Round 13: More pre-State of Origin Goodness

If it's 2008 and the next State of Origin game is coming very soon then it must mean a less than satisfactory round of NRL club games is in the vicinity. While the usual victims (Melbourne, North Queensland and Brisbane) suffered the most, they were joined in Round 13 by the Roosters and New Zealand, who both performed well below expectations. Newcastle also suffered mightily without their Origin players but were lucky to get away with a win. Scott Prince's late call-up into the Queensland side would have significantly damaged the Titans' hopes for success but they were fortunate enough to be drawn against the Storm B-team.

When the Gold Coast entered the competition in 2007 (making an even number of teams for the first time since 2001), the NRL realised player welfare concerns meant they had to keep byes as a part of the competition, but decided to give each team only 1 bye (not 2, as had been the case between 2002 and 2006). After further complaint from players, the number of byes returned to 2 for 2008, but in contrast to the status quo since....the mid 90s (at least?), these byes were scheduled relatively early in the season or before State of Origin rounds.

Did the NRL hear anything from the players apart from "we need a second bye"? Teams with a significant number of representative players have always preferred the bye either before an Origin game or after the Origin series, while other teams start to need a bye in the middle of the season or just after (usually due to coping with a mounting injury toll or just to allow niggling injuries to improve or heal). To load up the byes early in the season or after Origin games (thus eliminating a source of pride for many representative players: the post-Origin back-up for your club) is not only ignoring the wishes of players and clubs, but going against what was the status quo for many years.

Whatever the NRL's reasons (do they want even more parity between teams?), the draw has been in place for many months now: those clubs affected by the loss of players to Origin have to do the best they can in the circumstances. Amidst the gloom (literally and figuratively) of a wet byeless long weekend, Cronulla's excellent effort against Penrith on Sunday was a standout performance. While they weren't as short-handed as some, they showed it was possible to play at or near their best despite missing two of their best players.

Since Ricky Stuart took over as coach, Cronulla have shown a tendency to lift their game considerably when taking on the NRL's best teams, when playing away from home or both. This has seen them win record wins at Manly, Melbourne and North Queensland against the expectations of most.

Not surprisingly, these wins also coincided with Cronulla's often dormant attack showing rare signs of life. When Cronulla's attack is off and they have to fight for every single point, their ambitions of playing in September can seem far-fetched. They know this, but too often, they lapse into a mentality of "a 1-point win is the same as a 20-point win, so 1 is all we need".

So, in hindsight, falling way behind to the Bulldogs a few Mondays ago was the shock they needed: since then, they almost caught the Bulldogs, they started slowly before thrashing the Titans last Sunday.

They fell behind early to the confident Panthers, but they spent the remainder of the first half executing a well-devised strategy: pressuring the rookie Penrith playmakers and attacking the new combination on Penrith's right-side defence. Devising a strategy is one thing, but executing it is another thing entirely: to help ensure this, Ricky Stuart reshuffled his team to bring in young halfback Blake Green. Having a third playmaking option (in addition to Kimmorley and Brett Seymour) on the field was crucial in overwhelming Penrith's defence in the first half.

Cronulla put 4 tries on in the first half, exploiting Tighe, Sammut and others on Penrith's right-side defence. Penrith didn't seem to expect such a targetted attack (their other centre, noted sieve Michael Jennings, would be rapt not to be mentioned in a discussion about poor defensive centres) but their attack wasn't so crash hot either. Cronulla's defence was typically strong, but Penrith was making mistakes to kill potential try-scoring chances, Luke Lewis' dream run at halfback was in the process of ending (although he didn't play that badly) and Penrith wasn't utilising the try-creating talents of Sammut on the right wing (as they often did last week against the Cowbores).

Another of Cronulla's faults is that they treat a 2-3 try lead as a match-winning one: they did this again here. Their strong defence and another try down Penrith's right-side saw their half-time lead of 12 extended to 14 with under 5 minutes left, but incredibly Penrith almost snatched victory: a seemingly consolation try was followed by a Cronulla dropped ball and another try before a last-ditch cross kick by Rhys Wesser (of all people) saw Luke Rooney and Frank Pritchard up against Misi Taulapapa as the ball drifted towards them. Taulapapa continued to ruin his 2007 repuation as a liability by smartly forcing Rooney to knock the ball on, thus ending the game.

Penrith could point to the absence of Civoniceva (and his leadership and calming influence) but overall they were thoroughly outplayed and outcoached by a Cronulla team that continues to surprise - even without Origin players Bird and Gallen. In hindsight Penrith was probably due for a loss, but it took a very good effort to beat them.

The same could be said about the Roosters. Despite their talented roster, their fortunes seem closely linked with their intensity levels. In other words, they win when they are fully motivated and ready and they lose when they are flat. To the Roosters' credit, they had only been flat in 2 games before Round 13: losses to Newcastle and the Dragons (these came after 5 strong games to start the season). Their last month had been very good, with strong wins over Canberra, Parramatta, the Warriors and the Tigers. While they managed to defeat Parramatta with a weakened pack before the last State of Origin, they were never in the hunt against a fired-up Manly. They were probably due for a loss, but the absence of Origin players expedited this.

