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

[John Nick]

No need for an over-reaction here. It's never fun to lose but at least we are only losing to other top 4 teams. If anything, this game proved that we are at the level of a top 4 side and our current positioning isn't a fluke. But as others have pointed out, our defense is top 4 level but our attack is not. Raiders clearly came with a plan to stop LM in his tracks and were rushing him from blatantly offside positions. We need to develop a plan B as the increased spotlight on him will mean other sides in coming weeks will also try to shut down his running game.

Regarding that, I don't think we are making the best use of Marata and Leka. We have two of the most damaging backrowers in the game in Leka and Marata when they are isolating defenders on one-on-one situations. Webby's use of Leka in recent weeks particularly puzzles me. I understood starting him for the Broncos game given our injury situation for that game. But persisting with him starting and playing him 80 since then means he's gone away from being an impact wrecking ball off the bench and turned into another workman. We have enough of those in our pack. Running 100+ meters per game and making 32 tackles with a 90% tackle efficiency is what I want from Barney and Erin, not Leka. Leka is a game changer and has single handedly won us games this year (ie tigers).

As for Marata, I understand playing him in the middle for this game. But when we have a choice, he has to play on the edge. He is a lethal attacking weapon on the edge and halves are sweating bullets every time he gets the ball. He almost got us to golden pt yesterday if it wasn't for some great Canberra defense. If we had done more of that instead of trying to constantly run around Canberra, which was our mistake in Vegas, the result could have been so different yesterday.

My point also & why not try the unders play for Marata /Leka/Capes coming back against the grain .Wet surface & attacking the inside shoulder could have got results.

 

[Noitall]

Raiders controlled the ruck for most of the game and the speed they generated made them big metres each set. Reminded me of round 1 in the sense halves couldn’t establish themselves because our forwards couldn’t lay a platform. This time we couldn’t lay a platform because down on troops in the front row whereas round 1 we just didn’t lay a platform full stop

 

[Dippa]

The Raiders do a good job of frustrating the Warriors. You can see the plan is to get under the skin of the Warriors by bullying and using aggressive tactics to throw us off our game. I reckon it worked to a certain level and started to play in the players' minds. Couple that with some steely goal-line defence from the Raiders, and you could see that it threw us off.

The attack is a concern and is something that we will need to address pretty quickly. At the end of the match, when we had all that possession, there was a lack of confidence, but that could also be varying factors, including the weather, which wouldn't have made it easy. It is easy to criticise, but I'm sure there was hesitancy to throw the ball around and try trick plays, which in rainy conditions is high risk. You go back to the Cowboys match at Magic Round when the conditions were similar. The Cowboys' attack looked clunky with that possession at the end.

For me, it's a loss that was on the cards, but it showed that we are still up for the fight despite not being perfect. Let's factor in that the 2025 Warriors side wasn't a talking point. It was a reset year and a rebuild towards future success. Everything from here was not meant to happen, so we take that and march on.

Why should we even worry about the media and what people say about our poor attack etc. We weren't even in the equation, remember!

This is a good loss for me because it delivered a tough encounter, and it shows that our next man up mentality is real. The guys that are being put in are ready to work, even if they lack the polish.

Tough game in tough conditions, they didn't give up. Thorough review, reset, regroup, no major injuries, get the main engine room back and go again against a Bunnies side which is coming together.

I think we will see a JFH and Niukore front row, with Mitch Barnett coming off the bench with fewer minutes. If Mitch comes through the match relatively good, then I think we still play him and we can't afford to play the rest game with a tough period coming up. We need to grab at least 1 win at least from the next 2 - Bunnies and Sharks.

 

[sydneywarrior92]

The Raiders do a good job of frustrating the Warriors. You can see the plan is to get under the skin of the Warriors by bullying and using aggressive tactics to throw us off our game. I reckon it worked to a certain level and started to play in the players' minds. Couple that with some steely goal-line defence from the Raiders, and you could see that it threw us off.

The attack is a concern and is something that we will need to address pretty quickly. At the end of the match, when we had all that possession, there was a lack of confidence, but that could also be varying factors, including the weather, which wouldn't have made it easy. It is easy to criticise, but I'm sure there was hesitancy to throw the ball around and try trick plays, which in rainy conditions is high risk. You go back to the Cowboys match at Magic Round when the conditions were similar. The Cowboys' attack looked clunky with that possession at the end.

