Round 11: TITANS vs NZ WARRIORS

[teke]

Crucified by inept referees in the second half (the Warriors had their turn in the first half), feeble edge defence and shocking error rate. Carter, Bailey and Blair were our best I thought. The Warriors centres and winger pretty much dominated ours. Zillman had a solid offensive game but was found wanting defensively. He should've been able to get under that Mannering try - Mead would've. Ridge made an excellent return to first grade. Wingers and centres and Beau Henry just missed far too many tackles (I haven't looked at the stats, that's just what I observed). KFFL should've played his last game for us for a while. I had high hopes for him, but he has dashed them with his performances over the last couple of weeks. He is enthusiastic, but his skill and discipline doesn't match. I like Don but he was toweled up by Manu tonight.

I really think that once Kelly is right that Beau Henry is the one who needs to make way. We have a couple of weeks to get ready for our next assignment, I hope we get some troops back on deck and our edges can start to form some combinations. We looked better in attack then we have all season, which says something about our regular halves I think. I'd like to see Mead working from fullback with Blair and Kelly in the halves - I reckon he'd be a whole lot more dangerous.

Fun game to watch tonight, despite or maybe because of all the errors. We certainly shouldn't have lost admirers although our ability to recapture some possession was lacking in that second half. We had so many turn-overs which were very avoidable. Whilst Ioane, Bailey, Douglas and White were strong we still lacked a bit of punch through the middle. Missing the big three in Myles, Bird and Harrison is really telling in the middle, but the support cast are having a real dig and I hope they get a win soon, because they deserve it.

big thumbs down cause you made me read too much lolol.

If it didn't contain. #sackcarty it was not worthy

[DIEHARD]

I gave my Moejoe award points to...

Taylor 3
Carter 1
Bailey 1
Blair 1

http://www.leagueoftitans.com.au/poty.php

[Toads]

BAU. Giving away too many penalties, dropping the ball, having zero attack options. Can't argue against the boys effort again, it's just we've got nothing.

Watching JC shaking his head at the end of the game was cringe worthy. 2 more years of his ****e.

I do believe that's a involuntary movement he's acquired in recent years..

[hatchy84]

Roberts in for kffl

[Titanic Believer]

A brave effort but......the stats say a lot......44 missed tackles to 11. only 3 line breaks to 8.

[Mexican titan]

Tried to join the conversation during the game but either my phone or Telstra were a bit slow out of Robina tonight.
In my opinion the first half was a great game of footy, the second not so good but overall one of the better games I have watched this year. I thought with the team we had the Titans were good and surely Carty saw how our attack is better with Blair in the halves. Well, we actually have an attack. A lot of blokes came in to that team off injury or via QCup and I think the speed of NRL and the sheer size of the Warriors told in the second half. For all the errors and lack of ball in the second half they only put 10 points on us.
I agree with most that Mead should be FB and am always worried when a bloke with a bad ankle runs wide and around a FB (Zilly) to score.
Having backed Matulino at 21/1 to score the first try made it a profitable night at least.

[DIEHARD]

Titans' pay penalty for lack of possession

Titans coach John Cartwright has questioned the flood of penalties against his side in the second half of their 24-16 loss to the Warriors, even telling his players at half-time to expect the penalty count to even out.

The Titans took a 16-14 lead into the break on the back of 57 per cent of possession and a 6-2 penalty count but the penalty count read 6-all after just 10 minutes of the second half with the Warriors earning four in quick succession.

It set up a second half where the Warriors had 25 sets compared to the Titans' 13, won the penalty count 5-2 and finished the match with 54 per cent of total possession and the two valuable competition points.

"The second half, I don't think I've ever seen a discrepancy like that, with one side getting the ball and the other side getting the ball," Cartwright said.

"At one stage with time still on the clock we'd had 10 sets and they'd had 24 and it's a tough game to win when you get those kinds of things thrown at you.

"The limited number of opportunities we had we weren't smart enough and it's as simple as that.

"In some ways I did feel for the players in the second half because it did seem to be officiated a lot different to the first half but you've got to adapt to that and you've got to be smart when you get the ball.

"We even spoke about it at half-time, to be ready for possession to switch and it happened. They had a lot of possession and they played really smart.

"When the penalties are in the ruck against you continually they're generally pretty even and they certainly weren't in the second half."

With co-captains Nate Myles and Greg Bird both absent and first-choice halves Aidan Sezer and Albert Kelly both out injured, the Titans played some enterprising football in the first half and then defended their line with honour in the second.

It wasn't until the 62nd minute and after three sets on the Titans' line that the Warriors were able to strike the killer blow which stand-in captain William Zillman conceded was inevitable given the flow of possession.

