Greg Bird is such a gun, he should definitely play Origin! jokes he is ****ing shite. Knights were pretty poor but they showed grit once again to win that one. Kafusi will actually be good for them. Cross dropped the ball a little too much for my liking. Naiquama to get dropped for Kafusi regardless of him scoring a try. As for the Titans why don't they play Lawton at halfback and put Preston back to fullback. From what I saw of Lawton today he isn't too bad. Should use him at halfback that way he can get experience. That way every time Prince is injured he can just slot in and everything remains similar.
What really shitted me about this was the dick sucking of Kurt Gidley. The best 2 players on the field were Mullen and Minichiello. Gidley was a distant third if anything. Mullen was ****ing outstanding today. 2 direct try assists and his kicking game was the best I've seen from a half or five-eighth individually all season. The more I see of Newcstle, at near full strength, the more I think Stone has been right that 7 Mullen, 6 Rogers, 1 Gidley is the best option. They don't need Dureau there simply as an organiser when Mullen and Gidley between them can do that job well anyway.
TBF Gidley did stop at least three trys with 1-on-1 tackles. But yeah, Mullen and Mini were BoF imo as well.
It's a fullback's job to make one-on-one tackles though. It's just that everyone is used to people like Jarryd Hayne being MIA that they think a one-on-one deserves a reward.
Mini's been on top form lately.... Seems to be running at the line harder, and breaking/carrying tackles more... Still got ****ing butter hands. David Mead and Tagatese to possibly miss some game time coming up. Possible replacements -- Esi Tonga (wing or centre) Marshall Chalk (Wing?) Clinton Toopi (centre, could be injured?) Joseph Tomane (if he's healed, would love to see him on the wing) Steve Michaels (LOL)
cue bender/cribb producing an article which put him as returning around about now Basically he overcame a torn tit muscle in record time
Eight one-on-one tackles is massive though. There's not many fullbacks I'd back to make that many. I agree though, Mullen was outstanding, for the first time in a long, long time. His kicking was great, it was a shame we wasted it a couple of times with poor kick-chases and that error after the 40-20.
Also, Paterson. 80 minutes, 20 tackles, 60m from 10 runs. Minichiello only playing 36 minutes is a bit odd as well, considering the metres he was making.
It's weird, I noticed how long he'd been out there for, but not how little work he did. Thinking about it he always seemed to be the guy standing next to whoever made the tackle, or the player making the decoy run, or being cut out or whatever. Hilder got through 80 minutes as well, but his service actually did seem to get slower and slower. I'm sure he made 40-odd tackles though.
Minichiello played 80 minutes. That stat is wrong. Minichiello was forced to play all 80 because Tagataese and Mead went off injured meaning that the backrow replacements had to play in the centres.... Lawton came on when Mead went off. Bodene Thompson came on for Tagataese at centre. Meyeres and White were in the front row rotation with Bailey and Henderson.
