Post Match Raiders v Warriors - [Round 1, 2025]

[run_it_str8_again]

Because he is the best option. Why we putting a 6 there currently?

I don't disagree. But would he have changed the game? Outcome?

 

[Inruin]

We could get to their 20. But we were dominated previously to it. So we were always a step off pace and out of structure.

We had sets inside their 20.

With them down to 12 and our only chance of doing something, we showed nothing. They defended multiple tackles in their line with 12 men.

 

[mrblonde]

Is the sack the coach thread up yet?

Seriously, the Sack The Coach Thread should be put up after a This Coach Would Be Better Thread And Would Want To A Warriors Coach Thread.

Or posts to the Sack The Coach Thread have to name a realistic alternative to AW or they get deleted.

I could name 4/5 coaches who would be better than AW. But none of them would sign, or would only sign for incredibly stupid money with incredibly stupid contract clauses in their favour, so it's not happening.

 

[MrFrankWhite]

We had sets inside their 20.

With them down to 12 and our only chance of doing something, we showed nothing. They defended multiple tackles in their line with 12 men.

Because we have no edges and because we have small props that means zero fast ptb.

 

[run_it_str8_again]

We had sets inside their 20.

With them down to 12 and our only chance of doing something, we showed nothing. They defended multiple tackles in their line with 12 men.

I saw that but had attributed it mostly to that by the time we had numerical advantage they had knocked the stuffing out of us. So we didn't have any punches to throw after the rope a dope trick.

 

[Inruin]

I don't disagree. But would he have changed the game? Outcome?

Who knows. What we do know is that he performed at 7 last season and in teams down on troops against top opposition, with the team looking more together and organized, conceding less and scoring more than our season averages.

Today's result wasn't a surprise.

Imagine if TMM had played anywhere near a game like that at 7 and reaction of the people who are strangely quiet right now.

 

[Inruin]

I saw that but had attributed it mostly to that by the time we had numerical advantage they had knocked the stuffing out of us. So we didn't have any punches to throw after the rope a dope trick.

After 65 minutes and with interchanges available and after our halves had done very little all game? (to be fair I thought CHT actually put in enough at 6)

 

[roguei]

So I watched the second half again. Capewell and Niukore seemed to have a competition to who could play the worst. We are in really trouble if we start with them and they keep playing like that. Would like to see Leka or Laban start with one of them. Not sure who out of Capewell and Niukore as they were both so poor. I could see Demitric playing there but would prefer him playing in the middle as he looks good there with the limited minutes he got.

CNK looks to have an injury with his right hand. Looked like the wrist. Might explain the piss poor performance. Leaning towards RTS playing FB for the meters he gains but like him on the wing as well. The halves had no platform to play with. If we don't match it up front they are always going to look shit. Liked CHT kick for RTS in the corner. Metcalf need to take the line on more. He just needs to pick the right times as it will put the oppositions defence in two minds. Feeling slightly better as with a few corrections we can play much better than that. Just depends on Webster.

Laban performed 10x better in the All Stars match than Marata has for the whole 2024 season and this game.

Playing for 51 minutes

Defensively

• 26 tackles with only one miss, being involved whenever an opportunity presented itself.
• The duel for the highest tackle efficiency (for players with over 3 tackles) in that game.
• 0 errors.

Offensively

• Although he only got 5 runs, he made 4 tackle breaks.
• Makes 10.8 meters per run, whereas Marata is making 7.5 (Riki, in the same game, is only making 6).

This is not based on a trial game either—this is (in my biased opinion) a club-level match.

Now, I hope he was not added to the bench due to injury or recovering from the All Stars match. But I think that second row needs to change—I'd argue even Capes needs to be looked at for moving down to the bench if he performs like that again. Laban, Halasima, and Vaimauga all look better, make fewer errors, and have a much higher ceiling.

