Offical Rugby League Thread

[Burgey]

Jeez there’s been some seriously important injuries out of this weekend.

 

[Coronis]

Jeez there’s been some seriously important injuries out of this weekend.

Speaking of injuries, since To’o is coming back next week, seems pretty sad for Alamoti to not be playing. Both him and Laurie have been excellent, but neither can seem to find a spot in the side.

 

[Shady Slim]

Has a team ever shot itself in the foot mid-season more spectacularly than the Dogs?

And now, instead of having a rest, they now go into the finals with none of the momentum they were looking to take out of this match.

blaming galvin is absolutely low battery thinking here because it's not that, and i can say this authoritatively because i thought galvin coming would absolutely kill our season dead and didn't want a bar of him. let us not forget that every man and his dog in the media were whacking the dogs early doors for how you can't win a comp with toby ***ton as your halfback, and now we've hit some rough seas and it's oh poor toby. if you gave galvin two games against the titans, two games against the eels, two games against souths and a game against the knights, and you gave ***ton the roosters, storm, and sharks in august things would have turned out similar. put another way, we had a pancake draw to start the year

big issue here is ciraldo. ciraldo is an excellent defensive coach and the boys clearly love to play for him and rightly so. without him i think we'd be solidly seventh or eighth and with a much worse defence. but he's a handbrake too with his coaching decisions. we pummeled the sea eagles by 40 odd when we had connor tracey at fullback and our spine humming, galvin in and all. then tracey got hurt and critta moved to fullback and he looked good there as well, so ciraldo has decided to keep using critta there in the attacking zone and put tracey at critta's centre. this ****s us for several reasons here. firstly, all of our attacking structure is zwango'd because we have to swap them. secondly, tracey is not a run threat at centre, so teams when seeing this coming know all tracey is gonna do is pass, and so they number up man to man. secondly, critta, who is the best run threat in the league one on one with a centre, is now against a centre and a second rower, and so can't bulldoze his way over. every time we try this shift we get locked down and we waste play after play doing it. it means further that we never involve the fullback when we go left, because we have tracey stuck in this stupid right centre position.

eh

there's also the whole jaeman salmon at 13 thing who just sort of sucks, we look so much better with mann on the field but the first twenty minutes of a game we have no attack. salmon tries as hard as he can but he's just not it. in that regard, having mann and hayward at lock with reed starting at hooker would be the better play

but it's a low battery fox league driven narrative that galvin's the problem here

 

[Coronis]

Hynes gonna face a suspension for Week 1 likely.

 

[Shady Slim]

blaming galvin is absolutely low battery thinking here because it's not that, and i can say this authoritatively because i thought galvin coming would absolutely kill our season dead and didn't want a bar of him. let us not forget that every man and his dog in the media were whacking the dogs early doors for how you can't win a comp with toby ***ton as your halfback, and now we've hit some rough seas and it's oh poor toby. if you gave galvin two games against the titans, two games against the eels, two games against souths and a game against the knights, and you gave ***ton the roosters, storm, and sharks in august things would have turned out similar. put another way, we had a pancake draw to start the year

big issue here is ciraldo. ciraldo is an excellent defensive coach and the boys clearly love to play for him and rightly so. without him i think we'd be solidly seventh or eighth and with a much worse defence. but he's a handbrake too with his coaching decisions. we pummeled the sea eagles by 40 odd when we had connor tracey at fullback and our spine humming, galvin in and all. then tracey got hurt and critta moved to fullback and he looked good there as well, so ciraldo has decided to keep using critta there in the attacking zone and put tracey at critta's centre. this ****s us for several reasons here. firstly, all of our attacking structure is zwango'd because we have to swap them. secondly, tracey is not a run threat at centre, so teams when seeing this coming know all tracey is gonna do is pass, and so they number up man to man. secondly, critta, who is the best run threat in the league one on one with a centre, is now against a centre and a second rower, and so can't bulldoze his way over. every time we try this shift we get locked down and we waste play after play doing it. it means further that we never involve the fullback when we go left, because we have tracey stuck in this stupid right centre position.

