My incredibly biased thoughts of the game

[Thequeerone]

MOM was Brown
At best we could have come away with a bonus point loss
From the stats we had the territory, turnover count etc..the backs squandered our poccession on attack
Hill/ Turner is a better combination for us steady/attacking rather than the O' young/ Hill which is steady/ steady

The best we could have got from that game was a bonus point loss if ALL the forward pass tries had been disallowed, JOC had managed a 100% kicking game, Bart had not fumbled on the first try attempt and the Ref had still allowed that penalty try at the end- which had to be the jammiest 5 point s the force has ever received n their history of S14.

It would be useful if Dunning did not need to touch to steady himself before a scrum and did not back chat the ref - but heh he's been about for a while so eh...

We got no injuries against a team who was playing at home and needed a win for their finals hopes to stay alive.

Roll on the Crusaders

[James]

If anyone is at all interested, I saw Spanner at the Albion for the Force game. He said we can hope he'll be fit for next week against the Crusaders but its much more likely that he won't and he'll be back for the Lions in Africa.

[Ecky]

You'd think Spanner would be in NZ by now if he was in contention for the Crusaders game.

I'll be amazed if he gets the call-up.

[shasta]

You'd think Spanner would be in NZ by now if he was in contention for the Crusaders game.

I'll be amazed if he gets the call-up.

It's a home game next Friday,Ecky.

The Blues are a confidence team. Get in their faces early, frustrate their playmakers. They'll likely hack the ball down field, then you run it straight back at them. Get some early points on them, they'll start to play catch-up footy and lose their shape. That's how you get them.

Otherwise they run riot.

Had our chances to that and didn't take them. They did all the above to us. End of story.

Bring on the 'Saders.

[Burgs]

That probably speaks for itself Ecky, though they usually aren't too keen to fly injuries around so maybe it was thought better to keep an experienced player at home doing as much rehab as possible.
I'd be tipping him not playing until next week though.

[James]

and the Ref had still allowed that penalty try at the end- which had to be the jammiest 5 point s the force has ever received n their history of S14.

To be fair, we were hot on attack and about 10metres from the line. They had no defenders out wide that were onside and the Blues player shouldn't have been there. A penalty try may have been harsh but the probability of us scoring a try off that was much higher than the probability of us bombing it or them stopping it.

It was a bit like the Vainikolo try last weekend. It was questionable, but did it really matter?

As for Spanner like I said 'we can hope' ie its not completely impossible. I'd rate it at about 10% by the way he was saying it.

[brokendown gunfighter]

Thought you'd gone MIA

just got out of rehab(again)

that bloody speights has a lot to answer for

[Burgs]

While it was a failry sympathetic ruling, I could totally understand how the Ref justified his call on the Penalty Try.
It's a bit like rucking, there should be more of it for the betterment of the code.
At least once per match I see an illegal action which is the only thing standing between the attacking team and five points, only to be called just a penalty and a resultant 80% chance for 3 points.

[GIGS20]

I counted at least two defenders out wide, Doesn't that make it generous?

[Burgs]

I believe they were also offside.

[palitu]

yeah, i looked at the replay, they would have scored if the lazy runner wasn't there...

Also, lots of penalties in the red zone was pretty typical of them, there should have been a card i think.

We got dominated, couple of calls i didnt like by the ref, ie missing the blues running around the wrong side of the ruck, just dirty rugby really. But i dont think the ref lost it for us, we lost it via MISSED TACKLES and thats it.

If we made our tackles stick, we would have won. i believe we had low teens of missed tackles at half time... that is shite and you cannot win like that...