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edwahu wrote: ↑March 29, 2019, 7:11 pm Quality performance from an elite talent tonight.

Yep, excellent bounce back game
He had a stinker last week and laid it on tonight
With a hint of luck he would have had 3-4 TA’s
Hodgson isn’t the problem, he never will be. You build your team around elite players like him. But he’s not perfect, he’ll have off days too

credit where credit is due hodgson was excellent tonite.

I cant remember one **** crash ball on the 5th and i liked him going middle early wide late as opposed to the opposite.

hope the melbourne game was just a **** game out of his system for the season.

Had them in all sorts. Nice to have someone like that in our team

Having watched the replay of the first CNK try, I’m still firmly of the belief that the best number 7 in our squad is wearing the number 9.

However he is also the second best 9 in the comp.

We have to figure out a way as the season progresses to get him in a first receiver role more often when Havilli is on.

well hopefully havili cant hit somewhere near him when he passes

papabear wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 9:32 am well hopefully havili cant hit somewhere near him when he passes

We should use spot 30 in our squad to sign a hooker. I am not sure Havilli is still a viable option if Hodgo gets injured, and he definitely wouldn't be an 80 minute one.

The benefit with Havilli far outweighs the negatives though. A backup hooker who can also slot in anywhere else in the forward pack. That versatility is priceless. We already have Bateman and Whitehead who can cover the halves and backline during a game.

Sticky has balanced the squad perfectly this year imo. I think we just need to hope that Hodgson stays fit and healthy for the whole season so we don’t need to throw Havilli in there full time.

Coastalraider wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 6:07 am Having watched the replay of the first CNK try, I’m still firmly of the belief that the best number 7 in our squad is wearing the number 9.

However he is also the second best 9 in the comp.

We have to figure out a way as the season progresses to get him in a first receiver role more often when Havilli is on.

Smith does it all the time. Just get CNK or Bateman to jump into dummy half.

Green eyed Mick wrote:

Coastalraider wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 6:07 am Having watched the replay of the first CNK try, I’m still firmly of the belief that the best number 7 in our squad is wearing the number 9.

However he is also the second best 9 in the comp.

We have to figure out a way as the season progresses to get him in a first receiver role more often when Havilli is on.

Smith does it all the time. Just get CNK or Bateman to jump into dummy half.

Watch Hodgson's old games in the UK. He spent at least a third of each game that I saw drifting out to first receiver.

edwahu wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 9:40 am

papabear wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 9:32 am well hopefully havili cant hit somewhere near him when he passes

We should use spot 30 in our squad to sign a hooker. I am not sure Havilli is still a viable option if Hodgo gets injured, and he definitely wouldn't be an 80 minute one.

Starling goes alright

Raiders666 wrote: ↑April 1, 2019, 12:53 pm

edwahu wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 9:40 am

papabear wrote: ↑March 30, 2019, 9:32 am well hopefully havili cant hit somewhere near him when he passes

We should use spot 30 in our squad to sign a hooker. I am not sure Havilli is still a viable option if Hodgo gets injured, and he definitely wouldn't be an 80 minute one.

Starling goes alright

Havilii had a couple of wonky passes in driving rain in a single game. He's still got credit in the bank from a dozen or more good games as Hodgo's replacement/our bench hooker where he has been very effective. He's still my first choice as hooker fill in and he's also worth his salt as a middle or edge forward. That's a good skill set.

Starling looked good in the trials, did enough to be worth a look on the bench if ever Havilii does have to move into the starting side as hooker.

Look, to be honest if Hodgson goes down long term we’re pretty well rooted anyway. With the salary cap disadvantages the Raiders face you’re better rolling the dice your main man doesn’t get injured, and adequately filling the remaining positions.

gangrenous wrote: ↑April 1, 2019, 4:40 pm Look, to be honest if Hodgson goes down long term we’re pretty well rooted anyway. With the salary cap disadvantages the Raiders face you’re better rolling the dice your main man doesn’t get injured, and adequately filling the remaining positions.

Yeah I agree
Reminds me of a story around media asking OC Tom Moore why Colts QB Peyton Manning’s back ups didn’t get more repetitions in practise
His response was “fellas, if #18 goes down, we’re *****. And we don’t practise *****”

We shouldn’t be doomsday planing for ****. There ain’t **** we can do about that

gangrenous wrote: ↑April 1, 2019, 4:40 pm Look, to be honest if Hodgson goes down long term we’re pretty well rooted anyway. With the salary cap disadvantages the Raiders face you’re better rolling the dice your main man doesn’t get injured, and adequately filling the remaining positions.

