2024 Round 4 v Sharks: Teams and Previews *Teams p1

[Botman]

So many options, but I’m still of the strong view that Danny Levi is the best 9 in the club and is who Ricky will pick when the team is announced tomorrow.

Must have missed this so I’ll ask again!
Genuine question, Billy... And ill propose it two different ways and give you dealers choices

1. There are 17 starting hookers in this league. Where does Danny Levi rank amongst them for you?

2. There are 16 other clubs in the competition. Raiders aside, what other clubs do you think he'd start for?

[President Clinton]

So many options, but I’m still of the strong view that Danny Levi is the best 9 in the club and is who Ricky will pick when the team is announced tomorrow.

Must have missed this so I’ll ask again!
Genuine question, Billy... And ill propose it two different ways and give you dealers choices

1. There are 17 starting hookers in this league. Where does Danny Levi rank amongst them for you?

2. There are 16 other clubs in the competition. Raiders aside, what other clubs do you think he'd start for?

This is the definition of feeding the trolls Bot. Don’t do it.

[-PJ-]

Our Danny rates a mick hair above Phoenix..

So Danny is 16th.

[Regs Revolution]

So many options, but I’m still of the strong view that Danny Levi is the best 9 in the club and is who Ricky will pick when the team is announced tomorrow.

Must have missed this so I’ll ask again!
Genuine question, Billy... And ill propose it two different ways and give you dealers choices

1. There are 17 starting hookers in this league. Where does Danny Levi rank amongst them for you?

2. There are 16 other clubs in the competition. Raiders aside, what other clubs do you think he'd start for?

You see, the answer to question 1 would be 15-17. However, Billy isn’t completely wrong in his statement. There are so many options but let’s be real here, Levi might be the strongest 9 at the club which is not a good thing at all. But he’s not wrong in his statement.

The club sees Levi, Starling and Woolford as the strongest 9s (and currently, in that order). Would anyone disagree with this statement?

[Botman]

So many options, but I’m still of the strong view that Danny Levi is the best 9 in the club and is who Ricky will pick when the team is announced tomorrow.

Must have missed this so I’ll ask again!
Genuine question, Billy... And ill propose it two different ways and give you dealers choices

1. There are 17 starting hookers in this league. Where does Danny Levi rank amongst them for you?

2. There are 16 other clubs in the competition. Raiders aside, what other clubs do you think he'd start for?

You see, the answer to question 1 would be 15-17. However, Billy isn’t completely wrong in his statement. There are so many options but let’s be real here, Levi might be the strongest 9 at the club which is not a good thing at all. But he’s not wrong in his statement.

The club sees Levi, Starling and Woolford as the strongest 9s (and currently, in that order). Would anyone disagree with this statement?

On the statement, i think many would disagree, including me. We have demonstrated history of Woolford being better (although admittedly he is nothing special either and would rank in the bottom 4-5 himself as a starting hooker) when he's played NRL football. But if someone thinks Levi is the best 9 at the club and also think he's one of the worst starters in the league, i can vehemently disagree on the first part but we can at least find common ground in that we can agree that we desperately need an upgrade at the position.

But I'm not really interested in whether Billy thinks Danny Levi is the best 9 at this club, he's made that clear. I'm interested in hearing from him where he thinks this player who he is telling us is a good player and is playing good football ranks in the league and/or which other teams would be handing him an NRL jersey.

[radicalraider]

We need to play like parra.. plenty of offloads and more eyes up footy from our halves

[dubby]

Imagine how good we'd be if we had Api or Grant as our 9?

Levi, for now, is our starting 9.

Billy reminds me of that guy back in the LWOS days who was Obsessed with Luke Covell

I think it's part true but also part stirring other people up because he can.

[President Clinton]

Briton Nikora is also suspended for this match if I’m not mistaken.

Meaning Nikora, Rudolph, Hunt and Finucane will all be missing.

