Post Match Warriors v Dragons - [Round 24, 2025]

[Bippidydoodah]

Feeling good today, we're missing our pack leader and our 7 and we're still in the top 4, we've been derided were shit all years, but here we are, top 4

 

[Noitall]

When you look at our points differential compared to the teams around us, we’ve really become grinding specialists being how we’ve got our wins all season. Great battle between Pompey and Feagai. Feagai got the first half over him but Pompey experienced enough to fix what’s needed at gets the second half over him. Deeper issue is the right edge in general though, I think it’s why TMM will come back next week. Really frustrated with Ford, same errors in ptb week on week and for those saying on too long, some were not long after halftime so shouldn’t be fatigued. We look a team down on confidence and hopefully that win gives some belief. CHT’s hit on Flanagan woke us up, he had a great game

 

[Noitall]

Jeez Sloan shows what a set move for some speed can do. Got a sinking feeling when I heard his name come into the game because you just knew to bring him on at that stage they thought they had an ace up their sleeve

 

[ShaunJohnson7]

At this stage who cares though? We need to just make the finals first.

We have been absolutely smashed by injuries, who knows what could happen in the finals, but at least we broke that slump, I actually didn't care how.

Yeah this is also true. My previous post was about constructive criticism but you also have to be realistic....we have lost literally one of the best props in the game in Barnett and a Dally M candidate in Metcalf....plus an array of other injuries to guys.

Any team in the comp is going to have issues losing two players of that calibre to season ending injuries in addition to the numerous other short term injuries affecting us. It's really unfortunate and is just a case of it is what it is and Webby has to plan around this when the players concerned were obviously central to his plans.

 

[Boats n Hoes]

How can you get excited with that win?What is it because we got 2 points wowee or is it we are back to 4th yipee.The aim is at this stage to be playing like we are heading to a grand final then win one for once.We are a long dusty road from that Hey I'm happy we finally won another game but hey let's get real that performance will do nothing to be at the dream finale

Once again apart from the odd lunatic the majority here have already stated it wasnt a great performance.

I think i see the issue tho....you still actually think we should win the Grand Final with the squad we have ....your not the only one tho. But it is funny seeing the toys get thrown out of the cot when this team inevitably dont reach those standards. I accepted this at the start of the season hence why despite the form of late to be in the position were at is a massive over achievement in my books.

But good luck if u think a halves pairing of Tannah Boyd and Chanel Harris Tevita are going to take u to the promised land.

We have the worst attack in the top 8 (top 10 actually), our wins and position had been built on the back of good defence and a high completion rate hence the grinding nature of our games. The continuous injuries to key players and disruption that causes have eroded those basics and we dont have probably the class in other areas to compensate.

And thats not a knock on Webby. He can only play the cards he was dealt and tbf it was working for him until the injuries really started mounting.

 

[Tookey 2.0]

Why not give egan a breather 10 before halftime, instead 70 min mark and game on the line.

I thought this was weird.

I have a theory - imo Webby often has a great game plan. The game plan he's been able to implement when we've had minimal injuries have shown he can take an average team to the top 4.

However, his main issue imo is that he either does not have a plan b, or is not able to see what is happening in real time, and adapt to that well enough in game.

I'm sure he probably had a plan to inject Healey earlier, but when we started playing shit and falling behind, at 0-10 I think he tends to hold back and wait. Almost like he's waiting for us to steady the ship and get back into the game before giving some of the bench players and opportunity.

He's don't it a few times this year where we've been poor from about the 20-30 min mark and where I believe the injection of bench players could turn that momentum around, he's chosen not to bring players like Demi, Healey, Leka and Laban on until that last 20-25 minutes. In a few games this year they've come on when the game has already been lost.

That's what I'd like to see from Webby, a bit more trust in his younger fullas

 

[wizard of Tauranga]

Jeez Sloan shows what a set move for some speed can do. Got a sinking feeling when I heard his name come into the game because you just knew to bring him on at that stage they thought they had an ace up their sleeve

Our attack is a worry because we have no effective set moves and have not developed any all season.

5 minutes to go and down by a try we all know we have nothing.

It’s why it doesn’t change anything if an organising half like Boyd comes in, we will not practice organising shape around him. We spend all week training defence instead

Webby ball is all defence and hoping individual plays can fluke a few tries.

Painful to watch but has got us in the top 4 I suppose!

 

[Makasene]

How can you get excited with that win?What is it because we got 2 points wowee or is it we are back to 4th yipee.The aim is at this stage to be playing like we are heading to a grand final then win one for once.We are a long dusty road from that Hey I'm happy we finally won another game but hey let's get real that performance will do nothing to be at the dream finale

The aim changes based on circumstance.

Yes, if we continued on the trajectory post Sharks it would be concerning to drop to this level.

