Round 10: Black Friday Weekend: Difficult Round for the Favourites

Life had been relatively easy; life had been calm for the NRL’s upper echelon teams. After a number of difficult years, where winning consistently was difficult for most, the balance of power seemed to be shifting back towards the rich and powerful. A 72 per cent success rate for the bookmaker-favoured teams between Round 4 and Round 9 was solid evidence of this; those favoured by people in the know had not enjoyed such a success rate since the mid 2000s.

However, little did these teams know what was awaiting them in Round 10. Sure, the upper echelon teams expect to be impacted by representative games and budget for injuries and/or fatigue as a side effect of the pride felt for those selected in representative jerseys and almost all of these teams played away from home in Round 10, but few expected the upsets and the difficulty the upper echelon sides would encounter. The struggling sides ALL played far beyond what they had shown in recent weeks, with only a few sides failing to translate their inspired effort into ultimate victory.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this week’s Roast takes a look at the Black Friday round and how the previously struggling teams in the NRL competition fought back against their usually much better faring tormentors.

But first, a little historical background: Friday the 13th was only known as Black Friday from the mid 19th century. It is possibly thought to have originated as a result of two older superstitions i.e. that Friday and 13 were considered unlucky.

In Rugby League, the first game on Friday 13th took place in July 1990, when Brisbane defeated Wests 30-10. The first signs of bad luck on Friday 13th in Rugby League took place here with Dale Shearer only converting 3 out of 7 attempts at goal, while anyone at this game or watching from home would have been forced to endure a youngish but still scary looking Jason Taylor in the halves for the Magpies.

Over the years, Brisbane would feature quite prominently in Black Friday games. They had a run of wins through the 1990s (against Balmain in 1993 and Manly in 1998), but their luck turned bad as the millennia changed. First up, a loss to the Roosters in 2001, before the upstart Titans won the first SEQ derby in 2007 on a Black Friday.

Things briefly turned around in 2009, when they defeated the Cowbores after withstanding a furious second-half comeback, but the losing returned in 2010 as the Eels continued their late-season run with a very good win at Suncorp.

Meanwhile, Brisbane’s opponents on Friday night — the black cats from Penrith — had quite incredibly never won a game on Friday 13th (in 4 attempts). To be fair to them, only one of these defeats was at home (2007 to Parramatta) but it bizarrely included an Ian Hindmarsh field goal: how unlucky can black cats get?!

All sorts of Gods couldn’t let this continue; Penrith just couldn’t lose another Friday 13th match and so it proved as the Panthers played like they haven’t since mid 2010 in soundly defeating Brisbane. Brisbane’s prudent strategy to rest many of their representative players after last week’s Test match was rendered almost useless by Penrith’s revitalised performance.

Sadly for Penrith, their bad luck did continue, with Michael Gordon and Timana Tahu suffering season-ending injuries. Gordon’s injury is especially cruel as it likely denied NSW supporters the chance to see his talents on a much larger stage.

For the Dragons, this was their fifth game on a Black Friday. Not only was their record entering this game on Friday 13th just one win and three losses, these losses came to some freakish Newcastle play (in 1999 and 2003) and in a golden point loss to the Storm (in 2009).

In short, they were due some Black Friday luck and many believed they received this in the first half, when Beau Scott looked tackled, but his very late offload to Matt Prior was permitted as Prior scored the Dragons’ first try.

After a now-standard Soward field goal just before half time, it looked like another run-of-the-mill Dragons win, but some Dragons tiredness and a renewed effort from the Bulldogs meant a riveting last 20 minutes. However, the Dragons did just enough to hold on and with that, the first leg of what could be a very congested representative schedule for many of their players was over.

By Saturday night, Black Friday had passed, but things remained just as difficult for favoured teams. The most unexpected result of the round (by some margin) was Canberra’s shock win over Melbourne. Clearly, Melbourne expended a major amount of effort last weekend (with so many players on representative duty but also in overcoming a stern challenge from Brisbane) and had much difficulty in finding the necessary motivation to defeat an opposition faring so poorly.

Canberra’s main shortcoming had been in attack, where Matt Awful had been primarily responsible for their anaemic play. Against the Storm and their usually resolute defence, Canberra scored twice quite early on. These were not brilliant tries, which gave the impression of fatigue on Melbourne’s part, but they reflected Canberra’s improved attitude.

It would be easy to attribute Canberra’s improved performance to the absence of Awful — and fun too — but this was a team effort especially in keeping Melbourne from scoring after the Storm eliminated Canberra’s lead. When the highly annoying, brash but sometimes talented Blake Ferguson avoided touching the sideline by millimetres in striding towards victory, the upset of the season so far was complete.

At Homebush, it was the black rabbit against the black (and gold) cat. From a bad luck perspective, Souths had suffered more than enough with their massive injury toll; hence they were deserved winners over the Tigers.

From a rugby league perspective, Souths made their own luck in a damaging first half display. They presented a much more professional attitude and intensity and repeatedly exposed the Tigers’ interior defence. Seeing Old Man Rhys Wesser striding in open space should have embarrassed the Tigers into action. It did, but not until the game was almost lost.

Meanwhile in Townsville, it wasn’t necessarily a poor start by the Cowbores, but a flaw in their left side defence was exploited repeatedly by Jarryd Hayne, resulting in Joel Reddy, Luke Burt and Ben Smith striding in open space. Parramatta took a 26-10 lead midway through the second half and the upsets looked likely to continue.

Then it was Parramatta’s turn; again, it was not necessarily poor play by the Eels, the Cowbores put THIRTY points in even time to finish with the victory and finish over the top of the gritty but overwhelmed Eels. This amazing finish capped off two entertaining games between these teams in 2011.

Contrary to the expectations of many tipsters, Newcastle was favoured by bookmakers to rebound from their recent run of bad luck and end the Warriors’ impressive run of form on Sunday in Newcastle. For most of the second half, it appeared bookmakers would be correct as the Knights held the lead and peppered the Warriors’ line but it was the Warriors who secured the win with two late tries.

In Sunday’s other game, it was perhaps not a surprise to many that the Roosters could not sustain an 80-minute effort given their patchy form so far this season. However, it was a major surprise that their conquerors were Cronulla especially given Cronulla’s losing streak and some significant absences due to injury (exacerbated by their lack of depth). Despite some poor goal-kicking, Cronulla’s excellence in defence kept the improved Roosters to just one try and consigned the favourites to yet another loss in Round 10.

Lastly on Monday night, Manly hung on to defeat the very aggressive Titans. Manly looked the far better team for most of this game, but failed to convert much of this dominance into points. Meanwhile the Gold Coast gained confidence as the score-line stayed close as well by each massive hit on a Manly ball-player looking to make a play close to the advantage line.

This mini-battle almost reached a farcical stage as Manly’s playmakers seemed to invite the Gold Coast hit-men to tackle them harder and harder: no matter how hard, they’d still get up and play on. In the end, Manly won the battle but almost lost the war as Gold Coast had the chance to snatch victory at the death (like they did in 2009).

If Round 10 is anything to go by, the representative season could deliver a host of upsets, especially as injury tolls rise and depth levels are further tested. Stay tuned…..

See you next week.