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2026 Finals

Red said:
I don't even mean to ctiticise Knowles. Just saying Plath, Donoghue or Stone are much better starting at lock.
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But then you lose their intensity mid game against tired legs. An opening bastman usually makes less runs than the 3-4 as they are seeing off the new ball. They are however bloody good batsman.
 
midlands hobo said:
But then you lose their intensity mid game against tired legs. An opening bastman usually makes less runs than the 3-4 as they are seeing off the new ball. They are however bloody good batsman.
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Yeah but as we all know and has been proven from the pre season running trials donga, Plath, and stone are our fittest three in the entire team. We are barely making them sweat in 60 minutes wherever they play.

Also yeah we should beat the chooks, but their fans are a nuisance to say the least. Heard one try and say roosters were still the better team after not snatching a win against 11 men because, 'the game was already gone'. Yeah 3 converted tries with 20 minutes to go is impossible against 11, and if your team was that good they might not have had that points deficit to start with. Delusional beyond belief.
 
Red said:
He "made an impact" against the Warriors. Was instrumental in making us go 8 points down early. Gave away a flagrant 6 again late in the count from where Warriors scored. I know those are often very debatable but that one was flagrant. 6-again every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Then absolutely needlessly took out a Warriors player without the ball to give away 2 more.

Shortly after that he went off and ONCE AGAIN the comeback started.
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we beaten chocks twice this season with pretty much same team , so he did a misstate its live game it happens, if going call him out why not others if he changed the team n we went down would you be blaming that person to?
 
midlands hobo said:
But then you lose their intensity mid game against tired legs. An opening bastman usually makes less runs than the 3-4 as they are seeing off the new ball. They are however bloody good batsman.
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True. No reason at all Plath or Donoghue or Stone can't, and haven't previously, been very good from the opening whistle.
 
Red said:
True. No reason at all Plath or Donoghue or Stone can't, and haven't previously, been very good from the opening whistle.
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so whose going give the same ompact of the bench if we up against it it aint going be morgan

we proved in past against Chocks we dont need them to start ( more than just three players in the team)
 
mr_c said:
so whose going give the same ompact of the bench if we up against it it aint going be morgan

we proved in past against Chocks we dont need them to start ( more than just three players in the team)
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God I'm sick of that word "impact". Who is to say Plath or Donoghue or Stone don't have "impact" from the opening whistle?
 
The coach has been incredibly successful with his theory of in the modern game, the opening 20 minutes matters less than each of the following 20 minute blocks since points can flow more easily as the game goes on and the game is so momentum based in 2026 so you want to stack the bench to take the momentum in the middle of the first half then roll on from there as opposed to having weaker players than the starters come on when you roll subs.

While we can all agree Knowles and then Flegler are probably our weakest links in the middle, I think the coach is absolutely right to get Knowles minutes done at the very start of the game rather than at some later point. If we had another better forward or if Plath and Donoghoe could play 80 minutes in the middle without reducing their impact sure, do that, but i'm pretty sure Woolf knows what his players are capable of without loss of impact

It's been working, why change it now in the prelim? Honestly if we are down 4 or 6 after 20-25 minutes but Knowles has done all of his minutes and Flegler has done most of his, Plath switches to the middle fairly fresh having played in the second row with Lemuelu coming on and Dongohoe comes on along with Molo for impact... i'm fine with that, we will do what we have done for months now at full strength and take over and then the points will flow and by the time we're 65+ minutes in we should be leading at home

If our roster changes in future seasons then sure we can switch up the minutes but for now if Knowles has to play some minutes it is best he plays at the start of the game so that Donoghoe and Plath and Molo and Stone can do their thing once we roll subs

We beat the Roosters a few weeks ago in Sydney with similar squads, we can do it again at Suncorp with a similar gameplan

It does make logical sense that if we have to have weaker minutes in the middle it should be at the start of the game so there is no momentum loss and we get better when subs roll on then with the long minutes Plath and Donoghoe can play we don't have to give Knowles any additional minutes once he's done his 20 at the start

I wanted Plath starting at lock initially too for quite a while but I think what's been working is working and it's more important to come over the top of teams after 20-25 minutes and have the momentum leading into the half and the strongest middles being able to play pretty much the rest of the game from that point is more important

At the end of the day if the score is 12-12 at halftime would you rather be the team that led 12-0 but is now tied or the team that has momentum and was 0-12 but is now tied going into the half? We all know it's the latter.

