Finals Wk1 - Storm v Warriors

[peter]

you description under your username suits you well.

Not done by me, one of your cronies I assume added it, shame about the freedom of speech on this site.

[storm_rhinos]

16 penalties against strm vs 14 for warriors against a NRL average of 5 - no wonder it was a poor showing on the refs part, tell me he could have let half of them go!

[tugga]

16 penalties against strm vs 14 for warriors against a NRL average of 5 - no wonder it was a poor showing on the refs part, tell me he could have let half of them go!

We have less than a 40% winning ratio witrh that muppet.

[grey sub]

ONLY A GAME!!!

i hate when people say that 

its a fuggin religion, storm are god!!!! 

Super Cronk that was what I meant when I said Fairweather supporters.........

[Super Cronk]

nah i got what you said mate. crowd did look awesome tho. hopefully the result doesnt deter to many of the new comers.

[Bullets]

Warriors were great today, once again they show how to beat us.


We have a massive challenge now to even make it to the prelim finals

[Insomniac]

Insomniac, we dont deserve to be out of the finals ffs. We finished on top and deserve another chance, we only lost this with 2 mins remaining. No one has really beaten us by a big margin this season (outside Origin).

On that "showing" today, yes, we deserve to be out of the finals.  How could you go into a finals game not wanting it as much as your opponents?  Because that's what it came down to today...

The Warriors thoroughly deserve to continue on, and if we had held on to the 1-point win, it would have been a real shame for them.  In my opinion, we were lucky to have gotten that close to them - our guys, like White, Blair (as usual), and C.Smith for example, were niggling all day.  Totally unnecessary crap that shouldn't be needed if we are the better side.  I know a lot of that crap goes on in every game, like pressing your head down into the head of the ball player to hold him down, but we are better than that - just play football FFS!  And when you have carry-over points lingering over you, where any minor charge could mean missing a vital game, why stoop to that level?!?

I must acknowledge Geyer, Crocker, and Lima though, who all had blinders in my opinion.  Geyer was our best runner out there today... shame on all those with younger legs than him!

There's no excuse for not having intensity and passion, and now that every game is sudden death for us, the guys better bring their A-game, or we'll be looking back at this season as the one that got away.

[Bullets]

Agree with whats been said above.

The boys messed around all day and left the Warriors in it, we just didn't have that killer blow at 15-14 and i had the feeling if they were still in it with 15 to go they could easily steal it cause of the way they play and thats exactly what happend.

Way too many penalites

Didn't look as sharp as usual in attack and the Warriors delt with us pretty easy.

Fowards were dominated.

Inglis besides the field goal was a non factor and Folau was pretty ordinary IMO, missed the tackle that set up that last try and overall Ropati played all over him. Thats still a weakness in his game, the ability for faster centres to get around him, the disadvantages of being such a big kid.

We got off lucky with the 18-15 loss.

I hope the boys have a special performance left cause we are going to need it

[Michael :P]

Good points bullets.

Your spot on about Issy, his future lies at 2nd row or wing, he's gotten to big now to be a centre for much longer. Teasm next year will really try to exploit him in defence, but thats Brisbanes problems not ours.

On thing that has been annoying me lately is our insistence on trying to get milk the penalty from dh by running at the markers. By doing this we give up a possible 10-15m and the flow on effect from the following play-the-ball, Cam Smith in particular has been doing this far to often lately, to the detriment of the team.

A few other observations

- Brett White is should give Jeff Lima half his salary this year and pay for his back surgery he will need at the end of the year.

- In regards to Adam Blair he may not be setting the world on fire but he's been completely mis-used. He has all the skill in the world and all he's used as is a battering ram, which he isnt suited for.

- No good getting the ball to GI when the defence is already up in his face, we need more depth when we go R > L, like we give Issy when we go L > R.

- Relying to much on the cross-field kick has finally bitten us on the arse. At a time when we needed a kick to keep the presure on Cooper puts in shocking kick going for the try. Warriors get the ball and go and score. Far to often this year we've looked for the try of the kick rather then looking to keep the pressure on. For those with good memories the same thing happened in the first game of the year and Cooper got a rocket for it.

Jeremy Smith, Jeff Lima and Mick Crocker were good yesterday, that is all.

[CaptainKlutz]

16 penalties against strm vs 14 for warriors against a NRL average of 5 - no wonder it was a poor showing on the refs part, tell me he could have let half of them go!

Nien had it 12against Storm v 9for Storm 21 in total.

[Bullets]

- In regards to Adam Blair he may not be setting the world on fire but he's been completely mis-used. He has all the skill in the world and all he's used as is a battering ram, which he isnt suited for.

