Despite containing only one “dead” game, most expected Round 26 to be rather dull after Friday night. This was because the Saturday and Sunday games almost all paired those already in the finals and/or fighting for higher position against those already out of contention or those with an infinitesimal chance of making the finals.
However, the doubters hadn’t counted a number of lowly teams finding the motivation to perform to end their season on a strong note. Nor had they counted on several teams with significant incentives to strive for victory being unable to play near their best. Such is the nature of the NRL in 2008, where parity is a constant ambition. This often comes at the cost of quality, but an unexpectedly interesting (and, at times, entertaining) final weekend was the result, thanks to a wide variety of collective attitudes amongst the Round 26 teams.
The first type of team witnessed in Round 26 is known as Pathetic. These teams have been eliminated from contention (or are still “mathematically” alive) and are capable of a strong effort, but this effort usually only lasts 15 to 20 minutes (unless they are playing a similarly dispirited opponent) before the better team crushes their feeble spirit.
The pride of Western Sydney — Parramatta and Penrith — is at the top of this list. Parramatta revived their finals hopes with strong wins over the Roosters and Tigers and doing the bare minimum against the Bulldogs, but as soon as the Dragons stood up to Parramatta last week and other results went against them, Parramatta wilted. They occasionally threatened the contending Warriors on Saturday night and their lone try once again teased the few loyal (but freezing) Parramatta supporters, but their lack of fight basically gifted the Warriors a finals spot.
Penrith was greeted by an almost as small crowd for their home game against Manly. Penrith have exhibited a bizarre quality in recent weeks: starting quite strongly before folding and getting thrashed. This looked like happening again on Saturday night, after Puletua scored an easy try, but Manly responded with three rather easy tries of their own.
Luckily for Penrith, Manly was lulled into replying with their own sporadic intensity and effort: Penrith sensed this and probably should have taken a second half lead against a team who urgently needed to accumulate points to try to finish with a minor premiership.
Despite some strong efforts — such as from Jarrod Sammut (whose innovation very nearly led to a spectacular grubber try) — Penrith could get no closer than 2 points to Manly. When Manly got the ball, their defensive resistance was so poor Manly eventually racked up an 18-point win. How poor was Penrith’s defence? Penrith had more possession in total than Manly, despite Manly scoring 6 tries.
A major culprit here was Michael Jennings. Jennings was a frequent target of Tuesday Roast in his rookie 2007 for his lamentable defence. His gaping mistakes appeared to be a thing of the past, but Manly exposed him painfully with 3 easy tries past him in this game.
Gold Coast and Souths are somewhat unlucky to be in Pathetic group, as they have both recorded some strong efforts despite falling out of contention, but their Round 26 performances were (understandably) poor.
The Gold Coast’s season was revived by the early return from injury of Scott Prince a few weeks ago: since then, they have been one of the NRL’s better teams in defeating the Cowboys and putting in valiant efforts in losing to Brisbane and Manly. Most expected them to thrash the downtrodden Tigers, but the minimal challenge of playing a team faring so poorly was far more difficult than it appeared. The Titans played well above their weight in troubling Brisbane and Manly; they just couldn’t put in anywhere near the requisite effort against the Tigers. As a result, they lost their FIFTH consecutive game at home: not even their slumping home form and the incentive of ending such a poor run was enough. Perhaps opposing teams are now inspired (as they are in Brisbane) by playing at a world-class stadium? The Tigers appeared as though they wouldn’t mind playing there again as soon as possible.
After Souths’ amazing run of mid-season wins came to a crushing halt with losses to the Tigers, Newcastle and then Cronulla, they quickly assumed nuisance status for the contending teams remaining on their schedule. They were able to defeat Manly and scare Canberra and the Roosters, but they were unfortunate to run into a Melbourne Storm team committed to thrashing them on Sunday night. To do this without Asostasi and Craig Wing made them almost nil chance to win: to be fair, they weren’t that bad, but they had a very difficult task.
The next group of teams could be called No Longer Pathetic: teams well out of contention, but who haven’t completely given up on their season. Well… they did give up, but it was long ago and they realised “Hey, we’re not that bad, we can have some fun and maybe win a game or two”.
After playing quite well between Rounds 19 and 22, the Tigers crumbled and a trip to the Gold Coast without a number of their good players threatened to end in a Prince-led annihilation. But the Tigers took their motivation from a number of potential influences. The Tigers clearly lifted for Brett Hodgson’s final game in the NRL, while Benji Marshall may have been impressing old school friends (or maybe French Rugby scouts??) and had a brilliant game. The warm weather and fast track also helped to bring the best out of the Tigers. It helped they were playing very flat opposition, but the Tigers certainly brought some of their best play in 2008 on Sunday.
