Round 1: North Queensland Cowboys vs Gold Coast Titans

[Nick]

9 kicks..God they were bad. that was in all honestly one of the worst team performances I have ever seen in a sport.

Looking forward to next weeks game, the raiders looked good last night. It will be a proper test for us at least.

[shamus]

And what about our response to a bomb ... gee, I nearly **** myself everytime the Cows even looked like kicking.

The bomb causes all teams problems especially when it's contested, its just part of the game.

As for our kicks to the outside men, they could have been alot better

I can never understand why defenders don't turn around on a bomb and contest the ball themselves rather than leave it to the fullback/winger or whoever is left there to take the bomb. Worst they can do is knock it backwards, hopefully into the arms of a teammate.

OK, that's the second worst thing they can do. I realise what the worst thing is but no different than knocking on...

[Ryan]

Geez I'm looking forward to Gordon coming back.
The first try to Idris off a Prince grubber...everyone knew the kick was on except Michael's
In the mean time, where's Phil Graham?

Watch the replay mate, both Micheals & Idris beat Bowen to that ball - Idris only took the ball 0.5secs quicker than Micheals and only because he has a 2m reach advantage over him. Micheals would have easily taken that try if Idris didn't. Rankin kicked a few grubbers that went dead, Micheals was the first on the scene on most (if not all) those occasions. The Bombs (when contested) weren't pretty, but then again how often are they? Still, Micheals was in there when it counted and scored from it. He also got through the night with zero errors, penalties or missed tackles, and contributed 74m in runs. Micheals is one of those players who draws criticism whether he deserves or not - as for Saturday he had a great game, ffs give credit where credit is due.

After watching the game Saturday and reading the following 6 pages of posts in this thread, I decided to with hold my post until watching the game a second time:

Prince: The majority of his kicking was rubbish, and any criticism to that is fair enough. But those who are rubbishing the rest of his game should watch it again. He was running right up to the line more often than not, he covered almost every angle of attack as far as variety goes - cross field kicks, grubber kicks, dummy runs, spreading the ball to the edges, shortballs to hard running forwards. All said and done he finished the game with a try assist, line break and offload. Could have been better, but not too bad considering the best halfback in the world couldn't even catch the ball let alone put it to foot...

Youngsters: Kayne Lawton, Matt Srama, Dominique Peyroux, Ben Ridge & Jordan Rankin
Our club & coach silenced a few more long standing critics about buying players instead of growing them. These guys were impressive and showed that they are capable of keeping us in the top quarter of the ladder this year.

Defense: As embarrassing as the Cowboys error rate was, they had quite a few good cracks and repeat sets on our tryline throughout the night. Not only did our structured defense hold up, but our boys also scrambled well enough to keep out the likes of Bowen, Thurston & Ray Thompson (who were looking very dangerous) in broken play. The first team in 9yrs to keep the Cowboys scoreless at home.

Attack: Again, the Cowboys error rate may have been horrendous, but their defense was quite good. While our attack lacked fluency, it did have variety and depth. The ball was spread side to side multiple times through the night will Zillman looking quite good in third receiver. Peyroux was criticized for not passing on to Mead, but after watching the replay you'll find the Cowboys lateral defense was quite good and had Mead covered by the time Peyroux got the ball. Had he of passed it to Mead, he would have been taken into touch on most occasions. The base structure looks good, once the timing and speed of the movement improves with time I think our 1,6,7 & 9, will be quite formidable and our edge runners should get alot better ball than they did last night.

Kicking: Attacking kicks were piss poor all night, from Prince AND Rankin. Both had grubbers that kept going dead and bombs that went either too deep or too shallow in relation to the tryline. Rankin was clearly a better kicker for territory though, which will take plenty of pressure off Prince throughout the season. At the end of the night we still got two tries from kicks and while the grubbers went dead for the majority, they did manage to poke them through the line and in the right direction. It is only round one and the conditions were difficult for handling, so with a few more rounds under their belt I think both our halves will be able to bring the kicking up to scratch.

