NRL Round 1 - Knights Vs Cowboys - 1:15pm Sunday 1st March (AEDT) - Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas

I reckon that the main advantage of having Brown on the right is that he is our best long (and short) boot, and he is right footed. In the second trial his long kicking was great. He has said himself that the right is better for his kicking. There is also an advantage of Kalyn being left footed and kicking on that side. That combined with the potential of crossland letting a few fly, then we are now competitive in that area, something we haven’t been for a long time. Sharpe has already proven how effective he is at 5/8 and has only played a handful of games there, seeing him with ball in open space was the the bright spot in the darkness of last year. We have also been told he has a big boot, so he may develop that part of his game as well. Let’s face it, if Smith had a descent boot on him he would be the 7 but that’s not the case. If we can land Barnett sooner than later, then we’ve got a balanced footy team with depth.
 
This weekend isn't the worst matchup, but I will be extremely disappointed if Holbrook hasn't worked on a defensive strategy to assist Marz in defending contested kicks.

I am one of Marzhew's biggest defenders, and I admit he will always have a disadvantage in aerial contests, but we can definitely do more to protect those contests than leaving him isolated and hoping for the best. Teams actively targeted him throughout the back half of last year and if we start the season displaying the same abject weakness his spot will become untenable rather quickly.

I don't mind if you believe someone else (Sharpe, etc.) is better suited to our left wing position, that is a reasonable position to take. However I think we could all agree that if Holbrook has made the decision to start the season with Marz, it would be negligent for him to have not trained with a specific strategy in mind.
 
We need Marzhew in the side because of how strong his carries out of our end are. He was also our best (low bar admittedly) in the 2nd trial so he’s definitely earned it.

Agree about the Cowboys being a good match up. They won’t strangle us like the Dogs did and we should get plenty more attacking opportunities. If we hold onto the ball we can definitely win.
 
We have also lost our last 10 NRL games, and last 5 against the cows. If you’re looking at stats. 😂

I was worried the other day, but weirdly I feel we might cause an upset here. I mean the combinations need to almost hit the ground running. If we don’t give away to much cheap field position, you like to hope we can score points. Ponga doesn’t need to overplay his hand imo.

This is the strongest possible team we can field, and we haven’t had this since mid last year. Add in Mooney, Brown and Smith. On paper we look pretty strong.
 
Many of the cut-and-paste articles have probably already been written "<Brown/Payten> under pressure as <Knights/Cowboys> fail to impress in Vegas".

I hope Manuleleua gets a run and brains it.
 
Amazing that Payten isn’t under more pressure, they peaked ages ago and now are only in the 8 when they float to the top of the toilet of bad bottom 8 teams.
Everyone seems to forget the years they don’t make the finals but when they do he gets a pass mark for a few years
 
R_A said:
Amazing that Payten isn’t under more pressure, they peaked ages ago and now are only in the 8 when they float to the top of the toilet of bad bottom 8 teams.
Everyone seems to forget the years they don’t make the finals but when they do he gets a pass mark for a few years
Click to expand...
Him or Seibold will be the first coach sacked this year.
 
KriKri said:
Its possibly semantics but I would've preferred to see Sharpe in the 7 jumper, just to take some pressure off Brown. But maybe that's a card to be left up the sleeve until later in the system.
Click to expand...
Don’t want to do another one of my patented rants but the way you can kind of talk me into it working is if we chase something a bit like the Dolphins style of playing. It’s a dumb and reductive way to sum it up but the system is “nippy hooker, on-ball 7 and ball playing lock compress defensive line, five-eighth, fullback and outside backs burn defenders on their outside”. Reductive because there are also variations based on the defence overplaying their strike players out wide and the opportunities that can create.

I think there just have to be no ifs and buts about it, you see what you have in a system where you force Dylan to follow the ball all game and make the run/hit lead runner/play out the back decisions. Fletcher and Kalyn playing with pretty similar roles where they are sweeping around the back of shape both sides and/or sniffing around for offloads.

Dylan isn’t Isaiya Katoa but he’s a hell of a lot closer than anyone else we have. If you want to bet on it working for us, no he’s not as deceptive as Izzy, but he’s a much stronger ball runner, and the guy he’ll most commonly be passing the ball to Kalyn Ponga is much more dangerous than Kodi Nikorima, so maybe in aggregate it can be just as or more lethal. For about 2.5x the money.

Problem is we don’t have a hooker like JMK who’s ready to start games… factoring in that Phoenix starts there, I think you just kind of have to play with a mindset to be patient & play the percentages until Smith comes on and then open up a bit more when he does. I do actually think Phoenix is good at lock so whatever, maybe it can work.

Can’t worry about the pressure on Dylan. It’s on him no matter what. You just have to back him to rise to it.
 
Well apparently the Knights do well at neutral venues.

Maybe they should consider shifting all their games to neutral venues
IMG_1916.jpeg
 
frankLauda said:
We have also lost our last 10 NRL games, and last 5 against the cows. If you’re looking at stats. 😂

I was worried the other day, but weirdly I feel we might cause an upset here. I mean the combinations need to almost hit the ground running. If we don’t give away to much cheap field position, you like to hope we can score points. Ponga doesn’t need to overplay his hand imo.

This is the strongest possible team we can field, and we haven’t had this since mid last year. Add in Mooney, Brown and Smith. On paper we look pretty strong.
Click to expand...
To counter that stat i believe all 5 were in townsville. 😁
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top