2024 Season General Discussion Thread

[willhelm]

Aaron Slop

[NZTITAN]

Positives:
- Tino is just a monster, legit 2 or 3 players in one.
- Josiah Pahulu didn’t look out of place in the middles.
- Brimson at 4 is actually very playable out there, had my concerns but he looked comfy.
- Kini is going to be fantastic around the 50-70 minute mark up the middle.

Negatives:
- Beau Fermor looked off the play by a mile, first game back and all but wow, nightmare out there defensively and HSS was pinned down on multiple occasions
- Tanah Boyd lines up for the Leigh Leopards it Foran isn’t next to him
- We are too small out there, no balance, small but quick, great in space but awful coming out of danger. Lofi in particular is almost useless if he isn’t in space.
- Keenan Palasia didn’t look great either, sluggish.

Overall, nothing I wasn’t already concerned about, however Boyd hasn’t taken the next step, and hope Des figures out the jigsaw puzzle that is the back 5, or at least, how to maximise it.

[5 Year Contract]

I think as usual the false hope can get to you but after all the talk of the dojo, accountability, a new beginning and that was 92% the same slop we have served up year after year. No point going into detail as it’s the same problems every game and the same few standouts but I just hope that it was an off day otherwise we look that far off the pace of other teams it’s not funny. Will leave it there and onto round 1

[Boonarga]

Underwhelming. A major concern must be our goalkicking. We kick like that every game and it’s just like starting 8-10 points behind.

[DIEHARD]

Yea we lots a lot of games by close margins in 2023. We need to improve our goalkicking.

[Titslover]

We need to improve our halfback to be honest, silly of us to have top 8 expectations when we've got a bottom 3 halfback. It's a shame that Weaver didn't do much today to force Des to consider his options. Sick of waiting for Tanah to show something and he just never does.

[DIEHARD]

NRL Pre-season 2024 | Titans v Eels | Match Highlights

[GC Giant]

A few observations
Dessie was never an instant fix, change takes time.
Some habits are hard to break and that was evident at times.
Team looked off the pace from the beginning, perhaps still a heavy training week.
Looking forward to see what we can do round 1.

[Titansborn'n'bred]

Have to agree with a lot said above esp around Boyd, geez he was disappointing and how long can we persevere with him at halfback and an injury prone Foran 5/8. What hurts the most out of that effort is was the hopes carried in from last week, seeing the no-names running around giving 110% effort and matching it for most of the 80 against a full NRL Dolphins team. I know it’s only a trial but if we don’t put it more than that every game it’s gonna be another long year!

[Mini GF]

Any news on how Randle pulled up?

[Appsy]

I'm going to remain optimistic. While that game was frustrating to watch, I am still just as excited for round one at home.

Obviously if we get to round 10 and it's the same old bs, then we can start to worry. Until then, and I'm going to sound like a broken record at this point, but fellas, have faith. There's more to it then what we saw. I'd rather them go all out in the main season rather than pre-season trials.

And more importantly, let us all be grateful that Rugby League is back for the next 6 months to keep us occupied, blessed and highly favoured.

[Hail Sezer]

It's a trial fellas. Last year we pumped the Dolphins, looked like we'd turned a corner in our defensive resilience and then went on to set a literal worst-comeback record when we lost to them in the actual season. Des has his work cut out but we knew this.

A lot of comments around Boyd and fair enough, he had a shocker. Must've forgotten to bring his tee to training for 16 weeks. IMO our main issues were:
-Started slow, looked a few steps off the mark with energy and intent from the start.
-Allowed them 17 offloads. They were running riot from second-phase play. This is a defensive detail issue.
-Didn't generate many offloads ourselves. We're a small team, we have to play an up-tempo second-phase game.
-Generally speaking, starting middle was ineffective on both sides of the ball (except for Tino). Palasia looked lost on D and disappeared when we had the ball. Mo tackling under the ball should be fine but it's issue when we don't have anyone tall enough as second-in to wrap the ball up. We couldn't win the ruck.
-Fermor is a bit rusty and didn't look like the Fermor we know. To be expected I guess coming off an ACL.
-Defensively some really bad individual decisions, notably on edges. Either some guys don't quite understand the system, or they do but didn't execute well.
-Exit sets were bad. We were out-muscled but we didn't have anything in the toolkit that stretched/compressed the D. Or we did, and it wasn't executed.
-Left edge was patchy on D and I've still got a huge question mark as to whether Weaver can be reliable enough to defend at that level. He's a target for opposition and it makes everyone outside him have to solve issues, then they don't trust him and start jamming, then you get more issues. More of this below.

Try causes IMO:
1 - Palasia is defending completely out of the line and is too slow to push up/out forcing HSS to hold and take the man in front of him and they've stretched us for numbers.
2 - Boyd turns in, Brimmo&Sami have to solve it by jamming which they do, but Sami doesn't stick and they score. Positive is that they diagnosed issue, negative is that they didn't execute.
3 -Beau Fermor over-commits to nothing, Palasia doesn't go with him. Beau's either got to aggressively get on that ball carrying arm and Palasia has to jam with him, or Beau needs to stay in the line
4 - Tommy gets caught out and then we've overloaded the short side with 4 men marking two. Kick back inside where no one is and they score.
5 - Fermor doesn't trust Tommy to make the tackle commits when he's not needed, Tommy is left with no one to tackle and there's a huge gap on Fermor's inside because Erin Clark is trying to get a head-start on being onside for the next tackle.

Positives:
-AJ, Tino
-Keano's involvements. He's still learning but a decent knock for someone who didn't get much opportunity in shape/broken play.
-Pahulu did well. Has to be there R1 off the bench IMO.
-Young guys that got rolled on late all brought some energy and confidence.
-We're still finding points. Scored 4 tries even though we lost that territory battle by a fair way.
-Completed at 86%
-Our kick chase and subsequent defensive sets were actually quite good. Their average set distance was actually less than ours. But, when their middles got involved, and started offloading the ball, that's when we really struggled to control the ruck/react.
-We weren't missing a tonne of tackles and were sticking well. Detail in wrapping the ball up and how we win the tackle/slow the ruck were the issue, along with decision making tied to our left edge

Roll on R1

[Whats Doing]

I was also impressed with Pahulu. The other one I was impressed with who has not got a mention was Francis who did some really strong carries out of our zone when he came on.

[Cowabunga]

Keenan with the 2 runs for 17m and 5 passes with 12 tackles and 4 missed, I know it's a trial but surely ego or something kicks in when your getting dominated, I don't love that performance when guys like Pahulu, Iszac and Stimson all put their hands up both weeks, We already have Liu if we needed a passenger out there who has a decent passing game, Keenan isn't good enough to be commanding a spot in the 17 with our depth.

https://www.titans.com.au/news/2024/...ld-keano-kini/

Really liked Kini calling out the starters coming out flat, Agree with WD as well on Francis, I reckon once he gets a debut he's not giving up the spot.

I'll give Tannah a bit of credit, The pass to AJ who blew the try was probably the best thing I've seen from him hahaha

[Titanic]

It was a trial alright and a great window for Des into what the Titans mentality is like. JC’s answer to “what did you take out of that” said it all.