2020 Rd 12 V Cowboys: Teams and Previews *Teams p1*

[amiafish]

Yes, yes. Harley will get a full 80 and be underdone from no match fitness and make some errors and this place will start looking at where to shop him.

A lot of the negative commentary on here about Scott isn't about his errors per se. Rather, it's about his lack of upside going forward. He's just not big enough, fast enough, strong enough, skilful enough, smart enough to be a gun centre in the NRL. So, yes...there is the possibility that Harley would make some errors and get gassed, but he's got obvious upside in spades...not the case with Scott.

[BadnMean]

There's got to be a sunk cost fallacy going on here, surely? I mean, if Scott was on minimums, would anyone be saying "oh great, let's put this guy in front of Harley...sure, Harley looks to be a gun in the one game he's played and Scott has played like a damp squib in the last 5 games he's played, but let's give Scott another go"?

But no, Ricky took the punt on him, we're stuck paying his considerable salary, so now we should keep playing him in the forlorn hope that he'll come good? Sunk cost.

Dumb.

If you're serious about playing our best side, you cannot pick a player that is demonstrably worse than another player who is ready to play. Scott has played demonstrably worse than every other centre in the NRL (with the possible exception of Montoya) and Harley showed last week that he's not overawed by the NRL, and that he's likely to be as much of a gun in NRL as he was in the juniors. The only rationale in playing Scott is to try to rehabilitate an incorrect buy...to try to prove the naysayers wrong. We sorely need speed in our backline...and Harley has speed to burn...why are we not playing him?

I tend to agree. What has he done to earn a recall? Obviously no reggies to play in but you'd think showing a good attitude and training the house down is the response- not acting like a goose off the field. How does that put him ahead of HSS?

[GreenMachine]

His recall could be to either give him a chance to redeem himself or to window shop him off to a desperate club.

Either way I’ll trust how the club handle it. I’m not getting the impression Ricky will suffer fools for too long.

[Seiffert82]

Stuart obviously sees things on the training field and behind the scenes we aren't privvy to.

Seeing O'Donnell being thrown in the deep end against the Roosters was a brave move from Stuart, but it showed how tough it is for any young player to come in without regular minutes and have an impact.

Stuart will be incredibly mindful of the long-term development of Smith-Shields. The kid is fit, but is hardly built like Cotric for example.

Seeing Scott named surprised me for a number of reasons, but Stuart persisted with Leilua last year despite having the **** with him, so to that extent it shouldn't be that surprising to see Scott named under these circumstances.

[1992]

There's got to be a sunk cost fallacy going on here, surely? I mean, if Scott was on minimums, would anyone be saying "oh great, let's put this guy in front of Harley...sure, Harley looks to be a gun in the one game he's played and Scott has played like a damp squib in the last 5 games he's played, but let's give Scott another go"?

But no, Ricky took the punt on him, we're stuck paying his considerable salary, so now we should keep playing him in the forlorn hope that he'll come good? Sunk cost.

Dumb.

If you're serious about playing our best side, you cannot pick a player that is demonstrably worse than another player who is ready to play. Scott has played demonstrably worse than every other centre in the NRL (with the possible exception of Montoya) and Harley showed last week that he's not overawed by the NRL, and that he's likely to be as much of a gun in NRL as he was in the juniors. The only rationale in playing Scott is to try to rehabilitate an incorrect buy...to try to prove the naysayers wrong. We sorely need speed in our backline...and Harley has speed to burn...why are we not playing him?

Scott got dropped. Arm infection? Sure. Maybe. Yet he was left out longer than needed. That should give him a massive kick in the butt.
He has shown how good he can play at Melbourne and the 2 games at the start for us. Scott is good enough but dipped to the worst form of his career. It happens.
Let's see what the guy can do.

[amiafish]

I think people are making some good points about why he's been recalled (e.g. final chance to redeem himself against weak opposition, training form that we're not seeing) but can I just ask in all seriousness...where is Scott's improvement going to come from?

Is he going to get faster? Stronger?
Has he put on muscle weight in the last month?
Has he improved his tackling technique?
Has he improved his defensive reads?
Is he going to start busting tackles all of a sudden, where previously he's been tossed around like a boy who's accidentally wandered into a man's game?

I dunno. I just can't see where he's got the high ceiling that some posters believe he has. HSS, on the other hand is a clear gun. He may not be big or strong (yet), but he is already lightning fast (which Scott is not). As he puts on size and strength, and gains match fitness, he will improve even further. Why not give him the benefit of a flat wicket, instead of wasting it on a proven dud? Especially when there's no Mounties where HSS can get match fitness put into him. I just don't get it.