Forwards: As expected, our guys stormed up the middle and hammered the edges on the tryline. I think the Mini\Douglas argument was proven irrelevant. Douglas, Myles, White, Bailey, Harrison, Lawton & Srama absolutely dominated the middle of the field while Mini, Bird & Ridge shared minutes on the edges. Harrison was the only one to play the full 80min, and Douglas, White & Srama coming off the bench made sure our domination up the middle was maintained. People also criticized White performance, but its gonna be hard for any forward to stand out when they are sharing minutes with guys like Bailey, Myles & Douglas. White only got half the receives that those guys got but still made a respectable 80m in 35mins, I think he done what was asked of him.

Negatives: Kicking, Bomb diffusing, Speed & fluency in ball movements to the edges, timing of passing & decoy runners in the lateral movements. We did only beat a bumbling side made alot of unforced errors.

Positives: All of the negatives above can be weeded out with match time and stability in the lineup (those who are already calling for changes can have a nice big cup of STFU!).
Our big money recruits are already paying dividends, and our home grown youngsters are also stepping up to the challenge. Credit needs to go to Carty and Searle for this - they copped alot over the last year about player retention and younger players getting a go. They planned and executed a recruitment strategy that upset the majority of us in the short term, but will no doubt pay us dividends for a few years to come.
Although there is mass room for improvement it looks to me like our biggest deficiencies from last year have at least been addressed: ball movement from side to side, variety in attack, a second kicker, defensive structure and error & penalty rates.
Last but not least - Our team seems to be playing for each other!


It may have not been a flash & flawless win, but it is a very valuable away win, against what's considered a top side - which also starts our year off on top of the ladder with 0 points against


I accept that fact that some of our forum users can't help but constantly spew up all the negatives that our team faces - even in the positive light of the most promising start to a season to date. And while I pitty those individuals, I will still relentlessly and shamelessly call you out

To the rest of you, heres to the good start and an even better season ahead

[Smakked]

Well said Ryan. I myself saw alot more positive then last year which is a good thing, it will all gel together the more the boys play.

[Chaos]

Watch the replay mate, both Micheals & Idris beat Bowen to that ball - Idris only took the ball 0.5secs quicker than Micheals and only because he has a 2m reach advantage over him. Micheals would have easily taken that try if Idris didn't. Rankin kicked a few grubbers that went dead, Micheals was the first on the scene on most (if not all) those occasions. The Bombs (when contested) weren't pretty, but then again how often are they? Still, Micheals was in there when it counted and scored from it. He also got through the night with zero errors, penalties or missed tackles, and contributed 74m in runs. Micheals is one of those players who draws criticism whether he deserves or not - as for Saturday he had a great game, ffs give credit where credit is due.

Without watching the reply...I remember Michaels starting his run 5 metres behind Idris because he wasn't ready...his pace got him close but why did he try and interfere with Idris and make his job difficult when Idris had the try in sights?

I don't mind you having a different opinion on the wing position because we're all looking forward to Gordon returning.

They're will always be people that criticise the team on the forum because it's the place for fans to have their say....I don't mind you criticising others that are critical either because it makes people realise how critical they are.

It's hard to get carried away with a win against a side that dropped so much ball (with or without pressure from the opposition).

A lot of Titan supporters want a grand final and feel we have the forwards and outside backs to do it...somewhere in between is letting us down.
While we don't have a creative attack...people will criticise.

[Ryan]

Without watching the reply...I remember Michaels starting his run 5 metres behind Idris because he wasn't ready...his pace got him close but why did he try and interfere with Idris and make his job difficult when Idris had the try in sights?

I don't mind you having a different opinion on the wing position because we're all looking forward to Gordon returning.

They're will always be people that criticise the team on the forum because it's the place for fans to have their say....I don't mind you criticising others that are critical either because it makes people realise how critical they are.

It's hard to get carried away with a win against a side that dropped so much ball (with or without pressure from the opposition).

A lot of Titan supporters want a grand final and feel we have the forwards and outside backs to do it...somewhere in between is letting us down.
While we don't have a creative attack...people will criticise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT4PXuOi33Q

5m is a mass exaggeration, Idris was no more than 1 step ahead of him at any time, and they both got to the ball at the same time. The ball was within 1m of the sideline and right in front of Micheals, he had every right to go for it. If anything it was Idris who took it from him. Not that I'm in anyway critical of it, they both put in a good chase and we got points from it.

