OldDogFan said:

hd , I'm not suewhat is going on wth Green and Gold but the last couple of days it wouldn't let me into the site, wth a notation to say I was basically banned. Fücked if I know why.

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ODF the site was weird at times recently, they might have been upgrading security.

I Have checked it out, the site was being invaded by bots from Russia and China. They tried to filter them out, they have improved the checks now all should be ok.

Great win Friday night we should kick on from here.

Dykes starting to look good in reserve grade.

Kiraz at fullback is working better than i expected.

Definitely need a kick on and beat the Tigers I agree hounddog Crits might be much better sitting on the bench for some reason Xerri seems to play well when he's not there I don't know what's going on there. Maybe you can enlighten us.

Zoz it think it is mainly down to Tuala playing better in the centres and the team struggling was dragging Critter's form down.

The injury to Presto meant thst we shifted Salmon to the left edge, he combined well with Burto and Xerri and our halves got earlier ball.

On the right Tuala, Kiraz and Tpups dented the line, that set up the shifts to the left.

Young and Woods being top 30 might be more about stopping other teams poaching our talented young spine players.

I would find a way to add Cocherane and Teapua to the top 30 next season, but we can't stack the entire top 30 with future stars who are not yet ready for NRL.

Young has the complete toolkit in attack, but it seems like his defence might need more work. Not surpising for a young guy stepping up to a higher grade. I thought Young played some reserve grade last season, but he also might have been injured at the start of this year.

Young and Gordon don't seem to be ready. We will have a Mann/Hayward hooker rotation for a few weeks.

Dykes seems close to ready, and with Kiraz starting we might be able to add Dykes to the NRL bench.

Cocherane might be injured, but if he isn't injured, he should be playing wing in reserve grade if Dykes is fullback.

I would like to promote Dykes to NRL asap so he doesn't block Cocherane's development.

Or fnd a way of giving Cocherane an NRL debut on the wing late in the season.

Sua and Alatini also good in reserve grade, our injury issues seem to be shifting from the backs to the forwards.

From now until the end of August many NRL sides might have injury issues, just before and after SOO is when depth is tested.

I don't think Burto and Xerri are going to be that dynamic every game.

I can see why the Storm lost 7 in a row.

The second hslf defence from Meaney was woefull, a good defender like Staggs makes a lot of those tackles.

On reflection Bellyache is right, the Storm surrendered xurpisingly weakly.

Only Hughes and Sua stopped us scoring another 3-4 trys. Hughes had a great game in a badly beaten team. Grant would have made a big difference.

But the game also showed that if we get a 50/50 share of posession, we can attack.

Aside from possibly starting Dykes at fullback, I wouldn't tinker with tne spine.

I am not sure where the Tigers are at, but tney were playing well in attack and defence earlier in the season.

We need another win, we are getting better at avoiding 6-agains and penalties and the refs are giving defence more of a chance.

No surprise that the players don't like the current rules.

They are being flogged with little return for effort,

And many of us fans also prefer defence to get a fair shot and players, not refs, to determine the outcome.

Already the pendulum is swinging back to a style that gives good defensive teams more of a shot.

Cirro is right about the last 5 weeks being a good thing for the team. Tney have had to stick together under trying situations with players playing injured or ill, media critics and some fans queuing up to put the boot in, rules that don't suit with the refs fingers heavily on the scale, no luck and strong opposition in good form more often than not.

The players and coaches have had to look hard at our game, and there was stuff we needed to fix. They have stick together, work hard and now we can see a small glimpse of light.

If i was playing in a team under those circumstances, my motivation to work hard with my team mates to stick it to the critics would be extreme.

Cirro's presser shows thst he understands this dynamic and he will use it. We have lots of critics we can prove wrong.

Great Dogs teams often tap into this motivation.

Looking at the ladder Top 3 teams will probably finish in the top 3.

Phins will probably edge Manly out of the top 4.

Dogs, Raiders and Broncos are the teams most likely to climb the ladder.

Manly, Raiders and Broncos games are key for us.

