There is a lot to cover after every round in the NRL. Throughout the 2024 season, this is a place where I’ll cover what is most important, a few little things I liked from the round, something to keep an eye on in the next one, and a try I particularly enjoyed.
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What you’ll get in this NRL Round 14 Review:
- Breaking down Storm’s superb short side raid
- Fifita v Walker
- Souths Optimism
- Moving the middles from a scrum start
- Magic Watene-Zelezniak
The Tough Carry: Breaking down Storm’s superb short side raid
Tackle 1 is often the toughest carry of the set. It can make or break it. Here, it’s my biggest talking point from the round that was.
The Melbourne Storm are always ahead of the game.
Whether it be trends in the game or cues in the opposition, they do a superb job of exposing them more often than not. So, inspired by the Anatomy of a Try series from Graeme Forbes, I wanted to break down Tyran Wishart’s 59th-minute try on Sunday afternoon.
It starts with a Sua Fa’alogo moment. He’s fearless and is going to play what is in front of him more often than not. Craig Bellamy may have had a few words with him post-game about this pass, but where Remis Smith ends up isn’t an accident.
Melbourne wants to roll up the field from one edge to the other via a Xavier Coates carry through the middle. The intention is to get the middle defence moving across the field, manipulating the line to generate the looks they want.
Josh King is caught in a crunching Kai Pearce-Paul tackle, but it’s where the Storm want to be. King picked Pearce-Paul out in the line to bring him into the ruck, forcing a middle to flip to the short side.
Rewind it back and you’ll see Mat Croker around the legs of the Coates tackle, forced to quickly retreat the 10 metres, and now moving further across the field to fill up the A spot down the short side.
It’s the look Melbourne wants: a big middle at second marker and another—who has had to work hard to get there—at A down the short side.
Grant bounces out from dummy half to drag Pearce-Paul before dropping Wishart back underneath. Had Grant hit the short side off the deck, Saifiti would be in a position to work hard and pressure Jahrome Hughes into an early pass or sit back and take Fa’alogo inside him. However, he is caught up with Wishart in this scenario.
Melbourne’s cue is Greg Marzhew on the left wing. He has a habit of staying behind his line and leaving space for the attacking team down the wing. It’s not the first time in the match the Storm right edge has seen this picture.
Rather than having Fa’alogo run a block with a lead inside Hastings, the fullback makes a line for Croker on Hughes’ inside hip. With Hughes able to get to his man, Dylan Lucas motions to jam on Eli Katoa as the pass flies across his face. It’s now that Marzhew’s positioning becomes an issue. Where he could have shut the play down by tackling Nick Meaney himself or at least forced the centre into a tough pass, it’s a relatively simple two-v-one scenario to send Grant Anderson down the sideline.
Have a look at Wishart in the vision, too. He knows it’s coming. As Anderson takes possession down the sideline, Wishart has already made his move to push up in support and is five metres in front of the ball. His early effort is the difference between an easy pass inside or one Saifiti could desperately get a hand on.
Melbourne earned the look they wanted, engaged all of the right players at the right time, and one last effort at the end turned it into points.
Beautiful footy.
Quick play-the-ball: Fifita v Walker & Souths Optimism
We’re generating momentum through the middle of the article with a couple of quick carries.
Fifita v Walker
David Fifita giving Cody Walker a mouthful after scoring while 28 points behind isn’t for everybody, but I loved it.
I loved Fifita searching for Walker from the kickoff, resulting in somewhat poor field position, even more.
How players are positioned across the field gives us these individual battles that make rugby league so good. They’re two of the biggest characters in the game, putting on a show to the end. I didn’t hang around for the coverage post-game, but I’m tipping the pair to have had a friendly chat about it after the final whistle.
More on Souths
I made a minor reference to the Parramatta Eels looking a lot better and having a chance of playing in the NRL Finals last week. As the smartest people on the internet say after the fact: “tHaT dIdN’t AgE wElL.”
So, I’m reluctant to look too much into South Sydney’s win over the weekend. As well as they played, the mountain looks too high to climb even if they can maintain this form throughout the rest of the season.
Most encouraging is how they produced points. Damien Cook turned back the clock to bamboozle a slow marker and fly into the backfield for their first, and Cody Walker adjusted to the jamming Titans defence to float a ball over for Jacob Gagai to score the second.
Latrell Mitchell’s double-pump to send the opposition winger long before playing short was an absolute beauty.
South Sydney’s superstars haven’t produced enough of these moments throughout the 2024 NRL season, but I’m excited to see what they will do with this form moving forward.
Setting up for a shot: Moving the middles from a scrum start
Teams play to points with the following tackle in mind. Here, I’m touching on something to watch next week as we try to keep ahead of things happening on the field.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for a particular scrum sequence from the Brisbane Broncos over the next few weeks. As always, I can only guess what they’re trying to do but this one looks designed to move the middles before presenting one to Ezra Mam on the line.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Pat Carrigan dropped off rather than Jock Madden playing short next time, but you can see here how Toby Rudolf breaks from the scrum and becomes involved in the tackle.
As he peels out of the Carrigan tackle and with the Broncos playing back to the middle through the other prop in Oregon Kaufusi, Rudolf is forced to flip to the right edge and ends up four-in. That’s a juicy look for Mam close to the line.
Mam tried to skip outside him, but Brendan Piakura didn’t quite get his line right. If he steps inside Daniel Atkinson as Mam engages Rudolf, it’s try time for the Broncos in the corner.
The scrum start sequence didn’t produce points this time, but the Broncos earned a nice look out of it. If they earn a scrum from a similar spot, we’re likely to see it again next week against the Rabbitohs.
Try Time: Magic Watene-Zelezniak
Sometimes, it’s a piece of magic. Other times, it’s a basic move made to look easy. Whatever it is, all great sets end in points, so we’re doing the same here.
While I typically like to break down the details of a try in this segment, sometimes, it’s a piece of magic.
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak doesn’t know when to stop. While everybody else stood back and waited for the ball to go dead, the Warriors winger got a touch just inside the field of play.
It’s fitting that the equally hardworking Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad is the one to reap the rewards of Watene-Zelezniak’s effort.