Spent some time on the Wests Tigers forum this week. What a polite and realistic site that is. Albeit lacking the kabab stories of The Kennel from last week, there were still some gems to be found if you looked hard enough.

If its isn’t David Fa’alogo the media or Farah belting Taylor, it is his fans

In summary, most of their fans think we will pump them this afternoon. Hope our players aren’t reading their posts. They are very disappointed with team selection and particularly the back row. Everyone is calling for Chee-Kam to make his debut.

Straight to the commentary around team selection this week

• Its clear that nothing is going to change from last year, if we had bought Boyd Cordner and Aiden Guerra, Taylor would still pick his pets- Lovett and to some extent Halatau, this mob will put a hundred on us and the halves will get bashed.
• That’s the weakest 2nd row and bench in the NRL right there.
• Not confident looking at this side. Buchanan offers 5% of buggerall off the bench and Lovett and Halatau starting…please, Parra will be laughing on Monday lining up against that back row. We really needed Chee-Kam in there as he has a lot more presence than either player and also offers good speed and mobility in attack.
• I actually think our tactics from last year of 5 hit ups and a bomb would work in this game. Cut out the errors and play tough, simple footy and we have a shot. Our forward pack and defence cannot bail us out if we don’t complete sets.
• This is my worry as well. Farah back is a boost and I think we have the Eels covered in the front row, but it’s on the edges where I think we will be caught short. I hope I’m wrong. If we can win the ruck with our solid charges and quick play the balls then that may change the situation, but the Eels were pretty aggressive against the Dogs so I hope we have it within us to match them in that regard.
• You can only hope Parra play bad, we get a lot of ball, the young guys turn it on and Farah can make at least 50 tackles in his time on the field. Is that too much to ask?

Some commentary on the Eels squad for this game

• Parra have been strong so far in the forwards. I hope it’s their turn to **** their pants this week.
• Shame they’ll be playing for 0 points…
  Got to target Gutherson and Takairangi in attack and I reckon we will hold our own in the forward battle
• Norman is the key to them , shut him down and they will struggle , Foran is a good player but he won’t tear us apart
• Been playing very tough this year, very impressive….I like the way they play, full of attitude and aggro
• We’ll get hammered
• Yeah,they’ve put together a top 4 side reasonably quickly with players extremely keen to join and(& tell the media) be coached by Brad Arthur, pleeze,there are people with higher IQ’s than these Einstein’s mouthing their Managers spiel so hopefully the NRL will do a Melb on them.

The biggest issue on the site is the Moses / Brooks resigning

• “My management is doing that,” Moses said. “I’m just looking to play good footy. “Money is not an issue. I don’t know what’s getting floated around. I have no idea about money, how long or where I’m going to be. I just want to play good footy for the Tigers.”
• Believe that and you believe in flying pigs….

The Wests Tigers fans also have their say on the Will Hopoate decision not to play or train on Sunday’s. I thought this summed it up very well.

• If he didn’t want to work on Sundays,then maybe he should have sought another job….one that doesn’t have so many people putting their “faith” in him to help his club win games….

I’ve heard of flexible working arrangements but this is ridiculous.

Next week I will be bringing news from the Panthers fans, assuming they know how to use a computer on their dial up internet.

Go the Eels !!!

Chris.

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