Recap the latest round of NRL action with the Repeat Set: Talking points, highlights, lowlights and the Play of the Round.
Here’s your Repeat Set for Week 1 of the 2022 NRL Finals:
- Cotter & Taumalolo at the death
- Panthers show their class with Play of the Round
- A round to forget for… the naughty chair
- Storm stumble to finish the season
- Roosters fall short
- Rugby League World Cup Hype: JWH suspended
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Cotter & Taumalolo at the death
Jason Taumalolo is a 191 cm and 115 kg wrecking ball. He’s one of the most destructive ball carriers in the history of the game.
Reuben Cotter is a 180 cm and 95 kg ball of energy. He has become one of the most reliable middle forwards in the competition this year despite the majority of his starts coming at hooker before this season.
The pair make for an unlikely duo, but they produced the key moments towards the end of the North Queensland Cowboys comeback win over the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks on Saturday night.
Taumalolo is back to his best and combined his known ability as a ball runner with his developing passing game. In 82 minutes he finished up with 24 runs, 270 running metres, eight tackle breaks, and this pass…
Nobody knew he had that in his bag a couple of years ago.
Meanwhile, Cotter matched his career-high of 182 running metres. Metres aren’t where he makes his biggest mark as we will get to soon. Still, he kept carrying the ball through to the end and played with the sort of energy you just don’t see from a middle forward 90 minutes into a match.
That first key moment late came when the two linked up to create Taumalolo’s try to send it to extra time.
Chad Townsend said they had “been training for that for the last three weeks” when asked about how it came about and you can see it in the way they organised and executed it.
With a Sharks player in the bin and one last chance to send the game into extra time, the Cowboys set up the shape and executed it to perfection. You can see Scott Drinkwater and Chad Townsend barking orders two tackles earlier – they know what is coming.
Val Holmes settles into the middle to keep the defence relatively tight before Reuben Cotter produces an important carry on the next tackle. He brings Briton Nikora and Blayke Brailey into the tackle, drops to his knees to earn a quick play-the-ball, and it’s now that the space opens up.
The Sharks want the four-in defender inside the posts to stretch the defence out wide. They’ve been left with three players defending half of the field on 2nd tackle.
Scott Drinkwater has eyes for Cameron McInnes under the posts. He uses Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow’s decoy short to hold up Toby Rudolf and runs straight for McInnes. With Jeremiah Nanai off his hip, Matt Moylan is forced to turn in on the back-rower which opens up a huge hole for Taumalolo to skip through.
With the game on the line, the Cowboys produced a perfect play to give themselves a chance in Extra Time.
Strangely, they gave up a fairly decent chance to slot a field goal and take a lead. However, Cotter and Taumalolo again combined to lay the platform for Valentine Holmes to slot the match winner in Golden Point.
Following Peta Hiku’s last carry of an incredible 28-run and 314-metres performance, Cotter takes possession one off the ruck, uses late footwork to earn a legs tackle out of Wade Graham, and brings McInnes into his second tackle of the set. It’s such a small thing, but to beat Graham and instead bring the much smaller Brailey into the tackle up top, Cotter is able to earn a quick play-the-ball. You can see the defence only just getting back to the line when the ball clears the ruck.
Behind it, Taumalolo winds up. He again picks out the smaller Brailey. There is McInnes again, too.
A good hooker knows which players in front of him are gassed and Reece Robson had eyes for McIness in this one. A first marker when Holmes sits back in the pocket to take the shot, McInnes is out on his feet. He’s not able to apply enough pressure on the kick and Holmes splits the posts.
There is a lot to take out of this one. Most notably: The Cowboys are, and have for a long time been, legit. They are so well-coached and as it turns out, Chad Townsend is exactly the player Todd Payten needed to action his game plan. He’s not flashy and doesn’t pile up the numbers, but the Cowboys dominate as a unit. Townsend is the conductor and Payten talked about how he organised the field goal set to win it in the post-match press conference.
Playing the Preliminary Final at home in Townsville is a huge factor. The atmosphere is one thing. The 29-odd degrees will be another factor for the opposition to consider on the day. Now favoured alongside the Panthers to make the NRL Grand Final, we might be looking at one of the great turnarounds in NRL history after the Cowboys finished the 2021 season at 15th on the ladder before starting this one among the wooden spoon favourites.