For me, it's a loss that was on the cards, but it showed that we are still up for the fight despite not being perfect. Let's factor in that the 2025 Warriors side wasn't a talking point. It was a reset year and a rebuild towards future success. Everything from here was not meant to happen, so we take that and march on.

Why should we even worry about the media and what people say about our poor attack etc. We weren't even in the equation, remember!

This is a good loss for me because it delivered a tough encounter, and it shows that our next man up mentality is real. The guys that are being put in are ready to work, even if they lack the polish.

Tough game in tough conditions, they didn't give up. Thorough review, reset, regroup, no major injuries, get the main engine room back and go again against a Bunnies side which is coming together.

I think we will see a JFH and Niukore front row, with Mitch Barnett coming off the bench with fewer minutes. If Mitch comes through the match relatively good, then I think we still play him and we can't afford to play the rest game with a tough period coming up. We need to grab at least 1 win at least from the next 2 - Bunnies and Sharks.

absolutely agree. Haters might use this game to say that we can't beat a genuine top 4 side and that we are pretenders. But I think the exact opposite- it shows that only genuine top 4 sides can beat us this year because we've beaten everyone else. Not sure about Niukore in the front row if we have a choice though. He is so damaging for us on the edge. Leka + Niukore is probably close to the most damaging back row pairing in the comp.

 

[RiceOwl]

I haven’t had the chance to go back through the threads to get the general thoughts so will do so shortly. I was at the game and thought if share my thoughts:
- It was definitely a winnable game for us so I’m disappointed to drop that one. The key period was the Raiders scoring while down to 12 men and levelling up before the half. If we had gone in at 8-0 up I would’ve felt confident we close that out as it would’ve forced them to play risky in the wet in the second stanza. Instead they came out with tails up.
- I have heard Webby say it’s good to learn while they are winning, but I think all of the young guys will need to take a lot of learnings from that loss. I see Lekas name brought up a lot in the thread, but Demi and Ali also either had key errors at pivotal times or in Ali’s instance not much impact at all.
- Metcalf is our man. I was really impressed with his D last night actually. Made some tough stops. Yes, he has been improving in his game seemingly week to week, but geez our attack needs some serious work. It’s not solely on him I must admit, as he needs to have options and players moving off the ball, but it needs to improve a lot of we are genuine at giving this a shot.
- Tapine. I hated him last night, but if I take my wah goggles off, he is a hell of player. He was the difference imo last night. If Fish hadn’t of been suspended I think we would’ve got over them. Tbh i was (and more so now after the loss) in Fish for his suspension from last week. Got carried away with his aggression which led to the loose shot that he got suspended for. We just didn’t have the leadership out there.
- Ford. That guy is all heart. Man what an engine.
- Clark. Jazz enjoyed talking up the garbage dog persona, but this fella is that and more. Does the grunt work and takes no step backwards. Mean.

Nervy couple of weeks coming up tbh gang.

Onward and upward.

 

[Matiunz]

anyone know why the grubber on the 5th is dead? nobody seems to do it anymore. But we could have benefitted from some variation on attack

Thinks it’s a low percentage play now with a 50/50 play (wether the ball goes dead or not) followed by a 50/50 chance of getting the ball back off the dropout.
Noticed a lot more teams running on the 5th happy to turn the ball over and defend teams running it out from their try line

 

[Get them onside ref!]

The Raiders do a good job of frustrating the Warriors. You can see the plan is to get under the skin of the Warriors by bullying and using aggressive tactics to throw us off our game. I reckon it worked to a certain level and started to play in the players' minds. Couple that with some steely goal-line defence from the Raiders, and you could see that it threw us off.

The attack is a concern and is something that we will need to address pretty quickly. At the end of the match, when we had all that possession, there was a lack of confidence, but that could also be varying factors, including the weather, which wouldn't have made it easy. It is easy to criticise, but I'm sure there was hesitancy to throw the ball around and try trick plays, which in rainy conditions is high risk. You go back to the Cowboys match at Magic Round when the conditions were similar. The Cowboys' attack looked clunky with that possession at the end.

For me, it's a loss that was on the cards, but it showed that we are still up for the fight despite not being perfect. Let's factor in that the 2025 Warriors side wasn't a talking point. It was a reset year and a rebuild towards future success. Everything from here was not meant to happen, so we take that and march on.