eh

there's also the whole jaeman salmon at 13 thing who just sort of sucks, we look so much better with mann on the field but the first twenty minutes of a game we have no attack. salmon tries as hard as he can but he's just not it. in that regard, having mann and hayward at lock with reed starting at hooker would be the better play

but it's a low battery fox league driven narrative that galvin's the problem here

so for example, against panther the first time, ciraldo decides to swap kiraz and montoya, breaking up the best centre-wing combo in the league (critta kiraz), so as to put kiraz on the shorter to'o, because apparently in the four years straight the panthers have won the comp, nobody until now realised that to'o was shorter than your average winger except coach genius. unsurprisingly, not only does to'o handle himself (casey mclean also did a great job walling off kiraz tbh), montoya was out of position on a right shift that could have won us the game, because it's not his natural wing. then come the second game against rooster, ciraldo decides to again swap kiraz on to the right to mark nawaqanitawase. predictably, with the much taller daniel tupou now on enari tuala instead of kiraz, poor tuala has his lunch eaten and tupou bags a hatty.

it's almost as if ciraldo reckons he needs to pull a shifty wizard trick every big game but it's just too inside baseball. so when we beat raider, we hucked it to critta over and over again and let him cook their shonky defence on the edge. likewise when we beat rooster, it was a sloppy game, we won it by forcing a heap of errors and knocking the door down. it also doesn't help that we've become the most penalised team in the comp, another thing which has to fall on the coach and not galvin, and which you can't get away with against good teams

 

[Burgey]

The other major issue for the Mange is the sides at the top end are going straight at and through their middle. Their mobility is a strength but they’re probably a dominant prop shy of having a hand on the trophy given how the other good sides are falling over.

You need a Paulo/ Tapane/ Papaali’i type of bopper there to round out your pack. It’s starting to make a big difference imo. Even a Collins-sized prop would be a significant upgrade on their current pack. Look how massively the Warriors have missed Barnett, and they have a lot better middle forward depth than the Dogs

Honestly, I think whoever loses that Melbourne-Dogs game is going out in straight sets. Just too many important injuries for both teams

 

[ripper868]

Are these blowouts due to injuries/resting for finals/testing young kids? Been a while since I've seen score of 60+ on the board.

 

[Shady Slim]

The other major issue for the Mange is the sides at the top end are going straight at and through their middle. Their mobility is a strength but they’re probably a dominant prop shy of having a hand on the trophy given how the other good sides are falling over.

You need a Paulo/ Tapane/ Papaali’i type of bopper there to round out your pack. It’s starting to make a big difference imo. Even a Collins-sized prop would be a significant upgrade on their current pack. Look how massively the Warriors have missed Barnett, and they have a lot better middle forward depth than the Dogs

Honestly, I think whoever loses that Melbourne-Dogs game is going out in straight sets. Just too many important injuries for both teams

i agree to some extent - and bringing in leo thompson next year should help too - but this is on ciraldo too. ciraldo chooses to start jaeman salmon, and carry both kurt mann and a hooker on the bench - both smalls. if we had mahoney back at hooker, mann starting at lock and hayward on the bench, we could have a third forward on the bench to beef the pack up. it was a bit harsh of me earlier to say that salmon sucks, he isn't that bad - imho he's just the third banana between him, mann, and hayward here.

so even if we bring in thompson next year it won't help anything if ciraldumb insists on carrying two smalls on the bench

 

[Burgey]

Are these blowouts due to injuries/resting for finals/testing young kids? Been a while since I've seen score of 60+ on the board.

Yeah a few sides resting players and some significant injuries too. Though the second game today was just Newcastle being ****ing horrendous tbh. Their points differential being 100 worse than the next team says it all.

 

[Son Of Coco]

blaming galvin is absolutely low battery thinking here because it's not that, and i can say this authoritatively because i thought galvin coming would absolutely kill our season dead and didn't want a bar of him. let us not forget that every man and his dog in the media were whacking the dogs early doors for how you can't win a comp with toby ***ton as your halfback, and now we've hit some rough seas and it's oh poor toby. if you gave galvin two games against the titans, two games against the eels, two games against souths and a game against the knights, and you gave ***ton the roosters, storm, and sharks in august things would have turned out similar. put another way, we had a pancake draw to start the year

big issue here is ciraldo. ciraldo is an excellent defensive coach and the boys clearly love to play for him and rightly so. without him i think we'd be solidly seventh or eighth and with a much worse defence. but he's a handbrake too with his coaching decisions. we pummeled the sea eagles by 40 odd when we had connor tracey at fullback and our spine humming, galvin in and all. then tracey got hurt and critta moved to fullback and he looked good there as well, so ciraldo has decided to keep using critta there in the attacking zone and put tracey at critta's centre. this ****s us for several reasons here. firstly, all of our attacking structure is zwango'd because we have to swap them. secondly, tracey is not a run threat at centre, so teams when seeing this coming know all tracey is gonna do is pass, and so they number up man to man. secondly, critta, who is the best run threat in the league one on one with a centre, is now against a centre and a second rower, and so can't bulldoze his way over. every time we try this shift we get locked down and we waste play after play doing it. it means further that we never involve the fullback when we go left, because we have tracey stuck in this stupid right centre position.

