The game of Rugby League is the product of many great ideas and concepts. However, many of these took some time to be recognised, accepted (and ultimately introduced) by the game’s administrators.
Despite ongoing financial struggles for a number of clubs (especially in inner Sydney) in the 1960s and 70s, it wasn’t until the early and then late 1980s that teams out of Sydney were introduced into top-class Rugby League and the shift towards full-time professionalism began. It was around this time that the first Saturday night games were played and despite the NBL showing how successful Saturday night games could be, it wasn’t until the mid to late 1990s that Saturday night games became a regular occurrence in top-class Rugby League.
The mid to late 1990s was a turbulent time in Rugby League, where it took more than two and a half years and many millions of dollars spent before someone realised the Super League War was a waste of time. More recently, the introduction of the second on-field referee had a gestation period of almost two decades.
In contrast, the Tuesday Roast's realisation that a St Patrick’s Day-inspired recap of an NRL round’s happenings would be a good idea came only a week after it should have happened.
Ladies and Gentlemen: presenting your Round 2 NRL recap in limerick form.
Souths v. Parramatta
South Sydney started the comp on fire
But some were worried they were too ‘high’
When Parra showed resolve
Souths had to fold
Anderson could be a great hire
Souths and Parramatta had vastly differing fortunes in Round 1, but took on opponents of vastly different quality: while Souths ran up the score (on a day when almost everything went right) against the pathetic Roosters, Parramatta threatened to be on the receiving end against the Warriors.
History pointed to a Souths’ victory in this game – given Souths usually start the season very strongly (whilst Parramatta are renowned slow starters) and Souths had a fairly easy game (whilst Parramatta had a typically tough game in Auckland) – but a number of smart tipsters had concerns. Could the somewhat youngish Bunnies maintain their focus after such an easy win? Would the five-day turnaround affect them (especially given their lack of familiarity with it)?
Normally, these concerns would have been almost insignificant, as Parramatta usually start seasons slowly and have rarely shown the desire to engage in a tough battle. But it quickly became apparent in this game that they were desperate to win; even from as early as the first minute, when Nathan Hindmarsh allowed the kick-off to run through his legs and into touch. The grin on Hindmarsh’s face and Parramatta’s ensuing tough defence on Souths signalled what was ahead.
Souths did score a few minutes (from a freak Sutton bomb) but never really threatened to score again. Souths was keen for the battle as well, but once Parramatta took the lead midway through the second half, it was going to take a mighty effort to win it back.
Could this be the start of a new era for Parramatta? An era of intensity, toughness and discipline? Reports from Parramatta were that the players were in their best shape for years; such reports can be commonplace at the start of each season, but it appears to be the truth in this case.
In the latter years of Brian Smith’s tenure and all of Michael Hagan’s time at Parramatta, their softness became increasingly apparent, but new coach Daniel Anderson’s disciplinarian style could be exactly the change this once-great club needed. To score a big win without a major contribution from their high-priced backline would have been unthinkable last year. It’s only Round 2, but Parramatta look to have a key ingredient for ultimate success in place early on.
Brisbane v. Melbourne
There once was a team from Melbourne
Who were convinced refs were against ‘em
When Gorrell knocked on
And Hoffman looked on
Wallace scored: that was (almost) the final margin
While these teams have undergone major transformations in personnel over the last few years, this remains once of the best rivalries in the NRL. Their semi-final last season was one of the best in recent memory and this game was very similar (even though the Storm is not quite the team they were from 2006 to 2008).
Brisbane dominated play for most of the first half after an early Storm try but increasingly desperate Melbourne defence meant Brisbane’s lead was just two points at half time. Brisbane took advantage of Melbourne errors and forced Melbourne into line dropouts to gain a significant edge in time in possession, but they also benefited from a penalty count in their favour, some of which were harshly called against the Storm. Anthony Quinn’s perceived forearm was little more than a reflex action and an unfortunate position of Sam Thaiday’s head, while the referees seemed to keep a closer eye on any illegal tackling techniques by the Storm rather than Brisbane.
That said, Melbourne would have been cheering to be down by just 2 at half-time, before the worst refereeing mistake of the night: a very obvious knock-on by Brisbane hooker Aaron Gorrell at dummy-half. There is a small chance the ball didn’t go towards Melbourne’s tryline, but this hasn’t stopped literally thousands of whistles being blown and knock-ons ruled over many decades in similar situations.
Obviously, Melbourne should have heard ‘Play On’, forgotten about the refereeing blunder and not allowed Wallace to score a rather easy try, but one senses the Melbourne players have had their fill of refereeing mistakes. This collective mental tiredness could become a major obstacle in their premiership path this season, as the significant decline in their depth of playing talent will mean they can’t count on just turning up to win a number of games (as they have in previous seasons). A huge effort will be needed more often than not: as it was in this game.
Luckily for Melbourne, Brisbane clocked off after Wallace’s try gave them an 8-point lead (just as they did in last year’s epic semi-final). Granted, the humid Brisbane night and the fast game (enhanced by the two referees and less use of the video referee) were also factors here, but Brisbane could have buried Melbourne with perhaps 10 minutes more of inspired play not long after halftime.
As it turned out, Melbourne slowly came back and looked more like the team we know and hate from previous seasons (although players like Proctor, Isa, Anderson and Hinchcliffe will take some time to become strong links in the Melbourne chain). After Proctor scored, Brisbane went further into shut-down mode and held on for the win (with a bit of luck) despite some Justin Hodges tomfoolery in the latter stages.
The much-hyped Greg Inglis had a poor game; injuries and the increased burden he has to carry looked to affect him. The remaining big-name Storm players will all have to shoulder a bigger load this season (after a number of years of long seasons and plenty of representative games). An injury or two could mean trouble for them. In the interim though, a tough trip to an even more humid part of Queensland awaits.
St George Illawarra v. Gold Coast
There once was a team from the Gong
Who couldn’t help but turn good things wrong
But since Bennett arrived
Their toughness has thrived
Now if only their attack could be as strong
Melbourne’s opponent from Round 1 – St George Illawarra – returned home to Wollongong to take on the Gold Coast, a team they have defeated in every match-up since the Gold Coast’s inception.
