Round 18 - Bulldogs v Storm Sun 14 Jul 3pm at ANZ

[Michael :P]

Have no one to blame but ourselves. Plenty of other teams have gone through this over the years and have gone through it better than we have. Bellamy has no idea what he is doing when he isn't coaching a team with the big 3.

Pathetic performance.

He could easily coach without them. The problem, in my amateur eyes, is the conservative game- plan we always go out with during this period.
Its only my opinion but I've always fathered our young players go down testing the boundaries of there abilities then trying to tackle themselves to a win.

[TC]

No game plans.

Oh, there were game plans. I just imagine that they relied on wingers not trying to defend 25 mitres in from the sideline.
Our edge defence was appalling.

[yourhero]

No game plans.

Oh, there were game plans. I just imagine that they relied on wingers not trying to defend 25 mitres in from the sideline.
Our edge defence was appalling.

Agreed. The Bulldogs spread it wide through forwards linking to the edges a'la 2012 but we had nothing to counter it. There was no defensive effort on the inside, even before it got to the edges, the overlaps were already there... Painful.

Reynolds staying on the field is such a massive bullsh*t inconsistency... The second time that O'Neill was taken out was as bad, if not worse than Slater's effort on Merritt earlier in the year. Slater was binned though. Crock.

Tony Williams' blatant shoulder charge was just as entertaining and inconsistent... Lucky an unbiased Luke Pattern was in the VR box to independently rule on it... FMD.

Refs decisions aside, we were thoroughly outplayed. The Dogs just didn't need the added help from the morons in pink.

Why the f*ck didn't we line up as named!!!!!!!??????? My confidence crashed and burned as soon as I noticed.

Hampton blew a very decent chance early on when we had a 3-on-1 overlap.

Skip said it best - Move on to the Bye, rest up, then give the back end of the season a real shake.

[blazza18]

I wonder what Bellamy saw in the first few weeks of the season to make him think it was a good idea to pair Juzzy and Mahe together again.

[absentee]

I was stuck at work today so I relied on score updates online. Watched a bit of it when I got home but knowing the result already basically killed it for me. I just couldn't watch.

[mattstormy]

I know all the excuses are going to be about the Big Three and Hoffy being out of the side, but what this Z Grade (that's exactly the way they performed) team dished up today was nothing short of disgraceful. I wasn't expecting to win and I'm not worried about the score - it's the margin we lost by and being held scoreless that shows the team as totally incompetent without the four players mentioned above.

Mahe Fonua's bumbling performance on the wing, terrible kicking game (apart from the rare highlight of Bobby Blair's 40/20), massive props that can't make any metres and bust the line whatsoever and the overall defensive display in our own half that would lead to about 100 offloads to the Bulldogs just showed that we had absolutely no hope of a competitive performance. Overall, there was just no passion and leadership from anyone in the side (it's almost like they wanted to bugger off back to Melbourne after the non-sin binning of Josh Reynolds and simply gave up).

Every Storm fan should be totally embarrassed by that so called 'effort'. I hope Craig rips into them over the next two weeks, which also makes me wonder - does it seem he has a clue about his game plan when the Big 3 and Hoffy are not in the team???

[blazza18]

^^^^ Spot on mate.

[storming]

When your regular 1,6,7,9 and best forward are missing through origin or recent injury you can't expect to be competitive! I knew we were going to lose this one, I don't see why people are getting so annoyed.

Side note how was pattern allow to be apart of the officials? Shoulder charge by Williams, and oneill being dragged down twice without the ball were there frustrating part for me

[Go Storm]

Poor performance by an under strength team. I don't believe Bellamy deserves the criticism he's copping from some on this forum.
We were poor, but the dogs were equally very good tonight. A bit of help from the refs went a long way, not that we were ever going to win but at least remain competitive.
The two holding offences on O'Neil were shockers!! One should've been a penalty try at best, sin bin at worst. The other a sin bin at best, penalty at worst. And TRex blatant shoulder charge, I hope the VMRC charge him. And how long are they allowed to hold down and flop on tackled players. We couldn't get any quick plays. Just a shithouse game of rugby league.
We were without our 1,7,9&12. But also, haven't Chambers & O'Neil been on origin camp? So not at Storm training?

I wish Bellamy would use these origin periods to blood some new talent. Young Toneumepea (??) probably deserved a shot. And Matt McGahan could've played 6 or 7 with Hampton at fullback (or the other way around).
Bobby kicked a ripper 40/20, but he's still no half. He is a great centre though and he should've been there with O'Neil outside of him.

[yourhero]

The referees yelling "Move!" Is bloody pointless. They were yelling that and Canterbury were not "moving" for 4 to 5 seconds after that. No penalty and just ensures they have complete ruck dominance.

[Scooter]

Our defence in the second half particularly was poor. It was only 12 - 0 when Reynolds should have been sin binned. It must have been an obvious sin bin if Hadley, Gould et al were calling for it. I don't think we gave up then, we gave up a couple of sets later when Perrett took the intercept and scored the try.

I don't think we would have won even if Reynolds had have been sin binned but we had two or three sets on their line after the penalty before the intercept and 13 on 12 I think we would have scored.

They scored three tries in the period Reynolds would have been off. I don't think they would have done that if he was off. So instead of us being relatively close after 55 minutes or so, it was all over.

[Michael :P]

I feel bad for Fonua, was never going to be a long term option at center or wing and should have been playing in the back row since his last year in NYC.

[LESStar58]

Officially pretenders. Though I suppose we have to have 40 put on us at least once, or be held scoresless at least once.

[Rose Madder]

I wonder what Bellamy saw in the first few weeks of the season to make him think it was a good idea to pair Juzzy and Mahe together again.

Or even to play Mahe again, he is woeful and does not deserve or rate a spot in any NRL side, lets put all the sentimental bullshit aside and look at what he really does on the field.. basically stuffs up,he had my teeth on edge last night so many times, for very good reason!!! I realise that under the circumstances we are light on, but puleeeeeese.

[mattstormy]

I wonder what Bellamy saw in the first few weeks of the season to make him think it was a good idea to pair Juzzy and Mahe together again.

Or even to play Mahe again, he is woeful and does not deserve or rate a spot in any NRL side, lets put all the sentimental bullshit aside and look at what he really does on the field.. basically stuffs up,he had my teeth on edge last night so many times, for very good reason!!! I realise that under the circumstances we are light on, but puleeeeeese.

I think everyone gave him a chance with his mistakes in his first number of games at the back end of last year, but after a full pre-season in the First Grade squad and now he has played 15 games of NRL, surely you would think he would know what it takes to play on the wing. It was so frustrating to see the Bulldogs players throw the ball wide and also have Sam Perrett score a hat-trick on him. As well as that, having the Bulldogs waltz down the sideline to gain easy metres, where most of the time Mahe would be about 30 metres infield - doing what??? Then to top it all off, he drops the ball over the line in the process of scoring a try near the end of the game.

It was almost like watching Mr. Bean play yesterday. I don't know whether he will be a decent back rower, but we'll never know unless we give him a game or two there. Yes, he is the first born and bred Victorian to play for the club, but it has shown that maybe our development of Victorian players just isn't up to scratch like with NSW and QLD players and we may not see many more Victorian players in the NRL any time soon. I really want him to succeed, but it looks like it just isn't going to work unless the club gives him the direction he needs. I don't blame Mahe, I blame the way he has been developed - and we wonder why it took 15 seasons to have a Victorian born and bred player play for the Storm.