Good point about Blair, he's got good footwork for a big man and would offer more then just someone to get the hard yards up the middle. 

[cam]

On that "showing" today, yes, we deserve to be out of the finals.  How could you go into a finals game not wanting it as much as your opponents?  Because that's what it came down to today...

It happens.

Warriors have had many days like that this season, we haven't which is why we've earned a double chance.

It shows how good we are that we played so bad yet almost won it. They'll come out firing next week.

[cam]

Accusations fly after NZ upset

By Dean Ritchie | September 14, 2008 12:00am

NEW Zealand Warriors created history yesterday with a stunning upset victory over minor premiers Melbourne at Olympic Park - but then the on-field tension and aggression spilled over into an ugly post-match slanging match.

After an epic 18-15 victory in one of the best games of this season, Warriors players spoke of Melbourne's niggling tackles and then accused the Storm of once again employing grapple-tackle tactics.

Storm captain Cameron Smith fired back by labelling the Warriors "whingers''. Throughout the first half, New Zealand players complained bitterly to referee Jason Robinson about the Storm's tackling, with Warriors captain Steve Price saying to a Storm player: "You'll break someone's neck. They're choking the s..t out of us.''

Warriors hooker Ian Henderson also said to Robinson: "That was a 'crusher' tackle.'' Price added: ''They're doing it all the time.''

After the game, which sent New Zealand into week two of the finals and ended Canberra's season, Henderson and Price spoke publicly about Melbourne's tactics.

A fired-up Henderson said: "We just weren't going to put up with any s..t with the niggling stuff and the grapple tackle. They pushed my head (after a dropped ball) and I wasn't going to put up with that either.

"We weren't going to be bullied and pushed around. We're happy to play fair but we weren't going to take a backward step.''

Price added: "It was nothing different. A lot of referees know those things aren't right. I got some tackles that I thought weren't right. I asked the ref to take a look and he did.''

Smith claimed the Warriors benefited from a Robinson decision each time they made an on-field complaint. "It seemed each time they had a whinge, they got a penalty,'' Smith said.

It was a cracking match full of toughness, skill and semi-final intensity. No one gave the Warriors a chance - not surprisingly against a Storm side odds-on to claim the premiership.

The scores were locked 8-8 at halftime yesterday but the Storm lost a lot of go-forward when prop Jeff Lima (cork) came from the field injured and did not return.

Giant Warriors winger Manu Vatuvei crashed over in the 45th minute to give the Warriors a 14-8 lead before Melbourne edged back and then took the lead 15-14 with 12 minutes remaining, through a 35-metre Greg Inglis field goal.

But New Zealand refused to surrender. With just two minutes remaining, the Warriors centre Jerome Ropati slipped a lovely ball to send Vatuvei away down the left flank.

Vatuvei bumped past three defenders before sending a great pass inside to Warriors five-eighth Michael Witt, who charged over out wide to score.

Witt held the ball up in celebration before he touched down, with his coach Ivan Cleary saying: "I thought it must have been pulled up. I won't encourage him to do that again.''

Price said proudly: "We're the first team to win from eighth. We have made history. We showed a lot of character and self-belief.''

Robinson blew 21 penalties yesterday, ensuring a stop-start game which did not allow Melbourne to slip into their regular groove. Storm coach Craig Bellamy said his side would now be forced to endure a tough road home to secure successive titles.

"If I was a punter, I wouldn't put money on us after that performance,'' he said. Smith was critical of his side's effort and told them so after fulltime. "I told everyone to go home and have a good look in the mirror and see if that performance was up to our standard and whether it was good enough for us to go all the way,'' Smith said.


http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 66,00.html

Hope it fires them up for Saturday!

[On The Hill]

Very good point about Lima, Noa!

Lima has been carrying our big boppa's all year - outstanding. Whitey has been getting better the last few weeks but when Jeff went off yesterday he had to step up, and didn't.

Agree about Blair as well. He's got great skills for a big man and should be running a bit wider (albiet he is a bit slow). But lets not kid ourselves Bellamy knows how to use his players better than us!

Gutted about yesterday but as bad as we all feel, the players will feel 100 times worse. Let's hope it has it's usual affect.

Hope Sika is back Saturday night.

Didn't we knock off the Broncs 2 years in a row up there in finals.

Over it.

Onward and upward. Broncos are gooooonnee!

[Bullets]

I thought the Warriors gave as good as they got yesterday in regards to rough tactics in the ruck so i dunno why they were whinging about it so much. Henderson was annoying, was in Robinson's ear all day.

Now they came out and make out that they got one up on the big bully of the league like some hero


Man i hope we win this weekend.