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Round 2: SHARKS vs TITANS (2019)

Side needs a significant change next week if we’re any chance of beating Souths. Peats needs to be dropped and replaced by Rein. Rein just has that agility and creativity to his game that Peats seemingly hasn’t. Kelly has dropped more balls than a blind juggler. James does not belong in the second row, put him back at prop and move Boyd to the bench. Both of our halves lack any play making skills it seems. 100% Brimson belongs at fullback. Jacks has an extremely basic kicking game and no creativity, just does all the basics. Maybe what I’ve said isn’t the answer, but we cannot field that same squad next week, something needs to change.

Let’s now look to the stats. We had 56% possession of the ball and completed 71% of our sets. Cronulla had 44% possession and completed only 64% of their sets.. Cronulla had a worse game than us based on the stats, despite the scoreline. What does that tell us? Defence isn’t the biggest of our issues. I’m not suggesting it is not an issue at all, but our attack is by far the biggest issue. It’s not good enough that we’re without Taylor. If we are a team of first grade standard, we should be more than capable of playing without him.
 
Where to from here? If we roll out the same team then I question the sanity of our coach. I guess next weeks team will depend on whos healthy in the halfs.

Don did enough to keep his spot. Lee should be under pressure to keep Sami out, Peachey may become another panther playing in the lower grades (although I doubt Brennan would have the balls). Jacks looked good at Melbourne because it's the storms. AJ needs the fullback roll because he's not able to play his game in the halfs, so what do we have to lose?

All the talk was we have depth and there is competition for positions so make your move Brennan.
 
We packed any sort of leadership out there, James peats Proctor and Gordon were pretty poor, need more from our senior players, maybe arrow should be captain
 
Peats is not a bad player just a very overrated one. We have too many overrated plodders in our team.

For those of you just now jumping on the dump Peats for Rein bandwagon. I'll leave this here; a post I made last year after Round 23 against Manly . I might be back to rant later maybe.

The Mole said:
Rein > Peats
Come 2019 Rein needs to be starting and playing 80 if he can.
Peats should be bench lock/backup hooker at best. Can't believe Peats is on 600K compared to what Rein offers.

If you notice what Garth's vision is for the team, he's signed big players to get on the front foot (Boyd) and players with second phase play/offloading ability (Cartwright, Latu and Peachy) which we've lacked over numerous years. If it pays off we'll see huge benefits from it, whether his signings perform for him better in 2019 is another question.

Peats wouldn't be able to capitalize on the roll on/quick play the balls, Rein does which makes a huge difference to the team despite his occasionally poor service and defense.
It's a no brainer really.
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Mr Bods said:
Arrow shakes his head at Fulltime totally disappointed whereas Cartwright/Peachey/Wallace all smiles having a social event

One of my pet peeves as a supporter
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Yep. I can’t recall having a smile on my face whenever we lost (many moons ago)
 
I saw the writing on the wall and painted my kitchen instead. I have the strong feeling that we have been conned about our depth. We have a mediocre team and depth to match. I come to this conclusion watching the other teams play this year. The intensity and desire is something that I haven't seen from the Titans ever or at least since Friendy played. I have never seen our pack monster another pack. None of our backs can turn nothing into something. For me to be interested again the team will need to win big next week against a team playing well not a team that plays badly..........."fat chance"
 
The Mole said:
Peats is not a bad player just a very overrated one. We have too many overrated plodders in our team.

For those of you just now jumping on the dump Peats for Rein bandwagon. I'll leave this here; a post I made last year after Round 23 against Manly . I might be back to rant later maybe.
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I can't disagree with a word of that Moley.
 
I hope our coach reads the Forum, I agree with nearing everything written and wondered where Moley had gone. I remember that post.

Peats without the beard had some mojo ... apart from the criticisms already made, his flapping his arms around in a “what are we doing, don’t blame me manner” is pretty de-motivating.

On the positive... the coach is not blind.
 
Just once I wish we would stop the continual trying to barge over the line - forward after forward. Its boring , easy for the opposition to defend and above all , guys 9/10 times we come up empty. We dont have enough mongrel in any of our players at the moment to put fear into the opposition or who actually BELIEVE they can break the line.

So stop it.

Just stop it.
 
Got all the way to the 3:50 mark of the post match interview before I heard "we've gotta be better than that."

He gave a rap to Jai, he said we should take confidence in crossing the line four times but for no result. Won't rush Ash and Tyrone back.
 
Just watched the press conference and yep I knew exactly what would be said “we won the second half and got over the try line four times and we can take positives from that” bloody hell that gets my blood boiling
 
Titanic said:
I hope our coach reads the Forum, I agree with nearing everything written and wondered where Moley had gone. I remember that post.

Peats without the beard had some mojo ... apart from the criticisms already made, his flapping his arms around in a “what are we doing, don’t blame me manner” is pretty de-motivating.

On the positive... the coach is not blind.
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Absolutely-that body language by Peats where he did a shrug repeatedly just instils negativity
His indifference for a guy with a reputation of being a real competitor is baffling
 
Rein has to come in.

James back to middle, Carty has proved he can play in the 12.

Brennan has shown he can make big calls, so im optimistic but hearing him play the no confidence card after round 2 is alarming. that's his job... to have the players so well drilled that they feel confident they are prepared to handle anything.