Warriors, Roosters and Panthers games are the games we are most likely to lose.

We can only afford to lose 3 more games.

I'm not 100% sold on Manly and the Raiders, both games are at home and 2 wins gives us some breathing room.

The team is better adapted to the new rules, but fewer things are under the coaches and players control. There will not be any easy games and the refs might make some games harder.

I think a change closer to last year's rules will tend to reboot last year's form.

Hounddog said:

Marki - please post an update on your game day experience. I assume you were cheering in the second half and were happy at the end.

The clanger from Kiraz, the injury to Preston and the 18-6 halftine lead even had me pessimistic at halftime.

I could see that Burto and Xerri were killing them and our forwards were starting to get on top. But we still needed to maintain our discipline and execute.

We got away with more "Bulldogs defence" in the second half than we have in previous weeks. I'm finding the winning lotto numbers easier to predict than the refs.

Against the Tigers, we have momentum, Dogs fans will turn up and my hunch is the refs may be 50/50. Crowd are going to influence the refs and the refs are going to influence the game.

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Apologies for the late reply, I tend to lurk around TK more these days.

I was glad to see the late changes with Tracey dropped, Kiraz FB, Monty on wing and Mann at starting hooker. It's almost like CC read my posts both here and TK although I had either Tuala or Kiraz as FB suggestion.

I was worried after the Kiraz stuff-up that I would have egg on my face but Kiraz redeemed himself throughout the game. Offloads and good runs on tackle 4 and 5 off Hayward were valuable for our next plays.

Mighty impressed with Xerri and Burton. Burton played one of his 1 in 6 good games, maybe the ca from Daley sparked him?

I watched a full replay again on Sunday and though many on TK suggested Galvin didn't have a great game, it was a actually pretty good. Threw some key passes, kicked quite well and played a good link role to Burton who was on fire.

All in all, I was satisfied with the team that finally took the field. I don't like the CC games where he names guys on Tue knowing full well he will play others.

I was NOT satisfied with the bunker "looking to see all available angles" on what were clear cut decisions on our challenges. Luckily we didn't burn one on stupidity.

Finally, I hope we use this game as a bit of a blueprint for future games. Hayward looked alot better coming on at hooker off the bench. Mann offers alot more running and marker engagement early on. Defends a whole lot better too.

Kiraz' 4th or 5th runs get us on the front foot on the next tackle. I don't have high hopes for getting another performance from Burton for another 5 or 6 weeks, but hopefully Galvin can run the show and continue to provide try assists.

Hounddog said:

I don't think Burto and Xerri are going to be that dynamic every game.

I can see why the Storm lost 7 in a row.

The second hslf defence from Meaney was woefull, a good defender like Staggs makes a lot of those tackles.

On reflection Bellyache is right, the Storm surrendered xurpisingly weakly.

Only Hughes and Sua stopped us scoring another 3-4 trys. Hughes had a great game in a badly beaten team. Grant would have made a big difference.

But the game also showed that if we get a 50/50 share of posession, we can attack.

Aside from possibly starting Dykes at fullback, I wouldn't tinker with tne spine.

I am not sure where the Tigers are at, but tney were playing well in attack and defence earlier in the season.

We need another win, we are getting better at avoiding 6-agains and penalties and the refs are giving defence more of a chance.

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Funnily, I think that the wet conditions suited us as Storm had to stay compressed throughout the game and our centres (Xerri, Burton and Tuala) had a field day against theirs.

It is very important to score min 5 tries a game. 4 out of 5 games last week were won by scoring exactly 30 points.

It is much easier to win games when you consistently score 5 tries a game. Even if your defence isn't great, it should still be enough.

Tigers pretty close to full strength, will be a challenge.

Critta coming of the bench good call . Good chance he may aggravate the shoulder injury during Origin : Hoping he has a good game bring the form back into the club games .
Tigers will be all out to win they need it badly like us :

NSW cup is playing before NRL.

IMO that is probably why guys like Dykes and Spinks are not on the NRL bench.

