Luke Keary has a good kicking game? Are you talking about a different player.

Think whatever wrong and deluded things you want man. But I got similar comments from Souths and Dragons fans last year when I said there team was gonna suck meaty wang and look what happened.

Keary isn’t good. The reason Roosters lost a bunch of games is cause of poor off field culture and on field attitude.

Where do you even think the Roosters will end up? Cause I have then in 6th-8th.

Is someone angry that I didn’t put their precious Roosters in the top 4?

Keary is not a good fit for the roosters. He can run well, but his kicking game is atrocious. Did you see him play without A.Reynolds? And guess what Mitchell Pearce’s weakest part of his game is? It was a dumb buy.

You know how many bottom 8 teams over the years can claim that? Many. The difference between the top 4 teams and bottom 4 teams is closing the games out. I did my research, went through the games they lost and a lot of their losses were due to stupid mistakes.

Did you even read my article? I mentioned their injuries in the second damn paragraph. They sucked last year, they will make the 8 this year. That simple.

I didn’t want to make thr review go to long. The reason I bag him is because he has one string to his bow and that is a running game whilst his kicking game (especially his long distance kicks) is awful.

But you guys have a team where you have good runners already. Mitchell Pearce sometimes struggles with kicking long so you needed a half that can do it for him. Keary can’t, therefore he was a bad purchase panic buy.

Roosters will make the 8. I just doubt they will make the top 4 due to off field issues.

First, he still hunped a dog. Doesn’t matter the situation, he was filmed humping a dog.

Also you know DCE said similar things about Dylan Walker last year right? Just like how Pearce said the same thing about Hastings. Of course they are gonna talk up their new halves partner, what else can they do?

No problem Tom. I will be surprised if they don’t make the 8.

I am down on Keary because he doesn’t provide anything that Pearce, Matterson and even Hastings provided. His long kicking game is ordinary, his running game is of similar quality to Pearce’s and Matterson’s and he can’t even convert.

If Luke Keary’s strength was his kicking then I would call it a good buy since it covers a weakness this team has with Pearce struggling with it occasionally. But they just don’t need him I think.

In a team that doesn’t have a standout forward, Starling is adding nothing. And as a Manly fan I have watched him a lot and have never been very impressed with him.

Oh I think their young players all have plenty of potential, but as I said they aren’t ready yet. The only players in their squad I am down on are proven duds like Starling and overpaid Hodkinson.

Probably should have stressed that they will do a lot better for the 2018 season but it still looks bleak for them in 2017.

I didn’t expect them to stage a comeback. Not at all. I don’t think they would have come back because they were winning, then got a bunch of injuries, then started losing. It isn’t a hard concept. Heck look at what happened on Saturday, the Panthers used a similar tactic against the Raiders and were hopeless for 60 minutes. It wasn’t until it was essentially over that they started looking dangerous, which can be attributed to the Raiders taking their foot off the pedal. Because tell me, enlighten me how in the world is never kicking in the opposition 20 a good idea? Like, I mustn’t understand it on a fundamental level or something, because it is literally one of the dumbest strategies I have seen in a long time.

Yeah players debut on the bench, that happens. It isn’t a coaching masterstroke literally every team debuts bench players. But talking of bench players, wanna guess how many minutes Moses Leota played on the weekend? The answer was 0. He had a guy play no minutes in a finals game, a finals game where you could tell forwards were getting tired by the end of it. Heck JFH was struggling by the end their and put out any flame of a comeback the Panthers had. And he did similar stuff to this in Brisbane.

So then the question is, why purchase Hardaker in the first place? He came here to play first grade, but he didn’t come here to play off the bench presumably. So why even purchase him? What was the point of him coming over?

No, I will say it doesn’t count because Geyer was only there for the last two games of the season. No team has played most of a season with a centre on the bench. Also that is one team in the last 10 years, and that team was over the cap anyway. Also, don’t compare SoO to regular NRL, it is a different beast. Bellamy is one of the worst SoO coaches ever despite being one of the best NRL coaches of all time. It is a completely different thing. And besides, Matt Bowen was on the Queensland bench when they sucked. He stopped getting picked there in game 2 2005, and 2005 was marked 3 years of losing for the Queenslanders.

