NRL Round 2 - Sea Eagles Vs Knights - 4:05pm Sunday, 15th March - 4 Pines Park, Brookvale

If he wants to keep kicking those 40/20s it'd be nice.

He's capable of playing 80 but presumably he only did so in round one because of Sharpe's injury. Remains to be seen how they go about it this week but I for one and worried that we're going to see some Tom Cant minutes at hooker in an NRL game. Think the bench looks a lot better if you swap Cant and Graham, not that the numbers really matter anymore anyway.
 
mullenmagic said:
I for one and worried that we're going to see some Tom Cant minutes at hooker in an NRL game.
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Make that two, I don't think we saw him play that role in the trials for no reason. If I try hard to look for positives it does save an interchange if he comes on with 30 to go and floats between lock/edge/hooker as required.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Gee I hope not. Canberra had 1 set in the first 20 minutes & still pretty comprehensively outworked them and had way more in the tank in the second half. Had the game well in hand before they Canberra'd their lead away in the last ten minutes.

I'm honestly still very confident Manly are a bottom four team, I thought that in pre-season and I still think it now. They won't be able to stop anyone scoring. Yeah Brookie is a hard place to play at, and they have some very good attacking players, particularly Koula, but if we come away from this one with a bad loss where we create nothing in attack I'll have some serious concerns about the rest of the season.
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They're just a big relentless team who'll play high percentage footy and won't beat themselves at home. If we can do a job on Paseka it'll help. He ran for 150m last week 70m post contact.

Canberra are a quality side and only just beat them and it took everything they had as a big, high energy and aggressive side.

Manly in Brookie, when at full strength, are very very hard to beat. And im not convinced that they've lost much if anything with DCEs departure.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Yep Penrith going from Api to Mitch Kenny as a full time 9 and winning the comp two more times in comparably dominant fashion is kind of the ultimate proof that if you’ve got a guy who defends strong, gives clean ball to his playmakers, and doesn’t overplay his hand - i.e. either just dishes it really quickly or when they step out of dummy half a bit they’re looking to engage specific defenders rather than do damage themselves - you can have a really well functioning team with that.

Tallyn da Silva makes more money than Mitch Kenny because of a few 10 minute cameos where he made some eye catching runs. That got him a payday. Kenny’s reward for shoring up the middle in D as well as anyone and giving Cleary some of the best service in the comp is a meh salary and old guys on comms calling him “so underrated”. It’s a market inefficiency.
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Pretty handy that they have one of the best ever 7's 10 (had) and 13. Production line of centre wings and a fair rep fullback. If they didnt have those a handy 9 would make a lot of sense.
 
slotmachine said:
I reckon crossland goes very close to 80 minutes if not the whole way. Saving an interchange is valuable. If all he does is tackle and pass his game looks a lot better.
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I dont think its a sustainable thing for him to do at the intensity he gives, sure when needed but i Holbrook does have a plan to not burn him out.
 
Beatell said:
Pretty handy that they have one of the best ever 7's 10 (had) and 13. Production line of centre wings and a fair rep fullback. If they didnt have those a handy 9 would make a lot of sense.
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No doubt at all. I'm just sort of then looking at our situation where we have a fullback who plays an unusually big role in terms of steering us around from the back, no matter who's at 6 and 7 out of Fletch/Sandon/Dylan we have halves that also want the ball a lot, and I just have what is basically a strong suspicion we are a team that like Penrith or Brisbane will also play better with a 9 who just plays a role and facilitates the other elite spine players. I think back when we couldn't get a decent half for love nor money I was on here saying we should make a huge offer to Blake Mozer and try to build around a creative 9; now we appear to be spoiled for choice in the halves so my thinking is different.

All this is really sort of a continuation of my deeply-held crackpot theory that the optimal medium/long term roster construction isn't a "four stud" spine; it's actually better to have a mix of elite spine players + solid/reliable ones, and to spend the difference on the pack, particularly the middle rotation. On the day of the 2024 grand final, Grant + Hughes + Munster + Pappy was probably about the same in salary as Kenny + Cleary + Luai + Edwards + James Fisher-Harris. I would say that had a huge say in the result.

You take elite spine talent where you can get it, but I think it's a non-negotiable these days that your fullback is at least very good, and one of your halves is elite - preferably the 7, but an elite 6 with a competent 7 has done the job before. If you're going to save money anywhere in the spine, it's at hooker. Especially since "great defence, competent service, unselfish" is a 9 archetype the market seems to weirdly undervalue.
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
No doubt at all. I'm just sort of then looking at our situation where we have a fullback who plays an unusually big role in terms of steering us around from the back, no matter who's at 6 and 7 they also want the ball a lot, and I just have what is basically a strong suspicion we are a team that will also play better with a 9 who just plays a role and facilitates the other elite spine players. I think back when we couldn't get a decent half for love nor money I was on here saying we should make a huge offer to Blake Mozer and try to build around a creative 9; now we appeared to be spoiled for choice in the halves so my thinking is different.

All this is really sort of a continuation of my deeply-held crackpot theory that the optimal medium/long term roster construction isn't a "four stud" spine; it's actually better to have a mix of elite spine players + solid/reliable ones, and to spend the difference on the pack, particularly the middle rotation. On the day of the 2024 grand final, Grant + Hughes + Munster + Pappy was probably about the same in salary as Kenny + Cleary + Luai + Edwards + James Fisher-Harris. I would say that had a huge say in the result.

You take elite spine talent where you can get it, but I think it's a non-negotiable these days that your fullback is at least very good, and one of your halves is elite - preferably the 7, but an elite 6 with a competent 7 has done the job before. If you're going to save money anywhere in the spine, it's at hooker. Especially since "great defence, competent service, unselfish" is a 9 archetype the market seems to weirdly undervalue.
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Totally fair thinking. Id sacrifice the crafty 9 for a bull front rower myself. I feel like we are close to solving the rubiks cube, well as close as weve been for a damn long time.
 
Beatell said:
Totally fair thinking. Id sacrifice the crafty 9 for a bull front rower myself. I feel like we are close to solving the rubiks cube, well as close as weve been for a damn long time.
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HarVeeGee13 said:
Harrison Graham played more first grade at the Phins than you’re probably all guessing and he was basically fine. I don’t think it’s going to kill us on the weekend.

Also Phoenix is the toughest bloke in the team, I will be surprised if he doesn’t just do the 80 and then go to a batting cage and intentionally get hit by the balls like Happy Gilmore.
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thats my 9 right there!
 
Went for dinner last night before Jimmy carr (seriously funny show btw). Anyway, phoenix and gamble were out for dinner, and crossland hand his hand in a brace. Probably precautionary while he mends it through to game day, he finished the game last week so he should be right. But you never know...
 
Jar head said:
Went for dinner last night before Jimmy carr (seriously funny show btw). Anyway, phoenix and gamble were out for dinner, and crossland hand his hand in a brace. Probably precautionary while he mends it through to game day, he finished the game last week so he should be right. But you never know...
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Was a bloody good show last night
 
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