Taia using Kiwi Test snub as motivation

Completely agree with you frosty, he was no where near his best this year, let's hope he can keep the motivation up.....same as sau, he always seems to find another gear for te kiwis, let's hope he keeps going next year as well.
 
Yeah he's under pressure, his 09 form where he was hitting holes left right and centre didn't appear last season. Also his defence was well below par, Newcastle have to stop letting in 20 points each game and someone needs to help Matty Hilder and start increasing their numbers in defence.
 
Certainly.

He was starting to hit some form at the back end of 2010, but he seemed fragile with his shoulder injury and seemed a bit slower. I reckon he is up for a big 2011! :D
 
Zeb used to be the hardest worker in the team. Seems like he had a quiet season in 2010 - although I remember reading about shoulder troubles. 2011 should be good for him especially after missing out on playing for his country!
 
I wouldn't read too much into Zeb's form this year. The shoulder injury forced him to have a bad off season and he would have lost most of his confidence as most players do when coming back from something like that. I expect him to get back to his best next year and play for the Kiwis, there's nothing stopping him now.
 
He was caught too flat footed on heaps of occasions from memory and spilt the ball a fair bit.

He needs to muscle up and have a good off season.
 
He also missed a fair part of the season with various injuries.

I'm confident he'll be back to his best next year, but Stone playing him on his correct side wouldn't hurt.

Nice description of the article, by the way, Lynchy! :lol:

Don't think anyone predicted Taia for the next one!
 
he really needs a good start to the year, we have the depth for him to be dropped so its all up to him... im excited to see KOD get a crack at FG
 
When Taia came back from surgery, you could see he was still not 100% throughout the season. He still had a good work rate of 30+ tackles in most games, but you could see he was missing a lot of tackles and he didn't have the grunt in defence, that he did in 09. He didn't hit a hole all year, which was disappointing, but i guess it was because of his shoulder. He was a master at it in 09.

Hopefully he has a big year in 2011, and can re-capture the form he had in 09, because he is a very valuable player to the team, when he's in form.
 
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Sounds like we're all on the same page here with the knights defense letting us down, we had taia and Paterson playing when they weren't 100% so let's hope they both have a great 2011 but who is the knights defensive coach as the boys defense was all over the shop in 2010
 
I can't pass the thought Taias form like alot of other knights of 2009 coincided with Smith as head coach
 
Mark01 said:
I can't pass the thought Taias form like alot of other knights of 2009 coincided with Smith as head coach
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I don't think that's a fair statement on Stone's behalf. Taia, DeGois, Paterson etc all lost form after their injuries which is not an excuse but it is definitely understandable. This year was one of our worst injury ridden seasons Ive seen in a long time, there were players missing every single week. Imo the only fit & healthy player that didn't live up to his 2009 form was Faaoso.

Majority of the guys will start the 2011 season off fully fit and with an entire off season under their belts so if next year they don't perform with nothing holding them back only then should Stone's coaching be questioned.
 
Frosty said:
Zeb has to step up he was disappointing last season.
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From the 2009 season a lot of knights players were disappointing in 2010. brian smith got the best out of taia sau de gois they were hot and cold all year lets see what rick stone has up his sleeve for 2011 he has not yet convinced me that he is the man for the job. all he seems to do is talk it up last year was expecting big things from mullen loaded him with pressure before the season started. and we all know that it took mullen at least 18 rounds to find the razzle dazzle and now hes talking up kaffusi not to mention hes secret weapon ailaomai i would rather see the man just concentrate on training a good of season get the boys ready for round one i dont know if these is true i also heard he is a bit soft with training all i know is if we dont make the top eight next year with the train on squad we have it will be time for changes
 
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