Window closed?

[Hong Kong Raider]

I was interested to see this discussion between Freddy and Joey (Freddy and the Eighth). Bracey says Bateman leaving at the end of the year, Papa leaving, then corrected by Joey - he's signed again !

Freddy says never realised Bateman made so much difference (commentating on too many Brisbane games on Thurs and Fri night!) - everything about him is so unorthodox, which Joey agrees with him, everything Raiders do is so conventional, particularly on the left hand side attack (many fans here have said this about our team and made suggestions for improvement).

Both said "no." Freddy mentions Hodgson to return and Joey mentions we haven't seen any of our juniors due to COVID, lower grades, who we are developing. Then says no.

Are Timoko, HSS, Semi and O'Donnell and others good enough?

I'm just paraphrasing and I'm not as good as GE when he provides this service so forgive me!



In the other discussion on the Matty Johns podcast, Blocker Roach believes we are a chance, but Kenty says our non top 4 finish will hinder us:

I am going to throw the Raiders in there too, I love their pack and their depth,” Roach said.

“The Raiders are going to finish outside the top four though more likely, so that is going to be their problem,” Kent added.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-20 ... b8c3809cb6

[Lui_Bon]

Both said "no."
Do you mean they both said the window is closing, or they both thought it was still open?

I can see their point if they thought it was closed.

As for the MJ Podcast thing (which I haven't seen yet) I would just say that it's a highly unusual season and while we know we can beat any of the teams above us, and have done so in at least the original grand final rematch, we know historically we can beat the Storm and there's no particular reason to be scared of the Eels, the Panthers look pretty much amazing but anything can happen on any given matchday and maybe they can't win like 20 games in a row to win the GF...

I wouldn't put any money on us but I'm not totally writing off our chances.

Oh, and our left side is attack is completely orthodox, and then Jack plants the ball down. It doesn't have to be complicated...

[Hong Kong Raider]

Both said "no."
Do you mean they both said the window is closing, or they both thought it was still open?

Not closed

[casta66]

Thanks for posting. I've never seen this show before, ended up watching the whole thing.
Although should be called Freddy and the Dufus.

[Rickmando]

Couldn’t pay me to listen to those two spanners. Surprised they could fit those 2 egos into the confines of a recording studio.

[GreenMachine]

Our window will remain open if we can develop/recruit outside backs that match the ambition of our forward pack and halves.
Otherwise, we'll remain a 5 to 8 seed team.

[woppadingo]

Valemei, Timoko, HSS, and hopefully improvement from Scott.. it depends on them. Simonson? Im not so sure he is a game changer.
If two of the abovementioned turn out to be game breakers, then our window remains open. Otherwise we need to recruit a star.

[Turt]

If the window is to remain open we need to continue with the current recruitment strategy. Promote promising young players an recruit quality players. Don't pay overs.

If we can keep doing these things, we'll be a force for many years to come.

[zim]

I think we'd be a lot more comfortable if we had a reserve grade this season. We'd be seeing those 3 young outside backs consistently churning out good performances and be willing to take a punt. They'd be developing and building confidence.
As it stands we're looking a decent signing short to replace Cotric. Even a Matt Ikuvalu if you wanted to really budget it. Someone that can churn those metres out of trouble and has been part of a very good system.

I think the window is still open. We're almost in the 4 with one pretty key injury and a heap of disruption in the middle. Luck rolling a little differently this year we'd be embedded in the 4.

[Azza]

We fix our issues with the outside backs I'd say we're sweet.

[BadnMean]

The issue is the season is 3/4 done and we have no idea who our best young back is, haven't really put much experience into any of them- just random games here or there and don't seem to know what our best backline is.

It's a bit of a muddle. Need one high quality recruit in the outside backs imo. Otherwise we'll lack strike vs the top teams again. Even with Simo back and if Scott marginally improves there is not a single player back there to be worried about.

[Seiffert82]

I'm worried that the window is closing, but I'm even more worried that we are not getting enough out of our current lineup.

I think our defence is pretty solid under most circumstances. I don't know the stats, but I'd bet that a significant share of tries scored against us have been from kicks, which is a great indicator of how teams need to play against you. The opposition also isn't making huge yards against us like they have in the past.

Like most others, the big issue for us is our attack. At times we look great, but 70% of the time we look ordinary. It started with Hodgo trying to do too much with the ball and now we have 2 fantastic running halves who have complementary short and long kicking games, but just aren't always great in getting the most of the backline.

We also play a pretty flat structure in attack, which is great for the likes of Papa, Whitehead and Tapine who can hit a half gap, but not so great when you have blokes like Croker, Scott, CNK and Bateman who need a bit of room to be effective. In the absence of ball-playing halves I really think we need to rely more on second-phase play from offloads to get the most out of our backline.

It's like most of the individual pieces are there for success, but they don't naturally all fit together in the way we play.

[Colk]

I think we'd be a lot more comfortable if we had a reserve grade this season. We'd be seeing those 3 young outside backs consistently churning out good performances and be willing to take a punt. They'd be developing and building confidence.
As it stands we're looking a decent signing short to replace Cotric. Even a Matt Ikuvalu if you wanted to really budget it. Someone that can churn those metres out of trouble and has been part of a very good system.

I think the window is still open. We're almost in the 4 with one pretty key injury and a heap of disruption in the middle. Luck rolling a little differently this year we'd be embedded in the 4.

I think this is pretty accurate. The young guys like HSS and Timoko could have pushed for first grade through consistent performances in lower grade; however there is the caveat that other clubs are more comfortable than us at promoting young players, particularly in the backs

[-TW-]

We still have a good enough squad to be there abouts.

Considering we lost half of our starting 13 at one point and have only been blown away once, our depth is pretty good.

Bateman will be a loss obviously

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