Post Match Warriors v Dolphins - [Round 22, 2025]

[Dannevegas]

Good effort from a severely depleted team

Dolphins have been severely depleted all year and still wiping top teams. Not good enough from us.

 

[Wigan Warrior]

Tough loss. Just knew after the penalty was given away didn't you.

 

[Stalefish540]

Once the hour team got shuffled as hoped, got up and excited for the game. Sit down, right on kick off, camera cuts to Klein...let out an audible sigh

Those first few sets when we were gaining 30m started getting that sinking feeling, but we built into the game eventually.

- RTS had an absolute game, what a
- EIT came on for Clark I assume? Didn't look out of place on debut, another good young forward and seemed to get decent minutes.
- Another massive shift from Ford, poor bloke is earning his paycheck. Feel like any detractors would be eating their words if he was coming off the bench with a fit pack as was intended.
- A lot of good running from Healey, opened up a different side of our attack. His passing is still very much a work in progress at NRL level, Egan is elite in that respect.
- Clark having another top notch game
- Capewell looking good back on the edge as expected
- CNK copping a bit of heat. But he already had a niggle and then did something in the first half down Phins end. Is a good fit at centre in the current make up, shouldn't be judged on that game.
- Taine getting absolutely monstered all game, but kept turning up. Going to be a sore boy tomorrow.
- Mt. Smart playing surface with the dew is such a drain as a home ground, it makes for bog average footy if we are being honest. We play better footy in Aus where it's not as slippery.
- It's an interesting situation a surface tonight that probably suits a CNK type fullback, whereas a dry track next week I'd take a Taine with our current team make up. Maybe we can morph them in the off season.

Overall a clunky performance with the ball, but completely expected given all the outs and ins. Preferred the overall game to the Knights and Titans games, the teamlist looked more balanced. Feel like we might have some more injuries, so may not even see that squad named next week no idea who comes in at this point.

Feel like we put the cue in the rack with 10mins to go, which was frustrating. I guess that's the game style that's been drilled into them, but not sure we have the cattle available to really nail our defensive assignments in those scenarios at present and it played out that way.

Not the end of the world, looking forward to a dry track next week in Sydney as long as we don't have any more outs to see how this list goes.

 

[1995warriorsfan]

Still pissed off.

 

[Beastmode]

Still pissed off.

yeah, we had them by the throat and should have finished the job.

 

[mrblonde]

I kind of get why you'd die on the last tackle, but it does imply you don't trust A Your short kicking game and/or B Your ability to defend a 7 Tackle 20M Restart (Which, BTW, I've always felt was too much a punishment, it should be one or the other.)

One of the games I had us losing - along with the Bulldogs next Saturday. So if I'm right, we're going to end up with 2 points less than I've "budgeted" for.

Titans owe us big for giving them that win last Saturday. Payment by beating the Panthers would be acceptable...

 

[1995warriorsfan]

yeah, we had them by the throat and should have finished the job.

Agree .

 

[timburgesstheonlyoneiknow]

With the number of players out injured in key areas. I thought it was a great performance. Totally new spine and missing 3 key forwards upfront.

Yes the lost is hard to take.....but they will learn from this.

 

[Makasene]

Tough loss. Just knew after the penalty was given away didn't you.

To me the penalty is irrelevant.

Look at the defensive structure before that penalty and also before the try.

Dolphins were able to make a line break of the back of complete break down of their attack, so broken their play makers were literally standing still in concrete.

But, so were we as defenders. It was atrocious.

I disagree with a lot of posters in here tonight. That was an almighty choke by us.

 

[pleatedpantspete]

To be fair without the dwz penalty we get another attacking set and have a good lock at closing out the game

Also taines distribution was way better than cnks. He’s probably the reason dallin went in for 2 tonight

I’d love to see taine used more like slater was

 

[Beastmode]

Watched a replay of the last set. Was going to burn down DWZ for giving away that egregious penalty on the 4th but LEKA FMD SON. WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING? TAKING A NAP ON THE GROUND????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET THE FUCK UP !!!!!!! SMH.

 

[Dannevegas]

That pre game music’s ass, trynna be all epic. Play some Eminem till I collapse or something

 

[roguei]

Dolphins have been severely depleted all year and still wiping top teams. Not good enough from us.

Eh, different types of injuries. Dolphins have lost there forward pack to injuries, we've lost our leadership and key playmakers.
If the dolphins lost Katoa, Herbie, isaako and Gilbert than sure. But there only halfway to us in comparison now.

Not making excuses as that loss was entirely on us even if the ref did make it harder. That last 10 minutes was infuriating on another level. Getting out kicked by Katoa all game. Our field position now depending on a old man and the smallest person on the field...

But I'm tried of this false dichotomy.

 

[Stalefish540]

Those last two sets after we turned it over in the corner are a tough rewatch defensively.

Just a mismatch of good tackles/bad tackles. Good decisions/bad decisions. Bound to happen with so many young players, and mish mash of combos.

- Good tackle Erin/Marata
- Poor tackle Leka/TSS/Healey
- Good tackle Erin/Marata/Capewell
- Pretty much fully unravels from this next tackle when Pompey shoots and Boyd ends up on his back, then DWZ penalty next tackle off quick PTB.

Young middles are still getting their reps, and will learn with experience.

Leka seemed to be laying there for an eternity no idea what the go was there, and we didn't push together was a very ragged line. Basically a welcoming party for the Phins at that point for the try.

 

[Makasene]

For anyone interested, our record at Mt Smart in the last two years.

- 18 Games
- 8 Wins
- 9 Losses
- 1 Draw

A fortress it most definitely is not.

 

[Dannevegas]

Healey should be our main hooker from here on out. Boyd’s not up to standard unfortunately

 

[Worried2Death]

That pre game music’s ass, trynna be all epic. Play some Eminem till I collapse or something

Might be adding some Tom Petty soon

 

[Stalefish540]

For anyone interested, our record at Mt Smart in the last two years.

- 18 Games
- 8 Wins
- 9 Losses
- 1 Draw

A fortress it most definitely is not.

Mt. Smart is essentially your soap sudded backyard water slide majority of the season unfortunately.

Our lack of speed on D and jamming defensive structure doesn't really gel too well in slippery conditions. Other teams also generally don't look too amazing when they have to come play here also bar the odd outlier.

The high intensity/smothering structure seems to work better over in Aus in dryer conditions where you aren't constantly slipping over or checking your runs.

That's my cooked take anyway, probably 110% wrong.

 

[sup42]

Watched our halves closely and both had reasonable games but easy to see the difference between Cup and NRL standard.

The NSW cup side gives them a platform that is dominant to play off, if we had Fish and Barnett out there, Dimitric and Egan then you could say it is the different comps.

I thought they played brilliantly, I love the way they compliment each other.

It is such a false read of their ability to judge them while in charge of lets face it our B team (not aimed at you just making adding a layer to your comment because obviously you are right about the differences in comps).

It is a cruel twist for Boyds career that he has been in charge of cripple sides.

 

[Wellington Taniwha]

Brutal loss. Even teams but we just fell off at the end and also didn’t score more when we had the dominance. Positives - Healy is wxciting and can take the team up the field with ease. Boyd can play to the coaches instructions but doesn’t have any creativity. TMM was good and maybe keep him instead of CHT. Tough loss but I still think this team has spirit. Let’s aim for two or three more wins aim for 5/6 and cause some upsets. We aren’t top 4 at the moment. Have faith in the wider team future