Raiders should steamroll this Sharkies outfit if we are serious.

[Raiders_Pat]

1. Savage
2. Rapana
3. Timoko
4. Kris
5. Schiller
6. Strange
7. Fogarty
8. Papalii
9. Woolford
10. Tapine
11. Hoskingsons
12. Hudson-Young
13. Smithies
14. Puru
15. Horsburgh
16. Mariota
17. Mooney
18. Whitehead

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

Tbh it should be this but it definitely won't be this

[pickles]

So many options, but I’m still of the strong view that Danny Levi is the best 9 in the club and is who Ricky will pick when the team is announced tomorrow.

Must have missed this so I’ll ask again!
Genuine question, Billy... And ill propose it two different ways and give you dealers choices

1. There are 17 starting hookers in this league. Where does Danny Levi rank amongst them for you?

2. There are 16 other clubs in the competition. Raiders aside, what other clubs do you think he'd start for?

You see, the answer to question 1 would be 15-17. However, Billy isn’t completely wrong in his statement. There are so many options but let’s be real here, Levi might be the strongest 9 at the club which is not a good thing at all. But he’s not wrong in his statement.

The club sees Levi, Starling and Woolford as the strongest 9s (and currently, in that order). Would anyone disagree with this statement?

On the statement, i think many would disagree, including me. We have demonstrated history of Woolford being better (although admittedly he is nothing special either and would rank in the bottom 4-5 himself as a starting hooker) when he's played NRL football. But if someone thinks Levi is the best 9 at the club and also think he's one of the worst starters in the league, i can vehemently disagree on the first part but we can at least find common ground in that we can agree that we desperately need an upgrade at the position.

But I'm not really interested in whether Billy thinks Danny Levi is the best 9 at this club, he's made that clear. I'm interested in hearing from him where he thinks this player who he is telling us is a good player and is playing good football ranks in the league and/or which other teams would be handing him an NRL jersey.

We definitely have issues in the spine and we might be able to get away with a solid hooker if there was more spark from the rest of the spine.

Fogarty is doing a great job of kicking long but so far has 3 try assists all from bombs, I'm not sure if he has any line break assists but he rarely looks dangerous running the ball and rarely puts players through holes. His attacking kicks need more variation and not just bombs.

Strange is basically a rookie and while he is definitely putting in the effort he has no try assists so far and is just finding his feet in first grade. I see plenty of upside here as he seems to be improving each game.

Rapana is doing what he does, he is 100% effort every week but he really isn't playing a very different game that what he plays on the wing and is more of a ball runner than a ball player.

So part of the reason hooker stands out is that we have options there, even if none of them are fantastic. Woolford possibly has the best passing and he seems to get the pack rolling forward but he has limited capacity as a ball runner, his kicking game is awful and he defends pretty well. Starling provides more spark and running game but has much more trouble just hitting the forwards with clean passes to get them over the advantage line. Levi is probably the middle ground between the other 2 although his defence isn't as solid.

No doubt Rapana will be injured or suspended at some point through the season and we will get to see how Stewart goes at fullback but we can't expect him to come in and instantly kill it but we really need more from our spine. Our forwards and outside backs are good enough to get us into scoring positions but our spine hasn't been good enough so far to get us across the line in key moments of games.

[Andymachine]

I just watched the game last night and my thoughts on it are:

- Whitehead looks HEAVY. I think he's put on weight over the offseason. The commentators remarked that he was out on his feet at the 15 min mark and tbh he did F-all in that time so it's a worry.
- Hoppa should never play centre (or fb). He has no creativity and the play ends with him every time. He doesn't ever try to step or run around anyone. He just crashes straight into whoever is in front of him without any thought of passing so his winger gets zero opportunities.
- Young stunts the attack on the left in the same way that Hoppa does on the right. I thought he was really poor.
- Hosking was still very good apart from the gap he left for the Metcalf try. He was unfairly penalised once or twice which weren't his fault. He should be the 80 minute second rower and if EW has to play, then it should be Young coming off.
- I think at times we're getting too carried away with the short passing between middles at the expense of hard running.
- I'd like to see Rapa do less of the grunt work one off the ruck so he can concentrate on providing energy in his kick returns and in red zone attack. He tires himself out by getting too involved.
- Fogarty's kicking game is a bit one-dimensional. After a little while you just know the set is going to end with another bomb. His bombs are good, but he needs a few more tools.
- We are so lucky to have Timoko. Not only is he the biggest threat we have in attack but he's the most fired up guy on the field whenever something goes right. Cotric, on the other hand, has as much fire in the belly as a wet noodle.

[radicalraider]

Hoppa better not be in the squad at all!

[PerthRaider86]

I just watched the game last night and my thoughts on it are:

- Whitehead looks HEAVY. I think he's put on weight over the offseason. The commentators remarked that he was out on his feet at the 15 min mark and tbh he did F-all in that time so it's a worry.
- Hoppa should never play centre (or fb). He has no creativity and the play ends with him every time. He doesn't ever try to step or run around anyone. He just crashes straight into whoever is in front of him without any thought of passing so his winger gets zero opportunities.
- Young stunts the attack on the left in the same way that Hoppa does on the right. I thought he was really poor.
- Hosking was still very good apart from the gap he left for the Metcalf try. He was unfairly penalised once or twice which weren't his fault. He should be the 80 minute second rower and if EW has to play, then it should be Young coming off.
- I think at times we're getting too carried away with the short passing between middles at the expense of hard running.
- I'd like to see Rapa do less of the grunt work one off the ruck so he can concentrate on providing energy in his kick returns and in red zone attack. He tires himself out by getting too involved.
- Fogarty's kicking game is a bit one-dimensional. After a little while you just know the set is going to end with another bomb. His bombs are good, but he needs a few more tools.
- We are so lucky to have Timoko. Not only is he the biggest threat we have in attack but he's the most fired up guy on the field whenever something goes right. Cotric, on the other hand, has as much fire in the belly as a wet noodle.

I 100% agree with this. Yes his bombs have been good but its always the play. Sometimes its better to roll the ball into the ingoal and force them to play from there or force a drop out and keep pressure on. It seems like we are looking to score everytime we are down there. Good teams like Storm, Panthers, Roosters all put pressure on with repeat sets and then strike. We should look at doing similar instead of Fog putting the ball in the air all the time.

[PerthRaider86]

As much as we dont want to admit it.

As long as it says E.Whitehead (c) and hes fit, he will be named at 12, regardless of form etc

[Raider47]

As much as we dont want to admit it.

As long as it says E.Whitehead (c) and hes fit, he will be named at 12, regardless of form etc

It is making me angrier more than last year when he deserved to be dropped. And that is despite being a better team I believe.

This is because when you have Mooney, Mariota, Horsburgh and Puru sitting in Cup and doing everything they possibly can to play First Grade they just get dropped or overlooked for reasons we'll never know.

[Rickmando]

And that’s where all this nonsense about Whitehead’s leadership or personality as captain getting him picked comes home to roost.

You know what’s bad for culture? Busting your backside and doing everything asked of you, only to see the same favourites get all the treatment irrespective of their on-field results. It doesn’t take long for the whispers to start and for players to look elsewhere for an opportunity

[Finchy]

Imagine how good we'd be if we had Api or Grant as our 9?

Levi, for now, is our starting 9.

Billy reminds me of that guy back in the LWOS days who was Obsessed with Luke Covell

I think it's part true but also part stirring other people up because he can.

I honestly don’t think Billy rates Levi at all. He only pretends to love players that everyone else on the GH doesn’t rate, like Valemei or Hoppa.

If everyone loved Levi, Billy wouldn’t care for him. It’s pure contrarian trolling, and he does it every year with new players.

