NRL Round 23 - Knights Vs Raiders - 2:00pm Sunday, 9th of August - GIO Stadium

Sanders and Mariota defending on the same side. Have an advantage there for sharpe and francis would definitely be sending a lot of traffic sanders way.

Mariota a solid defender but more a middle could catch him out.
 
We need to invest in Best’s longevity and get his conditioning/load optimised.

He’s had one season with more than 18 games.
We don’t want a Turbo/Latrell situation.

Maybe he’s just unlucky, maybe his training loads aren’t right, maybes he’s just genetically prone to these soft tissue injuries. Either way, we should be exploring ways to ensure he’s fit and healthy come game day, even if that means missing sessions, or missing the odd game with short turnaround.

League is such an interesting sport with the relationship between endurance and power. But think there needs to be a bit of a look at off ball/training/soft tissue injuries.

arguably his biggest attribute is his power and strength, so it’s hard, you don’t want to sacrifice too much of that. But I think there’d be a constant battle in his muscles between power and endurance.

Can add Ponga to the conversation too.

I guess we’ve had a few “tightness” restings this year - maybe this is a bit of squad rotation, and getting players fit and peaking for the back end.
 
I’m interested to see how we go without Crossland, his defence and cleanup work is massively underrated, although not by the astute fans of this forum. Hopefully Graham and Hagan standup, but think we may be in for a tough one. I haven’t see too much of Hagan, is he a decent defender?
 
Jon Snow said:
I’m interested to see how we go without Crossland, his defence and cleanup work is massively underrated, although not by the astute fans of this forum. Hopefully Graham and Hagan standup, but think we may be in for a tough one. I haven’t see too much of Hagan, is he a decent defender?
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We will miss Crossland defensively for sure. It places even more responsibility on those young props in the middle. You'd expect Canberra to try and roll us through the middle, but then Brisbane did too with little success. Canberra's scheming nines are a different challenge though.

Interestingly, it will be the first game this year that we have had a constant running threat at nine ourselves. Hagan's similar to Graham in that he is always looking to run. One thing he does do differently to Crossland and Graham is that he will look to engage the markers at times and create space behind the ruck for his running forwards. We will be a different threat from dummy half today then what Canberra will expect.

Defensively Hagan has been sound in reserve grade. Keep in mind he has only had a handful of games against men. He has taken to it very well though. In Ball he leads the line speed similar to Crossland. He is a real leader at that level. Today might be more about defending in the unit and not getting blown away by the speed of an nrl game.
 
Owey said:
We will miss Crossland defensively for sure. It places even more responsibility on those young props in the middle. You'd expect Canberra to try and roll us through the middle, but then Brisbane did too with little success. Canberra's scheming nines are a different challenge though.

Interestingly, it will be the first game this year that we have had a constant running threat at nine ourselves. Hagan's similar to Graham in that he is always looking to run. One thing he does do differently to Crossland and Graham is that he will look to engage the markers at times and create space behind the ruck for his running forwards. We will be a different threat from dummy half today then what Canberra will expect.

Defensively Hagan has been sound in reserve grade. Keep in mind he has only had a handful of games against men. He has taken to it very well though. In Ball he leads the line speed similar to Crossland. He is a real leader at that level. Today might be more about defending in the unit and not getting blown away by the speed of an nrl game.
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Is he related to Mick Hagan?
 
If we can be competitive in this game despite the injuries, it will be a real sign of progress, win or lose. Hopefully we get away with the two points, but also, maybe even more importantly, we hopefully get through unscathed. The next two weeks at home shape up to be winnable and must-win for a team that deserves to play finals even though the universe (and sometimes the NRL) seem to be conspiring against it.

Go Knights.
 
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