On paper, this looked to be a curious clash: the committed but struggling-in-attack Dragons against the flashy, skillsy but (for some unknown reason) softish Gold Coast. The Titans scored early after Scott Prince feasted on a wayward Ben Hornby pass, but failed to trouble the scorer for another 75 minutes despite some significant possession near the Dragons’ line.
While the Titans were perhaps unlucky not to score through Mark Minichello (due to a forward pass), the Dragons held a slim 2-point halftime lead which grew much stronger early in the second half. This occurred through more points, but most importantly more dominance of the game. The Dragons’ 12-4 lead seemed like much more than 8 points.
Prince complained after the game that his team suffered at the hands of referees who allowed the Dragons to dominate the ruck, but Dragons coach Wayne Bennett responded that the Gold Coast found it easy last week in the heat. As usual, both protagonists have a slice of truth in their comments, but the Dragons will eventually need to find some more points to win a sufficient number of games. In that respect, they will relish facing Cronulla this weekend; a team that also has a physically dominating style but rarely converts that into a high number of points.
Penrith v. Bulldogs
There once was a team from Sydney’s Far West
Whose talent was above many of the rest
But their dumbness is a major sin
So they don’t often win
They had the Dogs at their behest…
After the Bulldogs’ thrashing of Manly last week, they were heavy favourites to defeat Penrith on Saturday night. The ease with which they scored their first try in the opening minutes gave further weight to this.
From here, the game went topsy turvy. The smart, experienced Bulldogs made a number of inexplicable mistakes which allowed the talented but largely brain-dead Panthers back into the game. Penrith’s forward pack is the envy of a number of teams; Civoniceva and Waterhouse were especially effective and scored or set up several tries.
Penrith’s other weapon was their high kicking game. Despite the experienced Luke Patten at fullback, Penrith’s bombs often caused mayhem for the Bulldogs back three.
The Bulldogs’ second try was also rather easy and it was increasingly apparent that this game was fast becoming a typical game at Penrith: plenty of tries, plenty of mistakes and he who made the last mistake would suffer.
The Bulldogs overcame an 8-point halftime deficit quite quickly then the scoring stopped for a while. Penrith enjoyed the best of this period but made unforced mistakes or took poor options in their attacking zone or failed to exploit an increasingly tiring Bulldogs defence. Their somewhat makeshift halves combination was mostly to blame here, but they were far from alone.
Eventually Waterhouse gave Penrith back the lead and Penrith could very well have extended it or at least dominated possession so as to minimise the opportunities allowed to the Bulldogs in the final minutes but they did neither. Sammut’s failure to hear the referee’s call was unfortunate but far from the only Penrith mistake when the game could have been sealed.
The Bulldogs had one last chance to snatch victory and they did – albeit with an extra man on the field (why would an experienced player like Andrew Ryan run back on after being interchanged because a trainer told him to? Unlimited interchange went out many years ago) – but they should never have had such a chance.
North Queensland v. Wests Tigers
The Tigers looked impressive on Monday (hmm sorta)
Despite not really doing what they oughta
Hence the Cowbores and the heat
Combined with the short week
Meant they weren’t Tigers but Lambs (to the slaughter)
Last Monday night’s game between Wests and Canberra was fast and entertaining on a draining night and both teams suffered in Round 2 due to having to exert much more energy than necessary because of their high mistake rate.
Wests’ cause was exacerbated by having to play in steamy Townsville just five days after Monday night. That said, they trailed by only 10 approaching the hour mark of this game despite another very high mistake rate. They gifted the Cowbores a significant amount of possession and good attacking opportunities (while the Cowbores returned the favour, although not nearly as often).
This disparity was widened considerably in the game’s final 20 minutes as the Cowbores finished strongly and the Tigers wilted. Amazingly, the FOX commentators (and others, in post-match reaction) used this time to discuss the Cowbores’ top-4 prospects. It never ceases to amaze how a moment or two of excitement (usually from a perennial contender for the NRL’s Most Overrated title: Matt Bowen) can make even the most objective analysts forget the Cowbores’ obvious flaws from the last few seasons. A far better effort will be needed by the Cowbores to overcome the Storm on Saturday night.
Canberra v. Sydney Roosters
Canberra too went well on Monday (just short)
They were 2008’s attacking juggernaut
But while the Chooks tried hard
Canberra played like retards
They only barely got past naught
Once again, Canberra was near the top in wooden spoon favouritism when the betting markets were first released for the 2009 season. This seemed a crazy proposition: Canberra had a brilliant second half of 2008 and brought back almost all of the team which had such a successful run.
They were a touch unlucky to lose to the Tigers last Monday night, but Terry Campese had a wonderful game: his growing influence, in combination with a promising group of back, a very solid forward pack and a very good home record threatened to make life tough for the struggling Roosters on Sunday.
Canberra missed a great opportunity after just 2 minutes and Campese was successful in two 40/20 attempts inside the first 15 minutes (including an incredible check-side kick) and it seemed only a matter of time until Canberra’s attacking juggernaut got rolling.
But it never happened.
The Roosters were clearly a more committed team than the one embarrassed by Souths last Sunday, but Canberra’s defence asked them very few questions, none of which were very difficult. As the time without scoring increased, so did Canberra’s frustration (Campese, in particular, was seen several times screaming at his teammates: I’m sure Craig Fitzgibbon had a chuckle about this).
Meanwhile, the Roosters eventually opened the scoring, after a number of Canberra mistakes and penalties eventually allowed Anthony Minichello’s last involvement in an NRL game for several months to be a very successful one.
Canberra’s inability to score – or even threaten to score – continued and the Roosters extended their lead early in the second half. Minichello’s replacement – Ben Jones (usually a half or outside back) – played well and was rarely pressured in his new position by Canberra.
When Mitchell Pearce scored easily, the Roosters had the win sealed up with under 15 minutes to go: an embarrassing outcome for a team as talented as Canberra (even allowing for their two injured players).
Speaking of Pearce, his Roosters had every reason to be happy with their win, but they were not nearly as good as Mitchell’s father – Wayne (in the FOX commentary box) – suggested. He was almost as bad as Ray Warren calling Parramatta games.