[LastRaider]

I would prefer to put up with some errors and develop HSS now in this odd COVID-19 season then watch Scott make these same errors every game with no upside for the club.

If his off field drama’s has been sorted, I could perhaps see a case as I can see that it is affecting his game, however there is no change there so I can’t see there being any change in his game unfortunately.

[Rick]

I would prefer to put up with some errors and develop HSS now in this odd COVID-19 season then watch Scott make these same errors every game with no upside for the club.

If his off field drama’s has been sorted, I could perhaps see a case as I can see that it is affecting his game, however there is no change there so I can’t see there being any change in his game unfortunately.

In the backline we are missing CNK, Oldfield and Simonsen. For me that is three good reasons to go with someone with a bit more NRL experience.


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[Northern Raider]

All things considered it's actually the perfect time to give Scott another crack. There's a gap needing to be filled due to injuries and we're up against one of the more inexperienced backlines in the NRL. If he can't perform at a satisfactory level in this game you can probably write him off as a lost cause and HSS gets picked ahead of him next week.

[greeneyed]

Canberra Raiders captain Jarrod Croker says fresh faces will bring renewed energy to Green Machine

Canberra Raiders captain Jarrod Croker says the injection of John Bateman and new recruit Corey Harawira-Naera will bring new energy into his team when they face the North Queensland Cowboys at the new Townsville Stadium on Saturday night.

Bateman will play his first game since the 2019 Grand Final after two operations on his shoulder have kept him sidelined since March.

"Johnny is back and obviously having Corey come in and Curtis as well... a few welcome faces. It's been a couple of dry weeks with injury, so it's good to get a couple back," Croker said.

"A couple of fresh faces, plenty of energy around the joint, so its as little injection that we probably need going into a tough road trip."

"He's excited Batty [Bateman], he's ready to go. But we'll see how the lungs go in Townsville at 26 degrees and all the humidity," Croker said with a laugh.

"No, he'll be fine, he'll be excited and I'm sure he'll calling 'super' and getting the ball as much as possible, so as to get in amongst it all. It's great to have Batty back. We all know what he's like. We all know the influence he has on the team and we're looking forward to having him back on the weekend."

Kiwi international Corey Harawira-Naera only joined the Raiders bubble on Tuesday, but coach Ricky Stuart believes he's fit enough to start on the bench on Saturday night - despite having spent the entire season on the sidelines after an off field incident.

"He's in pretty good nick. Obviously he's an international player so he's very professional. He's obviously in good enough condition to be ready to go this weekend," Croker said.

"He's been through all the medical stuff with the staff and they're happy with him. So I think he's right to go."

Hooker Siliva Havili backed his captain's assessment.

"It's alway handy to have experienced players coming back. Batty [Bateman] from injury and also Corey coming onto the bench," Havili said.

"We all know what style of footy Batty plays. He brings that energy and that real competitiveness to the game. Definitely, he's excited, excited to be out on the field training yesterday. What's he's going to bring is that energy and competitiveness."

"Corey trained with us yesterday. He's just getting familiar with the calls and we're teaching him our plays."

Kick off in the Raiders' clash with the Cowboys is at 5:30pm at Townsville Stadium on Saturday.

A report for The Greenhouse

VIDEO: Raiders welcome fresh faces: https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/07/29/rai ... esh-faces/

PODCAST: Behind the limelight: Jack Wighton: https://www.raiders.com.au/news/2020/07 ... -wighton3/

Set of Six: Raiders v Cowboys: https://www.raiders.com.au/news/2020/07 ... v-cowboys/

[DarkRaider]

Based purely off on-field displays it’s too early to write Curtis off.

He had three perfectly fine games. Everyone was happy.

He then looked average for four games, during a period in which the whole team looked average. It’s not as though he was losing us games on his own, but he had a number of individual errors that stood out among a team of underperformers. He was fairly dropped because of this.

He ended up being required off the bench the next week due to Rapana’s injury, where he looked willing and didn’t do much if anything wrong.

Then Rapana came back and Scott remained dropped and/or picked up an injury and hasn’t had in opportunity since.

And that’s enough to say “never again”? Even now that he’s fit and we’re in the middle of a backline injury crisis? I can’t see it.

[Northern Raider]

Based purely off on-field displays it’s too early to write Curtis off.

He had three perfectly fine games. Everyone was happy.

He then looked average for four games, during a period in which the whole team looked average. It’s not as though he was losing us games on his own, but he had a number of individual errors that stood out among a team of underperformers. He was fairly dropped because of this.

