NRL 2007 Shakedown

[woosaah]

Now its not a secret i am a fan of rugby and league. Big fan of rugby of course, but i am totally geared up for the Australian league series starting this weekend. kicking off tonight with the Broncos taking on the Cowboys at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane and the Storm playing the Tigers in Melbourne. It will be interesting to see the two grand final winners playing tonight in their home grounds to see how they feared over the summer holiday. Both teams with new look players and its going to be an exxciting start to the competition.

There have been plenty of moves over the off season with players changing clubs, and a new club, the Gold Coast ***ans joining in this year with a very strong team. It will be interesting to see how Rogers goes playing for them on sunday against the dragons. This year I am going to be following the ***ans closely as i used to like the old Seagulls when i was little. Also their website http://www.***ans.com.au/ is bloody awesome.

The Eels

Last year the eels started off slow, actually real slow. With problems off the field with the pending move from coach Brian Smith moving to the Knights and some of the players turning up to practice drunk, or not turning up at all made it just that little bit more difficult. Then just over 1/2 way through the season Smith stepped down and "super coach" Jason Taylor stepped in and took over. He went on to win 7 games in a row and push the Eels from wooden spoon contenders to finals hopefulls, Which of course they made it. Only to lose to the eventual Grand Final losers Melbourne. This years team is largely the same core of players as last year, but with a new Coach thanks to Taylor moving on. Michael Hagan from the Knights has come over (so pretty much the Knights and the Eels have switched coaches) This will hopefully give the team a little more direction at the start of the season.

The Eels face off Saturday night against the Warriors at Mt Smart Stadium, where i was hoping to go to see the game but unfortunatly was unable to organise finances in time. I will see them again hopefully soon as i have followed them since being a young kid.

Tomorrow is pretty much the start of the season for me, but tonight i am looking forward to sitting down in front of the tv and watching a couple of good games of football. I Will update This thread, kind of like my blog of the NRL. I will be unable to watch every game going on, but will be able to update this as much as I can. Also will be doing little team profiles like i just did with the Eels when i can.

 

[St Helens RLFC]

Good read that mate.

 

[woosaah]

Thanks St Helens

Right Next i am doing to review the Warriros. Just because there seams to be alot of Warriors supporters on this forum. Now I am doing this for my own benifit as well as i dont know much about the other teams around the competition as i do know about the Eels. (or i like to think i know about the Eels).

Warriors.
There are some new boys int his Warriros team this year and they played pretty well on saturday night. Michael Crockett in his first NRL apprearance for the Warriors scored two tries in the first half which capped off a near perfect performance in that half. Wade McKinnon, formoraly of Parramatta scored in the first 8 minutes to setup a very good performance, and some good goforward for the rest of the game. 24-0 at the break made it pretty much impossible for the Eels to come back. What i saw of the game (admitadly i only remembered about it during the second half of the crusaders game) saw the eels score 3 quick tries but they didnt have it in them to overcome the deficit that the Warriors built up. They are going to look like a good team this year, and definatly one to beat.

My Weekend Analysis.
Right, i didnt get to see much league in the weekend, which i was quite disapointed about. I am going to be buying myself a dvd recorder with a hard drive just so i can catch up on the matches that i miss during the weekend. Just so i can actually get to watch some league (doing that for rugby as well damn girlfriends take up to much time.

Manly, Cronulla and Warrirors all looked very impressive in their wins. as well as the cowboys over powering a strong brisbane team. The Storm, Knights and Dragons all had lucky escapes with some close scores there, but the knights were especially lucky only to win by one point but were unlucky to lose Johns after 3 minutes of play. Sonny Bill will likely be out for the next two weeks after knocking Johns out. The new look Rabbitohs were impressive scorking a good 18-6 win over the roosters. The best game of the week for pressure would have to be the knights bulldogs game. Hopefully i have a better wrap up after next weeks round.

thats it for me at the moment, prolly not worth a read but i liked it writing it.