Well the good times didn't take long to go bad this season did they. Tate out for the season and now it looks like Vatuvei is facing knee surgery as well.
Thats two seriously big time players out long term. The replacement at centre for Tate will be Patrick Ah Van. Follow the link above for a good video piece on Vatuvei's injury and Ah Van as a replacement.
Loss to the Broncoes was a real dissappointment but they look to be the form team of the competition and early title favourites with Manly yet to record a win. This week's game vs South's looks to be another tough one with Souths showing some excellent early form with two wins out of three leaving them second in the table in points diff.
With all the doom and gloom we have to remember its early days and based on last year the first 12 rounds don't actually matter that much. The Warriors need to stay strong and beat the bottom half teams and they will still be in contention when some of these injury worries blow over.
I thought it was pretty cool to see the Bulldogs lose two competition points in round 3 for fielding 14 players in their win over the Penrith. Those of you who are old enough will remember that a similar points deduction in the Warriors first season after a win over the old Wests Magpies was the start of the derailment of that Warriors inaugural year and in the end the club missed the playoffs by - you guessed it - two points. In that case the Warriors used five interchange players instead of four so their big win 46-12 was annulled and the points deducted. So a nice harbinger to see it happen to someone else - apparently it has happened six times in history with the Warriors one of those. However no way should Penrith get a rematch - if they do we need to replay the NRL seasons right back to that Warriors game in 95 to be sure we get a fair result.
I just got back from Poland on Sunday so am a bit slow to update the blog. I did however get an email from Ali G out of the blue - how goes it in Aussie Ali?
G20 summit in London this week and major protests against the banks and capitilism generally are expected to shut the city down for the next two days. Large scale "G20 Meltdown" riots and protests centred around the Bank of England are on the cards.
3 comments:
Hey Matty,
not too bad a start to the year - unfortunately the losses (which are sonny fai, manu, tate, price, hohaia etc etc) have ruled the team out of any hope for a playoff spot this year.
At this early stage, I'm picking 9th or 10th - its going to be a long hard season matty. The team when they finally get their best back is maybe 3rd or 4th but injury has decimated them this season and its some of their best.
Jeff bro - long hard seasons are what this club do best! In fact it may be all they can do ever. I have to say it is shocking that it has only taken 3 rounds for us to go from what seemed to be the frothy heights of an NRL title shot to a season in injury purgatory. Don't forget Vatuvei has a serious knee injury as well.
I am still hopeful some of these injury worries will blow over - obviously Tate's out long term but all the others injured could return. So as I have said - lets hope they can hold on winning about half their games for ten or twelve rounds or so and then start to build something in the second half of the season.
reckon they might be getting ready to peak for your homecoming bro - season tickets next year?
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