"For myself personally, I really felt for all the boys," Zillman said. "We were just defending our line the whole time and with a side like the Warriors you can't do that for too long before they come up with points and that's what happened in the second half."

A career-first hat-trick to Dave Taylor highlighted a see-sawing encounter in the opening 40 minutes with five-eighth Maurice Blair giving the 'Coal Train' the necessary time and space to cause maximum carnage.

After pouncing on a Sam Tomkins fumble in the 18th minute, Taylor carried three Warriors defenders over the line and then on the stroke of half-time went on a rampaging run that ended with an acrobatic planting of the ball one-handed over his head and over the tryline.

But while he was full of praise for his opening onslaught, Cartwright conceded that Taylor had fallen into some bad habits in the second half.

"He's been building to a game like that all year. He's threatened a lot and had some really good patches of play and his first 40 minutes... you don't get much better than that," Cartwright said.

"In the second half there, when he starts to pre-offload the ball and preconceive things, that's when he loses his impact with the ball.

"His strength is running hard and attracting numbers to him and the rest of the side trying to get him some space and he becomes very dangerous."

Gold Coast hooker Beau Falloon was taken from the field with a lower back injury in the 15th minute while Brad Takairangi was a late withdrawal after suffering a quad strain during the Titans' final training session on Friday.

The Titans now have 13 days until their next game, a Saturday evening clash with the Panthers in Round 13 when Myles and Bird will both be available.

http://www.nrl.com/

[DIEHARD]

All the highlights from the Titans clash with the Warriors at Cbus Super Stadium.

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[DIEHARD]

Hear from coach John Cartwright and Will Zillman following the Titans loss to the Warriors.

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[Bayside Titan]

I feel like tearing this club apart from the foundation.

I hear you Teke. For this year has broken me already. Do you have some news or info that we can start with?

[C-Whiz]

I'll start by saying I haven't seen the game, but I was pretty certain that KFFL was always going to have issues being the new guy on the wing outside a guy who hasn't played there before in this team.

Is there any reason Dave Taylor can't play centre? He used to. He was pretty friggin' fantastic at Broncos and Rabbits, and showed again how good he can be when he chooses to. I know he has some consistency issues etc, but he really should be the most dominant player in the Titans.

[TITAN PETE]

2 weeks on a row we can't score points against teams in the 2nd half who will finish at the bottom end of the table .....

Taylor was great Bails & Carter right behind him, TP needs Meady to show him how to play fullback & Faifai needs to finish his apprenticeship in Q Cup because he's way off the pace , the Warriors will win nothing this year & they played Shyte tonight but still beat us easily, maybe I'm being hard on a bit part team that did play well in small stages but that 2nd half was rubbish, I can't remember any serious attacking sets in the 2nd 40..

I hope we perform better against the Bye next week

[john cartwrong]

To everyone blaming the referees... sure there were some poor decisions... but the penalty count was titans 8 warriors 7.

The warriors just made more of their possession. And despite being shyte like titan pete says... they outplayed the titans comprehensively. If they had kicked their conversions it would have been 16-30 and I think that would about reflect the game.

Titans were very poor IMO. Particularly in attack. Where I think neil henry's influence was clearly missed.

For anyone defending zillman. Watch the warriors tries again. Abject, soft defending from zillman cost two, potentially three tries.

Was almost a lesson in how not to play FB.

[john cartwrong]

Oh. And I believe actual crowd would have been around 14500 - 15000.

[Mexican titan]

To everyone blaming the referees... sure there were some poor decisions... but the penalty count was titans 8 warriors 7.

The warriors just made more of their possession. And despite being shyte like titan pete says... they outplayed the titans comprehensively. If they had kicked their conversions it would have been 16-30 and I think that would about reflect the game.

Titans were very poor IMO. Particularly in attack. Where I think neil henry's influence was clearly missed.

For anyone defending zillman. Watch the warriors tries again. Abject, soft defending from zillman cost two, potentially three tries.

Was almost a lesson in how not to play FB.

I have bagged the Titans (mainly the coaching) big time for most of the year but I thought it was a much improved effort last night. The attack in the first half was much better but yes the 2nd half was poor.
I thought the Warriors played well overall but I'll respect others opinions on that as well. I agree with your comments about Zilly and I certainly do not blame the refs for the result. The better team won and I thought the scoreline was a true reflection. Just my opinion.
I certainly don't want to debate your crowd figure comment other than to say I mentioned to someone before the game that it looked close to the Souths game attendance, which it turned out to be. people seem to forget that even with 18k there we will have about 30% empty seats and that is what it looked like to me.