[Finchy]

I just watched the game last night and my thoughts on it are:

- Whitehead looks HEAVY. I think he's put on weight over the offseason. The commentators remarked that he was out on his feet at the 15 min mark and tbh he did F-all in that time so it's a worry.
- Hoppa should never play centre (or fb). He has no creativity and the play ends with him every time. He doesn't ever try to step or run around anyone. He just crashes straight into whoever is in front of him without any thought of passing so his winger gets zero opportunities.
- Young stunts the attack on the left in the same way that Hoppa does on the right. I thought he was really poor.
- Hosking was still very good apart from the gap he left for the Metcalf try. He was unfairly penalised once or twice which weren't his fault. He should be the 80 minute second rower and if EW has to play, then it should be Young coming off.
- I think at times we're getting too carried away with the short passing between middles at the expense of hard running.
- I'd like to see Rapa do less of the grunt work one off the ruck so he can concentrate on providing energy in his kick returns and in red zone attack. He tires himself out by getting too involved.
- Fogarty's kicking game is a bit one-dimensional. After a little while you just know the set is going to end with another bomb. His bombs are good, but he needs a few more tools.
- We are so lucky to have Timoko. Not only is he the biggest threat we have in attack but he's the most fired up guy on the field whenever something goes right. Cotric, on the other hand, has as much fire in the belly as a wet noodle.

I 100% agree with this. Yes his bombs have been good but its always the play. Sometimes its better to roll the ball into the ingoal and force them to play from there or force a drop out and keep pressure on. It seems like we are looking to score everytime we are down there. Good teams like Storm, Panthers, Roosters all put pressure on with repeat sets and then strike. We should look at doing similar instead of Fog putting the ball in the air all the time.

See I somewhat disagree with this. Forcing a dropout isn’t “keeping the pressure on” like it used to be, teams are incentivised to kick short and they get the ball back more often than not, and can now do it without fear of giving away a penalty if they stuff it up.

Good teams like the Storm Panthers Roosters are actually NOT doing this, and commentators have mentioned it every round how these teams would rather just run it on the 5th and get tackled 1m out than risk a grubber going dead and give away a 7 tackle set, or force a drop out and not get the ball back.

[daley6]

If we play like we have sharks will fold , they looked ordinary on the weekend, there attack has been off this season which works well with our improved defence. We lacked polish in getting more points last week . So i would make these changes- Levi out woolf in, kris centre hoppa wing cotric out, whitehead out hosking starts( wont happen), guler saulo out mariota and mooney in , horsbrough takes hoskings bench spot,

[The Nickman]

Imagine how good we'd be if we had Api or Grant as our 9?

Levi, for now, is our starting 9.

Billy reminds me of that guy back in the LWOS days who was Obsessed with Luke Covell

I think it's part true but also part stirring other people up because he can.

I honestly don’t think Billy rates Levi at all. He only pretends to love players that everyone else on the GH doesn’t rate, like Valemei or Hoppa.

If everyone loved Levi, Billy wouldn’t care for him. It’s pure contrarian trolling, and he does it every year with new players.

And you all bite so hard.

[The Nickman]

If we play like we have sharks will fold , they looked ordinary on the weekend, there attack has been off this season which works well with our improved defence. We lacked polish in getting more points last week . So i would make these changes- Levi out woolf in, kris centre hoppa wing cotric out, whitehead out hosking starts( wont happen), guler saulo out mariota and mooney in , horsbrough takes hoskings bench spot,

I would personally love to see those changes, but we know we're getting:

9. Levi
12. Whitehead
15. Hoskins
16. Guler
17. Saulo

I'm not even convinced Hors will be back over Guler or Saulo.

