Round 15: TITANS vs WESTS TIGERS (2023)

[Dooldog76]

Tigers were constantly trying for an offload every ball. Every tackle was scrappy but we hung in there. A wins a win.

[lonegull]

Verills made a big difference tonight and would of blown a few cob webs out

[Titansborn'n'bred]

Very happy to take the 2. As mentioned, different looking team with Brimmo at the back and he and Joliffe played outstanding on their returns. Professional and set the standards in attack and defence. Not getting too excited beating Tigs by 16 considering they lost Api early and Brooks later. Still, improved second half instead of the usual fade out rubbish. JJ will be a difference to this moving forward

[Cowabunga]

Tino still has some issues as a "technical" captain and getting a bit worked up but he is one of the more inspirational players I can remember and he's only 23. He'll get there with his words and other things in huddles. Moe is in legit form and seems to be improving his defence, the ruck stuff is still there but if he's smashing blokes I feel it OK.

Jolliffe brings me so much safety... Might be my favourite player hahahhaha. Just an absolute unit who's a workhorse on both sides of the ball. Thought Iszac had his best game and had some real big effort plays and got a dumbass penalty against him.

Haas had by far his best game and looked like a legit first grader, Gives us the option to move Stimson back into the middle moving forward if he can have a couple more performances like that.

Tannah keeps getting better every week, I don't think I've ever changed my opinion on someone so quick, Everything about him has surprised me the last 8 weeks in losing teams, His defence has gotten better and some of the small movements and things he's doing in playmaking are absolute class.

Kelly despite having his big issues does bring a lot of things to the team and he has lapses but he's not bad with technique and physically, It's just reads... HE CAN BE FIXED MAYBE HAHAH

Schoupp is becoming very concerning on that right, I'd probably rather just sticking with Jojo and copping the growing pains, I think Jojo could be an incredible defender at some point where as Schoupp who will be good, I'd rather go with the local kid. There's no good 21 year old good right centres out there and even then most aren't great till Campbell Graham. You have to identify who it is and stick with them.

I think JC has been solid defensively imo and another year of gaining proper weight he'll be fine, AJ is by far our best fb right now by a long way imo. We're way better with AJ at 1 then anywhere else.

I still hate that this win is pretty tainted for us as a team.... I need us to beat a good team without injuries during a game..

Seeing our right side, I think we got super lucky with injuries and Wakeham having a shocker but I want to be optimistic... So good win and back this up against those idiots up north.

Also send the footage of Wade Graham laughing at us talking about footsteps coming for us to the team.

We did well, make it 7 more times and flog these teams/dorks who make jokes about us, It's still there

[Titanic]

A win is a win. AJ’s efforts make a mockery of JC’s at fb, there is no comparison, however, Foran gets the 6 for the first 30 then JC takes over. Verrills and Randall allows us to ditch Leeming and Clark. Jojo replaces Schoupp and somebody replaces Kelly who got stripped twice, run around thrice, looked like a turnstile and basically nullified Lofi.

[Hail Sezer]

Dubs a dub. Tigers do a good job of scrambling the ruck and violently compressing and stretching the D line so I'm happy enough with how we managed that, granted they were without Api for most of it. They did also make a fair amount of errors so didn't really build much pressure that we had to defend for sustained periods.

Our work with the ball was good as usual but second half errors and poor decisions were still there under fatigue. AJ showed why he's still the top dog.

Mo & Tino tremendous bar a bit of sloppy D in the 2nd (wrap the ball up ffs), and JJ made a big difference to our middle. Really highlights how big the gap is between our best 4 middles and the rest.

Verrills did a lot of good on both sides of the ball. I think Randall is about the best backup 9 you could hope for, but what Verrills brings to the middle on D, his effort areas, and work with the ball, makes us a much better side.

Schoupp's inabiity to hit and stick is becoming a target. He's got good sense of when and how to go from passive to jamming, his kick chase effort is great, he doesn't shy away from the contact and he makes decent decisions (IMO) but he's just not wrapping up the ball carrier and unless he's pushing them back inside, it's detrimental. My theory is that he's not comfortable tackling with his left shoulder and that's why he keeps giving his opposite the outside (and puts himself in a weaker position) or goes chest to chest where the intent is great but unless you've got a big wingspan, you're just going to get bumped. He needs coaching, or to be on the other side of the field. Or both. BK is just as bad but he's got right-edge players coming at him and I've gone on about that enough. His contact has been an issue for years.

Tanah was good again and is continuing to build. His contribution was again an important part of how well we're using the ball and his kicking game is doing us plenty of favours.

Happy with Klese's work with the ball but he's still got some big issues defensively in both the contact and with his reads. Would like to see him getting more carries on exit sets.

JC has a way to go if he's going to be a 6 but he was better than the week before and just seems to be around the ball when things happen. It's something you want on the field. The way he planted that ball for the try looked so effortless at full-pace..not many get to that like he did.

Overall, and I'll focus on D here because we all know we can attack fine, I don't think we really got stress-tested to expose our problems but I thought it was clear Joliffe made a difference in the middle during our usual meltdown time-period. We're still not dong a good job at wrapping the ball up, and we're not sticking well enough on first contact across the park - both of these get amplified in a) the second half and b) in certain field position. Liu (who's goal line defence is the antithesis of his defence on the rest of the field) & Haas getting ran over once a week by a middle on the line is just not good enough either.

