LOL @ Sheens. Worst coach in the NRL. Deadset, I reckon his shitness is why the Tigers won the premiership in 05. They did exact opposite of what he said and won with a bunch of hacks for the most part.
I watched this last night at ****ing midnight. Anyway, Slater receives so much unnecessary hate. He dropped an absolute sitter, sure, but the other he only got an unlucky bounce when he thought the ball would bounce out. I was watching waiting for the big **** up, but I failed to see one. They didn't even score from the knock on.
**** me. Slater's mistake was bad but he is still the best fullback in Australia. On top of that NZ didn't even score off that blunder.
When was that? I read about it but didn't see it. The fact is though that Slater cops so much unnecessary shit on this forum. He's the best fullback in Australia. He plays his game on the edge, he takes risks. When it works out you're all happy to have him on the team, but when it doesn't come off all that is said is "he shouldn't play for Australia again". He didn't even lose the World Cup ffs. He made a shocking error, but we lost by 14...
Rep footy's about minimising risks though. Slater had a choice between picking that ball up and getting back to the 15 but went for the risky play of letting it go to get a 20m tap. That's not playing the percentages.
I don't think he was letting that go to get a restart..... it was never going out. I think he saw it curving and thought Tuiquri would've rushed in a bit quicker to get it.
We lacked a half who can make a linebreak tbh. Despite Slater single handely losing it, we ere always going to struggle with Cronk and Lockyer. Should have been 1 of them at 7 with Carney at 6. It's also time for Dugan to be the Australian fullback. You can't keep picking a **** up.
He's definitely not up to internatoional footy though he's shown that. Once NSW get their act together he'll show his weaknesses in Origin too.
As shit as some of the players were, the main thing that lost it for us were injuries to both Lewis and Tate before halftime IMO.