General 2024: Will we make the top eight?

[Wrighty]

Our forwards are alpha af. Halves have been the problem all year, along with rogers edge taking way too long to click.

Some of our backs are superb too. Every week a different strange reason to lose that you will usually see happen once in twenty years.

LIST OF FREAKY/VERY UNLUCKY REASONS WE LOST - Some hyperbole with all of these.

1) Storm Winger becomes a super human and scores try of the year against with zero seconds left in the game.
2) The entire team has a labotomy and gives away ruck infringement after ruck infringement until we are penalised out of the game against the mediocre St George. We havn't such a lack of discipline in any other game this year.
3) Against Titans our second year coach gets cute and puts CHT at lock and Dylan at second row. We lose by one million to six.
4) Against Storm return match Montoya gets sin binned for not knowing the rules and tackling someone within ten metres of the tap. Despite the fact Montoya is an NRL player.
5) Against dogs no penalty call and Annersely apologises.
6) Raiders we miss some easy kicks.

That's 12 competition points we left on the water. I don't see how a coach fixes any of those things from not happening again but all of them are unexpected and happen to no other team.

 

[Aman 2.0]

Good lord the Rabbitohs are above us on the ladder. I can’t comprehend.

They’ve been so bad this year.

 

[Christchurch_Warrior]

Good lord the Rabbitohs are above us on the ladder. I can’t comprehend.

They’ve been so bad this year.

The Rabbitohs actually look like they want to win which is the difference.

 

[BigUCE]

Our forwards are alpha af. Halves have been the problem all year, along with rogers edge taking way too long to click.

Meh, the backs in general have had a season to forget. Hopefully a clean out is on the cards going into the 26 season.

 

[Makasene]

Souths have gone ahead of us

Brisbane will too if they beat Newcastle

Titans will move ahead of us if they beat Manly

We could be 3rd last by the end of the round

 

[wizard of Tauranga]

Souths have gone ahead of us

Brisbane will too if they beat Newcastle

Titans will move ahead of us if they beat Manly

We could be 3rd last by the end of the round

We’re seriously better than 3rd last.

What a disastrous season.

 

[Inruin]

Our outside back line yesterday was a top four back line notwithstanding some new combinations.

Which universe is this in?

 

[Makasene]

We’re seriously better than 3rd last.

What a disastrous season.

6 losses by 6 points or less is the killer.

win 2 of those and we are in the 8 right now lol.

 

[Sledge]

I really think the season is gone, heads will drop now and the boys will start to not believe, hard to see us getting anywhere close tbh.

 

[BigUCE]

Unfortunately this thread should be changed to will we avoid a bottom 4 finish…

 

[Aman 2.0]

Bottom 4

Congrats everyone

 

[Inruin]

Bottom 4

Congrats everyone

Hey, 2 seasons in a row we are in the 4

 

[Kav1]

But how did it possibly come to this. We have not played badly this year barring one or two games. You can quibble with Webster;s selections but they have been on average with what any other coach would have done including top coaches.
We came into the season excpecting top four on the ladder.
All the pundits in Australia who correctly predicted second year syndrome had us only sliding down to 5th or 6th
We are on track to beat the Eels and Tigers only and finish 15th.
How is this possible. What happened to us?
I really don't get it.
The only small clue I have is that we really deserved two points against the dogs and we deserved two points against the Raiders but drop kicks/goal kicking failed. Really? We should really in any other universe where reality happens instead of weird things like this life be 4 points higher up the ladder right now.
I don't know I feel this season is like the cup game with a coin under one of cups and they swivel the cups around and you have to guess. I never have any idea which cup and I have no idea why we are losing when I still believe we comfortably have a top four roster AND a good coach.

Teams are fairly even due to the salary cap (with three or so exceptions). Whereas last year we had very few long-term injuries, this year has been horrendous, particularly to some of our best (SJ is a prime example). Opposition teams have devised plans to counter our most prolific try scorer (Dalin) whose record this year is minimal compared with previous seasons. Hope this helps as we look forward to next season when we "may fly under the radar" again.

