DCE = What is he doing here

[ARD]

NRL.com currently has DCE with 1 missed tackle, that’ll do me. Perfect example of stats not telling the story.

[The Cool Dude]

Geez calm down.

Keep your Cool.

Throwing him under the bus after Rd 1.

He is still a class player & his experience & calming effect this season will be valuable.

What will you say if he kills it next week?

[MKCS]

Bullshit. Hugo is twice the player he is. Your boy is completely washed up. Your absurd theories about how we make the grand final with him??

He's a passenger, and he's finished.

A disgrace that we paid to find out what everybody else knew.

You have to be fairer. The way the team played tonight is not a team that would win much except bottom four honours but that comes down to the majority of the spine players.

- Tedesco was spotty and very average in the first half, came to life in the second half and was probably top 3 for our team.

- DCE was spotty and average throughout the game. He had a few bright moments such as the kick to Nawaqanitawase that would've been a try if not for some absurd rule change, I also think he was dudded on his no try call. Your claim that four (Was actually five) tries went down his side is correct but from watching the highlights just now he was only directly involved in 2 of them with Nawaqanitawase and Pauga getting towelled up by their opposites for the other 3.

- Walker was also spotty and quite average in comparison to what we usually see. Similar to DCE he had a few bright moments such as the pass to put Billy Smith over but he also rushed a fair amount of plays one of which was quite costly as he kicked on tackle 0/1 and turned the ball over. Similar to DCE he was directly involved in 2 tries being scored down his side.

- Ioelu was good and made no errors from memory, had a nice linebreak from memory. Watson brought some life to the team when he came on but he also made a key error when we needed patience and were desperate for points.

---

Ultimately I'm not saying you're wrong, DCE was not good tonight but nobody in our spine was consistently good throughout the game. If DCE is washed then so is Walker, Ioelu and Watson because they played just as good (Or bad) as he did.

I’ve understood much of your position on Chez but tonight I actually do think we could’ve had a different result with DCE out of the team. I’m not ruling him out but it was a worrying first game and he directly contributed to the loss both sides of the ball.

Personally I thought Sammy showed good signs tonight.

It was worrying but if you remove DCE and slot in Rodwell, Savala, Watson or anyone else who could play halfback for us not a lot would've changed. The reality is most teams are not winning anything with 13 errors and a 17-9 penalty count.

DCE was average not bad if you ask me. If the try for Ioelu stood and DCE's no try call was a try we'd all be celebrating him tonight.

[SamKerrSimp]

Geez calm down.

Keep your Cool.

Throwing him under the bus after Rd 1.

He is still a class player & his experience & calming effect this season will be valuable.

What will you say if he kills it next week?

Nothing because he won't

[player 1]

Truth is few teams would have won tonight with so many momentum changing, and demoralising, weak decisions against them by the officials and especially the bunker (getting out the microscope for inordinately long times to justify disallowing our tries). The "offside" penalties by the ref every time NZ just plain dropped the ball in attack were shamelessly biased also.

Hard in round 1 to keep composure the very few times you are allowed possession, and not push plays.

But, Easts could have still won in spite of it all - they just didn't execute in the last 15 minutes - and yes Sam Walker made some poor decisions that were costly.

In view of all this, i really don't think we were that bad, and certainly don't think DCE was the reason we didn't get the 2 points.

[ARD]

You have to be fairer. The way the team played tonight is not a team that would win much except bottom four honours but that comes down to the majority of the spine players.

- Tedesco was spotty and very average in the first half, came to life in the second half and was probably top 3 for our team.

- DCE was spotty and average throughout the game. He had a few bright moments such as the kick to Nawaqanitawase that would've been a try if not for some absurd rule change, I also think he was dudded on his no try call. Your claim that four (Was actually five) tries went down his side is correct but from watching the highlights just now he was only directly involved in 2 of them with Nawaqanitawase and Pauga getting towelled up by their opposites for the other 3.

- Walker was also spotty and quite average in comparison to what we usually see. Similar to DCE he had a few bright moments such as the pass to put Billy Smith over but he also rushed a fair amount of plays one of which was quite costly as he kicked on tackle 0/1 and turned the ball over. Similar to DCE he was directly involved in 2 tries being scored down his side.

- Ioelu was good and made no errors from memory, had a nice linebreak from memory. Watson brought some life to the team when he came on but he also made a key error when we needed patience and were desperate for points.

---

Ultimately I'm not saying you're wrong, DCE was not good tonight but nobody in our spine was consistently good throughout the game. If DCE is washed then so is Walker, Ioelu and Watson because they played just as good (Or bad) as he did.




It was worrying but if you remove DCE and slot in Rodwell, Savala, Watson or anyone else who could play halfback for us not a lot would've changed. The reality is most teams are not winning anything with 13 errors and a 17-9 penalty count.

DCE was average not bad if you ask me. If the try for Ioelu stood and DCE's no try call was a try we'd all be celebrating him tonight.

Chicken and egg argument imo… which came first, the leaky defence and points or errors and penalties? Warriors went through our right edge and straight through Chez multiple times in the first half, reasonably early. There was an outside shoulder tackle he turned in on with his hands in the air and didn’t get a finger on Capewell. His contact was poor by any standard.