He is under serious pressure already regardless of Ash and Tyrone being out. It actually gives him more excuses than he deserves cos i dont think we would be playing any better with those two really, and then he would be REALLY under the pump trying to defend this rubbish.

This week is going to piss me off either way - either we will get lapped by souths, or will win and we wonder WTF has been happening these last two weeks.
 
Jai Arrow’s mammoth effort can’t get Titans home against Sharks
https://www.couriermail.com.au/

The Titans failed to capitalise on an improved forward pack performance after being downed 20-6 at Shark Park on Saturday afternoon.

Gold Coast weren’t able to contain a dominant Sharks pack in what was Paul Gallen’s equal club record 328 games for Cronulla.

Despite winning their past three from four games down in The Shire ahead of the match, the Titans lacked the attacking flair of regular halves Ash Taylor and Tyrone Roberts.

They should take solace though from an improved forward pack and defensive effort, led by an incredible performance by lock Jai Arrow.

Coach Garth Brennan challenged his forwards heading into the match to “step it up” against a strong Cronulla side and they certainly showed glimpses of improvement.

The front three in Ryan James, Jarrod Wallace and Arrow were able to build momentum early in the first half through strong carries up the middle.

Arrow racked up a whopping 299m from 28 hit-ups in a losing side, and one linebreak.

It was his effective offloads which also helped his side get on the front foot but his rampaging runs failed to be converted into any points.

It was a case of so close, yet so far for the Titans who had three disallowed tries and were held up over the line on several occasions.

Gold Coast started the game with plenty of energy and would have been in the lead after just five minutes but tries to James and Arrow were turned down by the video referee.

It took 130 minutes of football, but the Titans finally got their first four-pointer for 2019 through winger Brenko Lee who took advantage of some scrambling Cronulla defence.

Their possession on the Sharks line should have been converted into more points after having been tackled 59 times inside Cronulla’s 20-metre line.

They seemed to lack the experience and kicking game of Titans’ regular halfback Ash Taylor as new halves pairing AJ Brimson and Ryley Jacks attempted to take control of the game.

Brimson and Jacks will require some more time to settle into their new playmaking roles and will need to work on their kicking game if the Titans are to score more points.

In the end, Gold Coast were completely outshone by the experience and skill of Sharks’ halves Shaun Johnson and Chad Townsend — who celebrated his 100th NRL match.

Sharks winger Sione Katoa’s first half double opened the scoring through clever ballwork from his halves.

A comedy of errors by Tyrone Peachey and Bryce Cartwright then saw Cronulla extend to a 14-0 lead after 26 minutes of the match.

A Briton Nikora try just before halftime took Cronulla into the break 20-0.

The only points to come in the second half came through Lee in the 47th minute.

The Gold Coast now heads to ANZ next week to take on the competition-leading Rabbitohs.

FIVE THINGS WE LEARNED

1. Titans coach Garth Brennan challenged his forward pack to step it up against a strong Cronulla side and they certainly did. Jai Arrow (299m) and Ryan James (171m) did their best to build momentum through the middle of the park. Both had opportunities to score but were both disallowed by the video referee.

2. Titans’ new halves pairing in AJ Brimson and Ryley Jacks will need more time to settle into their new roles. Jacks had a nervy start for his new club, making two critical errors and some poor kicking options. Brimson was a livewire at five-eighth and chanced his arm at a few short kicks on the line but wasn’t able to convert into points.

3. Bryce Cartwright is still far from being back to his best. The forward made two critical errors during the match which gave the Sharks good field position and came close to scoring. He looked hesitant in attack and made just 52m from six runs during his 59 minute stint.

4. Cronulla’s halves Shaun Johnson and Chad Townsend are in form, setting up two tries and made two linebreak assists between them. Fullback Matt Moylan also had a hand in one try and teamed up well with his halves pairing.

5. The Sharks right edge is shaping to be one of the most potent in the NRL. Winger Sione Katoa racked up 216m, four linebreaks and bagged a first half double. His inside centre Josh Dugan also looked dangerous, scoring a try and setting up another.
 
Mr Bods said:
Absolutely-that body language by Peats where he did a shrug repeatedly just instils negativity
His indifference for a guy with a reputation of being a real competitor is baffling
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I missed that....must have turned it off before. Was it after the siren?
 
My thoughts:
The first half was atrocious and the third try that Cronulla scored was off a forward pass. What bummed me most is that it seemed like ages before the ball finally got to peachy before he fumbled it. No effort. No one was pushing up with arrow and that one out hit up stuff is embarrassing. I'm also not sure how Bronson wasn't given a penalty try. My thoughts go back to the finals game against the Broncos and they were awarded a penalty try for much less. I lament.
The most worrying thing was the lack of communication in our plays. How many times did they have to concede a tackle because they were running behind players? Schoolboy errors.
Second half we had a dig and arrow was immense. It's only round two, but after that effort I feel like we will be saying that up until round 15.
 
rj62 said:
I missed that....must have turned it off before. Was it after the siren?
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No No it was constantly in play when we were in possession. Titanic wrote a post about it too. Waving his arms about at his side like a shrug communicating to the team “what do I do now” as if we are a disorganised shambles.
Terrible look.
 
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