Manly v. New Zealand
There once was a halfback named Stacey
Some had concerns he might be off the pace-y
But from his bag of tricks
Came two excellent kicks
And the 'Chur Bro’s' were in ecstasy
In 2008, Manly started quite slowly before their first home game (in Round 3): a thrashing of the Warriors. This game was only Round 2 and Manly was still without Brett Stewart, but they figured to put in a much better effort than their insipid performance against the Bulldogs last Saturday.
Helping Manly’s cause was the absence of two of the better Warriors players due to injury: Lance Hohaia and Micheal Luck (the spelling is correct: he’s the Dwyane Wade of the NRL). When Manly jumped to a 10-nil lead early on in balmy, un-Auckland conditions, a repeat thrashing looked on the cards.
But the Warriors responded and incredibly took the lead after three well-worked tries in no time (this was before Stacey Jones came into the game). Some vintage before-the-line passing from Steve Price set up two of the three tries.
Manly survived to half-time and the momentum swung back to them in the first period of the second half. They continued to attack the Warriors’ left side defence with further success and also executed well to score on the other side of the field.
But they also missed a number of other opportunities and given the speed of the game, the heat and Manly not being at their best (performance and match fitness), Manly’s 8-point lead looked vulnerable to another momentum swing. This was inspired the relatively fresh Jones, who turned the game suddenly with his chip kick and regather past a tiring Manly defence to cut the lead to 4.
It appeared Manly might hold on for the win as the clock ticked towards 80 minutes – the Warriors too were tiring and missed some possible opportunities for the win – until Jones’ final effort, a cross-kick. When Ropati came up with the loose ball and Kemp converted, this fast and entertaining (if mistake-heavy) game had its ending. One wonders if this draining game will affect both teams like the Tigers, Canberra and Gold Coast were affected this week.
Cronulla v. Newcastle
The team from the town dubbed ‘The New Cross’
Took on the Knights after a hot loss
The Game’s Greatest Thinker’s
Team put in a stinker
Their effort after Knights’ injuries was dross
Round 2 appropriately ended with an “Irish” game: Cronulla started the game against Newcastle looking fast and strong, but their performance went south once two of Newcastle’s better players (Simpson and Mullen) sustained injuries.
Conversely, Newcastle’s young side, after a slow start, picked up significantly after Simpson and Mullen left the game. Luckily for Newcastle, their side this week contained Scott Dureau as Mullen’s partner in the halves (and not the erratic Ben Rogers). Had Rogers been left as the only player in the halves after Mullen’s injury, Newcastle would have received such benefits as sloppy passes, bizarre kick options, a booming, swirling bomb (his one good play a game to make most forget about all his mistake) then more strange decisions.
That said, Newcastle was fortunate not to be behind 12-nil. A great attacking set from Cronulla threatened to result in their second try but Taulapapa’s effort was not quite as good as that seen from the indefatigable Kurt Gidley, who made up ground to nudge Taulapapa on to a small patch of white line.
From the ensuing possession, Newcastle scored then had the better of play until half time and continued this effort until their lead was 18. They had some luck with refereeing decisions (specifically on their second and third tries) but were far better than the Sharks during this time.
Cronulla did cut the deficit to 12, but got no closer due to a combination of uninspired, monotonous attack, relentless Newcastle defence and some (more) luck where a number of stoppages allowed the short-handed Knights to catch their breath. This wasn’t very lucky for Newcastle’s Cameron Ciraldo, whose foot was more east-west than north-south, but a number of other stoppages (and a cooler night at the climatically-bizarre Shark Park….?) meant Newcastle wasn’t suffering like other teams who lose players to injury during a game.
With the forecast again on the warm side for this weekend, Round 3 promises another series of games where fatigue plays a major role, but surely teams can’t sustain this pace as the heat continues, can they? See you next week.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Round 2: A St. Patrick's Day Roast
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Round 1: Even More Evenness
In a competition where parity has become the holy grail over the last decade or so, Round 1 of each NRL season generally provides more hope to the underdog than in most other situations. This is largely due to the salary cap but also to the more traditional Round 1 levellers: a lack of match fitness, adverse weather conditions and, of course, the best and worst teams all being on an equal number of competition points.
However, Round 1 2009 was the most even first-up round for many years. The aforementioned factors contributed here but in a more extreme form (in most cases) than normal: almost all teams experienced either a significant overhaul of their playing roster, a major loss of depth (worsened by pre-season injuries), an almost irreplaceable loss of leadership/experience or a combination of these due to the salary cap. Also, the rather extreme weather in most games gave another leg-up to lesser teams (or weakened superior teams).
But the introduction of two on-field referees was another factor making for more even rugby league. It diminished the advantage enjoyed by those more physically dominant teams as well as those teams who push the envelope when it comes illegal methods of slowing down the play the ball. But the main impact of the second referee was to lessen the influence of the video referee and hence speed up the game (further). A number of teams were aided in their comeback efforts by momentum aided by the second referee (in combination with warm weather and lack of match fitness).
Curiously, the even faster game speed was warmly received by almost everyone, even though it came with a side-effect of an above-average penalty count at most games. I guess that shows the extent of dislike for the video referee in non-try situations.
In the end, six of the eight games were quite close while the other two games saw highly rated teams on the end of a thrashing. Also, most games featured a number of exciting passages of play. Close games where the outcome is uncertain, the potential resurgence of previously lowly teams, much excitement and surprisingly strong crowds: it was a very successful round for the NRL.
The opening Friday night of the NRL season is now quite the eagerly anticipated event, especially with two games taking place. However, it is perhaps most appropriate to start with these two games as they were the most even of the round.
In previous years, placing the notoriously slow-starting St George Illawarra into an opening night slot would only have resulted in an even game if they were playing someone with far less talent than them (such as the Tigers, or the Gold Coast).
But these are the new Dragons. They no longer have an over-abundance of talent or a coach far too familiar with the playing roster but not familiar enough with getting the most out of his team. The addition of Wayne Bennett to this chronically under-achieving club will almost certainly result in a more consistent performance and a much better chance at ultimate success...but could they perform in the very difficult environment of Olympic Park?
