Round 4 – There’s No Place Like….Away?

It is generally accepted in team sports at all levels that those teams with the home ground advantage are a better chance of winning. This notion does not need explaining. Yet after 3 rounds in the current NRL season, home teams (plus the favoured teams in those games at neutral venues – i.e. the ‘Home Boys Adjusted’ measure) had won only 29.2% of the time.

This was the second lowest performance after 3 rounds in a season since 1988; only in 2001 (28.6%) did those with the home ground advantage fare worse. The home teams broke out of their funk in 2001 with a full round, but the same round in 2012 only saw a slight improvement from the home teams (4 out of 8).

While it is true that the distinct home ground advantage has diminished somewhat over recent decades (thanks to many millions of dollars being placed into the construction and redevelopment of homogeneous stadia), you’d still think the familiarity of routine and lower chance of disruptions which would come with playing at home would be of at least some benefit to most teams.

This week’s Roast will take a closer look at why home teams are struggling.

To be fair to the concept of home ground advantage, Parramatta at present would struggle to win at home if there was no opposition. They took on Penrith on Friday night and after an opening period where they put Penrith under pressure, Penrith’s turn with the ball saw points flow quickly.

While Penrith played well (bouncing back from being well beaten at home by Souths), Parramatta’s defence was fundamentally weak, especially their inexperienced right-side defence. Parramatta’s right-side defensive coach Eric Grothe Junior was at a loss to understand; he had undertaken extra sessions with his young protégés, but somehow things went terribly.

Penrith threatened to blow the score out before half-time but settled at 23; more than enough to ease off for the remainder of the game.

There was also a distinct lack of home-ground advantage in Channel 9’s commentary during this game. Amongst the selections of scintillating repartee were: a discussion on what material the goal posts are made of (aluminium, not wood, as Brad Fittler first suggested), Fittler again (who can’t remember yesterday) incredibly remembering a rule-change from 2003 (but not remembering the Steve Matai incident and the ensuing Cyclone Joey response from week 1 of the 2006 finals which saw the rule change back) and Ray Warren referring to a short, directly backward pass from a Penrith forward taking a hit-up as a ‘download’.

Internet gossip suggests Channel 9 is deliberately devaluing their product in 2012 (with these commentary shenanigans, the dumping of popular Andrew Voss and the desecration of the Sunday Roast) so as to lessen the value of the game’s broadcast rights, which are currently up for renegotiation. From the network which threw the once-popular Matthew Johns and Ben Ikin under buses for the sake of ratings, anything is possible.

Anyway, this game suggested one cause of the away-team success: motivation following a home loss. Penrith became masters at this in 2007 and 2008, when a disgusting home record led to a series of remarkable away performances.

Another team with a poor recent home record has been Canberra. They lost a very winnable game against the timid Storm and also lost last week against the Roosters. While this game was classified as an away game, their fair-weather supporters outnumbered the locals last Sunday, making this another the Raiders should have put away.

However they made amends for these losses with an impressive effort against traditional overlords the Wests Tigers. Usually, a very disappointing effort followed by a game at home leads to a significant improvement, at the very least in attitude. Not this time though; the Tigers only sporadically showed signs of life.

Somehow they stayed close into the game’s final 20 minutes despite a lack of intensity and an alarming failure to change their defensive structure which was repeatedly breached by the adventurous Raiders.

Another strange choice from the Tigers was their decision to carry only two forwards on the bench but have no dummy-half-like player until Tom Humble came after the hour mark.

That said, Canberra was confident, structured and generally took advantage of openings (although their success rate in converting these into tries was poor): characteristics that haven’t been associated with Canberra (especially a Canberra away team) since their late-season runs of 2008 and 2010.

Similarly, Newcastle has registered two poor home efforts to start 2012, but their performances away from home have been resilient. They were nothing special against Cronulla in Round 2 but took what they were given, while on Sunday against the Bulldogs, they played with the swagger of a team coming off far more impressive efforts.

Granted, Canterbury lost their halfback after just 10 minutes (leaving them with big-hearted but light-on-talent options such as Reynolds and Romelo in the playmaking positions), they were, in hindsight, was never going to match their exceptional effort in playmaking they produced in their last match against the Warriors and most importantly they had a winger (Bryson Goodwin) wearing headgear (instant fail), but Newcastle started strongly and ground out a very solid win.

Cronulla provided a home-win upset last Monday night against Manly but were helped by incredibly unlikely events such as Colin Best almost living up to his name and Ben Pomeroy catching a pass. A repeat in Townsville on Saturday night against the Cowbores seemed unlikely.

Yet once again, the Sharks displayed their mental toughness in overcoming big-name opposition. Despite Feral Thurston having a rare off-night, the Cowbores had the better of this game, but failed to convert enough of this dominance into points. Cronulla held true for the most part and then responded to end this game in front. This was more than entirely due to Paul Gallen – words cannot do his incredible combination of endurance and strength justice.

Cronulla’s lack of depth and reliance on Gallen will likely mean the Sharks miss the top 8 in 2012, but this shouldn’t mean they should throw their cash at the highest-profile name on the players-off-contract list: in this case, Brett Stewart. Rumour has it Cronulla can actually offer Stewart the money he is looking for, but this would be a huge mistake for a number of reasons: Stewart’s propensity to receive injury, the fact that it is a buyer’s market for fullbacks (most teams have two or three excellent fullback options) and that Stewart’s skill set is not what a skills-hungry team like Cronulla needs (i.e. for $600k, Cronulla would want a fullback who could make plays, kick and work 3 days a week at King Wan, the Chinese Restaurant at Cronulla Leagues Club).

It might be hard to believe but there were some strong performances by home teams over the weekend. The Warriors overcame the Titans, their creditors and the rain to record a comprehensive win on Saturday night. Meanwhile on Sunday, it was another Billy Slater highlight reel and a big win to the Storm (this time over the Sydney Roosters). However, this was yet another Storm game blighted by the home team receiving unnecessary assistance from the officials. Melbourne’s second and third tries both contained missed infractions and helped to break a fairly solid resistance by the Roosters.

Another very good home team performance came from the Dragons when they took on Manly on Saturday night. The Dragons’ first half was almost a flashback to the days of 2009-2011 when they would routinely build a solid lead and suffocate the opposition’s efforts to mount a comeback.

But Manly, only 5 days off being ambushed by the monster Cronulla pack and minus key forwards Stewart, Williams and Galuvao, somehow fought back. On second thought, the 2012 Dragons are perhaps one attacking player short; they will struggle to win averaging 15 points per game week in and week out. However, their defence just did enough and an enterprising kick by Hornby and chase by Nightingale was enough for a well-earned win.

Lastly, South Sydney took their home game to Perth where they faced the Broncos. Souths were not helped by having to make the cross-country flight then play just over 5 days after their game in Penrith last Sunday. Meanwhile, Brisbane, helped by Channel 9’s desire to feature them on every single Friday night broadcast, meant they had seven days between games.

In the end, this discrepancy made a difference. Souths started strongly and came this close to extending their lead to 8 points in the game’s final 14 minutes (but for a brilliant chase by Ben Hannant). Brisbane then finished strongly, scoring the game’s final 20 points and winning by 8.

See you next week.