I will begin with the same caveat I always do. I personally believe in key turning points in a game while others believe every moment is important and you can't pinpoint it down to one factor, one player, or certainly one play...so if you are in that latter camp please skip my post as it won't resonate with your paradigm for match analysis.
The turning point for me was
CNK being penalised for kicking his leg out into Horsborough while taking a good leaping catch and getting penalised. I think they might have scored off the next set. The impact was profound on
CNK who is in my mind a confidence player. He lost his fledgling confidence (fledgling because he had a bad year last year yet hard worked hard in the pre season to bounce back) and then he screwed the pooch over compensating on a bomb in the second half by not leaping at all and gave up a back breaking try.
Then he dropped his lip and didn't even attempt to tackle a raider who broke into the backfield and he conceded another try that Tuapiki or
RTS would have stopped and then he spiralled even further by getting in the way in the Red Zone attacks and ruining things.
Can he bounce back - or is this it. His confidence is now gone for his career. He was out of form all season. Bounced back well in the pre season trials and then got his confidence knocked around in game one.
For the first twenty minutes of the game he was ok. For the last 60 minutes after the Horsborough penalty his play was that of the worst fullback in the NRL first grade by some distance.
A good coach does man to man management. This is on Webster to either get
CNK right in the head or alternatively put
TMM at fullback next game.