The Dragons' cause was helped by facing a much weaker Melbourne Storm lineup than in past seasons. The Storm have kept their mega-star players, but as a result, have had to wave goodbye to many (just) star players (or excellent complementary players). Players such as Folau, Crocker, Geyer, Kaufusi, Jeremy Smith, Tagataese, King, Newton and Aubusson. Throw in a few injuries and the Storm looked rather less threatening than in years past.
While the Dragons looked a bit less flashy than they have, their competitiveness and determination against a still-difficult opponent stood out and Melbourne realised they were in a struggle. Traditionally when this happens, Melbourne would fight hard then cross-kick for Folau, but without this option, they had to reach deeper into their bag of tricks.
They also quickly discovered the second referee would make their various wrestling techniques harder to execute without being penalised. After six seasons of wrestling from the Storm, almost everyone within rugby league is now familiar with the wrestling jargon. Or at least referee Gavin Badger assumed everyone was familiar. He would certainly have been forgiven for thinking Melbourne captain Cameron Smith - one of the league's worst offenders - would be an encyclopaedia on the subject, but Smith's Fat Tony-esque question to Badger ("What's a Chicken Wing?") was unexpected to say the least. To Badger's credit, he took Smith's devious question in his stride and Melbourne realised they needed something more.
This initially came from their bulked-up superstar Greg Inglis. On one of his trademark arcing runs, he brushed of Jamie Soward's attempted upper body tackle with ease as Melbourne took an early lead. But the Dragons responded - as did Soward, who stood up to Inglis next time he aimed himself at the diminuntive Dragons five-eighth - and had a half-time lead.
Melbourne enjoyed a second-half possession advantage and ground their way to a six-point lead with only a few minutes left, but a late Wendell-inspired run saw Matt Cooper score and Jamie Soward convert to send the game to Golden Point. Once again, the monotony (of the game) and the fear (of the referees) of Golden Point was seen, but thankfully the "face of the game" Inglis ended the pain just four minutes in.
The field-goal shootout was also seen in Friday night's other game, where Brisbane hosted the Cowbores. However, these teams are still quite a long way from being the finished article, so even what is normally quite a predictable part of the game was uncertain and interesting.
The rest of this game could also be described in this way. Since winning the competition in 2006, Brisbane's playing roster has undergone a major transformation and they would run on to the field on Friday night with their second-ever coach. Even though they had Lockyer, Hunt and Wallace to guide the team around, this team is much different. They showed glimpses of being a very good team, but not just yet.
For the Cowbores, Feral Thurston welcomed back Matt Bowen (from injury) and Neil Henry (from Canberra) but realised again that his team is a graveyard for semi-talented backs (except Ashley Graham, who missed this game due to injury). The latest corpses to be added to the Cowbores backline were Shannon Hegarty and Willie Tonga. Travis Burns came to life at various stages of this game to make a vigourous tackle or scream at someone, but he remained comatose for most of this game, especially when the Cowbores had the ball.
While the Cowbores, like the Dragons and Broncos, will almost certainly be a better team after their new coach has had more time, their problems will not go away overnight (like Parramatta's). The most important of these is their still-soft defence, especially in their back-row. Luke O'Donnell had a solid game after a horror 2008, but Ben Harris and Manase Manuokafoa are unlikely to spend much time this season in no.'s 11 and 12 if the Cowbores hope to have a good year.
But, as the Cowbores have in many games, Feral set up a few tries (with the standard try involving Matt Bowen that wasn't nearly as brilliant as described by the Ch 9 commentators) and was perfect with his conversions giving his team a very good chance of victory. To Brisbane's credit, their collective poise whilst under adversity is almost as strong as when their team was full of experience and they probably should have taken a late lead but for Steve Michaels' poor hands.
In the end, the field goal shootout was mostly filled with mistakes from both teams, but Peter Wallace gave Brisbane the win before we had to endure another period of Golden Point.
Speaking of mistakes, enduring poor play and late points to secure a win, Cronulla against Penrith on Saturday night provided a brilliant display of each. The early minutes of this game showed some strong running, a well-constructed Cronulla try and a Gallen head-high tackle (in Cronulla's first tackle of the season no less!) before the torrential rain started.
Penrith actually scored their only try in the game as the rain was near its worst (a side-stepping effort from Michael Jennings). However, for the rest of the night, their game consisted of inexplicably poor (even allowing for the conditions) handling, repeated bizarre logic of placing attacking kicks behind Cronulla's backs early in the tackle count (when these backs showed no signs of pushing up too quickly or being unsettled by these kicks) and poor combinations between Lewis, Sammut and whoever was playing dummy half (despite these four players being teammates for over a year now).
Cronulla tried to match Penrith in handling errors - especially Misi Taulapapa - but they were excused for exhibiting less-than-perfect combinations, given their five-eighth (Barrett) and hooker (Hughes) are new signings. They also had to cope with an injury to fullback Brett Kearney. Injuries to outside backs (which most teams do not allow for under the limited interchange system) can turn a game as the injured team has to make significant adjustments, but even with Taulapapa's poor handling at fullback, Cronulla survived.
Despite having much attacking ball, Penrith never seriously threatened and a late penalty to Cronulla meant this trying game wouldn't go to Golden Point. The several thousand fair-weather Cronulla supporters who adjourned to the Leagues Club when the rain started were very happy at this outcome.
The weather was a bit too fair on the Gold Coast at 1pm Sunday afternoon; in hindsight, this was a silly time to schedule a rugby league game on the Gold Coast in early March. Many supporters were probably at the beach and when the Gold Coast fell behind 14-0, the small group of Newcastle supporters was the dominant noise at Skilled Park.
Despite having a strong possession advantage to that point, Newcastle wilted in the final 10 minutes of the half as the Gold Coast attacking machine got going and incredibly the Gold Coast led at half time. While Isaac De Gois was one of the form hookers of last season and seemingly a very good replacement for Knights legend Danny Buderus, De Gois had a so-so game: Newcastle missed Buderus' leadership noticeably.
