Post Match Dragons v Warriors - [Round 7, 2024]

[sup42]

It's one game people. The vibe here is almost as depressing as whenever the ABs lose and the country has to analyse it to death. Every team this year, even the best ones, have had at least one shocking game where they just didn't turn up. Penrith had a forgettable night at Brooky a few weeks ago. Sharks had an even more embarrassing one than us against the Tigers. It was bound to happen to us at some point. That doesn't undo all the good that transpired in the previous 6 weeks that had us rightly pegged as premiership contenders this year. Extrapolating from this one game is something we should all avoid doing.

Look for the boys to respond this week. Webby wil have them primed and ready to go after that absolute shocker on friday night.

Warriors fans are never more vocal than when they can stick the boot in.

To be fair to the great unwashed masses of this working class hero sport, after twenty years of it, and after sticking by them that long, they feel they have earned the right to have a go.

I have been there, I used to be hard on the Warriors. Then I accepted a truth that deep down I have always known, that league in NZ is a dying sport played by a tiny handful of players who are against a monster.

As the only offshore team from another country we are truly the outsiders. It really is in literal terms sixteen Australian teams versus us.

Which is why a second franchise in this country would really help this club, by spreading the load, 50% less pressure is not to be sniffed at....in the same way that the Broncos were spared the sole target for elimination tag by the entry to the comp by two other QLD franchises.

I digress.

The reason I stick by these boys after a bad loss is that as you say, they have delivered us a lot of pride and joy. It pays to separate the Warriors of old from the Webster era, and if you can do that, you realise that we owe this coach our allegiance, as the Banner men and women of house Webster we are required to answer the call now that our army has fallen.

Carn Wahs fans, fight the temptation to turn on our heavily injury hit club.

 

[sydneywarrior92]

Warriors fans are never more vocal than when they can stick the boot in.

To be fair to the great unwashed masses of this working class hero sport, after twenty years of it, and after sticking by them that long, they feel they have earned the right to have a go.

I have been there, I used to be hard on the Warriors. Then I accepted a truth that deep down I have always known, that league in NZ is a dying sport played by a tiny handful of players who are against a monster.

As the only offshore team from another country we are truly the outsiders. It really is in literal terms sixteen Australian teams versus us.

Which is why a second franchise in this country would really help this club, by spreading the load, 50% less pressure is not to be sniffed at....in the same way that the Broncos were spared the Satan tag by the entry to the comp by two other QLD franchises.

I digress.

The reason I stick by these boys after a bad loss is that as you say, they have delivered us a lot of pride and joy. It pays to separate the Warriors of old from the Webster era, and if you can do that, you realise that we owe this coach our allegiance, as the Banner men and women of house Webster we are required to answer the call now that our army has fallen.

This is the time to dig in and be a Warrior. Support our team. they have earned our loyalty.

People need to realise as well that Webby is not infallible: he may have all the hallmarks of being an amazing coach, but he is still only in the second year of his coaching career. He's learning to be a good coach just as our juniors are learning to be good first grade players. So he's going to make mistakes from time to time. I think most of us agree that his bench choice last week was a mistake. But whenever he's made mistakes in the past, he's moved on and addressed it which is what makes him such a great coach. I'm sure he'll put his hand up for this week's loss and work even harder to rectify it before anzac day. He has earned that trust from us.

 

[sup42]

People need to realise as well that Webby is not infallible: he may have all the hallmarks of being an amazing coach, but he is still only in the second year of his coaching career. He's learning to be a good coach just as our juniors are learning to be good first grade players. So he's going to make mistakes from time to time. I think most of us agree that his bench choice last week was a mistake. But whenever he's made mistakes in the past, he's moved on and addressed it which is what makes him such a great coach. I'm sure he'll put his hand up for this week's loss and work even harder to rectify it before anzac day. He has earned that trust from us.

While our coach may not achieve perfection every round, he is entitled to expect a better delivery of his plan by the players than what we saw last week.

No amount of planning or coaching will prevent mass missed tackles and conceding penalties.

The reason we lost was on the execution of the plan by the players.

Even if the Dragons coaching plan was perfectly aimed at unraveling our template, the missed tackles and ill discipline (the players) is why the loss was so stark.

Had the players delivered on Websters plan we may be talking about a twelve point game and loss....the type of game that had us ranked the number one defensive side in the NRL because of Websters plan, going into that match.

 

[3rdstriker]

People need to realise as well that Webby is not infallible: he may have all the hallmarks of being an amazing coach, but he is still only in the second year of his coaching career. He's learning to be a good coach just as our juniors are learning to be good first grade players. So he's going to make mistakes from time to time. I think most of us agree that his bench choice last week was a mistake. But whenever he's made mistakes in the past, he's moved on and addressed it which is what makes him such a great coach. I'm sure he'll put his hand up for this week's loss and work even harder to rectify it before anzac day. He has earned that trust from us.

One great thing about Webby imo is he is highly competitive and hates losing.
So I'm sure we can trust him to find a way to break down teams,
As we start recovering from injuries I'm sure we will see that second phase out the back play more in sync.

 

[Commonsense]

It is one loss, some of you guys really need to get a grip on reality and do and get checked out for bipolar disorder

 

[Tragic]

No

It is one loss, some of you guys really need to get a grip on reality and do and get checked out for bipolar disorder

We don't.

 

[Tragic]

No

We don't.

Yes we do.

 

[Worried2Death]

I do enjoy the extra time I have over the weekend after a loss early in the round. I seem to become very disinterested in anything NRL until the next warriors game. Winning draws me down the rabbit hole

I was so gutted I barely watched another game all weekend. Spent time catching up with the wife, she's been doing OK since pre-season apparently, didn't know we'd adopted the three Ukrainian kids.