Shoutout to Phil Sami in game 100 who took 28 carries for 290m....huge. He's twice the player when on the right wing like T says. Happy to see him bag a try too.

Lastly...bitter sweet seeing Jahream Bula do so well. As everyone prob knows, he was spotted & signed by us when he was coming through Keebra and at that stage wasn't even the best fullback in their school side so was playing left centre. We banked on his athletic traits, developed him through JTS and gave him a pathway to NRL but he decided to try and play pro Basketball a few years ago, so walked away from RL altogether. Then earlier this year, now living in Sydney, decides he wants to play footy again and falls into the Tigers lap by asking his Tigers-contracted friend (and Keebra captain) Trey Peni to get him a spot in their JF side. Talk about luck.

[Whats Doing]

Some thoughts on last nights game:

Good
1. AJ and JJ made huge differences to the team.

2. Boyd started to show some good creativity in his running where he finally started to square up the defence with one occasion creating the gap for Haas to score.

3. Haas is improving and has really good carries but needs to be more involved in the hit ups. Also Needs to hit harder in defence and use his shoulders more at first contact but overall a much improved performance and gives some strike on the edge.

4. Mo is continuing to be a machine and is also improving his defence. Some of his hits were immense.

Not so good
1. First 20 minutes of the 2nd half we were awful and were not controlling the ruck and it looked like the 2nd half was going to be another one that got away. It was the sheer bad play by the Tigers who continually turned over possession enabled us to hold on. The 2nd 20 minutes of the 2nd half was better after we were able to score that we took the momentum away from the Tigers.

2. Schoup. Had hands like feet and lost posssession a number of times. It is not the first time that this has happened.

3. The sooner we move Stimson to the middle the better as we have not strike at all on his side of the field and was more effective when he moved or appeared to have moved to the middle.

4. Apart from JJ, the bench really showed the gap to the starting line up. This is something we have talked previously on and needs attention in the offseason.

5. The expansive play in the first half is very much used a lot less in the 2nd half and this may be due to fatigue and/or the quality of the bench players not having the skills to execute it consistently but it is obvious we are not as effective attacking wise in the 2nd half over a 40 minute period. This combined with our lack of control of the ruck in the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half allowed the Tigers back in the game but Tigers were just awful with the ball in hand.

6. Need to get more out of Lui who was only the field for 15 of the last 50 minutes. Not sure why he was taken off in the 2nd half after a brief stint of 15 minutes and he was not injured so i am not sure what Holbrooks thinking is there but a starting lock needs to have a more balanced set of minutes particularly when we are fatigued in the 2nd half.

It is interesting to note in the NRL stats that the Titans had 32 ineffective tackles to the Tigers 9. I would suggest these were mostly in the 2nd half.

[Gold Coast 88]

Haha burn our challenge after 7 minutes. Tino is not a tactical captain

a quality required in all captains is trust of their team mates. Stimson ran at Tino and was extremely adamant. Cant blame Tino for the challenge.

The whole team needs to get together and discuss each player's responsibilities to the team before asking Timo to challenge. Its a club issue.

- - - Updated - - -

Watching first half I think Campbell at 5/8th nulifys a lot of his attack, as he has to play shape. I’d like to see a change in second half with AJ into 5/8th and JC back to fullback

Fullback allows AJ to play both sides of the ball.

[Whats Doing]

a quality required in all captains is trust of their team mates. Stimson ran at Tino and was extremely adamant. Cant blame Tino for the challenge.

The whole team needs to get together and discuss each player's responsibilities to the team before asking Timo to challenge. Its a club issue.

- - - Updated - - -



Fullback allows AJ to play both sides of the ball.

The conundrum with JC and AJ is what is the best positions for the team overall. There is no doubt that AJ is the better fullback and 5/8 than JC. The issue is whether the 1AJ and 6 JC is stronger for the team overall than 1 JC and 6 AJ. I would tend to think that the latter is better for the team overall IMO.

[willhelm]

Anyone see Kini as a potential centre option? Just throwing it out there because I have no idea how he would go defending in the line.

[shamus]

Tino cleared

https://www.titans.com.au/news/2023/...faasuamaleaui/

[Cowabunga]

AJ brings way more positives at 1 right now imo, JC has played 2 games at 6, I think he'll be fine going forward and AJ is still a fair way ahead of JC at fb.

[gotitans101_]

Tino cleared

https://www.titans.com.au/news/2023/...faasuamaleaui/

thank f for that.

[The Birdman]

Tino cleared

https://www.titans.com.au/news/2023/...faasuamaleaui/

Never in doubt. Typical bunker - someone got hurt so we better put it on report, without factoring in what actually happened.

[Titanic]

Tino cleared

https://www.titans.com.au/news/2023/...faasuamaleaui/

After the Mahoney incident he is now a media target and Koroisau being a media darling adds to that. Stoked he got off but I reckon he dodged a bullet and he will sleep better tonight. Prediction: Ennis will milk it for all he can, the cheap shot terd (sic).