While Newcastle missed leadership from Buderus, they missed something more tangible from their new five-eighth Ben Rogers early in the second half: tackling. Scott Prince scored a very easy try through Rogers' porous defence to extend Gold Coast's lead. From here, the heat really affected both the quality of the game and the welfare of the players. Newcastle stayed close but when William Zillman ran 80 metres to score, it secured the win for the Titans.
It was also a near 80 metre run by a new fullback which secured the win for the Wests Tigers in last night's exciting game against Canberra. In a strange game where both teams showed glimpses of brilliance but also some very poor play on a very warm night, the Tigers' dominance of possession in the 2nd half saw them hold a slim 2-point lead as Canberra's Terry Campese chipped over the top for the flying Phil Graham.
Graham's soccer skills rescued Canberra several minutes when the Tigers were mounting attack after attack on the Canberra line and he reached the chip kick first and tried to put the ball down near the tryline, but Tigers fullback Tim Moltzen was in the way. The ball ricocheted from Moltzen into Campese back to Moltzen, who sprinted away to score. In a game full of momentum swings, the tiring but gallant Raiders were never going to be able to bridge an 8-point gap in limited time, although their enterprise in attack was seen until the game's last second.
While Campese was the best player on the ground, unfortunately Canberra's right-side defence was, to put it nicely, quite unsure of itself and was a frequent target of Tigers attacking raids. They also made a number of unforced mistakes throughout the game, most of which were punished by the Tigers. With Brett Hodgson's poise and experience, the Tigers may have been able to thrash the Raiders, but if Canberra had Colin Best or Lincoln Withers, the thrashing might have gone the other way. Another entertaining but perhaps low-quality game, with both teams capable of much more.
Most people seem to think the Warriors are capable of a very good season, even without Ruben Wiki. The signing of Stacey Jones may prove to be a masterstroke in giving leadership to a young team, but even without him, the Warriors were generally far too good for Parramatta on Saturday night.
That said, Parramatta showed glimpses of being a better team than in 2008: the more disciplinarian coaching style of former Warriors coach Daniel Anderson should improve Parra's end of season position, but he would LOVE a bit more strength in the forward pack. Parra's backs are amongst the league's best (especially with the return of Ben Smith...even with the liability known as Eric Grothe) but the platform they are given by their forwards is usually sub-par. The Warriors threatened to run up the score on them in the second half, but Parramatta responded well (albeit when the Warriors were suffering with several injuries).
The best has been saved for last: victories for Souths and the Bulldogs were emphatic and surprising all at once. In the second half of 2008, Souths was one of the NRL's better teams, but their thorough dominance of the Roosters was still something of a surprise. Who knew Sutton could be so dominant at five-eighth? Who knew Nathan Merritt could outjump noted Roosters leaper Shaun Kenny-Dowell? Who knew they could play so well without Craig Wing?
That said, the Roosters played quite poorly. You know you've had a bad game when the opposition coach says so. What was even more disheartening for the Roosters was that they were not that many players away from their full-strength team.
But Manly's poor attitude and preparation on Saturday night at Homebush was perhaps the most surprising event of the weekend. Sure, they had to deal with being the hunted (instead of the hunter), any residual effects of their England trip, the scars of their tumultuous last week and the absence of some key players due to injury.
Still, Manly frequently overcame obstacles in recent years with their intensity and a solid team framework: there was little evidence of this on Saturday night. While the Bulldogs had a much better team than in 2008 and were definitely rejuvenated, Manly's ill-discipline and, alarmingly, their soft defence (who lets David Stagg be a ball player and set up a try?!?!) meant the Bulldogs received maximum reward for their effort.
However, similar to the Souths-Roosters game, credit must be given to the Bulldogs despite the poor performance of their opposition. Their forward pack stood tall against the usually very strong Manly pack (players such as Andrew Ryan and Gary Warburton, who looked almost useless on last year's team, appeared to be the most thankful for the influx of new talent) and their backs cashed in. Much was made of their 7 new players, but a healthy Luke Patten is pretty much a new player too (given his absence with back problems for much of last year).
It's only early days at the moment, but if the Bulldogs and Souths can have strong seasons, you'd imagine the parity-obsessed NRL wouldn't mind too much.
See you next week.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
"...I sure didn't see that coming"
Craig Bellamy's post-game press conference quote was shared by many thousands more who watched the game.
Just how did Melbourne lose by 40 on the biggest day of the Rugby League year?! How did Manly do it? And what might happen in 2009 for these and other teams (although given my patchy record at forecasting, this may be a somewhat pointless exercise)? All this and more below the fold.
After struggling through the torturous pre-game entertainment (perhaps the first pre-game entertainment to be remembered despite going as planned), the game got underway.
Manly was always going to come out fast and hard. They threatened to overwhelm a full-strength Melbourne when they last clashed at Brookvale in August, so Manly's best chance was to physically dominate and wear out the Storm's point-scoring threats.
But it appeared Manly may have come out too hard. Their great efforts brought only a few marginal try-scoring chances in the first 10 or so minutes, while Melbourne seemed to absorb Manly quite comfortably and a bit of luck saw Folau threaten to wreak havoc on Manly's left-side defence.
As I always do in neutral grand finals, I end up cheering for the team who I think will win, so I was hoping Manly would win, but as Manly failed to break the Storm's resistance, as Melbourne looked like possibly moving down the field just a few times and utilising the talents of a Folau or Slater to take an undeserved early lead, as Manly looked edgy a few times (Stewart under the high ball from Inglis, Matt Orford several times on the last tackle), I feared a gritty Melbourne win was a very real possibility.
But Manly slowly took major control of the game. Melbourne's kick-chase might have been very good for Inglis's towering bomb, but it was sloppy for two kicks which saw David 'Wolfman' Williams return the ball in between a scattered Melbourne defensive line for significant metreage.
The second of these saw a return of about 20 metres and after Manly secured a six-again (when a Menzies offload was unable to be gathered in by Lima), their pressure eventually paid off as Ballin snuck across for the first try.