Why should we even worry about the media and what people say about our poor attack etc. We weren't even in the equation, remember!

This is a good loss for me because it delivered a tough encounter, and it shows that our next man up mentality is real. The guys that are being put in are ready to work, even if they lack the polish.

Tough game in tough conditions, they didn't give up. Thorough review, reset, regroup, no major injuries, get the main engine room back and go again against a Bunnies side which is coming together.

I think we will see a JFH and Niukore front row, with Mitch Barnett coming off the bench with fewer minutes. If Mitch comes through the match relatively good, then I think we still play him and we can't afford to play the rest game with a tough period coming up. We need to grab at least 1 win at least from the next 2 - Bunnies and Sharks.

Poor attack won’t win you this comp my friend
CHT offered nothing but bombs all night which were punt and hope
He never looked like having a go
Egan getting slower by the day
Healey would have been more active
Metcalf tried but other halves failed
Charnze RTS ERIN and capes worked their arses off
For their playmakers who didnt
We’ve said it before
Who is the attack coach?
None of this crap it’s a loss move on
We’ve been saying this for 30 years
Win win win only
No one remembers who comes second

absolutely agree. Haters might use this game to say that we can't beat a genuine top 4 side and that we are pretenders. But I think the exact opposite- it shows that only genuine top 4 sides can beat us this year because we've beaten everyone else. Not sure about Niukore in the front row if we have a choice though. He is so damaging for us on the edge. Leka + Niukore is probably close to the most damaging back row pairing in the comp.

 

[Noitall]

Pretty good going really when you consider all it really showed is we’re one try away from having the depth to fill our starting front rowers and genuine leaders in the team. Hudson Young is no doubt a loss for them, Nicholson too but they’re not like for like losses to the respective teams in that consideration. Half way, so if we can quickly get back into the winners circle, things look good but I’m hugely impressed to be so close to this sort of opposition considering the outs. Don’t want to be red lining yet, but figuring out some combinations now and just getting our strongest backline back together will take a couple of weeks to gel. Webster said in the press conference that Berry comes back soon, so obviously considered to be in the strongest team they can field. For who we’ll find out? Think Webster is still finding his strongest lineup with who’s available, but highlighted young guys are there abouts, but consistency takes time, especially against quality opposition. I think I like Niukore on right edge starting and Halasima off the bench for him. Niukore to soften them up and Halasima with speed and tackle breaks when they’re tiring

 

[sydneywarrior92]

I haven’t had the chance to go back through the threads to get the general thoughts so will do so shortly. I was at the game and thought if share my thoughts:
- It was definitely a winnable game for us so I’m disappointed to drop that one. The key period was the Raiders scoring while down to 12 men and levelling up before the half. If we had gone in at 8-0 up I would’ve felt confident we close that out as it would’ve forced them to play risky in the wet in the second stanza. Instead they came out with tails up.
- I have heard Webby say it’s good to learn while they are winning, but I think all of the young guys will need to take a lot of learnings from that loss. I see Lekas name brought up a lot in the thread, but Demi and Ali also either had key errors at pivotal times or in Ali’s instance not much impact at all.
- Metcalf is our man. I was really impressed with his D last night actually. Made some tough stops. Yes, he has been improving in his game seemingly week to week, but geez our attack needs some serious work. It’s not solely on him I must admit, as he needs to have options and players moving off the ball, but it needs to improve a lot of we are genuine at giving this a shot.
- Tapine. I hated him last night, but if I take my wah goggles off, he is a hell of player. He was the difference imo last night. If Fish hadn’t of been suspended I think we would’ve got over them. Tbh i was (and more so now after the loss) in Fish for his suspension from last week. Got carried away with his aggression which led to the loose shot that he got suspended for. We just didn’t have the leadership out there.
- Ford. That guy is all heart. Man what an engine.
- Clark. Jazz enjoyed talking up the garbage dog persona, but this fella is that and more. Does the grunt work and takes no step backwards. Mean.

Nervy couple of weeks coming up tbh gang.

Onward and upward.

Jazz was all talk and no action. Trading Erin for Jazz clearly in the running for trade of the century. Manly realizing now why we were happy to let him go.

