The Notepad identifies one key player, stat, trend or talking point for every team, every round of the 2022 NRLW season.
I’m back in the country and ready to rip into Round 3 of the NRLW.
The competition is split down the middle with the Roosters, Knights and Dragons all sitting on three wins apiece and the Titans, Broncos and Eels still chasing their first points of the 2023 season. That being said, the form of those three winless teams is better than their ladder position currently suggests and as the season progresses I think we’re going to see a much tighter competition.
Friday
Sydney Roosters
I’m big on the Roosters this season and the markets suggest punters are too. They’ve recruited excellently to form a powerful pack and a backline stacked with talent, but it’s the work of halfback Raecene McGregor that’s bringing it all together two rounds in.
McGregor is the best ballplayer in the competition for mine.
She’s got superb vision, a long and short passing game, can challenge the line herself and is effective with the boot too. Against the Broncos last week McGregor posted two linebreaks, two try assists and an absurd 168 running metres with the #7 on her back. She’s giving me big Jahrome Hughes vibes this season (albeit without the top-line speed) with her ability to challenge the defence herself and play at the line.
Thanks to the Roosters’ dominant forward pack (1st for total running metres, 1st for tackle busts, 1st for completions), McGregor is getting plenty of opportunities like this to run the ball herself:
In this instance, it’s a quick play-the-ball from Jess Sergis that leaves the markers in no-mans land and gives McGregor a chance to run. There’s not much else to analyse here from an RLW perspective; just a lovely feel for space and three filthy steps off that right foot to get her team out of trouble.
Three tackles later and the Roosters are quickly in attacking position themselves and again it’s McGregor who makes the play.
The vision, the time and the execution here are all first class and at this rate McGregor is going to have a hefty highlights package by season’s end.
When she’s not running it herself, watch out for McGregor and left-centre Isabelle Kelly to link up down the right edge with Kelly wrapping around as a second fullback. They’ve had two cracks at it already this year for two linebreaks, one try and another disallowed. Kelly’s your anytime scorer pick for Roosters games moving forward.
St George-Illawarra Dragons
Jase has long been vocal about his love for tries from scrums and I’m following suit here in the NRLW.
As the women’s game constantly improves and teams learn to defend with better structures and more intelligence, the attack needs to keep a few steps ahead. The Penrith Panthers are the best proponents of this in the NRL and at time of writing it’s the Dragons who are leading the way with scrum plays in the NRLW.
Emma Tonegato had a hand in two tries St George scored from scrums last week. She’s an elite runner and support player but her ballplaying is going from strength to strength as evident in the actions below.
This one is a beauty:
Tonegato’s willingness to dig into the line and engage Gayle Broughton is what brings Keele Brown onside and onto the ball here. Ashleigh Quinlan (circled) is too lateral off her line as she anticipates a pass out the back but as Tonegato slows and straightens on her run, Brown’s lead run suddenly becomes an option. A pinpoint pressure pass from Tonegato at the last second as Broughton drops her shoulder finds its mark and Brown goes over for a very clever four-pointer.
Teagan Berry was the next beneficiary of a well-worked set piece, this time on the left edge.
Again it’s Tonegato at first receiver but this time instead of a player breaking from the scrum to pressure her from the inside, five-eighth Tayla Preston (circled) makes a beeline for the ball carrier. That decision leaves an overlap outside her and with Rikeya Horne (centre) already on her heels, Tonegato keeps things simple and puts it through the hands for Berry to score in the corner.
I’ll have the blinkers on this Friday night whenever the Dragons pack in for a scrum in good ball. At the moment the pill is likely to go wherever Tonegato is, but I’m not ruling out some variation with Tonegato as a decoy in the coming weeks.
Oscar’s back on the Ned’s NRL Punting Podcast this week for a ‘what have we learned so far’ segment on the NRLW leading into Round 3. Check it out here.
Saturday
Brisbane Broncos
The Broncos are in uncharted waters right now following consecutive losses in the NRLW. The departure of Millie Boyle and Tamika Upton has hit them hard and as Brisbane learn to adjust with their new roster, we’re seeing a changing of the guard in the spine.
Ali Brigginshaw is still the lead playmaker but the work of Tarryn Aiken this season and last week, in particular, caught my eye as she grows into a primary playmaker role. She scored a nice solo try against the Roosters in Round 2 but it was her work in the lead-up that suggests she’s ready to take on more responsibility in the Broncos attack.
Aiken gets busy midway through the set here to send some traffic down the Roosters right edge.
She drifts across-field on tackle two before passing Kaitlyn Phillips into the line and then doubles up for a second shot down the short side on the following play. That second involvement is particularly nice – Aiken plays nice and direct to hold up the edge defence before bouncing off her right foot and almost pitching Shenae Ciesolka into a hole at left centre.
Another settler back towards the posts calms things down but the Roosters right edge is now fatigued and disrupted and Aiken knows it.