It gradually became clear (in hindsight i.e. while watching the game without having consumed a few beers) that Melbourne had little more to give than what they were displaying. With just under 10 minutes left in the first half, a relatively straight-forward Manly play (with the standard decoy runners and second-man plays) saw Manly (just) get around Melbourne: Robertson scored in the corner. There might have been a fair bit of doubt on the try, but the ease with which Manly scored (there wasn't even a dominating run to put the defence into backpedalling mode before) was an ominous sign for Melbourne.
But Matt Orford's bad goal-kicking (or bad ankle...or both) meant Manly led by just 8-0. Watching the game live however, I still feared a Melbourne comeback. They'd done it so many times from less than 14 or 16 points down, it was such a big stage, they had the wood on Manly etc etc.
But when Manly went across again early in the second half (thanks to a well-placed Orford kick - wow!), it was all but over. When Robertson made it 3 in a row soon after (not long after I rejected someone's assertion of a Manly win by more than 16), Manly had 4 tries on the board (but only 18 points: Matai could only hit one out of 2 from the sideline).
I couldn't remember when Melbourne last conceded 4 tries in a game. In the old days for Melbourne (i.e. 2003-2005), they crumbled when the opposition got to 20 against them, but the current Storm is streets ahead of the talented but fragile team from 3+ years ago...but the 2008 team's super-competitive psyche and toughness was in the process of being smashed by the dominant Sea Eagles. The rout was on (despite Melbourne never giving up).
It ended up at 40, Menzies scored a great try, 'Against the Grain' Bell finished off some excellent work: it was a thorough effort from a great team.
But you wonder: could Manly have beaten a Storm team at full-strength which didn't have half its team have to shoulder the extra workload of Origin (compared to almost no Origin representation for Manly)? We'll never know, but you'd think Manly will get a lot more respect when Origin teams are chosen in 2009. There's the salary cap and the representative selections which always (eventually) bring great teams in the NRL back to the pack: Manly will be no different.
But Manly might - might - be on the cusp of dominance. Their physical prowess over a league where those who dominate are brought back to the pack soon enough was quite amazing (at times). Most NRL games result in possession being shared about 50-50 between the teams. In a few games this year (often when a big game was needed), Manly was able to dominate possession and utilise their size, strength and speed advantages over most teams to such an extent that when it came time for the other team to enjoy some possession, the other team had nothing left. What Manly and their strength and conditioning regime has done with Ben Kennedy and Josh Perry has been amazing: talented players with injury/attitude problems were transformed after less than 1 year playing for Manly.
This may be Manly's legacy: that they can be much better physically than most other NRL teams. While their skills base has improved in leaps and bounds since a few years back, the skills base generally builds up the margin in wins, but it is their physical prowess which wins games for them.
Melbourne will still have a heap of Origin reps in 2009 (despite losing players such as Folau, Crocker and Kaufusi) but despite their big-name playing roster, has their run at the top finished? Their depth will (again) be lessened: they've lost a host of very good players over the last few years during their tenure at the top of the NRL. There's no doubting Bellamy's ability to bring very good younger players through and get a lot of players who've struggled at other teams, but you'd think more will be asked of him/the fringe players than at any time since the start of 06.
They still will have perhaps 3 of the top 10 players in the NRL (Slater, Smith and Inglis) next year, but more will be asked of them. Recent history says it's tough for teams to remain at the top for more than 3 years: a tricky year ahead for Melbourne.
Lastly, Matt Orford. He joins the 'elite' list of recent premiership-winning halfbacks: Cronk, Perry, Prince (2005 was an exception in so many ways), Sherwin, Gower and Wing. Who said you need a championship halfback to win it all?
I know, I know...Orford won the Dally M. But he so did all of his good work on the back of his great forwards. He's not a leader, he's a follower of the good work of others. Even someone like Cooper Cronk, who is so far from being a natural halfback its not funny, is such a leader that it doesn't matter he has relatively few halfback skills. Could you see Orford being in Cronk's position and leading his weakened team to a win over Cronulla? Well.. anyone can beat Cronulla when it matters, but Orford is just not that sort of player. The timid, almost frightened look on his face after he won the Dally M and during grand final week was almost embarrassing.
But Manly must be a team of great guys: they all seem to love Orford heaps and are prepared to work hard for him. A very talented and physically dominant team prepared to work harder for someone earning more than most of them: there's something quite...nice about this. How can anyone hate Manly anymore?? But that's a post for another day.
On that note, farewell and see you in 2009!
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Finals week 3 review (& grand final preview)
Week 3 has been and gone (over a week ago) but was probably not quite as deserving of discussion as events of previous weeks. And that suited Melbourne and Manly just fine.. they took care of business to set up a rematch of last year's grand final (in a few hours).
But while the grand final rematch was expected for months by many, the differing paths to this game mean Manly is favourites but a very strong case can be made for both teams' chances.
Good old Cronulla. Even with a different team, a coach completely unsteeped in their tradition of stumbling in September and a vulnerable opponent, they screwed it up completely. Melbourne was extremely impressive, but you sensed that if Cronulla turned up, played hard and somewhere near their best, Melbourne would have had to work much harder to get the win. I'm not entirely sure the weakened Storm had that in them...
But after Melbourne scored first - when Cronk saw the gap between Gallen and Green - it was clear they had a steely determination to succeed. Cronk has been a very quick learner/hard worker in his few years in the NRL, but this was a coming out party for him. He doesn't appear a naturally gifted player, he looks like someone who has had to work harder than most for what he has, but just on this game, he might be in the top 5 leaders in the NRL.
On Saturday, Manly was almost at their best in dominating the Warriors. The Warriors weren't that bad, but their gaping lack of a solid player in the halves finally cost them. They were probably better than the 8th best team in the NRL this season, but for them to go on the great run they did to reach 8th and then week 3 of the finals with Rovelli/Witt/Fien in the halves was exceptional. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't lure Mathew Head: he might have made them premiership threats.
On to today. After Melbourne found a few tries out of very little (one of their best skills) and held on grimly to defeat Manly in Round 21, I couldn't help but think Manly would win the next game played between these teams. Their size overwhelmed Melbourne. Melbourne has a very hard-working pack, but they just couldn't make much of an impact against Manly. If Orford was even 30% on his game, Manly looked certainties.
