Wednesday 25 June 2008

Round 15: A look at declining point totals

Once upon a time, Rugby League was largely a low-scoring game. But as full-time players became the norm rather than the exception, as leather balls were replaced by the synthetic variety, as the 5-metre rule became a 10-metre rule, as the number of teams jumped (and the talent level diluted), as unlimited interchange severely threatened the concept of endurance and as corporate influence within Rugby League reached never before seen levels, point-scoring climbed to its highest ever mark (in the 1997 Super League season).

However, there was more to come. The introduction of unlimited interchange in 1996 took the game in a weird direction. It became much more difficult for a halfback to find a tiring prop to run at (unless he ran towards the interchange bench). This rule prematurely ended Allan Langer’s career and enhanced Brett Kimmorley’s. Unlimited interchange had to go.

While the reintroduction of limited interchange in 2001 ticked a host of boxes for the NRL, it took rugby league – especially the hulking forwards, whose lack of endurance was exposed – several years to adjust. Well… it didn’t take halfbacks too long to adjust: point-scoring jumped 3 points per game per team on average in 2001 over the previous record from 1997. Over the following four years, point-scoring remained near this record high.

But since 2006, defences have fought back. Continued physical improvement – stronger backs and leaner forwards – across the league has made it more difficult to wear down opposing defences. The increasing size and strength of players has increased wear, tear and injury of star players and scrubs alike.

Also over the last few years, the drain of talented players away from Rugby League (to England, Rugby Union or to (relatively) early retirement) has increased. Sure, this loss of rugby league IQ and experience has affected defences (has poor defensive play from wingers ever been as widespread?), but attack has suffered more.

The increasing reliance of tries from kicks is a result of this. Several benefits of relying on kicks is that it utilises the great athletes in the game as well as not being massively affected in the event of long-term injury or a player leaving the team (i.e. a replacement halfback can cross-kick nearly as well as a representative halfback).

While almost all very good teams are built upon a strong defence, more top teams in recent years have the strong defence but little on the point-scoring side. The physically gifted player is far more prevalent than the heady, wise but diminutive type. In many cases, these players are too expensive or have left for greener pa$tures, but in some cases, they are not wanted (see Head, Mathew).

Round 15 gave us five of the modern-day low-scoring matches due to a mix of the aforementioned factors and more.

Friday night’s 2 matches provided a total of 62 points. The Brisbane – Tigers match was all about missing players. Brisbane was without most of their skilful players, while the Tigers were missing many of their big players. It was an interesting game, as Brisbane tried hard to exert their size advantage and minimise their quickness disadvantage, while the Tigers knew if they could garner any sort of lead, the Broncos would have trouble chasing it down.

The Tigers looked the more threatening team, but were not quite in rhythm: not a good outcome when your key attacking players are all together. The game turned sharply when Brisbane prop Dave Taylor took an intercept near his line and rumbled over half-way. The momentum gained was enough to lead to a Brisbane try and then another try soon after. Neither was particularly attractive, but they both involved dominance of the smaller Tigers defenders.

The Tigers tied the game with another eye-catching play: they pierced the edge of the Brisbane defence and a streaking Dean Collis kicked inside where Liam Fulton scored. Brisbane regained the lead with a field goal, but the Tigers could have tied the game again or won the game: they had a lot of late possession near Brisbane’s line. Alas, they wasted their chances: John Morris inexplicably missed an easy field-goal attempt. It was a victory for hard work over undersized (and seemingly out-of-sync) skills.

Meanwhile, injury-hit Penrith threatened yet another boilover away from home. Sure, the Dragons are often vulnerable as heavy favourites, but Luke Lewis’ try just before half-time (to extend Penrith’s lead to 12-nil) was softer than soft.

Lewis was having another good game at makeshift half-back, but there were times where his lack of experience at the difficult position of half-back was revealed: Penrith may have had an unassailable lead with a more regular half-back.

However, as the second half warmed up, it became clear the Dragons were keen to do just enough to get the win and Penrith was running out of steam. Having 2 players on debut and losing your fullback will do that. Rangi Chase and Jamie Soward’s youthful exuberance created 2 try-scoring opportunities for the Dragons…and Penrith’s hard-earned lead was gone within 5 minutes.

Rather than push home the advantage, the Dragons unsuccessfully tried for a penalty goal then twice for field goals. The second of these was good and looked like being enough, but the Dragons could have won by more, but for a streaking Brett (or was it Josh?) Morris to needlessly throw a pass which was brilliantly intercepted by Jarrod Sammut.

From the understrength team who was unlucky to the understrength team that didn’t really deserve the lead but threw it away once they got it: hello New Zealand Warriors. They took on Manly in the early Sunday game and led by 2 at half time despite running into the wind, rarely getting any good attacking field position and making a bunch of poor decisions on the last tackle. Manly’s defence was a factor here, but the Warriors’ new halves combination was clearly not coming together.

In contrast, Manly had a much better attacking structure and threatened the Warriors’ line many times. They scored once, had two tries disallowed (both of which could have been given under a different video referee) and looked by far the better team.

Glenn Stewart’s early second half try gave Manly a deserved lead, but the Warriors tied the game after a fortuitous bounce from a kick-and-hope.

The game remained tied nearing the final 10 minutes when the Warriors finally looked convincing at the attacking end: a Nathan Fien kick isolated Aiden Kirk on the Manly winger. Kirk leapt and brought down gold in the form of a try.