Woolf knows what he's doing, we have got this.
 
SwoopAE said:
The coach has been incredibly successful with his theory of in the modern game, the opening 20 minutes matters less than each of the following 20 minute blocks since points can flow more easily as the game goes on and the game is so momentum based in 2026 so you want to stack the bench to take the momentum in the middle of the first half then roll on from there as opposed to having weaker players than the starters come on when you roll subs.

While we can all agree Knowles and then Flegler are probably our weakest links in the middle, I think the coach is absolutely right to get Knowles minutes done at the very start of the game rather than at some later point. If we had another better forward or if Plath and Donoghoe could play 80 minutes in the middle without reducing their impact sure, do that, but i'm pretty sure Woolf knows what his players are capable of without loss of impact

It's been working, why change it now in the prelim? Honestly if we are down 4 or 6 after 20-25 minutes but Knowles has done all of his minutes and Flegler has done most of his, Plath switches to the middle fairly fresh having played in the second row with Lemuelu coming on and Dongohoe comes on along with Molo for impact... i'm fine with that, we will do what we have done for months now at full strength and take over and then the points will flow and by the time we're 65+ minutes in we should be leading at home

If our roster changes in future seasons then sure we can switch up the minutes but for now if Knowles has to play some minutes it is best he plays at the start of the game so that Donoghoe and Plath and Molo and Stone can do their thing once we roll subs

We beat the Roosters a few weeks ago in Sydney with similar squads, we can do it again at Suncorp with a similar gameplan

It does make logical sense that if we have to have weaker minutes in the middle it should be at the start of the game so there is no momentum loss and we get better when subs roll on then with the long minutes Plath and Donoghoe can play we don't have to give Knowles any additional minutes once he's done his 20 at the start

I wanted Plath starting at lock initially too for quite a while but I think what's been working is working and it's more important to come over the top of teams after 20-25 minutes and have the momentum leading into the half and the strongest middles being able to play pretty much the rest of the game from that point is more important

At the end of the day if the score is 12-12 at halftime would you rather be the team that led 12-0 but is now tied or the team that has momentum and was 0-12 but is now tied going into the half? We all know it's the latter.

Woolf knows what he's doing, we have got this.
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Hope you're right. Roosters are a very good team. Can we afford to go down early? It's gotten to the point where we just expect that.
 
We were down 6-0 after 19 minutes to them last time in Sydney and still won 26-12 and that was away this is home - sides were basically the same except for Savala vs Smith which is about the same and they were missing Radley who matters, but not to the tune of 14 points. The previous win both sides were missing origin stars so it really isn't relevant

Do we want to trail early, of course not, can we recover from trailing early if we do, absolutely as long as it's 6-0 or 10-0 and then we score next around the 20 minute mark when subs roll and it's not 18-0 or 24-0

I would go as far as to say the Roosters will need to lead by at least 14 within the first 25 minutes to win the game which is a big call but I really believe in this side as well as what they're doing tactically stacking the middle minutes of the game with fresh/best players on the field to seize control of the game then roll over them to start the second half and by the the the Roosters starting pack comes on they will be trailing and the flow will be heavily in the Phins favour

The Roosters have the same level of attacking talent we do, but the Phins have more heart and determination than the Roosters do this season and we will see that on the weekend

The only side that can match us for grit and determination is Penrith and they have an entirely different problem which is that their attack just doesn't click the way it used to without Luai, their pack isn't quite as fearsome as it used to be without Fish and Yeo is not quite the player he was a couple seasons ago - McLean and Jenkins have been HUGE for Penrith this year but beyond that they have weaknesses they didn't used to have, their attack doesn't quite click the way it used to systematically without individual brilliance and if a team can get a jump on them and score a few tries in a row like Brisbane did in 2024 they're not going to come back against us the way they did against the Broncos

