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

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.