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 20 Review:
- The importance of getting attacking players to ground
- Classic Cody
- Cleary & Katoa
- Highlights
- Dropout/Kickoff Variations
- Kelly’s feet for Fifita
The Tough Carry: The importance of getting attacking players to ground
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.
Standing tackles aren’t a regular topic of conversation in NRL fan circles. We see a player stopped, held called, and move on to the next.
On paper, it’s a ‘completed tackle.’
However, they can be a gift to the attacking team as we saw so often on Saturday afternoon. Both the Wests Tigers and South Sydney Rabbitohs were guilty of failing to get a player to ground before conceding a try.
The first came as the Tigers failed to get Keaon Koloamatangi to ground on the line. He almost feigns to concede the tackle before quickly spinning out and playing the ball. In doing so, he scrambles the defence.
It’s a lovely planned move. Jack Wighton fades out to drag Tallyn Da Silva with him. Jahream Bula is able to get his body in front of Davvy Moale, but in biting slightly on the Michael Chee Kam lead, he’s not able to get any power into his tackle. Ideally, it’s John Bateman in that spot, but the quick play-the-ball didn’t allow him time to get there.
Souths were the guily party ten minutes later as Adam Doueihi crabbed his way across the field and stood in the Damien Cook/Tallis Duncan tackle.
Like Koloamatangi earlier, while the play-the-ball might be slow in a literal sense, Doueihi’s standing in the tackle provides the same cues for the attacking team as a quick one.
The play-the-ball creates such havoc that the Da Silva runs into an underlap and still sends Lachlan Galvin over the line.
Duncan is out of play. While the Rabbitohs have four players down the shortside to the Tigers three, and Cook should have done better to hold on Da Silva, having to make his way around Duncan – who is trying to get back the 10 metres – creates enough indecision for Da Silva to slip through.
Alex Johnston’s try five minutes before halftime came on the back of another standing tackle as Chee Kam engaged three Tigers defenders and stayed on his feet for long enough to release an offload.
Souths scored two more in the second half on the back of standing tackles.
First, Siliva Havili kept his feet before Peter Mamouzelos burrowed over.
The standing tackle doesn’t do a lot here to create the try. Wests should have done better from this spot. Nonetheless, it continues the trend and does take an extra second or two to set the line away.
Fittingly, the last try provides the perfect example.
The Rabbitohs shift the ball from the right edge and it’s again Koloamatangi providing the play-the-ball before points.
He brings four players into the tackle. Notably, you can see Latu Fainu go to make a tackle as the third man around the legs, but bails out – or is called out by the referee – before getting back to the line.
It’s also worth noting the path he takes. Instead of taking the shortest path back to the line, he runs home three-in off the sideline. With the standing tackle translating to another quick play-the-ball, Souths are attacking the line before Fainu moves off it.
He’s late off the line. Bites on the drop. Threatens to rush at Wighton. The Tigers left edge is never connected and Jye Gray is making an NRL career out of skipping through disconnected defensive lines on the edge.
Regular readers here know that missed tackle numbers aren’t an accurate reflection of good or bad defence. These tackles leading to points are an example of made tackles being similar.
It’s crucial that defending teams get attacking players to the ground in these spots. Often with only one marker, the line is thicker when defending the goal line than anywhere else on the field. However, if you’re allowing the play-the-ball from a standing tackle, you’re risking late retreaters, scrambled markers and disconnected edges.
There aren’t any numbers publically available to tell us which teams give up the most standing tackles, but I’d guess we don’t see many from the Panthers, Storm, and other top defensive teams in the NRL.
Quick play-the-ball: Classic Cody & highlight moments
We’re generating momentum through the middle of the article with a couple of quick carries.
Classic Cody
Those of the cardinal and myrtle persuasion may not have laughed, but the rest of the NRL world had to chuckle at the 10 minutes that so perfectly captured Cody Walker.
When the ball fell to Taane Milne on the last tackle, Walker was the only player anticipating the kick. He’s one of the most instinctive players I’ve ever seen, and his instinct went into overdrive to pounce on what ended up as a shanked Milne grubber.
Only nine minutes later, Walker gets himself involved with Lachlan Galvin off the ball leading to a Tallyn Da Silva try.
The veteran Souths half took his chance to give Galvin a welcome to the NRL of his own by directing his forearm into the face of the Tigers five-eighth. Galvin responded as you’d expect, and the half-second he took off Walker by grabbing at his collar delayed his retreat to the line for Da Silva to score.
I’m not sure if the Bunker could get involved here. They found enough to put Walker on report, but as the incident happened before the Jahream Bula play-the-ball, they might be restricted.
Nonetheless, it’s all classic Cody.
*Another note: the play-the-ball leading to the Bula half-break and Da Silva try came on the back of a standing tackle.
Cleary & Katoa
This is going to be one of the NRL’s best head-to-head battles for years to come.
I’d circled Nathan Cleary’s Penrith Panthers going against Isaiya Katoa and The Dolphins as my Game of the Round and it took only 15 minutes for both players to contribute for points.
Cleary helped to set up this shot with his running game two tackles earlier. You can see him barking orders in the build-up, too.
Mitch Kenny saw something he liked and jumped out from dummy half. The play is a mess overall, but Cleary makes it a point-scoring one with his quarterback pass to Sunia Turuva in the corner.
Shortly after straightening the attack and spreading the ball wide for the Dolphins to score their first, Katoa’s show and go got him over the line.
The ending captured the Master & Apprentice narrative best. After Katoa missed a chance to attempt a game-winner late in regulation, Cleary nailed his first chance in Golden Point.
The field goal
The centre experiement is over already
Setting up for a shot: Dropout/Kickoff variations
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 loathe the new rules around short dropouts.
The NRL claimed it would benefit the best kickers in the competition. Instead, everybody can attempt a short dropout with no risk. Three times during State of Origin we saw short dropouts collected by the kicking team, removing three attacking sets in a high-intensity, low scoring game, in favour of three more yardage sets…
But there are some interesting elements to the change. How teams defend short dropouts have been worth monitoring. It felt like a matter of time before different types of kicks became a factor, too.
Unfortunately, the producers at Fox Sport were distracted by Sua Fa’alogo standing on the sideline and failed to provide us with a clean shot of the kick. Still, you can see the danger in the low and powerful kick at the sideline here:
Brandon Wakeham tried a few in New South Wales Cup this year. We’ve seen Adam Reynolds and the odd kicker in the NRL try it, too.
Jamayne Issako tried similar from a kickoff on Sunday afternoon. Again, the producers did us no favours with the vision. Still, it provided the Dolphins with the distance off the kick while providing just enough of a bouncing ball to make things uncomfortable.
I don’t think we’re far from this becoming a relatively common approach depending on how teams setup defensively.
Try Time: Kelly’s feet for Fifita
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.
We had Fifita’s Influence as something to watch from the Gold Coast Titans in Round 20 and caught a glimpse of it after only nine minutes.
However, it’s Brian Kelly who deserves the mention here.
Jayden Campbell provides a quick pass to the Titans centre who catches the ball outside the three-man and bounces off his right foot to engage the two man. When David Fifita is out the back of a block, the winger has no choice but to jam in. Fifita’s improving quick hands do the job and Alofiana Khan-Pereira strolls over for an easy one.