tell you pretty much any player you could name in the entire NRL is absolutely hopeless and should retire.

I guess for me it's the difference between looking at things in a realistic way (and definitely being negative a lot of the time!) vs just absolutely deathriding us and seemingly hoping we fail so they can post about how rubbish we are.
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The reason why I said no one would dare express It Is because I like everybody else held out hope that we would win but knew what was coming after half time.
 
I honestly wasn’t sure what would happen but wasn’t convinced we’d lose. Our recent track record is letting games blow out after falling 2 scores behind, our strike rate of turning half time leads into wins is actually pretty good over the last couple of years I thought?

Do get a vibe it’s more of a worry going forward unless we can get some better leadership into the joint, guys who can keep their head on a swivel.
 
If we don't get Garrick surely we offer an 100k contract upgrade to anyone in the squad who can spend the off-season learning to kick goals consistently at above 75%. Like it's a closed skill ffs, it all comes down to the amount and quality of practice - nothing more.

This is obviously an aside to this game because he didn't play but it really annoys me that Kalyn hasn't been able to nail this yet, it really is an element of value that we should be confident with him offering to the team every year. In fairness he did kick at 80% this year from his limited attempts (only kicked 12 goals) and he hit 80% in 2019 from a full season as well, but the 69% and 65% in his other two seasons as the main kicker are very frustrating and no doubt costs us tight games.
 
Actually I think I crunched the numbers on it a while back and I think the only win we ever missed out on due to goalkicking besides today during KP’s time at the club, was the draw with Penrith round 3 2020.

That might just be luck of course. There was a season a few years back from memory where Cronulla finished 9th or 10th or something, but they would have been in the top 4 it their goalkicking wasn’t so terrible. So we definitely need to solve it.
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
I honestly wasn’t sure what would happen but wasn’t convinced we’d lose. Our recent track record is letting games blow out after falling 2 scores behind, our strike rate of turning half time leads into wins is actually pretty good over the last couple of years I thought?

Do get a vibe it’s more of a worry going forward unless we can get some better leadership into the joint, guys who can keep their head on a swivel.
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Yeah mate, It Is always the case with us.

I feel like a broken record saying that we can't go out and put together an 80 minute performance but It's always just that.

It has just become a predictable pattern for some reason once we get to the second half, leading or behind on the score board.
 
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