eh

there's also the whole jaeman salmon at 13 thing who just sort of sucks, we look so much better with mann on the field but the first twenty minutes of a game we have no attack. salmon tries as hard as he can but he's just not it. in that regard, having mann and hayward at lock with reed starting at hooker would be the better play

but it's a low battery fox league driven narrative that galvin's the problem here

Sure, but there's no way you dump a bloke who's helped the team to the top of the table without putting a few noses out of joint. Even if everyone is smiling and playing along.

Galvin looked rushed the other night. I get that it's not all his fault as they were being dominated across the park, and he's a good player, but if you can do what they did mid-season and have everyone in the team all good with it, then they've replaced all of the humans that were there with robots.

Mind you, maybe Ciraldo and Gould thought they were lacking in a few areas (with ***ton being one of those areas) to make it all the way this year and getting Galvin in was a key part of the puzzle for next year and beyond. I mean, this is Captain Obvious-level thought.

It'll look like a bad fade out this year, but maybe next year will be that huge step forward for them. It's rare for a coach to get the leeway to build over a few seasons nowadays, so maybe that's why some of the decisions seem a bit strange. In hindsight they might be genius.

 

[Shady Slim]

Sure, but there's no way you dump a bloke who's helped the team to the top of the table without putting a few noses out of joint. Even if everyone is smiling and playing along.

Galvin looked rushed the other night. I get that it's not all his fault as they were being dominated across the park, and he's a good player, but if you can do what they did mid-season and have everyone in the team all good with it, then they've replaced all of the humans that were there with robots.

Mind you, maybe Ciraldo and Gould thought they were lacking in a few areas (with ***ton being one of those areas) to make it all the way this year and getting Galvin in was a key part of the puzzle for next year and beyond. I mean, this is Captain Obvious-level thought.

It'll look like a bad fade out this year, but maybe next year will be that huge step forward for them. It's rare for a coach to get the leeway to build over a few seasons nowadays, so maybe that's why some of the decisions seem a bit strange. In hindsight they might be genius.

honestly this was one of the things i was really worried about but i just don't think it's happened - the way the group got around him in his parra debut said a lot to me on that front, and, likewise, when we got our **** kicked in by tiger, watching him and luai have a chat after the game got me thinking same

 

[Coronis]

Yeah a few sides resting players and some significant injuries too. Though the second game today was just Newcastle being ****ing horrendous tbh. Their points differential being 100 worse than the next team says it all.

That Newcastle game was pathetic tbh. At least Eels fans have something to celebrate.

Some stats for the season

Dolphins scoring 724 points puts them 8th on the all time list

Isaako with 278 points puts him just outside the top 10 for all time points, and his 117 goals ties him for 7th in all time goals

 

[Burgey]

Dolphins such a weird outfit. Impossible to defend against when they're on song, but equally inept on their day too.

Yeah some decent signs for Parra for next year for sure. The spine is looking very decent, subject to Papaali'i making a go of it at six.

Nice day for the club yesterday too, with Brad Takarangi's daughter making her NRLW dayboo, and the third generation of her family to play first grade for the club. Always liked Brad as a player. Rarely let you down, and versatile with it. His old man also played for Parra in 87.

 

[social]

Some achievement for the Knights to snatch the wooden spoon from the Titans

 

[Coronis]

Dolphins such a weird outfit. Impossible to defend against when they're on song, but equally inept on their day too.

Yeah some decent signs for Parra for next year for sure. The spine is looking very decent, subject to Papaali'i making a go of it at six.

Nice day for the club yesterday too, with Brad Takarangi's daughter making her NRLW dayboo, and the third generation of her family to play first grade for the club. Always liked Brad as a player. Rarely let you down, and versatile with it. His old man also played for Parra in 87.

Yeah very mercurial atm the Dolphins. Eels definitely have the capability to be a finals contender if Moses can stay healthy. He only played what, 13 games this year? Dunno the record with and without him but I’m sure there’d be an informative pattern