Took me a long time to re-watch the second game but here are my thoughts on it.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Good:
1. Really enjoying the cuts back to the middle on attack. When executed at speed, they work like a treat—either punching a hole in the defense or clustering the opposition into the tackle. A big improvement over last game's predictable pass-to-the-edge, followed by a bomb to the opposite wing. Would love to see it happen more on the left-hand side.
2. Egan’s biggest impact in this game was recognizing when someone was offside and running straight at them. Not just him—Marata even pivoted his line to exploit an offside defender. This helped regain momentum in the first half.
3. The minutes rotation for Barnett and Fish was much better. One was always on the field. Both started, and then Barnett stayed on until Fish was ready to return. This feels like the best way to start a game. Silly mistakes and poor defensive reads are the only things stopping us from starting strong, but those errors seem to decrease as the half progresses.
4. We created a lot of line breaks. Metcalf was involved in both the JFH offload and the Taine intercept. Last year (and even last game), we just weren’t in position to support offloads or line breaks.
5. That Ali try and Marata’s attempt were our bread and butter in 2023—glad to see we’re still going for it. With Ali and Marata there, it must be twice as dangerous compared to 2024’s Ford and Pompey.
6. The ref made just enough bullshit calls to give us a fair preview of what the season will be like. Feels good to win so convincingly despite that.
7. How the hell did Tuapiki score that try? That’s pure X-factor. Webster, you’ve got to keep him in the team—though I have no idea how, once DWZ returns.
8. That defensive line speed... If there’s one thing I hope we keep from this game, it’s that.
9. CHT’s short kicking game is excellent.
10. We seem to be communicating a lot more. A key moment was Walker trying to strip the ball, telling Marata to exit the tackle. It resulted in a knock-on against us, but I love those heads-up plays.
11. The celebrations and team chemistry are top-tier! We’re right up there with the Storm and Panthers in terms of culture. Even the players on the bench were hyped after every point.
12. No pointless arguing with the ref—just asking the right questions without backchatting. If we want better calls in the future, this is the way to go, especially with the crackdown on dissent.
13. The one positive from RTS’s defense was his handling of Olakau’atu. He chopped him down one-on-one twice—shoulder straight to the shin—allowing Pompey and CHT to rush in and smother him.
14. Great fucking captain’s challenges.
15. Love that the halves are backing their running game. CHT even takes quick play-the-balls like a prop sometimes.
16. Our scramble defense looks solid.
17. Underrated hit of the game: Leka rushing out of the line and smashing Brooks, forcing him to throw a pass at his center’s feet for a knock-on. That killed Manly’s comeback hopes. 18. Nailed every single conversion.
Bad:
1. This will improve over time, but right now, there’s a bit of a clash with having both Clark and Walker at lock. They’re both great, but they play different styles—Walker is a ball player first, runner second, while Clark is the opposite. Sometimes, the team seems to expect a Walker-style pass from Clark, or they wait for Walker to run when he’s actually looking to pass. As chemistry develops, this should turn into a real asset, giving us great attacking variation.
2. Rust. This team needs more time to gel. A more motivated team would punish some of our defensive overlaps and misexecuted set plays. We overcame it through grit, but when we don’t have the energy to cover for mistakes, it could get rough.
3. Long-distance kicking wasn’t great. In the second half, we were losing about 10 meters per set. Manly consistently kicked between our 10m and 20m line. Some kicks had good height, especially Metcalf’s in the last 10 minutes of the first half—one even led to a try. But overall, kicking (especially from CHT) wasn’t strong, and in a grinding game, this could cost us.
4. CHT can’t match Metcalf’s kicking height right now. Twice, RTS chased to compete for a kick, but even though the kicks traveled 48m to their 20m line, they didn’t hang long enough for our edge to get under the ball.
5. Slow starts. It happened in Round 1, and again in Round 2 at the start of both halves. This needs to be fixed, or better teams will bury us before we can fight back. Once we regain momentum, we hold it well, but we can’t keep gifting teams early dominance.
6. RTS’s defensive reads are off. Not sure if it’s a communication issue with Pompey, but even if Pompey isn’t talking, RTS should trust him to mark his man—or at least communicate better himself.
Ugly:
1. Jamming in the centers to shut down the wings worked more often than not, but it still feels like an all-or-nothing gamble. I get it against Manly—given their height advantage, even if we win the one-on-one tackle, they could still offload easily. Maybe it could work consistently if we drill it more, but I’m not sure.
2. Barnett kept getting bounced off tackles in the first 10 minutes.
3. In the first 18 minutes, possession was 60-40 in Manly’s favor, and they only scored once. By the 35th minute, we flipped it to 60-40 in our favor and scored three tries. We’re still clunky, and one try came from Tuapiki’s insane evasiveness, but the attack is sharpening—just still a bit ugly.
4. I love Walker and hope we re-sign him for at least another year, but he made poor decisions in this game. He tried to do too much—like taking a grubber instead of passing to CHT on the fifth. Hopefully, he was just overhyped.
5. Way too many errors. Some were saved by captain’s challenges, but only because of other infractions, not because we didn’t actually make mistakes.
6. Nearly had a repeat of Round 1’s intercept disaster—Metcalf threw a bad pass under pressure.
7. During the sin-bin period, Metcalf made another costly mistake. He had some shaky moments throughout the game, but also some brilliant ones. This halves pairing has a massive ceiling—I’m sure it will improve over time and make Round 1’s struggles look like a fluke.
Overall:
This was a solid win, despite some shockingly bad referee decisions. The game was closer than some might think—Manly were just a few fumbles away from staying in it. There’s still plenty to improve on, but this match gave us a much better idea of how the boys want to play.