If Webster holds onto this second-row composition without some big change and this repeats more than once—i.e., we get the same list in round 3—then it's hard to have any faith. (Understandable to me that you may want to give people one more chance... I would rather not, but eh.)

No idea why Marata is treated differently from Montoya here. We even have proven young talent that he is taking up space with.

*edited to fix formatting and spelling to not hurt people's eyes.

 

[Inruin]

Because we have no edges and because we have small props that means zero fast ptb.

Interestingly the stats say we had the faster average ptb speed but I don't disagree with your comment. Walker was the only one in attack trying to play with some urgency. Other than that we didn't look like we had any organisation or set up.
In the 20 it's up to the halves to get it done. Inept second rowers don't help but I still didn't see any structure of note from our 7 in particular. Back to the one out hit ups

 

[Inruin]

Laban performed 10x better in the All Stars match than Marata has for the whole 2024 season and this game.

Playing for 51 minutes

Defensively

• 26 tackles with only one miss, being involved whenever an opportunity presented itself.
• The duel for the highest tackle efficiency (for players with over 3 tackles) in that game.
• 0 errors.

Offensively

• Although he only got 5 runs, he made 4 tackle breaks.
• Makes 10.8 meters per run, whereas Marata is making 7.5 (Riki, in the same game, is only making 6).

This is not based on a trial game either—this is (in my biased opinion) a club-level match.

Now, I hope he was not added to the bench due to injury or recovering from the All Stars match. But I think that second row needs to change—I'd argue even Capes needs to be looked at for moving down to the bench if he performs like that again. Laban, Halasima, and Vaimauga all look better, make fewer errors, and have a much higher ceiling.

If Webster holds onto this second-row composition without some big change and this repeats more than once—i.e., we get the same list in round 3—then it's hard to have any faith. (Understandable to me that you may want to give people one more chance... I would rather not, but eh.)

No idea why Marata is treated differently from Montoya here. We even have proven young talent that he is taking up space with.

*edited to fix formatting and spelling to not hurt people's eyes.

Picked on pay packet instead of performance?

 

[Five&Last]

Too many one dimensional players on this team.

Two guys I would try to offload this offseason; Capewell and Nuikore etc. Taking up a shitload of salary cap and provide sweet fuck all.

CNK days at fullback are done. Get him out of that jersey. Taine needs to be playing no. 1 as of next week. I don't care about our wing crisis. Play Sio Kali on the wing or play Pompey on the wing with CNK at centre.

How does Ford kept getting picked ahead of Ale. And how does he keep getting more minutes than Halasima/Vaimauga. He provides absolutely nothing.

 

[roguei]

Picked on pay packet instead of performance?

Guess only time will tell tbh. Cannot get away with being that bad for this long. And i hope either that isn't the case (dropped by round 3 or is magicly amazing in round 2) or there is enough of a outside uproar about it that we don't lose one of thse 3 rookies because our coaching staff's love for the guy.

 

[run_it_str8_again]

Who knows. What we do know is that he performed at 7 last season and in teams down on troops against top opposition, with the team looking more together and organized, conceding less and scoring more than our season averages.

Today's result wasn't a surprise.

I'd give our halves more opportunities to grow into this early quarter of the season. But I'd give our edges the boot to inject Leka and Demetric's youthful vigour. Leka dragged Addin back into top gear last year against the bulldogs

 

[doeeyedwarrior]

I hope all players are held to the same standard. 9 missed tackle from one of our experienced players. If that was a rookie he would be in reserve grade next week. Not done anything in the past 1 season 1 game to justify moving Ford in to the middle to accommodate him imo.

Hope he proves me wrong

 

[roguei]

I hope all players are held to the same standard. 9 missed tackle from one of our experienced players. If that was a rookie he would be in reserve grade next week. Not done anything in the past 1 season 1 game to justify moving Ford in to the middle to accommodate him imo.

Hope he proves me wrong

It's all well and good to have coaching staff and players say "we've got so many good juniors and competition for each position", "iron sharpens iron" and all that jazz. This round 2 or round 3 is when they have to practice what they preach.