Earlier on Sunday, the Bulldogs almost pulled off a massive upset when they put 4 tries on Canberra in under half an hour in the first half. Their season was over months ago and they have been on the end of some brutal beatings, but they’ve surprised a few teams since their season was lost, especially with their attack.
However, Canberra eventually got going. Their attack warmed up, they had a few pieces of luck but some very brittle defence saw Canberra threaten to put another thrashing on the Bulldogs. Interest changed from whether the Bulldogs could upset Canberra to whether the Bulldogs could limit Canberra to a margin of victory under 17 points (pushing Canberra into 7th position on for-and-against), but Canberra threatened to make this avenue of interest irrelevant too.
The Bulldogs hung tough though and put on several more tries. With a bit more luck, they could have push Canberra to 7th and possibly to a premature season’s end. Ultimately, they lost by 18, but are to be commended.
The Cowbores could have capitulated on a freezing wet Saturday night at Cronulla, but started the game strongly. Cronulla was able to build a significant lead, but the Cowbores incredibly put on 3 tries in quick time — even without Feral Thurston on the field — in the game’s final 15 minutes. The Cowbores didn’t really cop the thrashings the Bulldogs did, but their intensity at times was deplorable and cost them wins. Their season finished quite strongly.
Next up is the Out of Steam group. These teams started slowly (or were in a weak position in the middle to latter stages of the season) and had to be at their best for an extended period to come back into contention. However, the difficulty in sustaining strong effort in today’s NRL meant that these teams were not able to produce as expected in Round 26.
The leader of this group is Newcastle. Newcastle’s intriguing combination of awesome potential, but also a very young and inconsistent team, meant they beat some of the best teams in the NRL, but were rarely able to build on these wins and often frustratingly lost to lesser teams.
Their win over Melbourne last week was perhaps their best of the season, but it quickly became clear on Friday night (as they took on Brisbane) that they looked incapable of producing their best at this very important time. There was a strong case that the huge effort expended and the emotional night experienced against Melbourne would be quite difficult to back up from, but many visiting teams play at their best in Brisbane and Newcastle knew that a win would have ensured qualification for the finals: they STILL weren’t able to play near their best against a solid but not spectacular Brisbane team.
Canberra looked to be also Out of Steam when they followed up their gallant but impotent effort against the Cowbores last week with a terrible defensive effort against the last-placed Bulldogs early in Sunday’s game. Their run since mid-season has delivered some of the best attack in recent NRL history and a host of entertaining wins, but a massive injury count and the ongoing effort needed to keep winning after such a great run seemed to have finally caught up with Canberra.
To Canberra’s credit, they were able to come back and overhaul the Bulldogs and scored just enough points to achieve 6th position and the possibility of a double-chance in the finals. Campese further cemented his spot as Most Improved Player this season (by far) and Five-Eighth of the season (possibly) with another game-winning performance, but Canberra’s hopes for any further wins this seasons probably rest on his potentially fragile hamstring. Supporters of all teams not playing Canberra wish Campese and Canberra the best — but probably expect the worst.
Time will tell whether the Dragons belong in this group. Their poor effort and lack of preparation for the conditions on Friday night against the Roosters cost them a trip to Brisbane (where they always seem to play well) in week 1 of the finals and risked sending them to Melbourne or Cronulla (where they historically have very little success). Luckily for them, they drew Manly in week 1. Surely Dragons’ coach Nathan Brown knows his team well enough by now to know they are most likely to respond in much-win situations and wouldn’t really mind playing Manly at Brookvale — a team (and venue) they have had much success against — but they threw away a golden opportunity.
Have the Dragons run out of steam? Or did they subconsciously ease up knowing they can lift again in a much-win situation next week? We will see.
So the Dragons in Round 26 were either a member of Out of Steam or the next group: Pothole on the Road to (Potential) Success. This group also includes Manly, who have not been quite the same damaging team since their Round 22 game against Melbourne. Their plight hasn’t been helped by playing lowly teams since then (Souths, the Tigers, Gold Coast and Penrith) but they have looked far from convincing for much of this time.