Roosters prop Mya Hill-Moana (10) finds herself at 4-man and in an unfavourable matchup against Aiken down the short side. Aiken takes possession in similar fashion to her two previous touches this set and the Roosters edge defence reacts accordingly – they all come quickly off their line expecting the pass and that leaves Hill-Moana one-on-one with a much faster opponent… try time.
That’s classy playmaking from the young five-eighth and I’m looking out for how Aiken and Brigginshaw balance these duties this week.
Gold Coast Titans
The Titans are 0-and-2 to begin this season but their form last week against the Newcastle Knights suggests they could make another late run to the finals as they did in the 2021 season. There are still some growing pains around new halfback Lauren Brown and fullback Apii Nicholls but the Titans have the chassis of a fair side and so far this season it’s being held together by lock-forward Georgia Hale.
The former NRLW Warriors half has transitioned into the pack and provides Gold Coast with a handy ballplaying option through the middle of the field. She’s a solid enough ball carrier around the ruck but it’s Hale’s vision and passing ability that caught the Knights out last week with a lovely no-look pass for Stephanie Hancock to score her third try in just two games.
If you thought ‘Tohu Harris’ when you saw this, you’re in the same boat as Jase. The slowing of the feet before passing, the timing of the pass and the deception of that exaggerated head tilt all invite Jesse Southwell to shoot off her line and leave a yawning gap back on her inside.
Those qualities are all hallmarks of a natural ballplayer that can just as easily get through the tough stuff. Hale has played 67 and 70 minutes in the middle in her two games so far this season. Her defensive numbers from those two games? A total of 87 tackles for two misses. Again, right out of the Tohu Harris playbook.
She’s flown under my radar until now but I’ve got my eyes fixed on Hale and her involvements on both sides of the ball this weekend.
Sunday
Newcastle Knights
The combination of Millie Boyle and Caitlan Johnston as Newcastle’s starting props has helped the Knights to a frankly absurd 1,126 post-contact metres from just two games this season.
That averages out to 563m per game, which for perspective is just a fraction shy of the Parramatta Eels (1st ranked 601.1 post-contact metres per game) in the NRL. In fact, in the men’s game only the Eels, Panthers (598.8m) and Rabbitohs (565.6m) bend the line more effectively than the Newcastle Knight’s NRLW side in 2022.
Two games in and we need to add 21-year-old Tayla Predebon to the list of powerhouse prop-forwards in the NRLW.
Predebon played out all seven games for the Roosters in their premiership-winning side last season in a limited role from the bench. Since moving to Newcastle, Predebon has upped her average running metres from 58 metres per game to a whopping 124 metres. She’s still playing from the bench but her minutes are up and so is her impact. She’s ensuring the Knights lose none of their go-forward when the starting middles come for a spell and is proving a genuine game breaker in that time – one try, eight tackle busts and two offloads are Predebon’s numbers from two games so far this season.
One of those offloads brought another rising star into the game last week, albeit one of much smaller stature:
Emma Manzelmann featured five times for Newcastle last season to set up one try and she has already doubled that tally in two games this season. She used her electric acceleration to score a nice solo try earlier in this game against the Titans before collecting a clever late offload from Predebon here and streaking into the backfield. She then draws the fullback expertly (and wears a shot for her troubles) to pass Tamika Upton over the line with confidence.
Where starting hooker Olivia Higgins is an experienced head and a defensive presence, Manzelmann is perfectly equipped to take advantage of the momentum Newcastle’s forwards are generating through the middle of the field. She’s no slouch without the ball either – in seven games now at NRLW level Manzelmann has made 151 tackles for just four misses.
I’m a big fan of the one-two punch of Keely Davis and Quincy Dodd for St George Illawarra, but the Higgins/Manzelmann rotation is one to look out for this weekend.
Parramatta Eels
It’s been all about Gayle Broughton and Tiana Penitani for me when it comes to Parramatta this season and last weekend showed us exactly why. The Eels didn’t come away with the points but they pushed the Dragons right to the death and produced two almost identical and very promising actions that lead to tries for their star players in the first half.
The key to both actions is getting Broughton into positive areas on the field and affording her a chance to use her vast skillset.
By laying a forward down the right tramline, the Eels open up the far side of the field and stretch the opposing defensive line thin. The three-pass block-shift back to the open side on the following play is executed with good depth and focuses more on giving Broughton time and space with the ball than it does try and make metres for the team. Indeed, Broughton takes possession virtually in line with the play-the-ball here but importantly has a sliding defensive line to challenge when she comes onto the pill.
The Dragons look to have numbered up well here with halfback Rachael Pearson on Broughton and Keele Brown retreating to handle her opposite number in the centres, but it’s the subtle change in direction Broughton produces at the line that creates the overlap. With a step off her left foot, Broughton straightens up to drag Brown in before skipping back to the outside and passing Penitani into space.
She executed the exact same play to perfection not long after and supported back on the inside to collect a lovely Penitani pass and cross for a try of her own.
It’s one thing to know what’s coming but it’s another to defend it. We’re going to see this again on Sunday.