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**Official** NRL 2009 Thread

Mister Wright

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Broncos were very lucky, only able to score charity points in the second half. In fact they got all the breaks
add
- a 50-50 vid ref call going their way despite no clear knock on (think it was a no try just because it looked messy)
- A melbourne ball being taken off Quinn and given as a Bris pen (I think leading up to try) in first half, by a terrible vid ref decision
- but the knockon - forward pass - try to Wallace, was comical in the ineptitude of the refs.
[note - I'm no longer bitter, these things happen in sport]

Overall I thought both teams played well (apart from Melbournes poor ball handling late) or atleast entertainingly. I also thought that the line defence of both teams when under the pump (Melb most of first half, Bris last 20mins) was very good.

In the end a close game that could have gone either way between too teams that appeared evenly matched.

Oh, and whoever posted that Melb won't make top 4 is deluded. That would have to be the biggest certainty in Australian sport and will probably finish top again.

PS - thanks Ch9 for showing game in Vic last evening, about ****en time.

cheers
The worst call of the night was not sending Quinn off.
 

howardj

International Coach
How blatant was that Bronco's knock on!

Not that it follows that it cost Melbourne the game.

But it was just such a poor call.

Loving the Lockyer/Wallace combo btw.

Sad news about Hunt during the week though.
 

Simon

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It was a bad call but it hardly cost Melbourne the game. They have over half an hour to try and make up the points.
 

howardj

International Coach
Definitely didn't cost them the game.

Anyway, got some cashola on the Dragons this arvo.

Breaking the golden rule of never ever backing them when they are favourites.
 

Craig

World Traveller
I thought it looked dodgy but I was sitting right up in the 3rd tier, and even though I was right in line with the posts, I didn't get a clear view. That said I didn't think it was the best of games. I mean Brisbane should of killed Melbourne off in the first half but Melbourne should of won it with all the ball they had in the last 15-20 minutes.
 

Craig

World Traveller
Broncos were very lucky, only able to score charity points in the second half. In fact they got all the breaks
add
- a 50-50 vid ref call going their way despite no clear knock on (think it was a no try just because it looked messy)
- A melbourne ball being taken off Quinn and given as a Bris pen (I think leading up to try) in first half, by a terrible vid ref decision
- but the knockon - forward pass - try to Wallace, was comical in the ineptitude of the refs.
[note - I'm no longer bitter, these things happen in sport]

Overall I thought both teams played well (apart from Melbournes poor ball handling late) or atleast entertainingly. I also thought that the line defence of both teams when under the pump (Melb most of first half, Bris last 20mins) was very good.

In the end a close game that could have gone either way between too teams that appeared evenly matched.

Oh, and whoever posted that Melb won't make top 4 is deluded. That would have to be the biggest certainty in Australian sport and will probably finish top again.

PS - thanks Ch9 for showing game in Vic last evening, about ****en time.

cheers
Great to see a Victorian who is into league. Your a good man, wish there was more of your kind :)
 

howardj

International Coach
Yeah, how lethal is Slatsy off that inside pass!

Kudos to Brisbane to being alert to it though.

They pulled off a couple of try savers on him.
 

Trumpers_Ghost

U19 Cricketer
Didn't look like a knock-on from the other side of the stadium.
I think the above comment shows either that your seats are poor or your bias was too overpowering. Makes the below seem laughable

Looked terrible from the other side of the stadium.
Dallas Johnson got knocked out twice last year for tackling very similar to what Thaiday did last night. No-one suggested that the ball running player was at fault on those occasions and rightly so. If a player wants to get their head down low in a tackle, it has to be at their risk. I also saw the replays and am almost positive that review commitee will toss this out, although Melb do seem to be the wipping boys for any contact (and I do think Smith got his right wack in the finals).
 

Trumpers_Ghost

U19 Cricketer
Great to see a Victorian who is into league. Your a good man, wish there was more of your kind :)
Thanks

First started watching the friday late night games back in early nineties. I'm a big sports fan and wanted to broaden my horizons. I could see that in the future both AFL and League would both be more national games and I wanted to my little bit to encourage this.
The main reason for watching was to answer this question: Aussie Rules is such a great, exciting game, why then does a portion of Australia play another sport instead?
I had previos to this seen mainly Union, so I didn't fully understand the differences, so understanably I thought, well League must be real **** as well. However I was pleasantly surprised. I found League to be a fast, hard sport, with enough skill and drama to keep me interested. In many ways it had a lot of similarities with the indiginous game and was also a modern entertaining sport (unlike a stodgy, stuck in another century game that I won't mention).
In fact I see at the pro level both the NRL and AFL becoming more and more similar all the time. This I don't neccesarily like, because I want some variety in my football.
When I first saw a young Darren Lockyer kick a ball, I was shocked, because he was the first player that I had seen to kick the ball what I considered to be properly. He had a fluent, faultless Aussie Rules Technique. I kinda shrugged it off thinking that, well he probably played both as a kid, and all the other League kickers still use that dodgy old school style. Shoot forward to now and EVERY NRL kickers now kicks Aussie Rules style. The other thing is probably the high catches, alla Falou. His leaping technique is straight out of an AFL manual and along with the kicking shows off the influence in specialist coaching from AFL types. The reverse is true also in that AFL clubs also employ specialist tackling coaches with league backgrounds and also employ some tactics more associated with League.
This year I'm actually really depressed as I don't have Foxtel anymore so I can't watch enough NRL as I would like.

For the Storm doubters, remember it is a team game and these boys do the team things better than the rest; All the Key players are still in place, the new boys will do a job (maybe not star but do the team things and as the season goes on maybe things will gell more attackingly) and even with the losses we had at the end of last year I'd still think we've got more star players than any other side. We may fall, but (apart from Manly) its a fair drop to the others and we'll land on a ledge above where these "improvers" can climb to.

Well there's my NRL story and a bit of a rant in one.

Go Storm
 
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Simon

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Lockyer did actually play a lot of AFL as a kid up in Roma. So you were right in thinking thats how he learnt to kick like that.
 

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