[Love4Noa]

I just watched the game last night and my thoughts on it are:

- Whitehead looks HEAVY. I think he's put on weight over the offseason. The commentators remarked that he was out on his feet at the 15 min mark and tbh he did F-all in that time so it's a worry.
- Hoppa should never play centre (or fb). He has no creativity and the play ends with him every time. He doesn't ever try to step or run around anyone. He just crashes straight into whoever is in front of him without any thought of passing so his winger gets zero opportunities.
- Young stunts the attack on the left in the same way that Hoppa does on the right. I thought he was really poor.
- Hosking was still very good apart from the gap he left for the Metcalf try. He was unfairly penalised once or twice which weren't his fault. He should be the 80 minute second rower and if EW has to play, then it should be Young coming off.
- I think at times we're getting too carried away with the short passing between middles at the expense of hard running.
- I'd like to see Rapa do less of the grunt work one off the ruck so he can concentrate on providing energy in his kick returns and in red zone attack. He tires himself out by getting too involved.
- Fogarty's kicking game is a bit one-dimensional. After a little while you just know the set is going to end with another bomb. His bombs are good, but he needs a few more tools.
- We are so lucky to have Timoko. Not only is he the biggest threat we have in attack but he's the most fired up guy on the field whenever something goes right. Cotric, on the other hand, has as much fire in the belly as a wet noodle.

I 100% agree with this. Yes his bombs have been good but its always the play. Sometimes its better to roll the ball into the ingoal and force them to play from there or force a drop out and keep pressure on. It seems like we are looking to score everytime we are down there. Good teams like Storm, Panthers, Roosters all put pressure on with repeat sets and then strike. We should look at doing similar instead of Fog putting the ball in the air all the time.

See I somewhat disagree with this. Forcing a dropout isn’t “keeping the pressure on” like it used to be, teams are incentivised to kick short and they get the ball back more often than not, and can now do it without fear of giving away a penalty if they stuff it up.

Good teams like the Storm Panthers Roosters are actually NOT doing this, and commentators have mentioned it every round how these teams would rather just run it on the 5th and get tackled 1m out than risk a grubber going dead and give away a 7 tackle set, or force a drop out and not get the ball back.

Exactly right.

The in goal grubber is now a dead play. It's archaic and 2023 to think it's still the logical set play.
You want to bomb mid field and not give the opposition any ball around their in goal, or you simply just get tackled 10m out.
Anything else provides the opportunity for the ball to be turned over without a set defensive structure.

Whitehead is being given his dues. He won't remain in the team long term. Everyone has their day and Rick was strong enough to do it with Croker.

Don't under estimate the fact that Whitehead IS in the team because it shows reward for loyalty. That's what most people call culture. It's not a bad thing despite what the boffins say.

Also don't under estimate that Levi is there at the want of the senior playing group. There's reasons why he's first cab off the rank when others have had multiple years to show their worth.

[greeneyed]

Well worth a read, also the article linked in the article.

So teams are definitely responding in ways to negate the intended effect of the short restart rule change (who’d have guessed there’d be unintended consequences!) Not to forget the rule change is downright silly… because kicks are supposed to be contestable… but in some circumstances, like the ball goes out on the full but doesn’t go 10 metres… there’s no proper penalty against the offending team for putting in a non contestable kick.

[Botman]

Yeah good link
That site is fantastic and I would encourage everyone to get eyes on it regularly. It’s the sort of analysis that is sorely missing in the mainstream coverage of our game.

As for what is happening, it is pretty much exactly what I thought would happen. As that link shows teams are more willing to run the ball on the last and hand the ball over. Which i think given the rule changes is a more effective way to build pressure than a drop out... Pin em in the 10, hope to hold them to 20-25 metres on their set and then within a tackle or two you're back in the attacking half.

I hope the next step is we start seeing teams use the ball in the red zone on the last with set moves/shot plays, less kick and hope and more ball movement will be good for the game. I expect as time goes on the trend identified in that link will continue to grow.

[benda]

I was watching Manly and Parra yesterday. Whilst I think we can grind well, it's clear to be compete against the better sides, we need go have consistency in our squad and develop combinations in attack.

