NRL Round 22 - Panthers V Knights - 2:00pm Sunday 4 August - BlueBet Stadium, Penrith

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Said he changed the halves because he wants players who give it a red hot go every week. Wasn’t meant as a dig at Hastings though I don’t think.
 
jamesgould said:
Said he changed the halves because he wants players who give it a red hot go every week. Wasn’t meant as a dig at Hastings though I don’t think.
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I can think of a few players who should be dropped.


Should give Paul Bryan a run on the bench.

Bryan arrived at the Club in 2022 winning the Club's SG Ball Player of the Year in his first season before representing Queensland in Under 19's State of Origin.​


He's now 21 and it might be good giving him a taste of first grade
 
Coming in to this game, season on the line (I mean it's already gone but the maths can still math), playing a team the best grinding team in the comp, running with a game plan of grinding out a win, kicking to the corners and not contesting bombs , tackle them early for tackle 1 done, etc, was never going to work. We were never going to win with that game plan.

I did see some variation to our kicking game though which went from mid field bomb, to Gamble low down stab kick. But, with ball in hand I saw a lot of one out grinding style play.

At half time, the message from OB was to stop giving away penalties and letting them out easily, ergo, keep up the grind, but stop ruining my game plan!

As was mentioned in commentary, Penrith had a debutant fullback, why were we not attempting to exploit this with contested bombs aimed at him?

As far as his game plan goes, I thought they executed it fairly well. It's just not a good game plan.
 
jamesgould said:
What a great start! D-Saf! And some very good defence early too. Attack looked much more lively than the last few games in that set.
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Isn’t it amazing how players being tapped suddenly “find” their form, get into the starting side and have a go.
My anger at these “ players” is palpable and takes the joy out of thinking our team is fair dinkum.
The only good news is that these players are finally being weeded out.
After todays improved performance, there is a real need for some honesty sessions within the club, starting with the coach and working through the players in the team that blind Freddy can see are just going around for the dollar. Newcastle has got to rid itself of a players/ coaches holiday destination and decide if they want to be a decent football team.
It has been soooo hard being a Knights supporter for the last two decades!
 
Defence wins games said:
Isn’t it amazing how players being tapped suddenly “find” their form, get into the starting side and have a go.
My anger at these “ players” is palpable and takes the joy out of thinking our team is fair dinkum.
The only good news is that these players are finally being weeded out.
After todays improved performance, there is a real need for some honesty sessions within the club, starting with the coach and working through the players in the team that blind Freddy can see are just going around for the dollar. Newcastle has got to rid itself of a players/ coaches holiday destination and decide if they want to be a decent football team.
It has been soooo hard being a Knights supporter for the last two decades!
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Excellent post!

I miss the early years of the Knights were our players weren’t the most talented but we could see that they were giving it their best.
 
krustykraz said:
This happens most weeks.

We are 17th in the comp for points scored.

Id bet we are close to the top for time in the oppositions 20. Just aren't playing to execute.
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And last year we had the 4th best attack in the comp.

Yet this year, we must return to a grinding boring playing style that does not generate points.

With one of the best adlib attacking footy players on the planet where we just need to orchestrate getting him in to good ball attacking opportunities.

With one of the best Centres in the game in Bradman Best who if given space in good ball attacking position can make something happen where he has not right to

With an offloading weapon in KPP.

We can't come up with a better plan than ruck it out, and kick to the corner with a chip bomb, tackle them for no kick return (which we are hopeless at), and try to load up on our D (Which we are hopeless at), repeat repeat until we win the game!
 
It’s not like last years attack was even a crazy high-risk style of footy like the Broncos, which was much riskier and relied heavily on individual talent and being able to defend all the errors.

There was a structure to our attack. It probably just needed some tweaking and maybe some additional options added. It needed to be built on not destroyed.

Sure the game plan can keep us in games but they’re playing to not lose. What’s the plan to score points, to actually win? Out grind Penrith and hope they’re the ones to crack lol
 
I thought last years game plan in the 10 wins was built on confidence. Somehow something clicked and they found the confidence to try things, and the confidence that when they tried things they would work.

The attack snowballed from there.
 
Gutsy said:
Cooper Cronk bought that up several times in the Fox commentary, and I think everyone except AOB was thinking the same
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It is incredible how the experts are now calling out the ridiculousness of our kicking game. This ultra conservative way of playing is killing any momentum we have as a team. I just don't understand how between O'Brien, the coaching staff and the senior players, they can't see what everyone else can. It's a professional rugby league environment at the elite level and all these people are getting paid very well to do this, yet we persevere with what seems to be an almost purposeful losing style.
 
Kurriboy said:
And last year we had the 4th best attack in the comp.

Yet this year, we must return to a grinding boring playing style that does not generate points.

With one of the best adlib attacking footy players on the planet where we just need to orchestrate getting him in to good ball attacking opportunities.

With one of the best Centres in the game in Bradman Best who if given space in good ball attacking position can make something happen where he has not right to

With an offloading weapon in KPP.

We can't come up with a better plan than ruck it out, and kick to the corner with a chip bomb, tackle them for no kick return (which we are hopeless at), and try to load up on our D (Which we are hopeless at), repeat repeat until we win the game!
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I Could be wrong but i think we were actually 1st or equal first for tries scored, our goal kicking let us down.
 
The particularly galling thing this year is that IMO the standard of footy comp wide has been far lower outside of an all time great game in Origin 3. It’s as bad as I can remember it being since maybe 2010. Only the current top 5 deserve to play finals and even then you can’t tell me the Dogs have been as good as we were last season. Above them you’ve got Cronulla playing about as good as they did last year, the flat track bully Chooks, Penrith nowhere near their form of 2020-23 (due to more good players getting poached + a very rough injury toll this year), and Melbourne basically just #1 by default (due to the consistent standards Bellamy always gets out of his teams) with their best player barely playing a game.

On our end, we’ve not had the situation we had every other year under AOB where we’re flat out just getting a team on the field. I know we lost KP for a long period, but he missed a bunch of games last year too and we still played an enterprising, confident brand of footy with him out (and we still did it in games Dom missed too). No, as far as I can tell, we’ve looked at what worked last year and torn it up with no gun held to our head.
 
Mixed feels. I never expected to win that game.

Part of the problem with Ponga is, he seems so casual, all the time. Have we ever seen him angry? This can appear like he doesn’t care. He's probably very level headed and good under pressure with this trait. It’s frustrating if he is inhibited by the foot still - another “with a good pre season if he can stay fit”.…It’s mighty disappointing that we have this talented player and it doesn’t appear like we will ever utilise his skills to push for a premiership.

You need a player like him to win a comp. But you also need the team around them, and by the time we figure that part out, it’s going to be too late.


I liked our kicking game more yesterday. Some high balls, some deep kicks, some deft kicks in behind. Just lacked the polish and consistency especially towards the end there with gamble’s grubber landing in row z. A bit more of a test for the debutant would have been nice.
What a dream for him….playing Newcastle’s chip kick and don’t pressure the catcher style.

Some calls ruined that game. Some very soft penalties gifting points to them. Some ‘high’ shots were laughable, yet the shoulder to the face was let go in real time.

I’m curious to see how we perform for the rest of the season now. A few will be playing for their future.
 
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