He also dropped the Wong ball for a try and worse the knock on after we went back to back tries and were shifting momentum.

DCE will add value but he was a liability tonight. A player of his experience will know this and above anything else I want to see him put his body into contact.

[GrubBER]

Truth is few teams would have won tonight with so many momentum changing, and demoralising, weak decisions against them by the officials and especially the bunker (getting out the microscope for inordinately long times to justify disallowing our tries). The "offside" penalties by the ref every time NZ just plain dropped the ball in attack were shamelessly biased also.

Hard in round 1 to keep composure the very few times you are allowed possession, and not push plays.

But, Easts could have still won in spite of it all - they just didn't execute in the last 15 minutes - and yes Sam Walker made some poor decisions that were costly.

In view of all this, i really don't think we were that bad, and certainly don't think DCE was the reason we didn't get the 2 points.

Im thinking this & agree wholeheartedly on this point

[Mickie Lane]

Like I said in a previous post DCE will cop the heat if we dont win but will be fine if we're winning.

[Steakface]

Ioelu

How the fk does one actually pronounce that name?

Sounds like his grandparents casually threw a scrabble board off the balcony, ran downstairs, and whatever letters they found first became the family name.

[Steakface]

Truth is few teams would have won tonight with so many momentum changing, and demoralising, weak decisions against them by the officials and especially the bunker (getting out the microscope for inordinately long times to justify disallowing our tries). The "offside" penalties by the ref every time NZ just plain dropped the ball in attack were shamelessly biased also.

Hard in round 1 to keep composure the very few times you are allowed possession, and not push plays.

But, Easts could have still won in spite of it all - they just didn't execute in the last 15 minutes - and yes Sam Walker made some poor decisions that were costly.

In view of all this, i really don't think we were that bad, and certainly don't think DCE was the reason we didn't get the 2 points.

Truth is, we will not finish top 4 without a decent stroke of luck.

Robbo teams for years have been 'eyes up' teams. We haven't played for percentages for years, if ever with Robbo.

When it comes off, it's brilliant and our teams in years gone by have become unstoppable at times. It was the right strategy for a long time given the players we signed and had coming through.

But as has been well said however on the Chook Pen, with the rules favouring percentage footy & not making mistakes....it should have been dialled back in.

I love Robbo's philosophy on many things, and I am glad we could never be called a boring team.

But he has dropped the ball on this one tactically, and should have spent off season taking a more percentages focussed strategy into 2026, with the exception of Teddy, Marky and Walker being the 3 guys who can be let loose to play jungle ball.

[The Marshall]

A fraud, a passenger, and a ridiculous signing.

Should be dropped tomorrow, but will be dropped after round 3 when we're 0-3.

Sickening.

Exactly like Townsend, will get hopelessly outplayed for a month and when Hugo comes in we will start to play better. Exactly like last year.

[Teddy]

I think patience has worn thin amongst many of us, the last time we were dominant the game was totally different and seems like a lifetime ago.
We had some chaotic and luckless years with injuries and all that rubbish but this club has dished up the same rubbish year after year in regards to our lack of discipline, why are we year after year plagued by this disease? There is something off about the culture of this club, look at Penrith tonight absolutely smoked the drongoes, they have all the answers all you can do is admire them about the way that football club is run and look at us utterly clueless.

Recruitment and retention has been woeful for years, I’ll be the first to admit that this shit show has me switching games off 20 mins in through officiating to our own diabolical self destructing mentality I can’t take this team seriously it’s comical, no matter who puts the jersey on or who we recruit they come here and it’s like it’s a holiday and we’re all getting paid **** it.

I leave Teddy, Whyte, Bill Smith out of that criticism the rest were park footballers not looking forward to next week.

Yeah it’s only round 1 all come good when we’re make a run in the last 6 weeks and scrape into finals.

[Teddy]

Nothing because he won't

Hahaha as I was reading the post you replied to was saying the same thing to myself.

[Rooster_6]

I thought DCE looked really clunky in attack, kicking was ok but not convinced he defended as poorly as some are suggesting.

First try was on Nat, needed to push hard on inside support sooner, ultimately too many players caught under the posts though they stripped us for numbers. Capewell try was on Pauga, DCE called the jam and Nawaqanitawase jammed, Teddy wrapped but Pauga got left in no mans land marking no one. Only one I thought he could've affected would be the Pompey try, stronger impact may have resulted in a try saver but we're talking scramble execution not front line effort or decision making.

[bondi.boy]

Wasn't a great game for any of our spine except Tedesco in the second half. I assure you the result is no different tonight if Hugo is playing.

Exactly correct.

Not our club bragging about winning the comp this year, it was/is the media.
We're still rebuilding, after many of our stars departed end of 2024.

Penalty count was 11-2 against us. Add a truckload of 6 agains to that and it's easy to see why we we never going to win the game.

That aside, the Warriors team was at home and was "too big, too strong, too fast".
Their pack was huge, their bench was huge, the whole of NZ to choose from.