He ended up being required off the bench the next week due to Rapana’s injury, where he looked willing and didn’t do much if anything wrong.

Then Rapana came back and Scott remained dropped and/or picked up an injury and hasn’t had in opportunity since.

And that’s enough to say “never again”? Even now that he’s fit and we’re in the middle of a backline injury crisis? I can’t see it.

Yes, the whole team looked average in that period but Scott was total ****. Average would have been a huge upgrade.

[-PJ-]

Id take average..

[pickles]

On Young, and all of our less experienced players coming through at the moment I am almost certain we are not seeing them play at their full potential yet. I am certain that they have been asked by Stuart to play a very simple roll that enables them to focus on what they need to get done. For Young that might be as simple as x amount of runs, make your tackles and don't drop the ball. Same for Sutton for example who did nothing outstanding but didn't stuff anything up either.

The last thing we need are our younger players going off script, painting outside the lines and trying to win the game on their own. We have the luxury of having an extremely experience roster who are happy to take the responsibility of the game on their shoulders but to be able to do this they need the players around them to do their job with a low error rate.

The Storm have been the best example of this approach. The reason they have had so much success with no name players is that they are only expecting them to play no name football but with the knowledge that if they do that well, the players on the big bucks will come up with the plays to win the games.

Lui is a prime example of someone who has developed through this model. A no frills player who did a job but we are now seeing some of his other capabilities in stripping the ball and that beautiful pass he threw for Elliot that should have been a try. He has earned the right to throw that pass by doing the simple stuff, building his confidence and learning when it is on and when it isn't.

I'm not ready ready to judge Young's ceiling based on what he has done so far because I am certain we haven't seen anywhere near his ceiling!

[89_90_94_??]

Based purely off on-field displays it’s too early to write Curtis off.

He had three perfectly fine games. Everyone was happy.

He then looked average for four games, during a period in which the whole team looked average. It’s not as though he was losing us games on his own, but he had a number of individual errors that stood out among a team of underperformers. He was fairly dropped because of this.

He ended up being required off the bench the next week due to Rapana’s injury, where he looked willing and didn’t do much if anything wrong.

Then Rapana came back and Scott remained dropped and/or picked up an injury and hasn’t had in opportunity since.

And that’s enough to say “never again”? Even now that he’s fit and we’re in the middle of a backline injury crisis? I can’t see it.

Average is being very very kind. He looked completely lost and put together the worse 4 or 5 weeks of footy I have seen from an outside back. Errors most can live with, joey made errors all the time but he had that x-factor with his power.

[greeneyed]

Referee Ben Cummins to Canberra to help Raiders after NRL grand final gaffe

Jarrod Croker has revealed "six again" Grand Final referee Ben Cummins came to Canberra to help them during the pre-season. Croker joked they'll probably hear that call again on Saturday night in the Cowboys clash.

"I can't say we won't hear it because we've been getting a few every week," he said. "We're pretty good at giving them away at the moment. I saw last night on Twitter it was the first time we've had him this year. But we had Ben down in the pre-season doing a bit of stuff with us. I'll probably have a chuckle the first one I hear."

Read more: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/ ... /?cs=14239

Canberra Raiders' Jarrod Croker sees the lighter side of referee Ben Cummins reunion: https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/canberra-r ... 7787cd67e9

[greeneyed]

Players leave Canberra at 10:30am for direct flight to Townsville... they're saying three hours, but it is probably closer to four I should think.

[BadnMean]

A plane is a bit more hassle/discomfort than a bus but a direct flight is pretty good. There are a lot of teams disrupted by covid restrictions and now that we have home games again to ease the travel load, I don't have many other complaints.

[radicalraider]

Anyone hear me give it to the roosters on 1269am about an hour ago

[amiafish]

Average is being very very kind. He looked completely lost and put together the worse 4 or 5 weeks of footy I have seen from an outside back. Errors most can live with, joey made errors all the time but he had that x-factor with his power.

This is the key point many people are ignoring. Scott is a low ceiling player (at least he looks like it to me) who is also playing poorly and making errors. It's not like he's got James Roberts' pace with occasional poor tackling, or Jo Manu's skills with occasional bad reads in defense...or BJ's power with occasional brain-dead errors. Nope.

He's got no outstanding virtues to offset EDIT he's been serving up...and nobody who's saying "yep, give him yet another shot" is explaining what those outstanding attributes are.

[Ilanraiders]

Anyone here have tickets to the cows game that they want to sell?? Pls pm me.

[afgtnk]

I think people are making some good points about why he's been recalled (e.g. final chance to redeem himself against weak opposition, training form that we're not seeing) but can I just ask in all seriousness...where is Scott's improvement going to come from?