Panthers show their class/Play of the Round
The scoreboard read 7-6 at halftime but the feeling was that the Penrith Panthers were on top and unlikely to be chased down.
Nathan Cleary showed no signs of rust early on. Although, the Parramatta Eels didn’t challenge him enough to find out. Cleary was given ample time to kick on the last and wasn’t tested often enough in defence. He made 22 tackles, but having dominated through the left edge so often this year, Dylan Brown and Shaun Lane didn’t have enough of an impact on this one. I expected them to test the space around Cleary but it never really came.
Parramatta’s poor completions (67%) and Penrith’s dominance in yardage (+419 metres) made it difficult for Brown and Lane to influence the game. That really highlights how good the Panthers are at suffocating an opposition and cutting down the influence of their best players more than anything.
With a platform laid, fatigue in the opposition and the opportunity to attack in good ball, the Panthers manufactured points. Brian To’o scored a beauty after halftime. The Eels had kept relatively tight down the left edge and the Panthers worked to expose it by forcing Tom Opacic in onto Liam Martin as Stephen Crichton swept in behind.
Cleary setup James Fisher-Harris to score later after he flicked out a wonderful pass to reward the prop forward for constantly pushing up in support around the ball.
But it’s this one that excited me most as my Play of the Round: A trickshot designed specifically for this opposition and perhaps a sign of things to come throughout the NRL Finals.
Clint Gutherson works hard as a fullback. He’s decent as a ball runner and we saw him throw a lovely pass in this one. However, his best attribute is his work rate. He’s always active behind the line and makes the run from side to side in good ball. But on this occasion, the Panthers used his work rate against him for Dylan Edwards to score a crucial try.
The Panthers have Gutherson where they want him at A defender on the short side knowing he will sprint across the field when Isaah Yeo and Cleary position themselves for a long-side shift. Gutherson goes, and just as he does, Cleary steps back the other way and puts it on the boot for a waiting Edwards.
We never got confirmation that it was planned, but it certainly looks planned given how well it all lines up.
The Panthers produced a few trick shots on their way to the premiership last season. They saved their best for last and caught unsuspecting teams out when it mattered most. Only one game into the 2022 NRL Finals, it looks as though they’re taking a similar approach in going back-to-back.
A round to forget for…
The naughty chair copped a beating on Sunday afternoon as an NRL-record seven players were marched to the sin-bin. In a brutal and stop-start match, the players struggled to keep a lid on their emotions and Ashley Klein wasn’t able to referee the game into normality.
The instant reaction to the South Sydney Rabbitohs win over the Sydney Roosters was that we had just witnessed one of the great games.
Interesting, chaotic and exciting at times? For sure.
Good in a rugby league sense? Not for me.
We didn’t see a lot of football in this one. Any time the match started to get into any sort of flow, the two teams collided for another skirmish and sin-bin making it difficult for either side to play themselves into the game.
Ashley Klein will be the easy target for most. Perhaps he could have controlled the game better, but he gave the players a chance early on. It’s not the sort of language we’ve heard a lot throughout the NRL season but “incidental” and “mitigating circumstances” were used to justify Thomas Burgess not being marched for his shot on James Tedesco. That was Klein considering the occasion and providing the players with a chance to clean things up. Burgess ended up being shown ten fingers barely a minute later and it only got worse from there.
“It sort of descended into a non-rugby league game in the end.” – Trent Robinson
“I thought (referee) Ashley (Klein) and the bunker handled the game as they should, we can go on different points on different sin binnings and all of that but I feel like both times we forced their hand.”
We’re going to hear about precedents all week and the first high shot in Week 2 will be followed in commentary with “that was a sin bin on Sunday.”
This game should be viewed in isolation, though. It’s a rarity – hopefully.
Storm stumble to finish NRL season
We didn’t really get to see the Melbourne Storm at their best all that often throughout the 2022 NRL season.
Ryan Papenhuyzen’s injury forced a change to the spine and while Cameron Munster produced some moments of individual brilliance, the Storm lacked the punch, composure and ability to grind out a win that we’ve seen from them over the years. The pack started to age pretty quickly, too.
“The end of the Storm” has popped up throughout almost every preseason in the last decade but will be at its loudest ahead of Round 1 in 2023.