Manly had already lost 2 games at Brookvale, including their last start against the Dragons. They had seen the "second string" Roosters pack dominate Parramatta in Round 10. In short, they had a number of motivating factors. Manly was dominant throughout, controlling possession, forcing mistakes on a wet afternoon and scoring a combination of well-worked and far too easy tries.

There was little, if any, rain at Homebush on Saturday night, but a very slippery surface greeted the Bulldogs and Newcastle. As both teams realised how poor the conditions were, they adjusted their games accordingly: the result was perhaps the most boring game of the season. Running from dummy half became the most effective way to move the ball down the field and it quickly became apparent the Bulldogs were the better team in the battle of the ruck, had the better players to make metres from dummy half and create holes in defence and most importantly had the smarter and more experienced players (as Newcastle was missing Buderus, Simpson and Gidley).

However, Newcastle led this game after scoring in the early minutes and held this lead for the remainder of the game. The Bulldogs hurt themselves by making too many mistakes (although the poor conditions were a factor here), but they suffered far more than they deserved to from poor refereeing decisions or bad luck on uncertain refereeing decisions.

Newcastle's lead was 4 points at half-time, but to call it tenuous was an understatement. They had made far fewer errors than the Bulldogs (this figured to become more even over the second half), their kicking game was not as effective as the Bulldogs' kicking game and refereeing decisions usually even themselves out over the course of a game.

The opening 10 minutes of the second half saw the struggle continue before Newcastle finally made a major error: a pass thrown behind the runner just 10 metres out from their line. As the ball bobbled near their tryline, Newcastle's Jarrod Mullen tried to force the ball, but seemed unable to, before the Bulldogs' Andrew Ryan appeared to put the ball down for a try. Incredibly, referee Sean Hampstead was certain of Mullen grounding the ball and elected not to consult the video referee.

When the replay was shown on the big screen, Bulldogs' supporters (and players) were aghast: a likely try to Ryan and a lead was gone. The anger had barely died down when Wes Naiqama broke a tackle: the end result of this play was Newcastle's second try, which basically ended this game as a contest. The Bulldogs tried hard to come back but in doing so made more mistakes. One of these led to an Adam MacDougall try, which took Newcastle's lead to 16.

Someone had to win this game, but Newcastle was at about 20% of their performance when they played Melbourne and the Gold Coast in recent weeks. This game encapsulated so much about what is wrong with the NRL in 2008.

Luckily, the round was salvaged somewhat by an entertaining game between New Zealand and Souths on Friday night. New Zealand built upon their shock win over Newcastle last week by racing to a 14-nil lead, but the game deviated from the usual at this point, as Souths displayed attacking play and self-belief (in the face of a significant deficit) not seen in red and green in...decades maybe. Sure, New Zealand's defence was often poor but this didn't detract from what was becoming a very good game.

Souths' run continued after half-time and became 22 points without reply until the Warriors became Mr. Hyde again: in the space of a few minutes, a stumbling, unsure team became free-flowing, brash and exuberant. They ultimately matched Souths' try-scoring feats, but the ongoing absence of Michael Witt cost them perhaps 8 points in missed goals.

The Warriors returned to their Dr. Jekyll status, which again involved poor defensive play. Souths scored two tries quickly and far too easily to return to the lead. When first-gamer Chris Sandow boomed a field goal in the final minute, Souths' 12-game and 9-year losing streak to the Warriors was officially over.

The remaining games were a massacre of the weak: the Dragons went another step further in dispelling their repuation as extremely inconsistent as they took care of business in defeating an understrength but typically solid Brisbane. The Entertainers of the West blasted the Cowbores off the park in the opening half hour (save for Travis Burns' misguided aggression). The 'Bores made a nuisance of themselves coming to within 12 points, before the Tigers wowed the crowd again to finish off the game.

Canberra may have the worst injury toll in the NRL and may have suffered another major loss (Adrian Purtell) on Saturday night. Parramatta's reputation of taking it easy against weak opposition could have surfaced here, but Feleti Mateo continued his stellar play from last week and a relatively easy win over the gallant Raiders was the result. Sadly, Canberra elected not to play Michael Weyman, thus denying fans of sledging worldwide another instalment of Weyman v Riddell.

Last (as well as least), Gold Coast was missing Prince, Laffranchi and Harrison but still easily took care of the Origin-decimated Storm. Fans of watching players who go back on their word facing angry supporters of the jilted team would have been upset at Steve Turner missing this game due to his late State of Origin selection.

Enough has been said about the NRL's absurd byes policy for 2008 - until the next pre-Origin round anyway. See you next week.

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