 

[El Chuckie]

Yes we do.

Well played there by you. And you.

 

[Wrighty]

I don't see it as flush and move on for two reasons
1) Webby has not put his hand up about the bench. I am expecting a similar bench this week except it will have Walker in it so we will be 17 vs 15 instead of 17 vs 14 like last week. By memory he put it the loss on the players not defending their mistakes and missing tackles. We need to at least get to 17-16.
2) I saw in both the Manly non victory and the St George non victory a recurrent theme of role players over playing their hand. In good teams like the ABs for example the role players just do their job and no more and no less. And this is drilled into rugby ethos up and down Secondary schools across NZ and is reflective of the fact NZ has the best rugby intellectual property in the world. Our lesser players such as the Ales and TMMs of this world were trying highlight reel plays in both matches. Webster doesn't seem to be reinforcing a mantra of "do your job" as over playing of hands continues to happen.

The rest of what Sydney Warrior said I agree with about the 90 minute match catching up with us.
The other issue I posted that I didn't get a like for is that the Warriors were too motivated for the game. They were overly motivated and didn't relax and trust the process that Sup42 posted about. To relax and trust the process requires relaxing about outcomes and allowing the process to take care of the outcome.
The warriors are tremendous expectations they had never faced before heading into that match
1) Andrew Johns saying they would be the premiers
2) They are suddenly the talk of all of New Zealand. The bandwagon drive is full on.
3) We just signed JFH in the days proceeding the match.
I speculate that we put too much pressure on ourselves that stopped us playing as a team and led to guys trying to win it by themselves. And led to the 2nd year coach being under so much pressure that he didn't trust giving a debut to Zyon Maiu’u or any minutes to most of his bench players.
The whole team coach and players alike need to take a step back from having to win and take the pressure off.

 

[John Nick]

I don't see it as flush and move on for two reasons
1) Webby has not put his hand up about the bench. I am expecting a similar bench this week except it will have Walker in it so we will be 17 vs 15 instead of 17 vs 14 like last week. By memory he put it the loss on the players not defending their mistakes and missing tackles. We need to at least get to 17-16.
2) I saw in both the Manly non victory and the St George non victory a recurrent theme of role players over playing their hand. In good teams like the ABs for example the role players just do their job and no more and no less. And this is drilled into rugby ethos up and down Secondary schools across NZ and is reflective of the fact NZ has the best rugby intellectual property in the world. Our lesser players such as the Ales and TMMs of this world were trying highlight reel plays in both matches. Webster doesn't seem to be reinforcing a mantra of "do your job" as over playing of hands continues to happen.

The rest of what Sydney Warrior said I agree with about the 90 minute match catching up with us.
The other issue I posted that I didn't get a like for is that the Warriors were too motivated for the game. They were overly motivated and didn't relax and trust the process that Sup42 posted about. To relax and trust the process requires relaxing about outcomes and allowing the process to take care of the outcome.
The warriors are tremendous expectations they had never faced before heading into that match
1) Andrew Johns saying they would be the premiers
2) They are suddenly the talk of all of New Zealand. The bandwagon drive is full on.
3) We just signed JFH in the days proceeding the match.
I speculate that we put too much pressure on ourselves that stopped us playing as a team and led to guys trying to win it by themselves. And led to the 2nd year coach being under so much pressure that he didn't trust giving a debut to Zyon Maiu’u or any minutes to most of his bench players.
The whole team coach and players alike need to take a step back from having to win and take the pressure off.

Making your tackles. It's pretty fuckin simple

 

[Worried2Death]

Quite a few guys playing injured, including Shaun, the squad's pretty busted. Ford had shoulder issues from an early hit, people start playing as individuals when the guy next to you isn't 100%.
Another day or two on that short turnaround after Manly might have helped, we looked like hadn't recovered quite enough to get our heads in the game and we got ambushed, credit to Flanno's flogs.

 

[John Nick]

Quite a few guys playing injured, including Shaun, the squad's pretty busted. Ford had shoulder issues from an early hit, people start playing as individuals when the guy next to you isn't 100%.
Another day or two on that short turnaround after Manly might have helped, we looked like hadn't recovered quite enough to get our heads in the game and we got ambushed, credit to Flanno's flogs.

While I agree with your comments we certainly started off well.
First 20 all over them but only one try.

 

[Worried2Death]

While I agree with your comments we certainly started off well.
First 20 all over them but only one try.

Don't quite have the strike to capitalise while we're fresh do we, and they only have to worry about the right edge and maybe Ford, but he'll drop it.

 

[kos]

Unfair and not possible but how would we go with Erin Clark and Isaiah Papalili in our second row!

 

[Inruin]

Don't quite have the strike to capitalise while we're fresh do we, and they only have to worry about the right edge and maybe Ford, but he'll drop it.

We looked pretty flat from the start to me. Even the try we scored we had very little excitement or energy around it. Almost wonder whether there is some COVID going through the squad or something. Or maybe it's just the running games and injuries catching up with us.

There seemed like there was a weird melancholy vibe with the team

 

[Damo]

Unfair and not possible but how would we go with Erin Clark and Isaiah Papalili in our second row!

Erin Clark? He's a hooker/lock.

 

[Worried2Death]

Erin Clark? He's a hooker/lock.

Is he better than Lussick? Probably is, could be worth an offer.

 

[Damo]

Is he better than Lussick? Probably is, could be worth an offer.

Not really. Plays decent at Lock though. We have enough undersized middles in Walker and Jazz though

 

[Worried2Death]

Not really. Plays decent at Lock though. We have enough undersized middles in Walker and Jazz though

Do you think Zyon Maiu’u is in that category too, another pocket rocket?