Round 19: Rivalry Round - Best Round of the Season (so far)

“I tell you what… this competition, and we flower it up all the time and we love the superstars, they’re great players, this is the weakest competition I’ve seen in a long long time alright. Anyone can win this, because our no. 1 team is only a very average team. But they look so much better than everyone this because at least they’re consistent and they’ve got some intensity. This is crying out for a Tigers 2005, for someone to get on a roll now and they’ll just beat everyone….it’s baying for one team now to stand up and get it done, they’ll win the comp…”

Phil Gould’s brutally honest – but quite unpopular – assessment of the NRL on Sunday could have sent many followers of the game into the foetal position. They might have wondered why they waste their time following a season for close to 30 weeks, when all that is required is to tune in sometime in August to find which team is building momentum best for a late-season run to the premiership. They may also have wondered about the ongoing prospects of a competition which has lost a good portion of its depth to England and a worryingly high portion of its star power to other sports, whilst pursuing an agenda of expansion in the not too distant future.

However, Rugby League has a long history of producing entertaining product to make its followers (temporarily) forget about the game’s deep-seated problems and Round 19 – Rivalry Round – was just another example of this. There were some cracking games, high scores, great comebacks and just enough spice to make things interesting without invoking the Helen Lovejoys (i.e. vested interests in the media pushing the AFL perspective) of this world.

The game of the round saw Penrith take on Parramatta. Most expected Penrith to bounce back after their loss to the Warriors last week, with their attack to lead the way. The Warriors kept one of the NRL’s highest scoring teams to just 6 points, which gave voice to the growing number of critics of Penrith’s attack, who accuse it of being one-dimensional (relying too much on kicks).

While Penrith’s attacking game probably needs some variation to minimise the possibility of a point-scoring drought in a key late-season game, Parramatta’s generous defence against the kick was not going to encourage any Penrith attacking innovation any time soon. Penrith led 22-nil after 20 or so minutes, with several tries coming off a poor defensive response to fairly standard Penrith kicks.

Many who wondered whether the Eels’ effort against the Cowbores last Monday night was the start of a late-season run or an easy win against pathetic opposition were answered in the remainder of the first half on Saturday night, as Parramatta cut Penrith’s lead to just 10 and probably should have cut it even further. They clearly had a great momentum and continued it after half time as Wright and an extremely calm Inu crossed for tries to give Parramatta a lead.

Most importantly, however, for Parramatta, was that their often-dormant superstar Jarryd Hayne had woken up and was involved in everything; a danger sign for whoever the opposition is when this rare event takes place. He played a key role in each of Parramatta’s first four tries then broke the game open with his spectacular 80-metre kick return. It probably didn’t deserve the orgasmic reaction it got from the commentators, but it marked the start of what Parramatta supporters hope will be an eruption lasting several months.

Penrith responded (via a kick) and some errors gave them chances to re-take the lead, but Parramatta held on for a famous win. This was one of the better games so far this season, but it was made even more memorable by a ground record crowd packed into CUA Stadium at Penrith. Sadly, this may end up leading to more Penrith-Parramatta games moving to larger stadiums, but hopefully there can be room for games – and crowds – like this at suburban stadiums as well.

Other notable games from the Rivalry Round saw the Roosters and Bulldogs square off as well as the Tigers host the Cowbores. The perplexing Roosters – who struggle against lowly teams, defeat good teams and rarely string similar results together – should have had the goods to beat the Bulldogs, but the Bulldogs’ recent momentum and confidence gained saw them jump to a strong lead after early back-and-forth of tries in the opening 30 minutes.

The Roosters – and especially Braith Anasta – seemed to lose their way as they suffered from several refereeing errors and became increasingly frustrated. Anasta already gave away a penalty for dissent after a dubious forward pass call, then he looked like he’d have a stroke when correctly denied a try soon after.

Somehow during this time, the Roosters dominated possession and mounted a comeback against the gallant but tiring Bulldogs. Eventually the Roosters re-took the lead and held on for an unlikely win. While Anasta gained (eventual) satisfaction, fellow milestone gamer Kimmorley added to his legacy of crapping the bed in big games, thanks to numerous errors and penalties conceded. Afterwards he complained of not being recognised for reaching 300 games. Hey Brett, here’s a statue of you throwing the intercept pass to Bowen, now go away.

On Monday night, the Tigers took the resurgent Cowbores far too lightly and woke up to find themselves 16-nil down. Luckily Feral Thurston missed his first conversion, perhaps due to his nasty black eye. Apparently one of his victims fought back this time…

Once the Tigers got going from late in the first half, the 16-point deficit was quickly rubbed out but the stalemate continued for far longer than expected despite both teams having numerous chances to take the lead. Actually, the Tigers had about eleventy hundred chances, most of which were Benji Marshall missed goal or field goal attempts. But then he sets up a try with a brilliant chip and chase and all is (seemingly) forgotten. Until he costs them a finals game with his erratic play that is…

Finally, the surprisingly impressive Fulton sealed the win for the Tigers, who after winning 7 of their last 8, must surely be due for a loss against Manly on Sunday.

The Warriors and Melbourne have had a somewhat heated rivalry over the years and despite Melbourne’s season rapidly losing relevance, this game stoked the rivalry to greater heights.

The Warriors backed up well after their Herculean effort to defeat Penrith last week to jump to 12-nil lead early on against the Storm, but the Storm slowly fought their way back. The Warriors’ newly found defensive resolve continued and maintained their lead, but eventually Melbourne scored. Rather than suppressing the crowd, this made them louder as a chorus of “CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT” rang around Mt Smart Stadium as Cameron Smith lined up the conversion attempt.

Melbourne almost scored in their next set of six, but ultimately couldn’t score again and the Warriors held on for their fifth win in a row – a difficult feat in the NRL this season. The next Melbourne v. Warriors game should be one to look forward to…

Friday’s game might have been more memorable in a normal round: Souths gave a very good account of themselves in almost defeating the Dragons, while Brisbane slowly but surely overhauled the Titans, with a run of 24 straight points after the Gold Coast had a 10-nil lead. The Titans were somewhat unlucky though to suffer from a dubious sin-bin for the second straight week. To rub salt in the wound, they lost Bird and Harrison to injury.

The final two games of the round were closer to Phil Gould’s description of the game than the standard from the better games of this round: Manly and Canberra jumped to massive first-half leads over insipid opposition in the form of Cronulla and Newcastle respectively.

See you next week.