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Of course, but we’re not just talking one game nowAn easy target and much more complex than just that.
That team was getting rolled no matter what in the end.
Absolutely bashed from pillar to post by the Storm forward pack, as they have done to us for a decade.
Of course, but we’re not just talking one game now
Everyone here is quite gloomy after the game which is to be expected. But I actually think Webby is right and there are positives to take out of the game. On many of the key stats we dominated. We outran the storm, both in total run metres and post contact metres, and for large chunks of the game I thought we were physically dominant. The early storm errors were caused by our physical brutality in defense.
Yes we had some bad moments- the middle 20 of the first half where we conceded 20 points was well below par. The storm were clinical, but we should have shown greater resilience in our defensive line. Granted, their first two tries were rather lucky. But their third and 4th tries exposed our edge and middle defence in a way that should worry us going forward.
Still, I thought we had wrestled the momentum back after the break. When Barney scored, we regained the physical ascendancy again and I thought we were close to winning back the lead prior to the TMM high shot call. Unfortunately the two sin binnings turned momentum back towards them in a way that we never recovered. We lost our nerve and reverted back to the uncontested kicks on the last play that were a hallmark of our 4 match losing run.
For me, SJ isn't solely to blame for many of these issues. I thought defensively our wingers played a much bigger part in the defeat. Their defensive reads and self-inflicted sin binnings cost us this game.
The ironic thing about the Montoya sin bin was he had the ball after the strip and had to give it back to them so they could run at him.Their defensive reads and self-inflicted sin binnings cost us this game.
Can we discuss DWZ’s cloak hanger of a tackle that got him sent for 10?
For all his beautiful acrobatic tries which I love, his defence and reads is still absolutely shocking.
The whole reach out with the arm and grab is another example of his inability to read a simple 2:1 defence.
Too busy worrying about getting beat on the outside then realises he’s overcompensated to instinctively reach out his arm for a shirt grab. It’s really ameturish defending.
At that moment I knew we’d lost the game.
Is the game on defence really that hard to read? Is it going too fast for him to decide the spacing whether slide vs coming in????
Also dropped a fairly straightforward catch from which the Storm scored sooner after at the start of the game.
Unfortunately these were two pivot moments that contributed to our lost.
The Storm know our wingers out wide cant defend and they exploited that weakness beautifully
‘Guessing’ is a nice way to put itThe ref was found guessing on a lot of calls early. 2 turning point calls: Pings Walker for markers not square, was an absolute guess. Walker tries to challenge and told he can't - watching it on replay Walker was right, he was 100% square. That ended our momentum in the first half.
The second was taking it back 2 plays to penalize TMM for an innocuous high shot. They simply don't do this to other teams - that is a Warriors fuckover special.
I don't disagree that these calls were rough, but we need to be better at defending our errors/ill discipline. Last year we would have survived the adversity, but this year we are folding way too easily. The fact that the resilience has dissipated this year is what is truly concerning. Refs screwing the Wahs over is nothing new and isn't changing anytime soon. This is why our discipline has to better than the rest of the comp. It's unfair but it is what it is. The lack of discipline is what killed our momentum and lost this game for us.The ref was found guessing on a lot of calls early. 2 turning point calls: Pings Walker for markers not square, was an absolute guess. Walker tries to challenge and told he can't - watching it on replay Walker was right, he was 100% square. That ended our momentum in the first half.
The second was taking it back 2 plays to penalize TMM for an innocuous high shot. They simply don't do this to other teams - that is a Warriors fuckover special.
The ref was found guessing on a lot of calls early. 2 turning point calls: Pings Walker for markers not square, was an absolute guess. Walker tries to challenge and told he can't - watching it on replay Walker was right, he was 100% square. That ended our momentum in the first half.
The second was taking it back 2 plays to penalize TMM for an innocuous high shot. They simply don't do this to other teams - that is a Warriors fuckover special.
And then on top of that, if you have a look every time we have the ball the ref allows the Storm players to be standing around the ruck getting in the way when they're not involved in the play, and a couple times we were hot on attack with fast PTB's where there's no way the Storm players had gone 10 and then come back up for defense, absolutely rubbish ref'ing, and then got the feeling as we were on their line on attack the ref had blown so many penalties and 6 agains already he was hesitant to blow any more.The Ford phantom strip as well.
The non penalty for the high shot on Egan who had blood coming out of big mouth (apparently the video ref chose not to look at that one like the Faalogo one).
The Eli Katoa not square at marker one too.
To be fair - the way we played at times you can't blame the ref solely for that loss.
But that's 5 instances that the ref has gone against us and they're not even 50/50. He blows a penalty for the Storm when we were square, and then doesn't blow it when the Storm arent square at marker. We get called back several plays for a high shot on Faalogo, and then Wade collects one in the mouth with blood and it's not given.... Just be consistent!
And that's on top of 2 poor calls the ref gave us that we overturned....