Post Match Warriors v Raiders - [Round 12, 2025]

[WahsaurusRex]

Tapine got away with murder tonight

Fuck that one sucks.

 

[Dlenai]

It was always going to be a tough ask without our starting forwards.

Attack really needs to improve in the opposition 20.

Hope we meet these grubs in the finals

 

[Boats n Hoes]

Been winning ugly all season......came across a team who knows how to win uglier.

Really missed Barney 2nite

 

[BarnesNZ]

The swearing and spitting..and dog like behavior from Raiders is discrasful....gg boys fuk these dirty cunts

 

[sup42]

Leka killed us with his errors at game turning moments.

Not saying we lost coz of him because I do not believe in that crap, just saying his errors and penalties conceded happened at the worst possible time.

Good loss, I feel fine about it, only lost by a Try and a kick, we were hard to beat by an attacking juggernaut.

We belong in the top four or six teams in this comp off that evidence.

 

[snake77]

The result is disappointing. The key thing now is to learn from it and improve next week.

A big improvement from last time we played them.

I'd rather a loss like this than the blow outs we had in the last two losses. Our defence still held up tonight.

 

[Christchurch_Warrior]

I thought we did alright without our starting props. Was such a niggly game and if we had either Barnett of JFH we would have won that. I know plenty give Ford shit but 200m and 43 tackles is impressive.

 

[sydneywarrior92]

Hope we don't go overboard with criticism here. Without Barney and JFH, that was a very decent effort tonight. I think many of us predicted we'd get steamrolled up front like in Vegas. But if you look at the stats, it was a very even game in terms of meters. We certainly held our own in the middle. In my biased opinion, If either JFH or Barney were out there, I think we are more calm and collected in the critical moments and we close out another win. We certainly had the opportunities to win this towards the end and I thought we finished the stronger side. The winning streak had to come to an end eventually. I'm glad it came in the form of a proud and gritty loss rather than a 40 pt shellacking. That's a performance that a top 4 side dishes out.

Raiders haven't seen the last of us. We'll be meeting them in the finals no doubt.

 

[Makasene]

Probably the worst team to play missing JFH & Barnett.

Hopefully a big lesson for Leka.

RTS thought was strong. DWZ could leave today and I think we have him covered.

Ali must start going looking for work. His lack of involvement is frankly unacceptable at this level.

 

[wizard of Tauranga]

Feel ok about it. Two form teams going at it at finals intensity and our two alphas out where possibly the difference.

Raiders outmuscled us and our lack of attacking x-factor was exposed.

Onwards and upwards for next week because you can’t win em all

 

[FormerlyJamesW]

I think we need to talk about DWZ.

Bros just not there anymore.

 

[Bippidydoodah]

Raiders probably deserved to win, but the win might hurt them for the next few weeks.. Tāpine and Starling will probably miss a couple of games. I'm not too disappointed, we'll bounce back, and it's good to see Marata playing well again

 

[FormerlyJamesW]

it's good to see Marata playing well again

Marata is killing it. Love his work at moment.

 

[Wellington Taniwha]

Tapine bullied us tonight !

Clark stood up to him, but we needed Barney and Fish to own that bike shed bully! He stole our lunch money!

 

[wizard of Tauranga]

Loved Clark aiming up on Papalii!

Physically smashed him and bullied their biggest man. Another pack leader backing him up (JFH or Barnett) and we would have had a platform to work off.

I’m loving Clark’s work and he’s growing every week. Might be my favourite forward!

 

[Beastmode]

Leka was a big part of that loss. And even when he wasn't losing the ball he was getting outmuscled in the collisions. Looked like a teenager against men. Hopefully he learns from this. Probably a good game for him to have a nightmare as I am not convinced we would have won even without his mistakes. There was no way we were scoring a try in the second half. Partly due to wet conditions. And partly because it looked like they knew our play book and had studied video on us. They seemed to shift to our shapes even before we got the shapes set ourselves. They weren't much better than us at getting across the stripe either. Hard night in the conditions for point scoring with the dew.

Surely Raiders were off side a lot tonight. Their line speed looked suspicious.

First one he dropped it cold.

Second one he got a head clash then lost the ball

The last one the pass to him wasn’t on. Yes he dropped it but Canberra had two defenders on him. Bad decision making from Metcalf.

We never looked dangerous in their red zone. Their defensive line had little trouble adjusting to our attack.. That is the biggest problem reflected by our inability to find holes throughout the game

Leka is the least of our problems

 

[VB89]

Why do people feel they need to shake the team up after gong on a 5 run streak and finally losing a close game against a good team missing 2 of our best players?

The Raiders defense was ON. Their wingers seem to jam in perfectly (Something we could learn) and shut down a couple of wide plays that could have gone in against a lesser team. They also had tabs on Metcalf not letting him get a sniff of any gaps.

I think we just chalk this up as a nice loss and move on to next week. No drastic lineup changes needed.

 

[FormerlyJamesW]

Get rid of him. Should have made 300 metres.

 

[tajhay]

I would personally like to see more decoy runs from our forwards to put them in two minds.

There were times when Luke gave a spray to Leka and Ali for just staying back, not running any lines and just expecting him to to run it up without any support. I liked seeing that. Always need options.

On Ali, did he play with a dislocated finger during the early stages of the game? Surely looked like it on tv.

The game taught the youngsters a lesson that they need to be alert at all times. Hero individual plays will come where they will get to shine, but they also need to able to be part of the team first mentality where everything has to be on point to get the win in the first place.

On Demitric i think he was too eager when he first came on. As soon as he came on he made what seemed like 4 or so tackles in a row.