First Win for 2026 v Titans

I don't think it was a bust out the champagne kind of win on Sunday - we were at home, it was the Titans, and it was perhaps a closer match than you'd like. But it was still a win on Sunday.

We saw a mixture of good and bad things:

The good: Drinkwater in attack, Luki's involvement, good minutes for Lahrs, impact off Lodge of the bench, our handling (88% completion) in what seemed greasy gonditions

The bad: Drinkwater in defence, how clunky we looked going wide, the Chester high tackle

*Drinkwater is fully Jeckle & Hyde. Scored a ripper from inside his own half, made the break to set up the 1st for Muzz, and played a key role in our final try. Equally he had a hand in all 3 of the Titans tries. Frustrating. I still think the good outweighs the bad, but I can understand why some think differently. 

*Luki seems to be well and truely back after last year's knee reco. Didn't do anything spectacular, but he racked up 159m of running and was consantly a handful both coming out of our end or close to their line.

*We're kinda keeping Lahrs in cotton wool a bit, but it's good to see hom out there and playing good footy. 

*Lodge. I was critical of his signing, but he had a good impact yesterday. Good meters and came up with some strong efforts in defence

*Looking bad when we went wide. I was amazed how clunky it seemed - mistimed runs galore, players conceding for tackles so they wouldn't be penalised,  forwards getting in the way. It wasn't polished or slick. And it should be - both our centres are good ball players. Just wondering if it's a case of too many cooks and not enough people running strong lines. 

*Chester's high tackle. Pretty meaningless in the context of the game, but I've no doubt he'll get a week or 2 at the judiciary. Disappointing given he's growing into his centre role. Admittedly VV and Laybutt will be available for next week. 

Storm will be hard to beat next week - obviously a much sterner test than the Titans, especially with them coming off a loss. I do though feel that we kind of get a free swing at this - no expectation, nothing to lose

Put a fork in Payten, he's done.

Saturday was horrid. Fucking terrible.

We needed to bounce after Vegas, and we had every reason to. A good break from the last game, plenty of time to reflect, a team that was first up in their 2026 campaign, and we produced that. 28-2 at the break

I've been a big Payten backer, but I think he's now finished. Too many issues continue to fester under his reign. Our edge defence still sucks. Our halves combo still remains entirely unsettled. We continue to struggle horribly in the player recruitment landscape. 

I think the whys no longer matter. The fact is it's not working.

I will though say our top line players made some really costly mistakes on Saturday - BigJase, Luki, Reed, Drinkwater, Purdue. If your stars are letting the halfback push their way over from 5m out or dropping the ball out of dummy half, you're going to lose a hell of a lot of games.

I do though think the fading of the squad over the last 3 years has been a massive part of the problem. We lost Finefuiaki, we recruited Bateman. We lost Val and we've recruited Burns. McLean retired, and we're trying to make Neame work. It's like selling a 2025 Landcruiser and replacing it with a 2008 Pajero. Paulo, Lodge, Derby, Edwards, O'Donnell. I keep hearing that this is a great squad, but buggered if I can see it. Yes we do have some SOO level players, but Nanai is out, Dearden still stuggles at 7 at club level (where opposition teams can afford to load up on him in defence), and Luki is 2 weeks back off a long break and is still finding his way. Cotter's high intensity energiser bunny superpowers only become a factor in hard grinding games - something our team is unable to create. BigJase is now a 40 minute man tops, while Taulagi doesn't have massive impact being on the wing. 

I also think Todd is quite a conservative coach - we often don't kick at the end of sets preferring to handover deep in the corners, we don't often challenge for bombs, he prefers utility in his selections rather than impact (hence his love of Granville & Edwards). I just don't think you can afford to be risk adverse when your team isn't the strongest on paper. You have to be willing to gamble.

Dunno who we go for. Walters, Peters, Slater, Young, someone else.

Let's take a deep breath

 Obviously not the result nor the game were hoping to see in Vegas.

We started crap, gathered it up, got back into the game, started the second half crap and couldn't come again.

Two key disappointments: 

(1) We were playing the Knights, who won the spoon last year. That doesn't bode well.

(2) You'd think given an underwhelming season 2025, you'd be trying to make a strong first up impression in 2026. We didn't.

On reflection I was though transported back to season 2022. In 2022 we had the 2021 Wooden Spooners first up in Canterbury. And lost in one of the truly ugly NRL games.

I guess my point is that the first game of the year isn't what defines your season. I'm not suggesting a crap loss in Round 1 is a good thing, rather that the season is far from over.

We also Drinky do a rib early in Vegas. He came back on having been needled up, but I've no doubt that impacted our performance on the day. 

I did see a lot of gnashing of teeth from Cowboys fans on socials, calling for Drinkwater to be sacked, moved to 7, Clifford to be sacked, Chester to be sacked, Dearden back to 6, etc etc. Take a deep breath people. The depth of our squad is fair at best (there are no blue chip first graders twiddling their thumbs), and we've just settled on these positions on the back of a long offseason and two rather handy preseason games. Let's not hit the panic button for a few rounds at least.