I'll have no problems when Kevie is ready to return and takes up the #2. But when any of our players cops what I think is undue criticism, I will call it out.
In a game that barely featured wingers, Micheals had a great game and got involved every chance he had. Calls for his position after that match are sofa king stupid.

[DavidBouveng]

Thats a great summary Ryan, I hope u can do a weekly version and include areas where we are improving or stagnating.

If we can knock off Canberra this week which I think we will, we can look forward to a decent crowd against the storm in R3.

[Supergoose]

Good review Ryan and I hope you are right that the polish we lacked will come. Still can't help feel that we are in some ways unbalanced with Bird and Mini both seemingly playing on the left edge in the road of our gun centre who'd rather be on the right. If we can work that out, I reckon our halves will have half a chance of getting some good clean ball to our strike centres and electric wingers. There were some excellent signs, especially in defence - let's hope our attack can improve big time and we can cause Canberra all sorts of trouble.

[Ryan]

Good review Ryan and I hope you are right that the polish we lacked will come. Still can't help feel that we are in some ways unbalanced with Bird and Mini both seemingly playing on the left edge in the road of our gun centre who'd rather be on the right. If we can work that out, I reckon our halves will have half a chance of getting some good clean ball to our strike centres and electric wingers. There were some excellent signs, especially in defence - let's hope our attack can improve big time and we can cause Canberra all sorts of trouble.

You're definitely right about those guys getting in the way of each other. My guess is that there was always the intention to run alot of heavy traffic at the two rookie defenders, but for the majority they just didn't get the timing right. It was only a matter of time before they did though. In the lead up to Idris' 74min try; Mini ran at them for good meters, then Prince gave Bird a good ball and he split them for even more meters, then White ran at them close to the line, then Idris ran a perfectly timed line onto Srama's ball and inevitably went straight through for a try. They got it right that time and involved all 3 players you mentioned in that set - thats what makes me believe they just need to polish it to make it work more often. It's a big task having to defend those 3 monsters in consecutive plays, if they can set it up right more often they'll get plenty of points from it.

[Chaos]

he had every right to go for it. If anything it was Idris who took it from him.

agree to disagree on that one.

[travis burch]

Ryan, thanks for the post... I was starting to forget we won.

I was also starting to think it may have only been because the cowboys fell apart. Nice to be reminded that there were some positives.

[Bayside Titan]

I think the balance of the young guys with the older guys was pretty spot on. I realize it will be a balancing act if there are any injuries. The Srama and Lawton tag team worked really well for the first game and tailoring it for each week could really work for us. I was like others that looked at the game again and I thought that the guys coming off the bench seemed seamless and we didn't loose too much momentum. Bring on next week.

[Titanic]

I just can't get past that Mini was that much more effective in his second spell and how much more damaging Douglas is. Start Douglas for mine.

[TITAN PETE]

To the rest of you, heres to the good start and an even better season ahead

Cheers mate i just hope the Beer is a shyte load colder throughout the season than that rubbish i was served at Dairy Farmers on Saturday night :boo: ..

Nice post mate

[DavidBouveng]

I just can't get past that Mini was that much more effective in his second spell and how much more damaging Douglas is. Start Douglas for mine.

im not quoting this as gospel, just a theory.

i found that a few guns started form bench this week in some teams.

douglas for us, graham for doggies, and merrin for dragons mainly,

i wonder if its a way of minimising interchanges

if you accept that even though douglas can play 80, carty would prefer him to play 60-65, then to start him, give him a rest, then bring him on costs two interchanges.

bring him on after 20, leave him on, he gets a breather at HT, then plays the match out and you use one less interchange, which we now need considering weve never really needed to use one on rotating a hooker before when friend was here.

im saying its right or wrong, i think mini is best as off bench as well, im just saying there might be a more tactical side to the decision than just loyalty or the poor judgement of thinking minis a better starter than douglas.