Thursday 24 May 2012

Round 11 – Disappointment and Interest

Rugby League is a game built on hard work, mateship but also clichés and buzzwords. Words used so often that their exact definition or initial meaning is lost but words which develop the versatility Ricky Stuart can only dream about.

Two of the biggest offenders here are disappointing (or disappointed or disappoints) and interesting. Here are some examples:

The Rabbitohs’ coach felt for his players, who dug deep to come away with nothing. “I’m extremely disappointed for the boys with the amount of effort they put in,” Maguire said.


Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan says he is disappointed by the NRL club’s horror schedule during the State of Origin period, but is hopeful they can come out the other end a better team for it. “The only thing that disappoints me is that we don’t get a bye during that period,” Flanagan told AAP.


Steve Sharp, a former premiership winner who was at Parramatta Leagues Club when the entire squad stood on stage at Tuesday night’s meeting said he was embarrassed to be a former player of the club. “It was very disappointing. From my perspective, I was down the front and I could see the tension on some of the players’ faces. I was embarrassed to be an ex-Parramatta player.”


Does disappointing/ed mean sad, unfair or below expectations? Who knows?! How about interesting?

Western Australia Rugby League chief executive John Sackson said although his first preference was for a Perth team to gain entry on their own right, the prospect of a club relocating to Perth would still be welcomed. “Overall we want NRL back in this town,” Sackson said on Tuesday. “We want an NRL team here representing the state of Western Australia. It’s interesting what Gordie had to say about his belief in relocating (that Cronulla should relocate to Perth).”


Melbourne Storm centre and Queensland Origin representative Dane Nielsen has set himself a simple goal of playing consistent football in 2012. “I’m off contract at the end of the year. It’s an interesting time for me,” Nielsen said.


Catherine Harris, the only woman on the new Australian Rugby League Commission, recently recounted a previous role as trustee of the Sydney Cricket Ground, “I had to watch every sport but I just found rugby league more interesting,” she said.


Does interesting mean engaging to the watcher, time for the subject to get PAID or hilariously funny (as if we’d want that loser club relocating here)? Again, it’s impossible to tell.

Perhaps a review of Round 11 in the NRL highlighting some incidents that were disappointing or interesting may clear things up here.

Wests Tigers v. New Zealand

More than most in the NRL, the Tigers have a significant degree of stability amongst key players and how they play in certain situations. Their winning percentage at Leichhardt has remained high for many years but in recent times, they never look like thrashing an opponent at Leichhardt. Instead, they almost tease the opposition by looking flat and uninterested in the hope that the 4-game per season Leichhardt supporters will lift them to a comeback.

This happened again on Friday night. The Tigers started very slowly but the Warriors could only score 10 points in this time. A much improved second half saw the Tigers look the better side but victory was not sealed until the Tigers took advantage of a dubious advantage call where the ensuing scrum saw Tim Moltzen score the winning try.

Disappointing: Manu Vatuvei has long been one of the most inconsistent players in the NRL. He made some bruising metres in this game and helped set up the first try, but his insipid effort in picking up Sleau Ryan’s otherwise-harmless grubber kick gifted the Tigers their first try and started their comeback. Vatuvei’s best is great but if Matt Utai can reform his game and remove many of the mistakes, Vatuvei should be able to do the same.

Interesting: While there were two sets of brothers as team-mates in Round 11 – Ashton and Tariq Sims for North Queensland and Kieran and Liam Foran for Manly – there was also one married couple: Benji and Tim Marshall for the Tigers.

That is a little unkind; rumours continue to swirl that Tim Moltzen’s surely-tenuous position at the Tigers is a little safer than it should be due to his close friendship with Marshall. These rumours could only have strengthened early on in this game as Moltzen required new undies as the Warriors bombed him relentlessly. But his 60 metre run out of the in-goal from a well-placed kick and his nice move on the game-winning try showed he may have a future not in park football.

North Queensland v. Penrith

While this game was not necessarily of the highest calibre skills-wise, it was certainly an entertaining game with a number of tries and lead changes. North Queensland exhibited their improved depth in 2012 by taking the early lead. But Penrith looked untroubled by the emotional win just five days earlier as they stuck close with the Cowbores all game long.