Reviewing the preview
NRL 2022: Melbourne Storm Season Preview
Craig Bellamy always manufactures a “typical Storm guy” out of nothing and he did that with Josh King this year. Despite a rather lacklustre career at the Knights, the Storm staff must have seen something in him and he played out a career-best year in Melbourne.
I wanted to see Jack Howarth get a run at some stage this season but we didn’t get to see him in first grade. He was forced off the field in the Hostplus Cup semi-final on Sunday due to general fatigue so perhaps that says something to where his development is at right now.
Overall, Melbourne fell short of my Top 4 pass mark. They went close but didn’t look like the potential premiers we’re accustomed to seeing late in a season. The big names had their moments. Plenty consider Munster to be the best player in the world right now. However, the pack struggled. Where we’ve seen the Storm play the long game by setting up a match early to win it late, this group lacked that patience at times.
It doesn’t happen often, but the Storm disappointed in 2022.
Note: I see you, Raiders fans. You’ve not been forgotten. The incredible win on Saturday night will be covered when we preview your next one against the Eels.
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Roosters fall short
The footy gods didn’t look too favourably on the Sydney Roosters again this season. Just as they started to click into gear and play like premiership contenders, Trent Robinson was forced to reshuffle his side before and during games. Given the physicality and brutality of their Week 1 fixture against the Rabbitohs, it all became too much for the Chooks.
Trent Robinson doesn’t make many mistakes but I think he will regret not swapping Sam Walker and Luke Keary sooner. Switching spots isn’t the only reason for their uptick in form. That move closely coincides with Matt Lodge’s arrival and the Roosters becoming the best yardage team in the NRL. Still, it’s a change many saw was necessary sooner but one Robinson persisted with for quite some time.
There is still stacks of talent on this roster with Brandon Smith to come next year. As far as hopes for the future following Week 1 losses go, the Roosters are sitting just fine.
Reviewing the preview
NRL 2022: Sydney Roosters Season Preview
I had Sam Verrills down as my breakout player for the Roosters this year. While he played well throughout his 15 games, we can’t call it a breakout. Solid – absolutely. If you’re a Titans fan you’re licking your lips at the arrival of a competent and consistent hooker for 2023. However, Verrills still has some work to do if he’s to jump up into the next tier of #9’s in the NRL.
Naufahu Whyte didn’t see any time for the Roosters in 2022 so my wish didn’t come true. I didn’t see enough of his time with the North Sydney Bears to comment on his reserve grade form but not seeing one game for the first-grade side despite their injuries is somewhat concerning. Although, he is still only 20 years old and signed through to the end of the 2024 season.
Having hailed the Roosters as a Top 4 and Grand Final-making team, I was off on my preseason predictions. However, they did look like a Top 4 team at times. Even heading into Week 1 of the Finals, making a Grand Final wasn’t out of the question. Still, the Roosters fell short overall. They started the season poorly and while everybody anticipated an improvement, it all came a bit late. With the Storm also losing in Week 1, we’re heading into Week 2 without the Roosters or Storm for the first time since 2001. This also marks the first time since 2005 that neither Preliminary Final will feature at least one of the two clubs.
Rugby League World Cup Hype
We’re into the pointy end of the 2022 NRL season but I still have one eye on the Rugby League World Cup at the end of the year.
Does Jared Waerea-Hargreaves?
He is facing a “three-to-four match ban following his Grade Two Dangerous Contact offence on Burgess.”
Those matches will be for the New Zealand Kiwis if he’s selected.
Now, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I would find it awfully convenient that after everything we’ve seen the NRL let go this season after lowering the threshold for suspension that Waerea-Hargreaves is suspended in his last game of the season ahead of a World Cup. But, all things said and done, the best way to avoid being suspended for slamming an opposition player’s head into the ground is to not slam an opposition player’s head into the ground.
The Kiwis should be fine even if Waerea-Hargreaves misses the first three games of the Rugby League World Cup. If they lose to any one of Lebanon, Jamaica or Ireland, Waerea-Hargreaves’ absence will be the least of their concerns. Perhaps it even works out for the best with the big man being afforded a longer break?
It’s not ideal for the Kiwis. Club suspensions counting for Test matches is another issue altogether. Still, Waerea-Hargreaves being sat down for the early matches of the tournament won’t hurt the Kiwis’ chances in the end.