While they did encounter some tricky, motivated opposition in Souths and the Gold Coast, Penrith has had major internal problems in recent weeks and was ripe for the thrashing. Yet Manly struggled mightily for defensive intensity (their calling card this season) and could have been fighting a battle just to win this game (as opposed to building up their for-and-against) if Penrith had a touch more luck early in the second half.
The fact that Manly won the game and gave the Storm a 26-point deficit to overcome in a very easy manner probably didn’t help matters. They gave the Storm a major fright 4 weeks ago and could very well win the competition, but they’ll need to rediscover their best and soon.
Cronulla is also in this group, but they can hardly be blamed. When one experiences a cold, windy and wet night at Toyota Stadium, it takes a great deal of convincing that it is located on the coast. The hardy souls who attended this game can never be called fair-weather supporters.
Unfortunately for Cronulla, their opponent on this brutally cold night was the lowly Cowbores and Cronulla was going to need a miracle from Souths to be able to advance any further in the minor premiership standings. They probably did very well to find the energy on this night to lead the Cowbores by 26 points, but their care factor finally dropped away and they let the Cowbores scored three late tries. The challenge of stopping a brilliant attacking team (Canberra) next week should ensure Cronulla’s motivation returns.
The final group of teams seen in Round 26 was the contenders who recorded a Strong Finish after Turbulence. The main members of this group are the Roosters and Brisbane: it was quite appropriate these teams played (and won well) on Friday night, as they have enjoyed similar seasons.
Both teams started quite strongly, were hit by representative commitments during mid season and have struggled for intensity and consistency through the latter part of the season. In an ideal world, these teams would be lucky to qualify for the finals (in a top-5 system), but the top 8 system meant these teams could afford to sputter along for several months after a very strong start to the season.
But, as many expected, these teams look to have (eventually) turned the corner. Both Brisbane and the Roosters were more impressive than they have been for most of the last few months on Friday night. Despite having to endure a very high error count (even allowing for the conditions) and although Anasta’s kick-off to start the game was lucky to make it 10 metres, the Roosters overcame these and played a brilliant wet-weather game on Friday night. They are still far from their best and are still struggling for confidence (as indicated by their gratuitous and excessive celebrating and high-fiving any time the Dragons made a mistake — be it forced or unforced) but their comprehensive win over the Dragons could be a springboard to September success.
Brisbane started fairly well against Newcastle on Friday night, but was unable to convert much of their dominance into points. They started similarly against the Dragons and the Dragons eventually took advantage of Brisbane’s wastefulness but Brisbane didn’t let this opportunity slip. When Karmichael Hunt attacked Mullen’s chip kick and forced Steve Simpson to commit a professional foul, Brisbane’s victory was assured.
Brisbane was probably the big winner out of Friday night. Not only did they win and win well, but they don’t have to play at home in Week 1 of the finals: in their last 7 home finals in Week 1, they have won just once. They could thrive playing at the SFS (where they famously came back against the Bulldogs two years ago).
Lastly, Melbourne belongs here. Turbulence for them is losing one or maybe two games in a few months by a combined few points: life is tough at the top. They had the distinct advantage of being on the button coming into Round 26: apologies for the poker jargon (I don’t think I’ve done this all season!) but this means Melbourne had the advantage of playing after Manly and knowing exactly what they needed to do to finish first.
In this case, it was to win by 26 points. They are renowned for their brilliant home record, but they are also just as exemplary for bouncing back off a loss. Motivation becomes increasingly more difficult to find for consistently great teams, but the chance to bounce back from their relatively poor performance in Newcastle last week, the prospect of finishing first (again) and a weakened opponent meant Souths was always in trouble.
If Melbourne can play at or near this level over the next few weeks, everyone is in trouble, but teams such as Manly, Cronulla, Brisbane and the Dragons are not without hope. History has not been too kind to teams in their third year of sustained brilliance.
A final note: if you don’t already believe in cycles in the NRL, here’s some more evidence. Thanks for watching all season long and hope to see you next year (where apparently Newcastle will win the comp and the Tigers will run last).
2001 Premiers: Newcastle > 2005 Wooden Spooners: Newcastle
2002 Premiers: Roosters > 2006 2nd last: Roosters
2003 Premiers: Penrith > 2007 Wooden Spooners: Penrith
2004 Premiers: Bulldogs > 2008 Wooden Spooners: Bulldogs
2005 Premiers: Wests Tigers > 2009 Wooden Spooners: ?
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Round 26: A Diverse Mix of Types of Late-Round Teams (and How They Breathed Life into an Otherwise Dull Weekend): An End-Of-Season Roast
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