But that didn't happen. Key players got injured, depth has been tested. Our young players are definitely fatigued.

To me it is very easy to find potential positive outcomes this year.
- 2nd home final since 2008
- exposing young players to finals. (1 finals match between 2012-2022)

And the honest truth...we are capable of jagging a finals win this year. But no, we won't be winning the comp.

 

[Makasene]

When you look at our points differential compared to the teams around us, we’ve really become grinding specialists being how we’ve got our wins all season. Great battle between Pompey and Feagai. Feagai got the first half over him but Pompey experienced enough to fix what’s needed at gets the second half over him. Deeper issue is the right edge in general though, I think it’s why TMM will come back next week. Really frustrated with Ford, same errors in ptb week on week and for those saying on too long, some were not long after halftime so shouldn’t be fatigued. We look a team down on confidence and hopefully that win gives some belief. CHT’s hit on Flanagan woke us up, he had a great game

Seemed like CHT had a directive to get involved.

It kind of worked, was pretty off the cuff at times. I liked it.

 

[BangBro's (still banging)]

I have a theory - imo Webby often has a great game plan. The game plan he's been able to implement when we've had minimal injuries have shown he can take an average team to the top 4.

However, his main issue imo is that he either does not have a plan b, or is not able to see what is happening in real time, and adapt to that well enough in game.

I'm sure he probably had a plan to inject Healey earlier, but when we started playing shit and falling behind, at 0-10 I think he tends to hold back and wait. Almost like he's waiting for us to steady the ship and get back into the game before giving some of the bench players and opportunity.

He's don't it a few times this year where we've been poor from about the 20-30 min mark and where I believe the injection of bench players could turn that momentum around, he's chosen not to bring players like Demi, Healey, Leka and Laban on until that last 20-25 minutes. In a few games this year they've come on when the game has already been lost.

That's what I'd like to see from Webby, a bit more trust in his younger fullas

Yeah! I would love to have heard the conversations when Ford kept killing us in good ball on the first or second tackle?

Fish also had his worst game discipline wise.

I haven't screamed so hard at the TV to yank ford off the park.

I love Fords attitude to league, but we needed the forwards to be more composed in the redzone.

 

[jonesy101]

All the people on here that can see into the future, any chance of next week’s lotto numbers!!!!

Ask the one who said we would lose by 40.

 

[BangBro's (still banging)]

Our attack is a worry because we have no effective set moves and have not developed any all season.

5 minutes to go and down by a try we all know we have nothing.

It’s why it doesn’t change anything if an organising half like Boyd comes in, we will not practice organising shape around him. We spend all week training defence instead

Webby ball is all defence and hoping individual plays can fluke a few tries.

Painful to watch but has got us in the top 4 I suppose!

I feel like this weeks training was spent on indigenous round prep.

 

[Noitall]

Seemed like CHT had a directive to get involved.

It kind of worked, was pretty off the cuff at times. I liked it.

Was really good to listen to him post game say how dissatisfied he was against bulldogs in his own game when they lost TMM in not stepping up and said if he had that time again, he’d get more involved. I liked Boyd taking the line on a few times too

 

[BangBro's (still banging)]

The aim changes based on circumstance.

Yes, if we continued on the trajectory post Sharks it would be concerning to drop to this level.

But that didn't happen. Key players got injured, depth has been tested. Our young players are definitely fatigued.

To me it is very easy to find potential positive outcomes this year.
- 2nd home final since 2008
- exposing young players to finals. (1 finals match between 2012-2022)

And the honest truth...we are capable of jagging a finals win this year. But no, we won't be winning the comp.

I want top 4 just to have that first big game and then a game at home. Then you never know, we might just get a preliminary and who knows from there.

We probably get smashed but hey three big finals games!

 

[Boats n Hoes]

Jeez Sloan shows what a set move for some speed can do. Got a sinking feeling when I heard his name come into the game because you just knew to bring him on at that stage they thought they had an ace up their sleeve

Which amazes me at various times throughout the season when players like Sloan, Dominic Young, Khan Pereira who are/were up for consideration the amount of pushback on these boards given the obvious lack of genuine speed across the park in our squad....players deficiencies can be worked on.....genuine raw speed, not so much

 

[Wrighty]

Are we gaining anything from the cnk to centre and taine to fb move? Taine is best suited to wing but he wont get it above dwz or rts. Cnk needs to go back to fb.

Yes - Charnze is growing into the centre role game by game. Last night was his best effort this year,

If Dragons didn’t keep knocking themselves out that would have been a different result.. discipline was shockingly bad

Maybe we would have done better last week if TMM hadn't been HIA'd out of the match. Part of the game.

We played so dumb- errors early in count didn’t build any pressure. CNK needs to go to fb, no point having Healey on bench and not bring into game until 10 to go. Halves and wingers were good but lots of poor performances elsewhere quality of game very poor.