A tragic injury to Tariq Sims was followed by Penrith scoring two tries to take a late lead but they were unable to hold on; Tariq’s brother Ashton took the batted-down cross-kick to win the game for the locals.

Disappointing: The injury to Sims was a badly-broken leg after a freak collision and took the air out of the game for a few minutes. However, Sims risked following in Luke O’Donnell’s thuggish footsteps when he delivered a forearm to Blake Austin’s throat in the second half. The silver lining to the injury for Sims is any suspension will now be almost meaningless but a stricter referee may have prevented his injury from ever happening.

Interesting: Tariq’s brother Ashton had an interesting night. He was frequently aggressive towards the opposition, more so than the norm, skating close to the disciplinary wind on many occasions. He then witnessed his brother exit the field on a medi-cab with a steely resolve before resuming his emotion-filled game. To top it off, he scored the match-winner and had the ball in the final seconds and was not quite sure how to celebrate.

Manly v. Sydney Roosters

While most games over the round were close, this game was played at the highest level, despite a number of high-profile absentees on Origin commitments. Manly was led by an inspired Anthony Watmough, but often looked overmatched by the Roosters who brought physicality and a very open style of play.

Manly responded to each burst of Rooster intensity/slick passing with strong defence/points. Their two-try burst either side of halftime suggested they’d be in front, one way or the other, when the final siren sounded, but this was a very good game. The Roosters have lost quite often lately but are becoming increasingly difficult to beat.

Disappointing: While much of the post-match attention focused on the video referee’s somewhat pedantic but probably correct ruling on the elbow by Brad Takairangi to disallow the try to Daniel Mortimer, there was no attention given to Anthony Watmough’s pathetic attempt at exaggerating contact in order to gain a penalty. He fell to the ground, holding his face or neck area but clearly looking at the referees and when no intervention looked likely, Watmough quickly got up and ran back in defence. Watmough’s adversary here and for much of the afternoon, Martin Kennedy, seemed to give Watmough a dismissive wave as their paths crossed again.

Interesting: No-one is suggesting that Liam Foran is as good a prospect as his brother Kieran but Liam played another solid game on Sunday. In particular, he showed the value of the simple yet effective attacking kicking game. Not every attacking kick has to be aimed within one centimetre of the dead-ball line or on the chest of a flying fullback making a precise run; just put it in space near the try-line and as long as there is a good chase, anything can happen. It’s not hard.

St George Illawarra v. South Sydney

Poor Saints had a tough task on Sunday – taking on one of the biggest packs in the NRL with almost their complete first-choice pack unavailable. However, as often happens in the NRL, the underdog fired up and Saints dominated the first 20 minutes, enjoying the majority of possession and jumping to a 12-nil lead.

Slowly but surely, Souths came back. They didn’t panic and as possession evened up, their forwards started to dominate the younger Saints pack. After halftime, Saints got their second wind and re-took the lead but again Souths came back and probably should have won inside the 80 minutes and in a more comfortable manner than they did.

Instead, there was a host of field-goal and penalty goal attempts before extra time and the eventual winner by the ultra-cool Adam Reynolds. Sandow might have knocked the field goal over – if he didn’t lose his marbles completely after falling behind early that is – but it would have been much too soon. The Tuesday Roast will lose a pillar of comedic value if Souths keep getting non-hilarious players in their team.

Disappointing: It was somewhat of a surprise that Saints didn’t knock a field goal over or score from an attacking cross kick given that Jamie Soward had the Great Wall of China pretty much blocking any chasers from pressuring his kick.

Granted, Saints have been using this tactic (where they get several big boppers to stand along side the man playing the ball who then block chasers) for years, but it seemed extraordinarily blatant yesterday and not just when Soward was spraying his field goal attempts late on.

The first half Soward cross kick which came after an injury time out gave Soward the chance to pretty much get his boppers to lie on top of one another and apply the cement! It couldn’t have been more deliberate, yet there was no suggestion of a penalty.

