My nephew made his 14a debut today for Nudgee, so I went out an watched the trials vs Terrace. Hung around and watched the 1sts and 2nds. Won't comment on indivduals, just overall team performance.
Nudgee looked quite good but rusty. They won both games quite comfortably maybe 10 tries in 2nd and 6-8 tries in 1s. Doubt anyone kept score. In the 1s they looked like they could have done alot more damage apart from silly errors and the ref penalizing terrace quickly. Set piece was dominant, but it was against a 'traditional' terrace set piece that seemed lacking in basics. Backline was slick at times and looked capable. Some of the tries scored were very soft, where better opposition would have held them out. NC certainly treated the game more seriously than terrace with a 15 named, rather than a squad (or so it seemed).
Terrace looked ok at times and terrible at others. I believe it is very early form for them so won't read too much into it, but they seem to be lacking in the key areas that they were strong in previous years. Tackling technique was poor for the majority and less said about set piece the better. I cannot recall them winning a lineout. Most surprising for me given what I've heard about the change of coaches was that in both the 1s and 2s, not a single point was scored. I saw GT play twice last year and there attack (or lack there of) killed their chances of winning behind tremendous defence. Hoping this will improve and is only an early blip on the radar.
It seemed that the Terrace coach enforced the mercy rule at 3/4 time. But I also heard it was supposed to be thirds, just NC and the ref didn't know.