Sure, long term I agree. But looking at a situation where a 4-6 week absence can make the difference between top4 or top 8 or not- or to win a one off like a GF/semi it's a valid point. I'd go Havilii at #9 and bring up our young bench. I think he's good. Equal to Baptiste imo, just different games (Baptiste faster, Havillii stronger and better offload, both strong tacklers).

If others would go Starling or think we need another #9, that's of interest to me.

I also do not think any quote by an NFL coach is relevant to the NRL. What a defeatist attitude. That's a completely coach dominated game where if the coaches pet play-monkey (Qback) isn't out there then the game goes to **** and individual brilliance or heroic efforts across all aspects of a game are stymied by artificial compartmentalisation . Thank god NRL isn't like that yet or I'd give up watching.

I'm sure the GH has a thousand counter-examples but why bother.

PS- forgive the rant.

BadnMean wrote: ↑April 1, 2019, 8:45 pm00
I also do not think any quote by an NFL coach is relevant to the NRL. What a defeatist attitude. That's a completely coach dominated game where if the coaches pet play-monkey (Qback) isn't out there then the game goes to **** and individual brilliance or heroic efforts across all aspects of a game are stymied by artificial compartmentalisation . Thank god NRL isn't like that yet or I'd give up watching.

I'm sure the GH has a thousand counter-examples but why bother.

PS- forgive the rant.

LOL. That not it, my man.
There is no hooker who can salvage our **** available. No one can replicate what Hodgson does for our football team given our limitations with the cap. That's reality.

PigRickman wrote: ↑April 1, 2019, 8:48 pm

BadnMean wrote: ↑April 1, 2019, 8:45 pm00
I also do not think any quote by an NFL coach is relevant to the NRL. What a defeatist attitude. That's a completely coach dominated game where if the coaches pet play-monkey (Qback) isn't out there then the game goes to **** and individual brilliance or heroic efforts across all aspects of a game are stymied by artificial compartmentalisation . Thank god NRL isn't like that yet or I'd give up watching.

I'm sure the GH has a thousand counter-examples but why bother.

PS- forgive the rant.

LOL. That not it, my man.
There is no hooker who can salvage our **** available. No one can replicate what Hodgson does for our football team given our limitations with the cap. That's reality.

Given the parameters described in my post, I disagree, I think.

I never said someone can replicate what Hdogo does, the entire point of my post was to say what's best if he's down and out for a while and can we best manage a game/short period while he's gone with Havilli in play, or Starling or do we need to buy another hooker.

Have read and try again.

another poor performance tonite.

Defensively he was falling off tackles.

In attack, again to many **** crash balls. Sometimes I think he has some wierd pleasure in throwing hospital balls.

I also think chances are hes throwing to the decoy which i dont mind every 2nd or third time, but every single play is painful and the short one where he skipped out of dummy half on the try line and went short to someone who knocked on coz he was 2 m from hodgson who had drawn all the defenders was an abomination.

his kicking early in the set when we are on top is just stupid as well, kick early if your going nowhere and its wet and you need the ball down the other end, not in attack, lucky with his other stupid early grubber that whitehead went full ronaldo to finish the play.

To be fair to him the forwards were epic in defence just brutalising them and maybe he is part of the talk for that.

Poor is a bit rough, he was average

Tried to force his hand a bit much with the crash ball

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He's still well within the 12 months most players say it takes them to get their confidence back after returning from an ACL. I hope he starts to run a bit more from dummy half as that confidence comes back, that is when he is at his best IMO.

**** of a game
Set up two tries

Bad teams blame their best players for their lot in life. A truism across all sports


We’ve got the second best hooker in the world

lol the papalii try was all papalii and them having to defend 400 tackles on their line.

the whitehead try was whitehead brilliance and luck of a **** kick.

i dont blame our player for where we are, our players are going great guns we are running third only losing to melbourne who are a **** machine. I just dont like it when i feel this place starts to rate players of reputation over performance.

I think he was playing more to a game plan of keep it simple. If that’s a terrible game for him I’ll take it.


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The biggest issue with the way Hodgson is playing is what do you do as one of his runners? Close to the line we've got 2 runners that need to time what is going on. If you're going to put in your 3rd shimmy jink you then need to hit the correct option and when he does he's not hitting often enough (it's not a forward, ever).
Definitely some polish to be added there and Ryan Sutton in particular needs to have some chats with Hodgson and Soliola as to what's required of that 2nd runner as far as timing goes. At the moment he's running flat timing as it's probably what he's always had to deal with but he needs to be 3-4 steps deeper.