Interesting: The NRL put the kibosh on Canterbury’s James Graham’s attempts at ‘gamesmanship’ by outlawing his excessive Vaseline use, but sneakiness on the rugby league field still lives, as seen by Jake Marketo’s play on Sunday. Late in the first half, Marketo, whilst on the ground in the tackle as Souths attacked, sneakily ankle-tapped Issac Luke from an offside position, forcing Luke into error and avoiding a penalty. This is very hard to get away with in modern rugby league with two referees and cameras everywhere; well done Jake.

Canterbury v. Cronulla

The final club game of the first Origin-shortened round was a bit of a fizzer. The Bulldogs were clearly fired up after their poor performance against the Gold Coast last week but they were not at their best and Cronulla had several good opportunities to make a game of it in the first half. Unfortunately for the neutral, Cronulla stuffed them all up and the game was pretty much over by half time. The second half was little more than a kick around.

Disappointing: Cronulla’s Jeff Robson had enjoyed an excellent start to season 2012, but without Todd Carney to lead the attack for Cronulla, Robson had to do it on his own. Thing is, he didn’t really ‘do’ very much, certainly not successfully anyway. His butchering of a massive overlap in the first half was quite amazing to watch. It possibly should have been a penalty to Cronulla (although he likely took his advantage) but he didn’t even complain about this after he was tackled. To be fair, the tackle by Vaso Graham left him wondering what number that bus was and not whether he should have received a penalty.

Interesting: On yet another dull night game at ANZ Stadium, it was interesting to see two good match races in the first half. Early on, Ben Barba took off and looked set to score another length-of-the-field try but incredibly Colin Best caught up to him (even fighting through Josh Reynolds’ attempts to hold him out of the play). Then it was Best’s turn to be run down as the man once known as the Colin Best Express was stopped short of a long-distance try by Luke MacDougall.

New South Wales v. Queensland

After the goose of a Victorian Sports Minister accidentally referred to State of Origin as being between ‘Queensland and New Zealand’, acknowledged the NSW captain as ‘Paul Callen” and called it the “State of the Origin” (I bet he asks his kids to ‘look something up on the Google for me’), doubts were raised again as to the legitimacy of taking an Origin game to Melbourne.

Last night’s game would not have done the job of attracting people to the game in the most captive of potential markets. NSW had the desire and some potential game-breaker athletes but no rhythm, Queensland had combinations but looked sluggish and took their ‘just do enough to win’ maxim to new highs. The result was perhaps the worst Origin ever.

The terrible video referee decision which pretty much ended the game was, in some ways, what such a horrid game deserved and capped a dreadful night for the officials. The game’s first try was incorrectly allowed, there were a number of ‘club game’ penalties mixed with ‘Origin’ refereeing, the sin-binning of Jennings, while deserved, was over-the-top and deciding that Robbie Farah deliberately played at the ball with his foot was, quite simply, a baffling decision.

Disappointing: Queensland looked sloppy and looked underdone. Perhaps the flu knocked them around badly but they were a shadow of their normal selves. Luckily they had their combinations to fall back on which gave them three tries, as well as the idea which paid off very well to start push-and-shove in the first half when NSW was by far the better side.

On the NSW side, Jennings’ decision to run into what was little more than the line at a busy nightclub and throw an awkward punch was just stupid. The selection and then use of 14-year-old boy Jamie Buhrer was strange. He played 5 minutes, stumbled on his only run, threw the ball to Williams instead of a playmaker on a last-tackle play deep in attack then was replaced. Speaking of Williams, his size was a concern – to his cankles; the poor pass from Buhrer made Williams bend down awkwardly which inflamed his gout. Not a great night for the Manly bench players.

Interesting: The final siren rarely sounded sweeter to millions of viewers; finally that rubbish came to an end! It will be interesting to see whether Civoniceva will retire before being asked nicely to step aside. Petero was certainly not the only Queenslander to look underdone, but Petero probably wouldn’t have looked much better even if he had no flu symptoms. Queensland need some spark in the forwards and Petero, humble champion he is, needs to make way.

Finally, it was a rare moment of entertainment from last night when, after a strong tackle by Greg Bird took the player just past the horizontal line (which strictly meant a penalty), a NSW player asked rookie Origin referee Matt Cecchin “Is this your first Origin?”. Cecchin, like all referees, answered robotically but honestly but at the same time must have wondered if the referees really need to wear a functioning microphone at all times.

See you next week.

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