 

[snake77]

I haven't been confident we would make the 8 for a while. There hasn't been a sense that our form will turn around or we will show any consistency.

In the past when we have had these "Will we make the 8 threads". The team has usually started turning their form around which justifies the hope and then fail in the final rounds or suffers a season ending injury like that year with Johnson.

Or we have years where the thread is all about hope and we end up near the bottom.

This season it hasn't really felt like we will go on a run of games similar to last year. We have a two games coming up against the Tigers and Eels that could provide some hope or push us up the table a bit. But this side has also tripped up this season so beating those two sides isn't a given.

At the start of every season there are predictions on top 8, premiers, wooden spoon. Then also the biggest improvers or sliders or what every the term is. The worst expectation for us would be if we ended up being the "slider". If you want to win a premiership your chances improve making the 8 consistently where your players experience tough games and get hungry after the previous years losses.

This season had a lot of hope. That is justifiable due to last season. The key lesson is improving. We needed to sort ourselves last year after some poor seasons. Returning to NZ after the pandemic, a new coach and new recruits provided a good opportunity to do that. The problem coming into 2024 other clubs are in that situation. Some needing to turn around a poor 2023.

 

[Canonball]

Said in the post match thread that I still think we make it, and I still believe that - the crunch game should be at Manly after the next two wins at home (does anyone really think we'll lose to the tigs and the eels at mss??)... if we get over Manly at Brookvale and the dolphins away we then have the Dogs return match at home, and we really should be up for that and likely with some other halves options going in (TMM has been poor for the last couple)... last match against the punchable sharks over there at their awful retirement village ground... and that's probably our season on the line ... 13 wins will guarantee a spot but you could sneak in with 12 and a draw

 

[Canonball]

Said in the post match thread that I still think we make it, and I still believe that - the crunch game should be at Manly after the next two wins at home (does anyone really think we'll lose to the tigs and the eels at mss??)... if we get over Manly at Brookvale and the dolphins away we then have the Dogs return match at home, and we really should be up for that and likely with some other halves options going in (TMM has been poor for the last couple)... last match against the punchable sharks over there at their awful retirement village ground... and that's probably our season on the line ... 13 wins will guarantee a spot but you could sneak in with 12 and a draw

also, looking at our draw, we haven't had two consecutive weeks at Mt Smart all year - not putting too much store in that but wtf?

 

[Kav1]

I really think the season is gone, heads will drop now and the boys will start to not believe, hard to see us getting anywhere close tbh.

They could be forgiven for looking forward to next season, starting against the Raiders in Las Vegas. A good win there would give us confidence to continue on into the new season. I felt we lost confidence in being beaten by the Sharks where we were expected to win comfortably in round one, followed by the last minute loss to the Storm in round two. Expectations were high in both games due to the successes of last season but the losses (particularly against the Storm) were heart-breaking.

 

[Beastmode]

Stop torturing yourselves if you think we can make the 8

We ain’t making the 8 no matter what your little mathematical calculations tell you

Sit back
Let the hair down
Enjoy the next 5 round with no expectations. No pressure.
That is my approach.
And it feels good

 

[Aman 2.0]

Worst part about this season is instead of bottom 4 we could have easily been top 4.

The comp is wide open. No favourites to win for me. It really was our best chance to have a crack at the title and we completely blew it/luck fucked us

100% should have won against storm
Dudded against Dogs
CHT chockes against raiders
Blew so many leads in the last couple of minutes
Didn’t show up against titans

Just fucked.

I feel like if we had made the top 8 this year we could have been serious contenders for first time in a long time.

Last year, great run but the panthers and broncos were on another level and unbeatable.

 

[wizard of Tauranga]

Watching the other top teams, they have less intensity in their forwards and focus on mere parity, with points coming from the speed in their playmaking and backs. Fast reactions are key in both attack and defence rather than ‘effort’.

I feel for 2025 we need to tone down the forward dominance and angressive intensity and focus on using skill and structure. I think a lot of our injuries are driven from our physically aggressive game plan which hasn’t delivered rewards.