Round 5: Queensland: Beautiful one day, Dominating the NRL the next

They've dominated State of Origin over the last two years and their players and teams have been disproportionately represented at the pointy end of the last few seasons. Round 5 in the NRL gave further evidence of Queensland's rise as the dominant rugby league state, starting with Friday night's double-header.

Melbourne, loaded with top-notch Queenslanders including Slater, Smith, Crocker, Folau, Kaufusi, Cronk and Inglis, was ruthlessly efficient in defeating Manly. Slater won his second straight man-of-the-match award and looks set to score an Australian jumper to go along with his cash prize and hat: his aggressive, incisive running - both when returning kicks and in attack - gave Manly problems all game long. However, Storm victories are far from one-man efforts: they outplayed Manly across the park. Their defence shut down Manly's options and reminded everyone - after a two-week hiatus - just how one dimensional Manly's attack can be.

To be fair to Manly though, they are in a very difficult position when they play the Storm at or near full strength. Melbourne and Manly are very similar teams: both rely heavily on playing with greater intensity than their opposition (and using this, via defence and attack, as a basis for victory), both have a heavily structured attack and both teams are micro-managed by very intense and thorough coaches. But Melbourne is more talented than Manly at almost every position. Not surprisingly, the only Manly success against Melbourne in recent years has come when Melbourne was either missing players for looming State of Origin duty or when those players were backing up from State of Origin.

The other Friday night game featured the Gold Coast proving the doubters wrong. Many thought the absence of Luke Bailey would make the already relatively small Titans pack less effective and vulnerable to an overdue Parramatta, but the resilient Titans had other ideas. While most Gold Coast forwards (and the rest of the team for that matter) originally hail from out of Queensland, their solid work provided the platform for occasional Queensland halfback Scott Prince to have another stellar game. Few others would have attempted his long kick at an acute angle early on, which became a 40/20 and led to an early try.

When Prince's sleight of hand deceived several defenders and allowed him safe passage across the try-line early in the second half, Parramatta was down 22-8 despite playing quite well for the most part (certainly better than when they beat Newcastle in Round 3). The 14-point deficit gave Parramatta more impetus and they responded with two tries in fairly quick time, the second a Brett Finch special.

Despite the game-sealing Titans try coming from a clear double movement, they did more than enough to deserve a rare win out of Queensland. Prince's conversion took their lead to a safe 8 points and ensured more pleasant headaches for Queensland selectors.

Queensland's incumbent halfback, the reigning winner of the Dally M and the 5-time winner of the "Australia Says NO" award for making women feel uncomfortable, Feral Thurston obviously paid close attention to Prince's dominant performance on Friday night because he submitted a sublime performance in steering the Cowbores to a close but important win over the Dragons. This was not a stellar Cowbores performance, but it was closer to their standard out of Queensland efforts: a very conservative attacking game plan combined with a solid defensive effort. Their defence wasn't exemplary, but they needed to a lot of it, especially in the first half. Sure, the Dragons were their usual bumbling incompetent selves, but they threatened to open the game on several occasions. Most times, the Cowbores' defence did the job.

The Cowbores' greatest failing in this game was their frequent unforced errors and high number of penalties conceded, especially late in the tackle count, giving the Dragons more attacking chances. The Dragons eventually scored a first-half try (only due to a gargantuan benefit of the doubt) but Feral conjured up a try earlier on out of almost nothing: the Cowbores led 8-6 at the break.

In the early minutes of the second half, the Dragons' dominance of possession turned around and the Cowbores saw some significant time in attack. A far-too-simple try to Watts was followed up by a rare moment (in the game to that point) of attacking brilliance. Feral took the off-load from Carl Webb and sent Ashley Graham to within a metre of the line. Feral and several other Cowbores followed up to significantly outnumber retreating Dragons defence for an easy try to Justin Smith.

As has often been the case over the years, the Dragons produced something near their best after they fell behind by 14. The experiment of playing usual fullback Ben Hornby at dummy half finally showed signs of succeeding, as his speed and a nice pass set up Stuart Webb for a try. This followed a stock-standard Jason Nightingale Australian Rules-style jump to catch the cross kick and score.

But the Dragons couldn't complete the comeback: yet another close, frustrating loss. Despite losing 3 of 4 games so far this season, their points differential is only -3. News emerged on Monday that Mark Gasnier has a calf injury and will miss the next few games. Perhaps his absence will help the team: every change of tactics, strategy or gameplan the Dragons make is centred on getting Gasnier more involved at parts of his game nowhere near as good what he does best (i.e. standing up the opposing centre and setting up his teammates on the back of this). He's not a goal-kicker, he's not a fullback, he's not a dummy-half, he's not a captain, but he's tried to be each of these with little to no success. At least they shelved the five-eighth option. He even played a bit of wing on Saturday night (his original position when he came into grade) and he helped set up the Nightingale try here, but this was probably only done as a response to his calf injury. Don't worry, Dragons' supporters, Round 1 2009 is only 11 months away.