Is he going to get faster? Stronger?
Has he put on muscle weight in the last month?
Has he improved his tackling technique?
Has he improved his defensive reads?
Is he going to start busting tackles all of a sudden, where previously he's been tossed around like a boy who's accidentally wandered into a man's game?

I dunno. I just can't see where he's got the high ceiling that some posters believe he has. HSS, on the other hand is a clear gun. He may not be big or strong (yet), but he is already lightning fast (which Scott is not). As he puts on size and strength, and gains match fitness, he will improve even further. Why not give him the benefit of a flat wicket, instead of wasting it on a proven dud? Especially when there's no Mounties where HSS can get match fitness put into him. I just don't get it.

He'll obviously never be fast.

His best chance is to put on 3-5kgs of muscle and fix that tackling technique. Extra size should hopefully give him more confidence to put his shoulder into it, and with ball in hand give him more leg drive post-contact plus make those stationary palm-offs a bit more effective.

It's doable but if it does happen it won't be this season.

[-PJ-]

And lose the mo..

[Colk]

There's got to be a sunk cost fallacy going on here, surely? I mean, if Scott was on minimums, would anyone be saying "oh great, let's put this guy in front of Harley...sure, Harley looks to be a gun in the one game he's played and Scott has played like a damp squib in the last 5 games he's played, but let's give Scott another go"?

But no, Ricky took the punt on him, we're stuck paying his considerable salary, so now we should keep playing him in the forlorn hope that he'll come good? Sunk cost.

Dumb.

If you're serious about playing our best side, you cannot pick a player that is demonstrably worse than another player who is ready to play. Scott has played demonstrably worse than every other centre in the NRL (with the possible exception of Montoya) and Harley showed last week that he's not overawed by the NRL, and that he's likely to be as much of a gun in NRL as he was in the juniors. The only rationale in playing Scott is to try to rehabilitate an incorrect buy...to try to prove the naysayers wrong. We sorely need speed in our backline...and Harley has speed to burn...why are we not playing him?

Exactly. I hope that Scott has something in his armoury that I and many others don’t see but I would be very surprised.

Notwithstanding the thought that I am not so bullish about Harley’s debut as others seem to be he did show promise and I would like to see if that promise translates into something better

[greeneyed]

@TheGHRaiders on Twitter

VIDEO: Canberra Raiders still waiting on clearance from Queensland Government for Josh Papalii and Joe Tapine to play Cowboys. Hear from Jarrod Croker and Siliva Havili on preparations for the clash. WIN News Canberra reports: http://ow.ly/YrR850AKZ6t

#NRL #WeAreRaiders #wearecbr

[Terrycampese]

I think people are making some good points about why he's been recalled (e.g. final chance to redeem himself against weak opposition, training form that we're not seeing) but can I just ask in all seriousness...where is Scott's improvement going to come from?

Is he going to get faster? Stronger?
Has he put on muscle weight in the last month?
Has he improved his tackling technique?
Has he improved his defensive reads?
Is he going to start busting tackles all of a sudden, where previously he's been tossed around like a boy who's accidentally wandered into a man's game?

I dunno. I just can't see where he's got the high ceiling that some posters believe he has. HSS, on the other hand is a clear gun. He may not be big or strong (yet), but he is already lightning fast (which Scott is not). As he puts on size and strength, and gains match fitness, he will improve even further. Why not give him the benefit of a flat wicket, instead of wasting it on a proven dud? Especially when there's no Mounties where HSS can get match fitness put into him. I just don't get it.

Please watch this at 1min:36secs



I can understand the question marks over his form but making out like he is physically incapable of being a quality player because he apparently doesn’t have the speed and strength is pretty off.

People have said the same things about gutherson in the past and he is just about the form back in the comp.

Scott has some form, attitude and consistency issues to work through but he isn’t too slow and slender for nrl. That’s a lark

[bonehead]

yeah don't watch at the 1min mark when he takes nobody and lane scores untouched or that the try if he passes to addo carr there's no chance Ferguson gets a shot or later when he doesn't pass to vunivalu and gets bundled out.

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[Terrycampese]

yeah don't watch at the 1min mark when he takes nobody and lane scores untouched or that the try if he passes to addo carr there's no chance Ferguson gets a shot or later when he doesn't pass to vunivalu and gets bundled out.

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Was the question whether he is physically capable of NRL or whether he ever makes mistakes? The OP suggested he isn’t fast enough or strong enough for the nrl. That is wrong as evidenced by him displaying excellent speed strength and awareness

Almost every try that occurs on an edge (spoiler alert: there are a lot of them) involves a defensive error. Usually from a number of players. The fact you seem to think he, as the centre, was required to mark his opposite centre and one of the strongest running backrowers in the league simultaneously should sound alarm bells.

