NRL Round 11 - Knights Vs Titans - 2:00pm Sunday, 17th of May - Suncorp Stadium - MAGIC ROUND!!!

Ultimately, only 3 teams have participated in the past 3 Grand Finals. Those teams have a cumulative 18 finals appearances in those finals runs. Jack Cogger, Billy Walters, Tyran Wishart, Jonah Pezet, Nick Meaney & Ben Hunt have a pretty hefty mixture of starts and appearances off the bench over those fixtures.

EDIT: 2 games Cogger, 4 Walters (3 at 9, 1 at 6), 6 Wishart, 1 Pezet, 1 Meaney at fullback, 3 Hunt (played 7, 6 and 9 at stages last season). You've also got Tyson Smoothy switching between 9 and 13.

Raiders run last season ended with a whimper because Ethan Strange got hurt and they had to play a non-half in that spot because they didn’t have anyone else. Brisbane’s run kept going because they could always slap a functional spine together to support their ace.

Ultimately as it stands we probably have close to the exact same amount of cap space invested in the spine, including back-ups/utilities, as Brisbane & Melbourne did. Penrith probably spending less but they’re more about controlling the other team than outclassing them, historically.

You need to somehow have elite spine players AND good depth at the same time, and we have that now.
 
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Sandon Smith is great cover but he left the Roosters to chase a starting spot we aren't providing him. Will be happy to keep him throughout his contract, but will he want to stay?
 
I guess a recent example is Metcalf now at the warriors. He can’t get the starting 7 so he wants out. Pretty **** from him I think, he hasn’t even given it a go a six next to Byod.

He’s had an ACL, Boyd come on and killing it, he expects the Warriors to just give him the halves spot back.
 
Die Hard said:
Sandon Smith is great cover but he left the Roosters to chase a starting spot we aren't providing him. Will be happy to keep him throughout his contract, but will he want to stay?
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I think it largely comes back to needing a bigger sample size and how we are travelling at the end of this season/midway through next to see if he gets itchy feet.

I have enjoyed what Graham brings to the team when he comes on at 9. Think it gives us another dimension and something up the sleeve. I guess, he’s played an awful lot of footy at 9.
Smith probably hasn’t done that for a while. So I’d be happy to see him at hooker for a few games and see what he can do.

The way the bench is, we probably carry Smith, Graham and Hunt most weeks we have a full strength team. Depending upon what happens probably determines who goes on.

It was a nice luxury to bring Brown off last week.

Either way, I think having a competent and more than capable back up half in Smith is necessary to win a comp. I daresay he will get the preference at 14 moving forward over Graham, if he can keep performing.

For all we know, Sharpe could turn around and ask for a substantial upgrade, or injuries (touch wood) etc. and we will be very glad we have Smith ready to go.
 
frankLauda said:
I guess a recent example is Metcalf now at the warriors. He can’t get the starting 7 so he wants out. Pretty **** from him I think, he hasn’t even given it a go a six next to Byod.

He’s had an ACL, Boyd come on and killing it, he expects the Warriors to just give him the halves spot back.
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Think this has played out just how the warriors intended with the timing of the boyd resigning around metcalfs non selection in the team, feels like they were quite happy to see him agitating for a release. 900k off the books and replaced long term for a little over half that?
 
From now till R20 how many games do we think we win ? We have titans who are second last (I do think they compete well for parts of games against good teams and fall away at the end) , coming off the bye we have the eels sitting at 14th, storm who I know aren’t playing well and are 15th right now but im sure they’ll be competitive at aami park, we then come off another bye playing the dragons back at home (if we have origin players im not sure if they back up given its the first game on friday) , following them we go into the tigers at home which I think will be a very competitive game if we have a full deck of cards, we then play the dolphins at home with origin stars missing from both teams. Had their number last year going 2/2 but wouldn’t read too much into that, after them we have souths at Accor which imo will be the hardest game of this run if they are at full strength (origin players would likely play as its on a Sunday) and then finally sharks at shark park who play like world beaters one game then a bottom 4 side the next. As a fan (at full strength) id say we go 8/8 lol, realistically we would be disappointed to not win 5-6 of these games. Our next four I believe we should win but wouldn’t be surprised if the eels or storm come away with it. The four after that are a lot tougher but we should have a real contest with all of them. You’d think if we were to win this much games over this period we would be top 4 contenders but the R20 to R27 period is filled with away games against strong teams. This is because the nrl is a hate group who don’t want to see newy going on a run before they become the eventual premiers 😉. Sorry for the essay, anyone else’s thoughts ?
 
There are upsets every week in the NRL.
I agree that we will start favourites in every game for the next few months, but realistically, things like in game injuries or just an opposition player having a blinder or a ref making some bad calls etc etc etc means we will lose the odd game we should win, and we will also win the odd game we should lose.
In short, it won't be the end of the world if we drop 1 or 2 games, but it will be great if we can bank them all.
 
I mentioned in another post. The Melbourne game at AAMI park will be a tough one. If Melbourne win there next two which I think they will they will be confident. We have a very bad record at AMMI against them.