But Melbourne has looked vulnerable at various times this season (although none more than the first 2 weeks of the finals) but has shown a remarkable ability to stay in games: they've not lost by more than a few points (except when they were without their Origin players) all season.
Melbourne has a great record against Manly (the only times they've lost to them since 2006 have been in pre/post-Origin games) and several years of big-game experience. Some of Manly's key players have a reputation for failing to deliver in big matches (and only few of them have Origin experience).
Another point from another sport was when the NBA's Chicago Bulls won 6 titles in 8 years, they often ran into the opponents on multiple occasions but beat them time after time (even when they appeared vulnerable). It may sound obvious but knowing how to win is the most important quality in professional sports. Melbourne might not be a Chicago Bulls-type of team, but there is no doubt they know how to win.
But can they do it without someone as important as Cameron Smith (and to a lesser extent Ryan Hoffman)? For any chance of winning, Melbourne's 2nd tier forwards (Lima, Blair, Kaufusi, Manu etc) have to have a big game.
The weather (possibly rainy) probably favours Manly (because of their size). It's a very tough one. The Tuesday Roast still says Manly will win - perhaps the best thing you can say about Manly is that on paper they have less talent than last season but that they are a better team than last season - due to a combination of their size, speed and (grand final) experience, but Melbourne has a very good chance of repeating.
Enjoy your day.
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Brisbane Broncos: End of an Era
It was a rare show of emotion from Darren Lockyer (as Greg Inglis snatched a late win for the still-underwhelming Storm on Saturday night) but he had every right to be upset. Not just because they had lost a great opportunity to make it to a preliminary final but because it might just be his last chance at premiership success. A lot of familiar faces still ran out on to Suncorp Stadium this season, but the Broncos are not the team they once were.
In other news from Week 2 of an intriguing NRL finals series, the Storm are running on fumes but still running, the Roosters still couldn't figure out that a rugby league game lasts for 80 minutes and the Warriors' juggernaut kept on rolling.
Between 1992 and 2002, Brisbane made it to the prelim final stage or beyond six times. Since then, they've made it just once as their depth suffered, their ability to acquire the best SEQ talent tapered somewhat and their Origin stars were largely unable to produce in latter part of each season.
That said, their 2006 premiership was a sterling achievement. Their trademark late-season slump threatened to see them miss the finals completely, but they finished very strongly, winning 6 of 7 and overwhelming Melbourne to win the comp.
Sadly for Brisbane, much of the core of this team is now gone and while they replaced much of the talent of these departees, the experience and consistency of these players was lacking in the new-look Broncos of 2008.
Much was made of the Saturday night binge a few weeks back, but this was somewhat a product of circumstances. Since the introduction of the Titans (and the advent of live Friday night games), Channel 9's desire for a Queensland team to be playing on Friday night has seen Brisbane become almost exclusively a Friday night team, especially at home. It seems as though the combination of free weekends and a younger squad was a factor in the much-discussed night out.
That said... many a team has had to close a relationship with alcohol over the years with this not being too detrimental to team performance. But Brisbane had a somewhat inconsistent season (even with Lockyer's ongoing struggle to regain full fitness after his knee injury): they started strongly (as they almost always have) but after their quite efficient win over the Tigers in Sydney in Round 8, they had (by my count) three efforts for the remainder of the minor premiership. Parramatta pushed them to a big effort and a late win at home in Round 12, they thrashed a brave Canberra in Round 21 and their Round 26 win over Newcastle was clinical.
Apart from these games, their season was a mix of doing-the-absolute-minimum-to-get-the-win games, winning by 10 or so points but not looking convincing games and quite a few losses (some sloppy, others to good teams).
They did look quite impressive in Week 1, abosrbing the Roosters' 40 minutes and posting the win and to take a 12-0 lead over a full-strength (in appearance anyway) Melbourne is a rare feat. But the fact they couldn't go on and defeat Melbourne probably says as much about the gutsy Storm as it did about Brisbane.
With Hunt, Lockyer, Wallace and Ennis in the all-important 1-6-7-9 positions and class and experience with the likes of Thaiday, Carroll, Sims, Parker, Kemp and Boyd, Brisbane 2008 had the look of a team that could go far, but just didn't have....something. Was Bennett's looming departure a factor (did his decreasing influence encourage poor behaviour and bad habits)? Did Lockyer's increasing on-field influence (and just-do-enough-ness) carry over to his teammates? Were they missing one or two more hardheads (what amounted to a Civoniceva for Clinton trade certainly ended up in Penrith's favour)? Or was the greater alcohol culture to blame?
Likely, each of these factors contributed to Brisbane's unrealised potentially very good season, but it's difficult to see where improvement will come from for them in the next few years. Bennett's loss is massive, it's a huge void for Ivan Henjak to step into. They also are losing Ennis, Hannant, Kemp, Carroll and Moon. They will gain a superstar in Folau, but his quiet demeanour may not be what's needed (although his size, power and tries will certainly help). Brisbane will be Friday night regulars again and with less veteran experience and structure in the club, the alcohol culture could very well worsen before it gets better. Lockyer is nearing the end of his career and they'll probably have another strong Origin/Rep contingent of players....there are too many signs of Brisbane struggling over the next couple of years.
Of course, this could just mean finishing between 6th and 8th and threatening the upper echelon teams: some teams would kill for these to be their bad seasons. Everything's relative, but the Broncos will likely start their 2nd 20 years with a bit of a rough patch.
How about Melbourne though? They looked extremely vulnerable before Saturday night and now they are without a hobbled Hoffman and fit players in C and J Smith. Their depth has been gradually thinned over the last few years and they've looked less than impressive for much of the 2nd half of the season. Sure they beat Manly, but it looked a tired effort for much of the time (surely the Storm are rapidly nearing the end of their supply of last-ditch try-saving tackles.. How about Slater's one on Hannant with 3 to go on Saturday night?!). There appears to be an attitude of "We'll be ok, Cooper will kick for Folau or Slater or Inglis will just run over some people.. if we can tackle, we'll be ok".