 

[Cces]

The Raiders are probably the last forward pack you want to play in the wet when you're without your 2 Captains/Starting Props so I gave the performance a B.
Some awfully understrength propping combos in the comp this weekend but Bunty & Niukore wouldn't have been in the top 6 strongest out of the 10 teams who played. Laban's minutes were solely as a middle too which reinforces how low we were on troops.
A commendable effort.
Going forward if Niukore & Ford are certainties as 2 of our bench forwards then the third forward needs a point of difference and Vaimauga now has Ale & TSS putting real pressure on

 

[MrFrankWhite]

I thought that TMM looked to take control of the team when they had Metcalf, CHT and TMM on the field.
Metcalf is still looking to make a break himself rather than looking to his outsides

TMM did nothing in a game where LM was average.

 

[MrFrankWhite]

Hope we meet them in the finals and bury them..

Raiders hang on for gutsy win after skipper ruthlessly mocks Warriors star before sin bin drama

Raiders hang on for gutsy win after skipper ruthlessly mocks Warriors star before sin bin drama

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[FormerlyJamesW]

TMM did nothing in a game where LM was average.

Once more, for those in the back, please.

 

[Tohu’s_Knees]

Our forwards did bloody well.
Before the game I was of the opinion that the Raiders forward pack is the only one in the league that is outright better than ours. Man for man. That opinion still stands.

When the Raiders were defending it looked like they were more impactful and hurting our guys to an extent. Especially that 3rd man in.

If JFH and Barnett played. I think the Raiders forward pack start Papa. He’s the one who actually turned it for them off the bench. Tapine was having a bit of a mere in his first stint. Plus Hudson Young is a fairly big in for them. Sasagi was brilliant on defence for them.

I been of the opinion for ages that DWZ is more trouble than he’s worth.

Ali seriously needs to get his output up.

I was hoping our left edge would be able
To exploit Savage and Timoko and we went down there a fair bit. And scored. But to the Raider credit they defended well.

I feel we will be just as tired as they are after that battle.

 

[Tookey 2.0]

Our defence is a huge improvement on last year.

Now need to get our attack sorted. I can kind of forgive some of the early season with the changes in personnel. Hopefully with the two main wingers back and Leiataua we can get some stability.

The really good thing for us, is looking back at 2023 we didn't start to click until Rd 13, previous to that we had only had one game over 30 points.

So there's still plenty of time left. We don't need to score 30 points every game but I'd love to see some improvements in the next few games, and put a score or two on one the next 4 or 5 games.

The way I see it, our defence is probably top 3, if we can get our attack somewhere towards top 6 or 8 we're going to be mighty hard to beat

 

[Dannevegas]

Agree about LM but his D was great I thought.Dont know why we didnt go to unders plays against the grain a la what Curran use to run .
Attacking the inside shoulder on a slippery surface can be fruitful.
Overall looking at other results at least we didnt get our pants pulled down .Team never stopped trying & give me the impression they are happy camp & working hard for each other. No the result we wanted but far from disheartening

Ye we were going side to side a bit too much with no effect. Hopefully that wasn’t the game plan, as we were never getting around their o backs

 

[FormerlyJamesW]

The really good thing for us, is looking back at 2023 we didn't start to click until Rd 13, previous to that we had only had one game over 30 points.

This is why the post presser was good. Webby full acknowledged that the boys looked incrediably confused on attack and were out of position alot of the time.

Practice and Captains will fix this.

 

[defensivebomb]

I went to the game and I thought we looked the better team in the last 30 mins

We were a bit unlucky not to take the scalp, but equally, we have jagged a few similar wins

 

[Muddogz]

It was a good tough game, the Raiders were up for it and it was a physical game. They did a good job of slowing our ruck ball and their line speed and tackling was excellent.

We defended generally well and kept plugging away, though with Egan effectively nullified by the slow ruck ball struggled on attack.

You learn more from a loss than a win and we were due a loss. Nice reality check going into a tough couple away games against Souths and Sharks

 

[CWC]

I thought Halasima looked a bit tired. He made meters, and completed most of his tackles but seemed ineffective attack wise. I wish we knew how to get him 1 on 1 or even 2 on 1 against the opposition. He always does it tough with 3/4 players on him most of the time. I'd like him to come off the bench next week - Leka, Demi, Ford and let him focus on impact and making a difference in shirt bursts. Felt like he was trying to make something from nothing all the time (probably because our attack was so average).