 

[Dannevegas]

In terms of attack, I’m not reading too much into that game - we got dominated in the middle so had no platform to get going, and ended up going sideways.

I just can’t understand the middle rotation. I can see why you might want to start with bigger middles to match Canberra’s physicality early, but Ford is hardly a physical presence. Then to not bring on Vaimauga and instead run a Ford - Clark - Walker middle made my head explode.

The backrowers looked at sea and I agree Niukore is on thin ice.

Defensively the right edge was not connected, there’s problems to iron out there. But until we sort out the middle we aren’t going anywhere.

I thought our left edge of Capewell and Pompey was far worse on defence

 

[Wahs Up TV]

Maybe one of the biggest flaws in Webbys tenure has been the selection of workers over X factor type players.

Workers will give you the defensive output and work rate but won’t give you the attacking output needed to impact the game. With a worker you end up a lot of the time in a cycle of defending and completing sets without true output. Ford and Capewell are your typical workers. They will tackle to the death but they won’t get you any type of linebreak or attacking impact. And if they fail to do their worker attributes like today you truly have nothing. It is a fine balance but in our situation you need players who can get you repeat attacking sets so you don’t have to defend as much as opposed to a worker who will defend twice as much as the X factor player. Hence why I’ve never rated players who end up with high tackle stats. Imo if you are up to 40-50 tackles something has gone wrong. It shouldn’t be a badge of honour.

 

[Five&Last]

I know people are going to be fuming, but to be honest that was largely the worst case scenario.

Nothing planned our for us today.
Funnily enough, if you look at the stats at the moment and of the game, things were largely 50/50 across the board. We were no better or worse in run meters, completed sets, kicks etc but there were a few key areas we fucked up imo
-Charnz had a shocker.
-LM's kicking was poor and gave us no chance to compete.
-Bench use was poor. We were clearly tired at one point but no changes. Leka and Vaumunga looked good, they would have looked great 30 minutes in...
-zero go forward. Anyone doubting us requiring someone like Hazleton or a big guy can fuck off. Fish, Ford and Barnett had very little impact early on, that's just too small a front row.

For me, we were pretty much dog shit, with taken very very poor performances. The good news is we have so much upside and things to improve.

We essentially had 3 tries (Starling break, 90m Savage intercept and CNK dropped ball) gifted to them. 3 tries were 1 poor errors cost us 18 points.

We certainly werent good enough today but man, I can't believe the wanking off of the Raiders by the commentators.

Where’s the upside then?

Unless that starting lineup receives major changes, that is a spoon team.

 

[PhilsySH35]

Pack got dominated, team struggled as a whole as a result. Raiders did a magnificent job of winning the physical battle, controlling the ruck and running through and around us.

agree, our pack got smashed, like boys playing men, not much our backline could do with that. from now on I have to watch my wahz gamz with the volume on 0 not get angry at the ref and commentators and oh yes the errors and dropped balls etc, apart from that so happy we're back baby (called not facing reality lol) first game of the year, gonna take a couple of days to let it all sink in, up da wahz!

 

[PhilsySH35]

Maybe one of the biggest flaws in Webbys tenure has been the selection of workers over X factor type players.

Workers will give you the defensive output and work rate but won’t give you the attacking output needed to impact the game. With a worker you end up a lot of the time in a cycle of defending and completing sets without true output. Ford and Capewell are your typical workers. They will tackle to the death but they won’t get you any type of linebreak or attacking impact. And if they fail to do their worker attributes like today you truly have nothing. It is a fine balance but in our situation you need players who can get you repeat attacking sets so you don’t have to defend as much as opposed to a worker who will defend twice as much as the X factor player. Hence why I’ve never rated players who end up with high tackle stats. Imo if you are up to 40-50 tackles something has gone wrong. It shouldn’t be a badge of honour.

good post