Conversely for Brisbane - Queensland's most successful team - 2009 will bring a new coach and a fair degree of uncertainty. How could this hurt what will likely be a very strong team? On Sunday, Brisbane took on a very aggressive and talented, but also very young Newcastle side. In the first 20 minutes, Newcastle played a brand of free-flowing, long-passing rugby league rarely seen. They ran hard, passed wide and showed no fear or respect for one of the NRL's best teams. They led 8-6 and could very well have led by many more had a few more passes stuck.

Newcastle even exposed some of Brisbane's defensive weaknesses out wide, but the unflappable, extremely well-coached Broncos took it in their stride. They scored 4 tries in the first half, but had very little time with the ball near Newcastle's line. They either broke Newcastle's line and scored straight away or soon after in a very efficient manner. Without Darren Lockyer again, many others stepped up, including former Knight Michael Ennis, Tonie Carroll, the promising Dave Taylor as well as regular stand-out contributors Hunt, Hodges and Peter Wallace.

Newcastle eventually came back into the game but the damage had been done. Many a team would have folded in the face of the onslaught from the aggressive Knights, but the calm and consistent Broncos withstood what was thrown at them and scored a quite good win.

The Warriors - who possess a fairly high number of Queenslanders such as Brent Tate, Grant Rovelli, Michael Luck, Nathan Fien and the injured Steven Price, as well as having a Queensland born and raised commentator in Jason Costigan "Has he got the pace? HAS HE WHAT!" - could also be described in this way, but the Bulldogs' arsenal was nowhere near as potent as Newcastle's. The Warriors started strongly, much like they did against Newcastle last week, before letting the opposition back into the game rather meekly, much like they did against Newcastle last week. Sonny Bill Williams was wreaking havoc out wide, absorbing tacklers before offloading the ball almost as if it was a tennis ball. One such play put Andrew Ryan into open space, before Luke Patten finished off the long-range try.

Early in the second half, the Warriors held a close lead and the Bulldogs were in the middle of a sustained period near the Warriors' line. But the Bulldogs never really threatened. Sonny Bill and Patten are very good players, but they can't do everything: without a good halfback, the Bulldogs are going to struggle to score points against semi-competent defences. The Warriors emerged after this period with their line intact and finished strongly to seal a strong win.

Of the other NRL teams containing little/no Queensland players, the Roosters, Canberra and Cronulla each garnered two points over the weekend. The Roosters' Queensland contingent is only small in number - Nate Myles and the absent Dave Shillington and Danny Nutley (as well as the legendary Arthur Beetson) - but they made do with only one Queenslander (and the absence of several other high-profile players such as Mason and Minichello) to fairly easily dispose of Penrith. Penrith was somewhat unfortunate to have to back up only 5 days after their impressive Monday night demolition of the Tigers and play such a good team, but their first half effort was quite good. As is their way, they play much better as outsiders and an upset looked a solid chance in the first half hour or so.

But from then on, the mistakes slowly crept back into Penrith's game: a professional outfit such as the Roosters was not going to waste these chances. They took a lead to halftime after Penrith chose to pass the ball to a forward (Brendan Worth) for a hit-up only moments after he receiving a head knock from a previous hitup. Not surprisingly, Worth dropped the ball and the Roosters scored from this possession. After the Roosters scored early in the second half, the increased deficit and the effects of playing on Monday night saw Penrith's error and penalty count rise. From here, it was an easy Roosters win.

The Tigers looked set for an easy win after cruising to a 24-10 halftime lead against Canberra on Sunday. The combination of Mathew Head and the other Tigers looked like it had been evolving over many years, rather than a few months at most, while Canberra was listless and was quite lucky to have 10 points beside their name.

But as they do in so many home games, they give the opposing team a first-half head start and gradually reel them back in. An early second half try to Purtell started the comeback, but holding the Tigers out (despite the Tigers having a significant amount of possession) in the middle period of the half likely gave them a much greater impetus and belief they could come back. Lazy defensive play allowed Alan Tongue to cut the Tigers' lead further, before the tiring Tigers' defence and incisive running from Lincoln Withers led Todd Carney into space. Carney fended Chris Lawrence away initially then held off the gaining Lawrence for a spectacular long-range try to give Canberra the lead. A final Tigers' attacking kick was picked up by Purtell, who ran almost the length of the field to ensure Canberra covered the start….I mean sealed a famous victory.

On Monday night, Cronulla outlasted Souths to record their 4th close win of the season. The Man of the Match award from this game went to everyone who attended or watched the whole game: this required vast reservoirs of patience and possibly significant amounts of caffeinated beverages. Sure, Queensland do have the Cowbores, but these teams showcased attacking play without initative, risk or any degree of skill. In an ideal world, teams and games such as this would be taken off showcase timeslots (such as Friday and Monday nights) so the more skilful and entertaining players and teams, such as those from Queensland or including Queenslanders can take their place. See you next week.

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