We dont have the game to score most of the tries both teams scored.

What I would consider:
- Lock in Hosking in the starting side and play him 80m. Build some combinations on that side.
- Savage to play more fullback, if not ready for 80m- at very least give him more time there, esp in attack. Use this year as a development year for him there.
- Whitehead to prop, since we know he will get picked regardless.
- Finally, get good practice in offering more in attack. With this I'd focus on offloads (like Parra did yesterday) and our backs running more specific lines in attack.

I actually, probably naively, believe we are a solid top 8 side who on our attack with more attack could challenge the top sides.

Overall we have a really solid squad.

[The Nickman]

I think we're a Top 8 team if we keep playing the way we did the first three rounds and continue to throw the ball around like we have been.

I can see the style they're trying to play, and once they're used to it and they continue to develop their attack, they'll really start to pile on some points.

[greeneyed]

Did Canberra Raiders' star Corey Horsburgh do enough to earn NRL call-up?

If Origin forward Corey Horsburgh wanted to force his way back into the Canberra Raiders' NRL side, he did himself plenty of favours with a stellar performance in NSW Cup at the weekend.

'Big Red' had a team-high 34 tackles and 151 total metres from just 12 runs that included 64 post-contact metres, as well as five tackle breaks and two offloads. Trey Mooney kept knocking at the door asking for his NRL call-up, too, with a monster 197 total metres and a try.

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

[The Nickman]

Chuck em both in for Guler and Saulo, I say.

[Raiders_Pat]

Chuck em both in for Guler and Saulo, I say.

100%

[Botman]

Hors, Ata, Mooney, Saulo, Guler and Whitehead

6 have to go into 3. If you gave any other club their choice of 3 of these players, I am extremely confident in saying every single club would pick Hors, Ata and Mooney.

[-PJ-]

But not Ricky.
am I rite ?

[Crusader]

Hors, Ata, Mooney, Saulo, Guler and Whitehead

6 have to go into 3. If you gave any other club their choice of 3 of these players, I am extremely confident in saying every single club would pick Hors, Ata and Mooney.

Guler for his size seriously offers nothing, not in attack or Defence

Saulo, shows abit of energy, will make a tackle and from marker make that next tackle

but if it had to be 3, would love to see, Hors, Ata, Mooney

[Andymachine]

100% Hors, Ata and Mooney are the best 3 options. We need to get these 3 in. Saulo is ok, and as a game opens up a bit he does manage to punch into the line and get quick play the balls because he's fit and pretty quick. He's next cab off the rank for mine. I find Emre to be pretty useless and enough has been said about Whitehead so I don't even need to go there.

I think we can definitely be a top 8 side this year but it will rely on picking the best players in the squad and in their best positions, and that has been an issue for some time now! I can live with Levi at hooker (much of a muchness really) and Hoppa in the team as long as he's on the wing. Those decisions are at least somewhat contentious. The middle rotation is what really grinds my gears because it just looks SO simple that we have clear upgrades to the team playing NSW Cup.

[Bluesbrother]

So many options, but I’m still of the strong view that Danny Levi is the best 9 in the club and is who Ricky will pick when the team is announced tomorrow.

Must have missed this so I’ll ask again!
Genuine question, Billy... And ill propose it two different ways and give you dealers choices

1. There are 17 starting hookers in this league. Where does Danny Levi rank amongst them for you?

2. There are 16 other clubs in the competition. Raiders aside, what other clubs do you think he'd start for?

Eels, Titans, Roosters, Dragons. There's a few there where Danny would be in the mix.

I think you have summed it up well. There is very little between Danny and Woolford. Therefore, it's down to the coaches to make that call with the additional information at their disposal. Danny clearly ranks better in their eyes in all these areas. I.e. Training, respevt of teammates to name a few.

[Bluesbrother]

Manly is another club he'd be in the mix for.