You mentioned @101k tough run home. I think bring it on, we want to see how our full strength teams go against other good teams. The next few weeks it’s good for us to build combinations against lesser sides.

I do worry with our forward pack against better packs, and good defence teams, aka Panthers, Warriors.
 
101k said:
From now till R20 how many games do we think we win ? We have titans who are second last (I do think they compete well for parts of games against good teams and fall away at the end) , coming off the bye we have the eels sitting at 14th, storm who I know aren’t playing well and are 15th right now but im sure they’ll be competitive at aami park, we then come off another bye playing the dragons back at home (if we have origin players im not sure if they back up given its the first game on friday) , following them we go into the tigers at home which I think will be a very competitive game if we have a full deck of cards, we then play the dolphins at home with origin stars missing from both teams. Had their number last year going 2/2 but wouldn’t read too much into that, after them we have souths at Accor which imo will be the hardest game of this run if they are at full strength (origin players would likely play as its on a Sunday) and then finally sharks at shark park who play like world beaters one game then a bottom 4 side the next. As a fan (at full strength) id say we go 8/8 lol, realistically we would be disappointed to not win 5-6 of these games. Our next four I believe we should win but wouldn’t be surprised if the eels or storm come away with it. The four after that are a lot tougher but we should have a real contest with all of them. You’d think if we were to win this much games over this period we would be top 4 contenders but the R20 to R27 period is filled with away games against strong teams. This is because the nrl is a hate group who don’t want to see newy going on a run before they become the eventual premiers 😉. Sorry for the essay, anyone else’s thoughts ?
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One game at a time...
 
101k said:
From now till R20 how many games do we think we win ? We have titans who are second last (I do think they compete well for parts of games against good teams and fall away at the end) , coming off the bye we have the eels sitting at 14th, storm who I know aren’t playing well and are 15th right now but im sure they’ll be competitive at aami park, we then come off another bye playing the dragons back at home (if we have origin players im not sure if they back up given its the first game on friday) , following them we go into the tigers at home which I think will be a very competitive game if we have a full deck of cards, we then play the dolphins at home with origin stars missing from both teams. Had their number last year going 2/2 but wouldn’t read too much into that, after them we have souths at Accor which imo will be the hardest game of this run if they are at full strength (origin players would likely play as its on a Sunday) and then finally sharks at shark park who play like world beaters one game then a bottom 4 side the next. As a fan (at full strength) id say we go 8/8 lol, realistically we would be disappointed to not win 5-6 of these games. Our next four I believe we should win but wouldn’t be surprised if the eels or storm come away with it. The four after that are a lot tougher but we should have a real contest with all of them. You’d think if we were to win this much games over this period we would be top 4 contenders but the R20 to R27 period is filled with away games against strong teams. This is because the nrl is a hate group who don’t want to see newy going on a run before they become the eventual premiers 😉. Sorry for the essay, anyone else’s thoughts ?
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Top four for sure.
The Bunnies we will beat them our defence will tighten up. The Melbourne game is the test but they are not who they use to be and we are no longer the team we were.
My suggestion is sit back and enjoy the ride.
 
frankLauda said:
I mentioned in another post. The Melbourne game at AAMI park will be a tough one. If Melbourne win there next two which I think they will they will be confident. We have a very bad record at AMMI against them.

You mentioned @101k tough run home. I think bring it on, we want to see how our full strength teams go against other good teams. The next few weeks it’s good for us to build combinations against lesser sides.

I do worry with our forward pack against better packs, and good defence teams, aka Panthers, Warriors.
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Melbourne game is our first night game too, slippery cold night in melbourne doesnt favour our brand of footy either.
 
That's it !!!!

I'm sick to death of all the optimism and positive outlooks. We are knights supporters there should already be threads of sack Holbrook and let's get rid of ponga and spend the money better.

All seriousness how F-ing good is to have a team we can all be proud of.

Even the game against south when trell scored with less then 10mins to play i still felt confident we could score again.
 
what's that pong said:
That's it !!!!

I'm sick to death of all the optimism and positive outlooks. We are knights supporters there should already be threads of sack Holbrook and let's get rid of ponga and spend the money better.

All seriousness how F-ing good is to have a team we can all be proud of.

Even the game against south when trell scored with less then 10mins to play i still felt confident we could score again.
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If it makes you feel better, we did have people saying we should have been booed off the field after that Souths win. 😂
 
jamesgould said:
If it makes you feel better, we did have people saying we should have been booed off the field after that Souths win. 😂
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That was just the scars running deep.

I was being watched by non sports fan mates while I watched that game. They wanted to know why I put myself through it.

The elation at the win and the roller-coaster game was an enjoyable but stressful experience, gets the hormones racing.
 
Tobe Fair said:
Top four for sure.
The Bunnies we will beat them our defence will tighten up. The Melbourne game is the test but they are not who they use to be and we are no longer the team we were.
My suggestion is sit back and enjoy the ride.
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Amazing with the PVLB and storm not being allowed to hold down people for 20 minutes they are back to the pack right.
 
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