Round 1 vs St George/Illawarra Dragons

[KimmorleyKiller]

You're kidding, the Drags won't get near the finals.

But yeah. We coasted really. I thought we would blow it out after that first half, but you can't complain with that.

[mystormboys]

Real proud of the boys today in grueling heat. Gotta mention the crowd great turnout aswel. Thought the new boys stepped up was impressed with young Slade Griffin - also thought Jamie Soward had a good game for us also

[yourhero]

Fantastic first up game in my opinion. Not absolutely clinical but the signs were very, very good.

I'm LOVING some of the new structures in attack and some of the set plays even though they didn't all pan out. The variations on the outside-inside Cronk-Slater were particularly special. Teams all year will see the same structure that burnt them last year but this time Slater will skip to the outside instead of receiving the ball on the inside shoulder of Cronk.

Our line held pretty strong. The only tries that the Dragons managed to get were off a wayward tipped pass on by Cronk and a try in the corner after a poor misread from O'Neill. Most of the time our outside backs were well positioned and defended well.

Bromwich was outstanding. As was Cronk and Hoffman. Moors looked the goods.

Ryles's two penalties were just stupid. And I wasn't impressed with Setu.

[Mattpoet]

On Setu, did anyone else see that the Age listed him as captain when they printed the team lists today?

[mattystorm1987]

j.bromwich had a real good game same with o'neill, moors, slater, widdop, harris cronk n hoffy.. i thought chambers looked a bit flat with a lot of drop ball and setu had a under par performance.. i might be a bit harsh but i think craig needs to put setu in qld cup for a week or 2 to get some good minutes in and bring in k.bromwich and see what he has to offer..

[mattystorm1987]

dragons were tested before the game for heart n turns out it was negative

[mattstormy]

A great win considering the heat, although a lot needs to be improved though. It will take a lot more than what we did today to defeat the Cowboys in the Townsville humidity. Probably some changes to the bench would be the best thing for the team and to have a utility in Finchy coming on in the second half would be ideal.

[mattystorm1987]

i think for us to match the cowboys in the forwards we need 4 frowards on the bench... j.bromwich, norrie, harris, hoffman, hinchy starting and a bench with ryles, moors, vave, k.bromwich.. could put k.bromwich on in lock about 30 min mark that puts hinchy to bench n then maybe bring hinchy back on in the 2nd half sometime into hooker givin cam a rest.. just a thought

[yourhero]

Can't help but be a little disappointed with the crowd figure. Was hoping we'd crack the 20K mark.

[Storm Spirit]

I reckon all things being equal, that Craig will reason that the best way for Lagi Setu to get back to his bone crunching sublime best will be to run around in the first grade where he will be next to the best players in the world.

I agree that Lagi didn't have a great game, but he has all the tools and will get there sooner rather than later.

[Storm Spirit]

Can't help but be a little disappointed with the crowd figure. Was hoping we'd crack the 20K mark.

Labour Day Long Weekend remember.

Brilliant crowd as a result imho.

I know heaps of folks who would have been there but were away as it was a long weekend.

On a normal weekend which wasn't 33 degrees and at the end of a long hot spell.... I reckon 20 - 22k would have been on the cards.

[Inglis#3]

There were quite a few different factors yesterday like the unpleasant weather and with some players still recovering from the long UK trip I wouldn't be too critical on certain individuals.

[storm77]

Actually Lagi's numbers were fine and I thought he had a solid game. Got to say that Tahu looks like he has been playing NRL for five seasons. How quickly has he learned?. MF also looked really strong. By the way do you realize the we had seven former 20's player's out there. That is awesome.

[Blotto]

It was a competent win for Storm who did have the benefit of a full blown hit out in the UK, so had a better tempo than St G who played pretty well without finding a real way through Storms defence!
Storm were wasteful in front of the tryline but mainly from the speed of play, but its looking good for them for the season and one hopes the Origin games don't have the same effect as last year.
Perhaps Bellyache has clocked Penriths gameplan against the Raiders and could use a version of it against the Cowboys in Townsville!
Cronk seems to be having more of a say with the on field gameplan as Smithy certainly defrerred to him a couple of times! Signs of him taking over when Smithy retires or is unavailable?

[Inglis#3]

Cooper Cronk has now claimed the man of the match award in our past four matches - the Prelimary Final against Manly, the Grand Final, the WCC and now last nights match. Not bad for a bloke who arrived in Melbourne uncertain on what his preferred position was.