I hope we get the Phins/Panthers grand final this season deserves
 
SwoopAE said:
We were down 6-0 after 19 minutes to them last time in Sydney and still won 26-12 and that was away this is home - sides were basically the same except for Savala vs Smith which is about the same and they were missing Radley who matters, but not to the tune of 14 points. The previous win both sides were missing origin stars so it really isn't relevant

Do we want to trail early, of course not, can we recover from trailing early if we do, absolutely as long as it's 6-0 or 10-0 and then we score next around the 20 minute mark when subs roll and it's not 18-0 or 24-0

I would go as far as to say the Roosters will need to lead by at least 14 within the first 25 minutes to win the game which is a big call but I really believe in this side as well as what they're doing tactically stacking the middle minutes of the game with fresh/best players on the field to seize control of the game then roll over them to start the second half and by the the the Roosters starting pack comes on they will be trailing and the flow will be heavily in the Phins favour

The Roosters have the same level of attacking talent we do, but the Phins have more heart and determination than the Roosters do this season and we will see that on the weekend

The only side that can match us for grit and determination is Penrith and they have an entirely different problem which is that their attack just doesn't click the way it used to without Luai, their pack isn't quite as fearsome as it used to be without Fish and Yeo is not quite the player he was a couple seasons ago - McLean and Jenkins have been HUGE for Penrith this year but beyond that they have weaknesses they didn't used to have, their attack doesn't quite click the way it used to systematically without individual brilliance and if a team can get a jump on them and score a few tries in a row like Brisbane did in 2024 they're not going to come back against us the way they did against the Broncos

I hope we get the Phins/Panthers grand final this season deserves
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On the subject of Radley, very arrogant comment by him to just assume Sam Walker will be playing next week as well.

Yes, we came from behind to beat them. Of all the games we have won, only been a handful we didn't come from behind to win. Our luck will run out. There will be a game where we fall behind in the first 20 min and come back to lose by less than we were behind after the first 20 min.

Firstly I just hope it happens early next year, not this year. Secondly, no good reason for it to happen pretty much every week. It happens to every team from time to time but the consistency it happens with us annoys me greatly.
 
Red said:
God I'm sick of that word "impact". Who is to say Plath or Donoghue or Stone don't have "impact" from the opening whistle?
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well thats a you issue , you hardly going have same intesity the whole 80 mins are you
 
Red said:
Yes, we came from behind to beat them. Of all the games we have won, only been a handful we didn't come from behind to win. Our luck will run out. There will be a game where we fall behind in the first 20 min and come back to lose by less than we were behind after the first 20 min.

Firstly I just hope it happens early next year, not this year. Secondly, no good reason for it to happen pretty much every week. It happens to every team from time to time but the consistency it happens with us annoys me greatly.
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While I obviously agree we need to fix the starting middle rotation to not be trailing ideally, we are the only team in the comp who stacks their best middles on the bench (or in Plath's case he comes into the middles after 20 minutes whether it's from the bench or second row)

That's going to have something to do with both our poor starts and our amazing 20th-80th minute periods

If it's a choice between destroying the bench impact though or trailing by a try or so or so after 20 minutes i'll take trailing by a try all day

Obviously if it's possible to have the best of both worlds great, but we are arguably two middles short of doing that and possibly three next year after Stone retires - granted we have Su'a and others coming through ready to step up and there's always a chance Flegler can get his body right and get back to an elite level, we'll see I guess

At this point though we have to keep doing what has been working. With the exception of that two game period where we weren't at full strength it'd be 16 wins in a row and one of those two losses we arguably only lost because of a horrible ref call re the ball travelling 10 from the kickoff and we were missing players both games

We haven't lost at full strength all year. No other team can say that. We are full strength and at home this week, let's get it done
 
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