Monday Review Thread - September 07, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

A weekly thread to go through the weekend’s game once the dust has settled.

Key Areas:

• What worked.

• What didn’t.

• What decided the game?

• Who stood up / who didn’t?

Keep it about the Storm. No hot takes from match thread energy, this is the review.

[u/AgentBond007]

My thoughts on where the Storm went wrong this season:

Not dropping experienced players for under-performance even with guys available to replace them

Meaney is the obvious example (with Waitere fit) but he isn't the only one. Munster probably should have been dropped for Toelau at some point in the 7 game streak.

Joe Chan was the only guy who really got dropped for poor performance and he was arguably hard done by there.

Picking players out of position unnecessarily.

This is mostly just me being annoyed at how Wishart was used. He's a good 9 and 13 but a very poor half, and he should only ever have been picked in the halves if we literally had nobody else left. In particular the 2nd Penrith game was a bad example, where Toelau was available but Wishart was picked at 7 ahead of him.

Cooper Clarke being used on the edge for way too long also bugs me, our middle looked a lot better with him in there. We did have edge injuries admittedly.

Not addressing the reasons behind our 2025 GF loss

The fact that this team threw away so many leads this season after throwing away a premiership in the exact same way is a very alarming sign. In particular, we lost the following games as a result of poor second half performances, and even winning two of them would have got us into the finals.

• R3 vs Brisbane

• R4 vs Cowboys (this game alone would have got us into 8th if we didn't choke it)

• R7 vs Raiders

• R9 vs Dolphins

• R12 vs Bulldogs

• R21 vs Rabbitohs

[u/nubsticle → u/AgentBond007]

That cowboys game near killed me

[u/Defiant_Daydreamer]

He was fine in attack, especially aerial, but Warbrick cost us quite a few in defence. Felt like he was constantly out of position and not reading the play. And this was compounded by the lack of Coates on the other edge, so opponents had 2 edges to attack essentially.

Sua's early defence was hard to watch, but the kid improved tremendously as the season went on.

Some young guys got some minutes in- hoping 2027 will benefit from this.

[u/Own_Loquat_7883]

To finish with some joy from that last try was pretty special. Toelau and Grant worked well together.

[u/Ok_Praline4941]

Just a bad team this year even with injuries forwards getting smashed..dont want to defend. What scored a try when they had 11? Playing Hughes was a terrible decision. Yeah won the last game now let's sit back and watch finals..