DRAGONS v PANTHERS 4pm Sunday at WIN Stadium 1 Josh Dugan 2 Peter Mata’utia 3 Euan Aitken 4 Tim Lafai 5 Jason Nightingale 6 Gareth Widdop © 7 Josh McCrone 8 Leeson Ah Mau 9 Mitch Rein 10 Russell Packer 11 Tyson Frizell 12 Joel Thompson 13 Jack de Belin Interchange: 14 Ben Creagh © 15 Mike Cooper 15 Will Matthews 17 Siliva Havili 1 Will Smith 2 Josh Mansour 3 Waqa Blake 4 Peta Hiku 5 Dallin Watene-Zelezniak 6 Te Maire Martin 7 Jamie Soward 8 Sam McKendry 9 Peter Wallace 10 Reagan Campbell-Gillard 11 Bryce Cartwright 12 Isaah Yeo 13 Trent Merrin. Interchange: 14 Tyrone Peachey 15 Lelani Latu 16 Suaia Matagi 17 Elijah Taylor 20 James Fisher-Harris
I really like Wallace at 9. If Martin can gun it again here today and keep it up until Segeyaro returns in a month or so, I'd kep them as is and play Segeyaro off the bench; which would suit his game anyway.
Interesting thing to note: Sportsbet's pick your own line is largely determined relative to the likelihood of a team to win the game (their winning odds) rather than the point scoring ability so I think you'll find value taking a bigger start in games against the Dragons. I guess to explain it better, the Tigers and Panthers against each other could be paying $1.91 each. Likewise Panthers v Dragons is $1.91. But you'd get the Panthers +12.5 at $1.20 in both games. The chances of the Dragons winning is the same as the Tigers, but the likelihood is they win a tough one. Tigers on the other hand could get blown off the park or blow Penrith off the park, hence the head to head is the same but margin wise there's more value with Penrith v the Dragons. I put a fair bit on Penrith +14.5 ftr. Dragons highest total this year is 16 points, have won 4 games by more than 14 points in the past year and a bit. This team is worse than last years and Penrith is a tough opponent to keep games close. I didn't think the Dragons would score 14 points, let alone win by 14 today. WE'll see what happens but it's looking good.
Went to this game, first half was the first 40 minutes of footy I've seen in forever. A few obvious things: -Soward not reefing his 'bombs' nearly all of them were half arsed chips, nearly always to Nightingale, rubbish -Mansour was massive as per usual, DWZ had a good return, Matagi made an impact off the bench, RCG going from strength to strength in his carries -I'm literally a better footballer than Waqa Blake -Hiku actually looks pretty good, seems to run a bit like Hodges in that he's never motoring, but seems pretty effective I suppose its no surprise that we looked bad with 3 of our most important attacking weapons on the sideline. I was expecting a real bludger after both teams had good wins the week previously, had a real 11th v 12th feel to it. Expecting Cowboys to put 40 on Dragons this weekend.