The Warriors incredibly had a lead over the competition leaders in the game’s final 10 minutes: could they secure a season-turning win? Not even close…they returned to their Scarecrow days and surrendered possession on several occasions with needless risky passes and other silly play. To compound these mistakes, they allowed Manly hooker Matt Ballin to score a relatively simple try to take back the lead.

When Brent Kite went over to seal the win from a well-worked move, it left both teams at least somewhat annoyed. Manly largely failed to cash in on their advantage over the Warriors until the game’s dying minutes, while the hard-working but mostly inept Warriors failed to cash in on their good fortune.

The match between Cronulla and Parramatta left many with a bad taste in the mouth at game’s end. As they usually do, Cronulla dominated their opponent physically but rarely looked like scoring. If it wasn’t for an inexplicable Tony Williams fumble, they probably wouldn’t have cracked the psychological 10-point barrier.

Parramatta, on the other hand, absorbed a massive amount of hurt from Cronulla’s defence (and their rampaging – in terms of field position – attack as well), but always threatened Cronulla’s line on the rare occasions they got near it and had enough left in the tank to score a late try. If Luke Burt’s strike was a little truer, it would have been a Parramatta win.

In other words, it was a very good effort from a team not noted for their ability to win in low-scoring games against physical opposition. Phil Gould made this point roughly 6546874645684654564848916516181681 times (at last count) during Channel 9’s coverage. Gould’s stubbornness almost made Ray Warren’s valiant efforts to be subtle in his support of Parramatta less obvious…almost.

But the main reason for dismay at the end of this game was the penalty given against Moimoi for his botched charge-down of Kimmorley’s field-goal attempt. It was a clumsy challenge and there was (some) contact with Kimmorley’s head, but in true Cronulla (under Ricky Stuart) spirit, Kimmorley stayed down in a manner that would have made Italian soccer lovers proud (I’m sure Gallen and Bird were particularly proud of him).

Obviously any other player worth his salt would have done the same thing, but for this to decide a match felt…wrong.

The final low-scoring match of the round was probably the best. There were a fairly high number of mistakes and silly penalties conceded, but this was mostly due to the above average speed and intensity on display (one reason why Mitchell Pearce was selected to the NSW State of Origin team).

The Newcastle Roosters match was low-scoring and was in the balance until the last play of the game. Newcastle once again exhibited their ability to lift considerably when playing the higher ranked teams in the NRL: they attacked the few Roosters’ weak spots and forced the Roosters to play close to their best (or at least their most intense) to secure the win.

If more low-scoring matches mean more games like Newcastle v. Roosters (or even Cronulla v. Parramatta…the first 79 minutes anyway), I’m sure most rugby league supporters won’t be too disappointed. But if it means more of the other games then the downward trend in quality of most NRL games looks certain to continue.

That said, at least the Brisbane v. Tigers, Dragons v. Penrith and Warriors v. Manly games were (mostly) entertaining. The other games in Round 15 – Bulldogs v. Canberra, Melbourne v. the Cowbores and Souths v. Gold Coast were largely uninteresting as well as being poor quality games.

The Bulldogs were as bad as an NRL team has perhaps ever been (admittedly to many NRL followers, this is extremely interesting). It was evident from very early on that Canberra had brought their home ground form to an away game for once (they had won only 3 of their last 22 away games after a home win), but they are probably somewhat annoyed they did so against such insipid opposition. They probably would have won playing in blindfolds. The Bulldogs capitulated similarly at the end of 2005, but there’s still another 11 rounds left in 2008: it could be an ugly next few months for them.

The same could be said for the Cowbores, who tried every devious trick in the book to slow the Melbourne juggernaut. It did work for a while though. Throw in what looked like some complacency (or maybe boredom) from Melbourne and the Cowbores had 3 first half tries. After a typical Craig Bellamy half-time spray, Melbourne cruised to victory – and proceeded to abuse the Cowbores’ underhanded ways.

The Souths – Gold Coast game was an entertaining game, but more in the mould of Brisbane Tigers than Newcastle Roosters. Souths had enthusiasm and aggression but were crying out for an experienced hand to guide them around, while the Gold Coast had the experienced hand but their big-name pack was lacking in enthusiasm and aggression.

Once Souths realised this – and that the game was there for the taking – they lifted considerably (after falling behind early on), but they trailed at half-time after falling for a fairly basic Scott Prince move.

Gold Coast replied by allowing John Sutton an alarmingly easy passage to the try-line. From here, the Gold Coast seemed to switch on and looked likely to win the game with two tries due largely to hard work.

The game took another strange twist as injuries continued to mount for the Gold Coast. In the space of perhaps 10 minutes, they were left with no reserves. Souths scored rather easily to equalise the game again, but they rather easily allowed the Gold Coast to march down field and take a one-point lead. Blind Freddy could tell that’s what they wanted to do, yet Souths seemed clueless.

This was clearly going to be a game of whoever benefited from the last mistake would win. When Jordan Atkins was far from subtle in his push-down of the tackled player, Souths added 2 points and held on for the win (despite allowing the Gold Coast within field goal range AGAIN).

The low-quality mismatch/lottery that is byeless pre-Origin rounds return next week and is sure to provide plenty of material for critics, in one way or another. Have a good week.

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