Quote NickyKiss="NickyKiss"Saints have the advantage in terms of personnel from last year to this, with them being stronger than the 2022 GF, whereas Penrith have lost a couple of massive players in Kikau and Koroisau and have Martin missing as well. That helps and brings the game closer but the conditions sound pretty brutal.
Looking at the warm up game on Saturday, we’ll need to find out if Saints played at that lightning pace for 15-20 and purposefully eased up or if that was just a natural dip brought about by not having to keep that intensity up when playing in Superleague. I suspect it may have just been a bit of an easing up, as though to say ‘we’ve laid a marker’ and they did not want to blow themselves out. It was extremely impressive that first 20 but the rest was a bit messy and if it wasn’t just a cue on the rack thing, the game could get away from them this week. That was possibly the worst team in the NRL they were playing and one nowhere near full strength, so it was very tough to make real judgments throughout.
Hand on heart, I think they’ll go well on Saturday. I can see it being pretty close for around an hour and Penrith to probably get home by about 10-12 points.'"
I agree that we were messy after that opening spell. However what infuriated me was the constant pointing out that St George weren't at full strength, however no reference to the fact that for the second half we had no Lomax, Dodd, Welsby, Percival, Roby, Hopoate, Batchelor and Makinson.
At one point Ben Davies made a break for Lussicks try that was disallowed for a forward pass and Corey Parker said it was great play by Welsby. He wasn't even on the field.
The second half was very sratchy with all the changes.
On a side note, Ritson showed his speed in open field with his try. He will definitely give us strike if he gets a few games, the lad can finish.
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