Once we get some of this clunkiness sorted out we are really going to embarrass a few sides.

That was so obviously stuarts tactics and they worked. We were more expansive in the second half after we had completely destroyed parra with those crashballs

Seems crazy to be in here saying Hodgson was bad when we basically had Parra finished off at half time. Maybe not on the scoreboard but they were physically done.

There are some concerns in the spine and Hodgson himself with what i would call skill plays. The kicking is legit awful with flashes of brilliance and the passing is quite sloppy in the halves. Id like more bodies in motion in attack too but we smacked parra around tonight. Sticky got it right and hodgson stuck to it

It astounds me how poorly teams attack inside the 20.

The constant reliance on square-on crash balls as opppsed to running lines at angles, is just embarrassing to watch.

Roger Kenworthy wrote: ↑April 14, 2019, 10:22 pm He's still well within the 12 months most players say it takes them to get their confidence back after returning from an ACL. I hope he starts to run a bit more from dummy half as that confidence comes back, that is when he is at his best IMO.

Yeah a few times a whole seemed to open up in front of him and he didn't go at it. Doubting his speed or other teams don't fear his pace ..?

Pete Cash wrote: ↑April 14, 2019, 11:19 pm That was so obviously stuarts tactics and they worked. We were more expansive in the second half after we had completely destroyed parra with those crashballs

Seems crazy to be in here saying Hodgson was bad when we basically had Parra finished off at half time. Maybe not on the scoreboard but they were physically done.

There are some concerns in the spine and Hodgson himself with what i would call skill plays. The kicking is legit awful with flashes of brilliance and the passing is quite sloppy in the halves. Id like more bodies in motion in attack too but we smacked parra around tonight. Sticky got it right and hodgson stuck to it

I've said it before and anyone can check the replays- Hodgo has a very basic and obvious kick technique flaw from dummy half.

He tries to sway sideways and kick in one motion- his hands are swaying sideways (left to right) with the ball as he is trying to kick it with his foot moving in a completely different plane of motion (back to forward)- this makes the margin for error so tiny so he skews at least one every week off the side of his boot and out on the full.

Kicking 101- get the ball as close to your boot as possible before releasing it and have it still or moving in the same plane as your foot is moving at worst. Margin for error is bigger and the effect of mistiming less severe- slightly fuller or slightly shorter but still off the meat of the foot.

Noticed it rounds ago and no improvement yet- I expect to watch it all season without Ricky, greatest kicker of all, getting Hodgo to fix it.

Tough life when you lead the team to a good win and keep the team coming right behind you(forth) to a duck egg, then get criticised for being poor. Some people will still be blowing up if we ever win a comp again

Some are very hard to please.

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I still love him

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It just goes to show no matter how well you are going someone is always looking at the negatives and can’t enjoy a win.



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I'm Bate Man wrote: ↑April 14, 2019, 11:47 pm Tough life when you lead the team to a good win and keep the team coming right behind you(forth) to a duck egg, then get criticised for being poor. Some people will still be blowing up if we ever win a comp again

Yep. If Storm beat us the same way we would all be awe struck and no one would bag Smith for one of his "worst games ever".

His kicking definitely needs work but the criticism of the crash balls shouldve been put to bed by Stuart and Rapanas tactics.

Hodgson isn’t in the same class as smith.

Someone mentioned above which I saw to but didn’t post, was hodgsons fear of running compared to normal. To be fair it might be an injury thing but a few times there was a tiny little whole that normally Hodgson would run into and punish that he didn’t take.

One can hope though that the passing kicking and option taking can improve as the season goes on.

Maybe Stuart says keep it simple, but imo a crash ball at the wrong time is more risky then a shift in terms of a turn over. So I am not sure he is to blame.

Also what does Rapana have to do with the price of milk?

I reckon on at least 3-4 occasions when Hodgo was crabbing across field looking for that crash ball he could have straightened and scored through the gapping holes.

Did anybody else notice how wide those spaces were ?

PigRickman wrote: ↑April 14, 2019, 10:25 pm **** of a game
Set up two tries

Bad teams blame their best players for their lot in life. A truism across all sports


We’ve got the second best hooker in the world

3rd best. Can't have him in front of Cook