All turn around games where you arrest a losing streak are not pretty to watch. We lost our last 4 matches and were on a losing streak and had no confidence. Winning begets winning. We will play better next week.

I am pleased that we started to sort our defence out again in that game which is what won it for us.

1) No one else has posted this yet but it seemed like this was the first game in 8 years where we told our wingers not to Jam. This led to fewer tries conceded yet two given up to a centre vs Pompey one to one face off. This was a coaching initiative and Dallin did some great work on his wing by staying put on the sideline and we refused to give up the back breaking try.
2) This season, and we have been doing it all season long, our cover defence has improved. Twice we chopped down LKT after a line break. Last year a line break automatically led to a try. This cover defence seems to have been worked on in pre-season.

I should qualify my ratings by saying that all those ratings are for effort.

Achievement, a solid C+

OK - wondered what you were smoking initially. Ford was an F by the way for his performance. If we get Barnett and Gannon next year I would advocate Ford is dropped lower on the depth charts. We would be better without him. He is 7th in the NRL for penalties conceded. AND in shocking news he is number one in the entire NRL for ruck infringement six again calls.

So we start the year with the majority of the forum hoping we scrape into the 8.
We just got back into the top 4, can’t drop out of the 8 so we should be celebrating.
How can anyone not be.
We keep exceeding expectations.

I agree but my understanding is due to our low PD we need one more win to clinch top 8.

Win or lose tonight we aren’t winning the gf, the way I see it, if we can scam 5th or 6th (we won’t hold onto 4th) and somehow make it to the Second week of finals that’s a good building block. 2 points is 2 points at this time of the year. You often learn as much from these sort of games as you do a loss.. swings and roundabouts, we played well against the Phins and lost, played awful tonight and won. We are 4th and snapped a losing streak, crack a smile you wet blankets

I don't think WE as in the whole team played awful. I think FORD was awful. I think Leka was awful until he got hooked, and I think Fish should not have been standing at first receiver to begin with on that play in the red zone. Take away Ford's and Leka's play and that was a good outing. Between those two players alone Ford and Leka
6 Errors, 5 Handling Errors, 2 ruck infringements, zero penalties.

 

[Canonball]

The aim changes based on circumstance.

Yes, if we continued on the trajectory post Sharks it would be concerning to drop to this level.

But that didn't happen. Key players got injured, depth has been tested. Our young players are definitely fatigued.

To me it is very easy to find potential positive outcomes this year.
- 2nd home final since 2008
- exposing young players to finals. (1 finals match between 2012-2022)

And the honest truth...we are capable of jagging a finals win this year. But no, we won't be winning the comp.

I was part of the cadre that was like 'oh, we could be better with Boyd coming in' you know, 'might suit the more structured grinding plan etc'... and, hey, why not, that could take us pretty far when it comes to finals...

the last three of weeks changed my opinion on that, as it became clear that Boyd just somehow can't hold his side together - he's pushed for time or something? Also I saw what worried me in that Knights game again last night but suppressed at the time ... his in-play kicking might be longish but it's just not accurate, it always fails to get to the point it's aimed at.. again that might be to do with speed and structure around him but I have observe that CHT's end of set kicks were on the whole better than Boyd's last night ...

for me the game last night was very much that 'freaking out in the spotlight we just got to win game' which we did, so good, however we're not even home yet, still need 1 more to be finals guaranteed because of the awful points diff.

I'm heartened by Webby's comments afterwards about just playing some more football, freeing things up a bit, cause that's the only way we're going to get some value out of the next 4 - 6 weeks - when Leka held on to the ball that's what he was doing, when Demi played the short ball in the line that's what we're doing etc. which is why I think once we're one more win up we might even see another debut ... certainly think it will be TMM returning in the 7 as well

 

[John Nick]

Our attack is a worry because we have no effective set moves and have not developed any all season.

5 minutes to go and down by a try we all know we have nothing.

It’s why it doesn’t change anything if an organising half like Boyd comes in, we will not practice organising shape around him. We spend all week training defence instead

Webby ball is all defence and hoping individual plays can fluke a few tries.

Painful to watch but has got us in the top 4 I suppose!

We are missing Metcalf to produce that X factor

 

[kos]

Good assessments there.
Wrighty
How do you think Ford would go with two twenty minute segments per game?
I reckon his error rate would be greatly reduced.
He has a great motor -I have gone from critic to fan.

 

[tyrael]

Good assessments there.
Wrighty
How do you think Ford would go with two twenty minute segments per game?
I reckon his error rate would be greatly reduced.
He has a great motor -I have gone from critic to fan.

You do 20 minute stints and you negate his great motor. He's not a Haas, Spencer, NAS type player. He's there to play 60+ minutes or you pretty much don't bother playing him.

E.g. would you rather Vaimaunga pay 2x 20mins or Ford