Tkey are likely to be the next guys promoted to NRL.

Baker and Gordon CKT have NRL experience and are a chance to fill in st some stage

Readon has jumped ahead of Spinks becuase he is a better defender and he can play centre and backrow.

Spinks is very dangerous in attack, Spinks and Readon are fast backrowers with the ability to score long range trys. Especially Spinks.

IMO Tracey being named on the bench is a placeholder.

If we are behind in the last 20 and the team needs a lift, we might throw Critter on.

This season, teams have a knack of getting key players back from injury just in time to play us.

There is unfinished business between Galvin and the Tigers, they singled him out for special attention last year. I think Galvin circled this game on the calender and is aiming for a big game.

Tigers were good at the start of the season, i expect a similar performance, but i also expect a lot of energy and intensity from us.

We need to win, i'm optimistic, but not complacent, and the game might go down to the wire.

Dykes seems to add more at fullback the Tracey or Kiraz.

Speed, footwork, passing ability, game instincts.

The NSW cup highlights from last week ahowed what he can do.

A few weeks earlier he seemed to be lacking fitness and was slow to scamble in defence.

If he can repeat that kind of form for the next 2 weeks in reserve grade and there are no obvious issues woth his game, I would try him at NRL fullback after the bye.

He might be able to transition our side into a team with a definate shot at winning the comp.

That means Xerri, Critter, Kiraz, Tuala, Tracey, Rinakama, Montoya and Sua are fighting for 4 backline positions and at full strength the last 4 guys probably miss out.

We need to beat the Tigers and Eels to set up this scenario, but regardless fullback is a big opportunity to improve our side and Dykes might be what we need.

Forwards wise AJ is suspended for 2 weeks, DSF has taken up sn immediate opportunity in the UK, Hughes, Presto and Kiks are injured.

Inspite of that, reckon Readon will get more minutes against the Tigers, Hopoi or Curran can do a job in the remaining bench forward spot.

Hopoi probably deserves an opportunity to show what he can do.

Latu is back starting in NSW cup and is a chance of playing some NRL later in the season.

With Presto out, Spinks will never get a better opportunity to force his way into the NRL side. Fans will be impressed if Spinks starts scoring trys in the NRL.

So as per the backs, we might have a log jamb in the forwards before the end of tne season.

Hooker is the one spot where we are lacking depth, Hayward staying on the park is vital and we need another quaility option.

If we improve fullback and we still don't win the comp, hooker is the position that may cost us. If we had a Hayward clone so 2 x Hayward, we would be fine. Mann starting is a good compromise.

Forget what I posted above NSW cup is on Sunday.

I still think Dykes and Spinks must be close to NRL selection.

I'll be very surprised if Tracey plays against the Tigers and even more surprised if he plays badly.

Montoya was more like the 2025 Montoya against the Storm and did well to pick a low pass from Tuala and almost score.

Against tne Tigers. we need our second half form against the Storm for at least the first 70 mins.

There was a slice of luck in the first 2 Storm trys and we could have scored another first half try.

12-12 was a better indication of the first half.

Tigers are a step up from that version of the Storm, but we should start out more confident.

NSW need to lift their game, spine isn't combining, attack was ordinary, 1 out running.

Mistakes coming from sluggish attack.

Critter not having a great game, but not getting many opportunities.

Anyway 40 mins to go.

Strange game of footy, not sure I agree with the send off.

Good experience in the end for Critter and Burto.

Daley must have been the only person in Australia who thought that SOO wouldn't be ref'ed differently.

To be fair I was also fooled.

If they ref NRL like that, both teams will play like NSW did in the first 20 mins.

SOO had too much rubbish at the ruck, except for the fact that NSW was playing club rules.

Surely there us a happy medium were SOO is similar to club games?

Combine that with a send off which should have been 10 in the bin, and the refs was the main talking point.

No idea what to expect in club games now, probably more like weeks 11 and 12?

I'll be surpised if I ever see a season where all games are ref'ed the same way