I am not talking about the injury in 2011, I am talking about the seasons after he left (from 2012-2014). The Broncos had a great side on paper whilst he was in control of it, but the second Lockyer left they slid down the table, started struggling to make the 8/missing it and underachieved, with a lot of their wins occurring because the side fell apart near the end of a game. But to answer your question, Billy Slater was very important to the Melbourne structure, and they have done fine losing him for basically 2 seasons. And it isn’t like those two sides were only missing just one player, half of their teams were gone. If the Cowboys were only down Thurston or the Storm were only down one of Cronk or Smith they would have beat the Dragons. The Broncos lost one five-eighth.

I….. you just hurt my head. You saying ‘he isn’t overrated, he is only being compared to Lockyer because he has similar skills’ contradicts itself. You are putting him in the same ballpark as Lockyer, which is ridiculous. And now you go about comparing Fisher-Harris to Tallis. I can’t even. And you can say ‘I only mean skill wise, not talent wise’ but the problem with that argument is that maybe you mean that, but most people don’t. But to give another example of how he is overrated, people think him and Tedesco are close skill wise. Moylan might be good, but Tedesco is the best young player in the game.

Penrith had a rough start and came good. But imagine, just imagine, if you kept Cleary, didn’t have that rough period and finished the year threatening to take the top 4 spot off of the Cowboys? Wouldn’t that have been better? And also, imagine if the Panthers went into the Raiders game with an attacking plan that made a modicum of sense? And my problem with the Cartwright isn’t that he is there, it is that they got rid of an actual half to put him there. You had Soward there, who can actually kick and can organize defence unlike Cartwright. But no, let’s put a second rower there and watch as a bunch of points are scored down his side. And let’s sit there and marvel about how he throws crap offloads and tries to force a play every time he gets the ball near the tryline, normally stifling momentum or handing the ball over. And I do acknowledge he has gone a lot better their than I expected him to. I underrated how well he could defend. Happy?

If the Panthers enter a GF with Griffin as a coach, I will eat a shoe. It is just, not going to happen because Griffin is out of his depth. His selections are dumb, his bench use is awful and his tactics don’t work. When Penrith look their best, they play completely unstructured like they don’t actually have anyone coaching them. Probably because the person coaching them is dumb.

No not really.

You know the bench management thing isn’t just limited to their last game right? Against the Titans in round 25 Akauloa got 9 minutes. And are you trying to claim that the one concussion is equal to the injury decimation that the Bulldogs received? A forward that has on more than one occasion been used for about 10 minutes having to go off a minute early is not the same as losing 3/4th of your spine to injury or concussion tests.

And you say they carry Hardaker for an injury in the backs, yet they have Yeo in their side who can (and often does) move into centre mid game when Peachy feels like having a spell in the second row. Do they really need to carry a back on the bench when Yeo can cover that anyway? Also quick question, can you name a side that has won a Grand Final with a back on the bench? Seriously can you? Because I can’t. They always have utilities or just 4 forwards.

Here is the thing, Griffin has made it this far into the finals before, heck he was a game away from the GF in 2011. But within a few years the side will be underachieving and underperforming just like Brisbane’s was. And he did have Lockyer in that 2011 run. You can go ‘oh that’s a cop out’ but the team just crumbled once Lockyer was gone. The difference between Green and Griffin is that Green got people like Tamou and O’Niell to fire again, Griffin did the opposite. It is no co-incidence that half the Broncos team had a ‘career revival’ when Bennett came in.

Also, I have said this an another article but the term overrated doesn’t mean bad. I think Moylan is a wonderful player, but people compare him to Lockyer which is just gross and wrong. Therefore, he is overrated. Same applies to a lot of these Penrith players.

It was all MIlford was it? Did the improved defence of the whole side have nothing to do with it? Did the sudden form increase that players like Kahu, Glenn, Thaiday, Gillett, Hunt, Mccullough, Wallace and Reed experienced the second Wayne came back also have nothing to do with it?

Seriously, look at the way the guy uses his bench. Hardaker (who is a fullback on the bench) got 11 minutes and Akauola got 9 minutes of playtime. Penrith were struggling until Borris and Jeynolds left the field. Cause you know injuries is what won them that game right? The reason the Bulldogs got so tired was cause they were down to a 2 man bench for 40 minutes, and when your side is as big as theirs is you struggle to cope.

He coaches the most naturally talented team in the comp. And they only got 11th last year cause they had over half their side out for most of the year. He is being carried by his team harder than he was in 2011.