I’m not saying Scott is perfect but retroactively acting like he has always been a liability is patently untrue. Everyone here was excited by the signing based on his storm performances. Now all of a sudden everyone knew he wouldn’t perform for us

[bonehead]

yeah don't watch at the 1min mark when he takes nobody and lane scores untouched or that the try if he passes to addo carr there's no chance Ferguson gets a shot or later when he doesn't pass to vunivalu and gets bundled out.

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Was the question whether he is physically capable of NRL or whether he ever makes mistakes? The OP suggested he isn’t fast enough or strong enough for the nrl. That is wrong as evidenced by him displaying excellent speed strength and awareness

Almost every try that occurs on an edge (spoiler alert: there are a lot of them) involves a defensive error. Usually from a number of players. The fact you seem to think he, as the centre, was required to mark his opposite centre and one of the strongest running backrowers in the league simultaneously should sound alarm bells.

I’m not saying Scott is perfect but retroactively acting like he has always been a liability is patently untrue. Every galaxy brains here was excited by the signing based on his storm performances. Now all of a sudden everyone knew he wouldn’t perform for us

nah im not, my point was you pinpointed 1 highlight where most of us that are critical of his form are looking at a lot more play.
He's an obvious talent, i just don't know if we can afford to play him back to his best this season from how we are sitting

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[Crusader]

Whats the go with papa and taps, they gonna play??? Would be a massive loss.

[Terrycampese]

yeah don't watch at the 1min mark when he takes nobody and lane scores untouched or that the try if he passes to addo carr there's no chance Ferguson gets a shot or later when he doesn't pass to vunivalu and gets bundled out.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

Was the question whether he is physically capable of NRL or whether he ever makes mistakes? The OP suggested he isn’t fast enough or strong enough for the nrl. That is wrong as evidenced by him displaying excellent speed strength and awareness

Almost every try that occurs on an edge (spoiler alert: there are a lot of them) involves a defensive error. Usually from a number of players. The fact you seem to think he, as the centre, was required to mark his opposite centre and one of the strongest running backrowers in the league simultaneously should sound alarm bells.

I’m not saying Scott is perfect but retroactively acting like he has always been a liability is patently untrue. Every galaxy brains here was excited by the signing based on his storm performances. Now all of a sudden everyone knew he wouldn’t perform for us

nah im not, my point was you pinpointed 1 highlight where most of us that are critical of his form are looking at a lot more play.
He's an obvious talent, i just don't know if we can afford to play him back to his best this season from how we are sitting

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Yeah I agree with this. Without injuries, he shouldn’t be getting a look in- given our good form of late. The only point I was raising was that a few posters seem to forget that he has shown significant potential upside. I think the term “proven dud” was thrown around and that he doesn’t have the speed or muscle weight for NRL. I think that 1 play is enough of an example of his potential and shows he is physically capable of causing trouble. Hell he was strong for us in round 1 and 2 as well. There is obviously a lot more play (good and bad) that can’t really be posted.

But acting like it’s crazy we aren’t starting a player with 20 minutes experience over him is way over the top in my view. Time will tell. Ricky has rarely been wrong in his time with us when it comes to selections imo

[Neeeegz]

We need a long term right centre. And Harley Smith-Shields is it.
I think if Scott starts, it's his last chance, or Harley needs a shot surely...
He looks ready and will improve quickly

[zim]

yeah don't watch at the 1min mark when he takes nobody and lane scores untouched or that the try if he passes to addo carr there's no chance Ferguson gets a shot or later when he doesn't pass to vunivalu and gets bundled out.

So your saying Scotts court appearance will be something like this (watch from the 0:00 mark)

[1992]

Based purely off on-field displays it’s too early to write Curtis off.

He had three perfectly fine games. Everyone was happy.

He then looked average for four games, during a period in which the whole team looked average. It’s not as though he was losing us games on his own, but he had a number of individual errors that stood out among a team of underperformers. He was fairly dropped because of this.

He ended up being required off the bench the next week due to Rapana’s injury, where he looked willing and didn’t do much if anything wrong.

Then Rapana came back and Scott remained dropped and/or picked up an injury and hasn’t had in opportunity since.

And that’s enough to say “never again”? Even now that he’s fit and we’re in the middle of a backline injury crisis? I can’t see it.

Well said. Agree 100%

[Crusader]

Asi ruled out, Dunn is 5/8