That said, their less-than-full pace is better than some team's full pace... but Cronulla is not just some team. Well...maybe they are by any sort of measure of skill or talent, but you'd think they will push the short-staffed tired Storm physically. It is a wonderful position for Cronulla to be in, where they have a great chance to make a grand final by physically overwhelming a team...but they are Cronulla, so anything's possible. Still...can't wait to see it.
Finally, great to see the Warriors put forth a huge effort to see off the Roosters. They got some excellent contributions from both their salt and their pepper (thanks to Mark Geyer for that one) but their dominance was such the Roosters barely saw the other half of the field in the 2nd half. And such a wonderful, full home crowd.
I can see a fired-up Manly being a bit too much for them on Saturday night (i.e. playing for more than 40 minutes), but it will take a very good Manly effort... I don't think the Warriors are finished just yet. Manly will be stiff opposition, but so to will the inconsistent Warriors' halves (at least Rovelli is not playing in this one, although he wasn't that bad since his return to the team).
Another big weekend ahead - enjoy!
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Team of the Year...plus some comments about Week 1 of the finals
A week after the Dally M's I know, but here's the Tuesday Roast Team of the Year:
Fullback: Billy Slater
Wingers: Israel Folau and Luke Covell
Centres: Greg Inglis and Brent Tate
Five-Eighth: Terry Campese
Halfback: Scott Prince
Lock: Dallas Johnson
Second-Rowers: Anthony Watmough and Sam Thaiday
Props: Petero Civoniceva and Jason Ryles
Hooker: Michael Ennis
Bench: Kurt Gidley, Anthony Laffranchi, Jeff Lima and Josh Perry
Coach: Ricky Stuart
Such an interesting Week 1 of the finals. All the outsiders (Roosters, Canberra, Dragons and Warriors) threatened to upset at various points of their games. The Warriors got up but while the other 3 lost fairly convincingly, the 3 other winners had some weaknesses exposed. Another very interesting weekend awaits!
* The Roosters threatened to overwhelm Brisbane on Friday night, but Brisbane did just enough to hang in the game...and then exploited the Roosters' inability to play 80 minutes. It was a lot like the Round 2 game between these teams - but for the Roosters, they have to be concerned they couldn't sustain their effort given the high stakes. Brisbane looked good, but there have to be doubts about them: you wouldn't expect other remaining teams to have such an inability to play 80 minutes (not to mention struggle to score tries).
As always, this game (the 4 v 5 game) has a dubious outcome vis a vis whether it was better off to win or lose this game. But given how the system works, Brisbane would much rather be at home than in Auckland (where they've always struggled) and the Roosters would have preferred to be in Sydney against a vulnerable Storm. Of course, if you think the system should be different, then there's a whole new set of circumstances...
* Both Canberra and the Dragons were thrashed on Saturday night, but made fans of their opposition rather uncomfortable early on. But to their credit, Cronulla and Manly could have folded but they used a bit of luck (unsteady execution from their opposition and some poor refereeing decisions for their opponents) and converted relatively scarce opportunities to have almost match-winning leads at half-time.
With Canberra, their effort could not be questioned, but Campese was made to tackle his backside off and pressured with the ball. His teammates appeared a bit nervous and their execution was off...that said, they had some great chances to put real scoreboard pressure on Cronulla. If Purtell takes that intercept...if that called forward pass is viewed by another set of eyes... the game could have changed so much.
Despite this, they were attacking down 14 with just over 10 to go: a try could have made for a tense finish, but Cronulla held strong and won well. There's no question Cronulla's been playing well, but they've been doing so against struggling teams of late. Now they have a week off and will play Brisbane or Melbourne. Unless these teams bash each other, you'd have to think these teams could ask Cronulla questions they haven't been asked for some time...and had trouble answering when they were asked them.
The Dragons were in an unfortunate position in that their team selection was very difficult. Should they have stuck with form players (players who've been in their lineup while they've been winning of late) or bring back now-fit players who could have been very useful against Manly (Soward, Morris, Woolford). There was good arguments for Rogers v Soward, Morris v Sailor (or someone else) and Webb/Ellis v Woolford, so Brown's selection was always going to be second-guessed if the Dragons lost.
That said, the Dragons had a number of chances and a host of attacking possession early, but never asked any serious questions of Manly's defence. They looked out of sync like Canberra did, but Canberra is a young team riddled with injury. The Dragons could not be described that way and hence should not have looked so disjointed.
Like Canberra, the Dragons were unlucky to have a try disallowed (but Gasnier's try had what looked like a forward pass, so it may well have equalled out) but Manly somehow found 20 points by half time and the Dragons had no chance after this.
* Finally the game of the weekend. Melbourne is still a very tough team to beat, but they've shown some signs of not quite being the same team over the last few months. The cumulative workload of almost 3 years of dominance, being the team everyone wants to beat and lots of rep games might be starting to take its toll. They were just off their game a bit on Sunday and the Warriors, as inconsistent as they can be and as volatile as their playmakers can be, LOVE the challenge of playing a big-name team.
But the Storm also had the issue of Dallas Johnson playing with injury and Hoffman being injured early on. They were also without Sika Manu, one of their relatively anonymous but important bench forwards. He was replaced by Scott Anderson, who is not the same type of player and the Storm probably lacked one more ferocious forward.
That said, the Warriors did their best to throw the game away. So many dumb penalties (in contrast to Melbourne's lack of subtlety when practicing their standard 'techniques' in the tackles), so many mental mistakes (such as Hohaia not expecting Cronk's 40-20 attempt late in the game). But they pushed the Storm hard and made their defence work extremely hard to keep them out...and almost looked like succeeding when the Warriors received the ball in the last 2 minutes deep in their own territory.
But Ropati, Vatuvei and Witt (all of whom had great games) had other ideas...and could have ended the Storm's dynasty. The Storm has a great record over Brisbane and teams love playing at Suncorp...but Johnson and Hoffman playing hurt is such a loss. They won at Brookvale a few weeks back, but if Orford wasn't such a spastic...Hard to see Lockyer being that bad (but Brisbane's forward pack isn't quite Manly's either).
Well done Warriors and Brisbane. The NRL is probably saying the same thing, taking finals away from apathetic Sydney, but they are highly-anticipated games in their own right. If the games can be as good as expected...another big week coming up!
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
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: ?