You if you think Griffin is the cause of Penrith’s results. They haven’t played any of the top 5 teams since I wrote this article as well, so if they do that, call me.

This side is carrying Griffin.

Did I hurt your feelings with my correct opinions? If you think this is rubbish, make a counterpoint. But you can’t. You just point at recent results and say ‘lol’ without even analyzing said results. This Penrith team is winning despite their coach.

Ummmmmm, you don’t seem to understand what Roar is do you? I am not a journalist, nor have I ever claimed to be. I am just a guy who wrote a thing because I believe it, and I still do believe it.

Griffin is fabulously mediocre. His bench usage is tripe, his ‘Bryce Cartwright in the halves’ idea is only working cause Cleary is a freak of a player and his team play like they aren’t even being coached. And wow, he has a good record against Wayne Bennett. It is almost like he worked under him and for a large portion of time and therefore is in the best position to counter Wayne’s gameplans.

If Griffin is so good, then how in the world did the Broncos go from just missing the 8 one year to making the top 4 the second he left? If Griffin is so good, explain the genius behind letting three first grade standard halves go in the same year and replacing them with no one. Ask literally any Broncos fan, they will agree with me.

I am feeling the same. Penrith haven’t come up against much opposition recently and even in their win against the Bulldogs they were being outclassed until half the Dogs got injured. Look at the man’s bench usage, it is shockingly horrendous.

People thought the Broncos were back in form after they beat the Rabbitohs easily. One game does not make form.

I have made it clear how much I love Jamie Lyon, honestly he might be my favourite player in the game. It will be a very sad day when he stops lacing up to play for us.

This is one of the funniest things I have ever read.

You are seriously trying to say that the gains of Burgess, Nikorima and the promotion of Latrell is equal to the losses of Maloney, Jennings and RTS. That is hilarious.

Well……. it wasn’t great but honestly wasn’t as bad as people are making it out to be. It really was the dropped balls that cost us in the end, and we looked a fair bit better in the second half. Also, people who are calling for Walker to be dropped already have rocks in their head. Remember how tragic Milford was in the halves for the first half of last year?

Manly are just going to take time to gel, but I was impressed with the performance from the Bulldogs actually. I did say I could see them making the top eight, and if their halves continue to gel like that then they can certainly make it. That forward pack is too ridiculous. Hopefully there is nothing seriously with that injury to Lichaa though, the kid looked great.

I use the word ‘ridiculous’ when I speak to people in real life a lot. I am not surprised it has cropped up so many times

But this article is pretty ridiculous then.

Jake Friend is an 80 minute player that hasn’t played an 80 minute game in his life, rightio.

Young halves don’t usually work, you just need to look back at history to see it.

I like Robbo, I said in the article I think they got three minor premierships because of his coaching, not their roster.

Tupou will get dropped for someone like Mitchell or Elliot, who I think are a lot more talented than him. He is a fine first grade winger, but not for a side with depth as good as they have.

They won’t make the GF this year. One more injury to a key player early in the year and they are done, if the halves bomb they are done. There are too many variables here for them to be GF material.

I say Ferguson isn’t going to be a good fullback because he is a centre moving into fullback. I think these days you need your fullbacks to posses a decent ball playing game, it is why the Dragons are trying the ridiculous ‘Mann to Fullback’ move, because Dugan doesn’t offer that spark in attack. The same will be true for Ferguson, he has had bugger all experience at fullback so I can’t see him being a good one.

As I said in the article I am assuming Mitchel Pearce will be gone the whole season, because he deserves to be. He was a moron who made the game look dumb again, he should be out for good this year to sort his stuff out. But you might have a point about JWH and Cordner.

I think for young halves to shine you need a player or two that can take the playmaking pressure off of them. Foran and DCE worked because they had both Stewarts and Lyon who could provide support in last tackle plays. Apart from Nathan Friend I don’t see any Roosters players who can do that for them, so I am cautious about them.

Latrell Mitchell may be able to get a wing spot but he is not ready to be a first grade fullback.

So………….. you still confident in Keary re-signing?

My top 8 for last year were:

1. Roosters
2. Cowboys
3. Penrith
4. Manly
5. Bulldogs
6. Melbourne
7. Cronulla
8. Rabbitohs

So honestly, not that wrong.