Four have become two following a cracking NRLW double-header on Sunday afternoon.
As expected, the Newcastle Knights have won their way through to the big dance – albeit much more narrowly than they would’ve liked – while the Gold Coast Titans produced one of the best finals performances I’ve seen across the NRL or NRLW to knock out heavy favourites the Sydney Roosters.
It leaves us with an unexpected yet mouth-watering matchup this weekend as heavyweights Newcastle meet one of the best defence teams we’ve ever seen in the NRLW.
Let’s eat!
NRLW Preliminary Finals Review
Knights in the grind
Newcastle have comfortably been the best – or second best – side in the NRLW this year. Their forward pack is extremely well-balanced, their back five are some of the most productive in the competition and their spine is elite.
Olivia Higgins is one of the more crafty dummy-halves in the competition and she steered her pack around beautifully in this one. With the field position she and her forwards earned, halfback Jesse Southwell was able to pick the right involvements on the ends of sets.
She ran it a few times to complement a clever general play kicking game that netted her a season-high 313 total kick metres and one forced drop-out:
This looks a little messy but highlights Southwell’s development as a playmaker this season. She’s forced into dummy-half on play five here but still has the awareness to look for the kick. Spotting the diminutive Hayley Maddick at A-defender, Southwell rolls it right at Maddick’s legs and chases hard, putting on a good shot to force the Broncos fullback into the in-goal.
Clever footy.
I said in the pre-match that the Knights simply needed to get through their sets and stay in the grind to win this one. If they can do 50% of the work, Tamika Upton is good enough to win them games from there.
The lead up to Hannah Southwell’s early try highlighted this. The Knights charged 90 metres in a set here to be in good-ball on tackle five. With momentum and options around the ruck, Hannah and Caitlan Johnston combine to punch a hole through Brisbane’s line:
I talked with Tarsha Gale last week about a few things including the progression of ball-playing middle forwards in the NRLW. We don’t have any Isaah Yeo’s or Victor Radley’s just yet, but this action from Hannah is promising.
She gets Johnston one-on-one with a defender here and the big prop wins that tackle like she should. Getting her arm free, Johnston finds Upton who turns that half chance into points by busting off a few more tackles and then finding Hannah with the line open.
The only way to defend these actions is to win the ruck. Given the Knights play with the best yardage game in the competition, it’s been difficult to win that ruck area when playing against Newcastle this year.
Interestingly enough, it’s the Gold Coast Titans who rank second in the NRLW this season for total run metres. They’ve got the best starting middle trio in the competition and can go toe-to-toe with this Knights pack on Sunday.
As the old saying goes, forwards win games and the backs decide by how much.
The Knights are blessed with creative attacking players in the backline and enjoy an advantage over the Titans in this regard. How often they find themselves playing downhill with some ruck speed though might be the difference between this win over Brisbane and this coming Sunday’s grand final…
Titans through the middle
I’ve sung the Gold Coast’s praises for much of the 2023 NRLW regular season.
Rated a $14 pop before a ball was kicked, I liked the balance of their forward pack and the sprinkling of game-breakers in the backline. A season-ending injury to five-eighth Taliah Fuimaono certainly hurt the Titans early on, but they’ve played to their strengths all season to earn a ticket to the big dance this weekend.
It’s all about the forwards for the Titans in 2023.
Lock-forward Georgia Hale has now made 459 tackles in 10 games for just five misses. I’ve never seen anything like these sorts of numbers and it captures the Gold Coast’s efforts around the ruck in 2023.
They’ve won six games this season by an average winning margin of just 6.3 points. They’re happy to stay in the grind and win it late, which is exactly what they did to the Sydney Roosters last weekend.
Numbers never paint the full picture but they give us a good idea of where the Titans beat the Roosters on Sunday.
The Gold Coast had seven players clock 100+ metres in yardage, helping them to the lion’s share of field position. Fullback Evania Pelite had her best game in the NRLW, notching an absurd 263 metres from 26 carries and constantly getting her team on front foot early in sets. From there, the Titans big three – Hale (141 run metres), Jessika Elliston (126m) and Shannon Mato (124m) – dominated around the ruck.
These efforts through the middle had a snowball effect as the game went on. In yardage, they helped Lauren Brown and Chantay Kiria-Ratu to kick well on the last and present a good kick chase.
This is what finals footy looks like:
There are no less than 11 Titans players in the frame here when Corban Baxter looks to return the ball. Only Elliston (who took the previous hit-up) and Kiria-Ratu (who kicked the ball) are absent from the kick chase in this action; brilliant.
In good-ball, the Titans dominance around the ruck eventually led to points when Brittany Brealey-Nati crashed over from dummy-half. It looked a little opportunistic but came on the back of a familiar and repeatable action the Titans have had some joy with this season; dropping Jaime Chapman back underneath:
Look at how the Roosters defensive line is disrupted by Chapman here. There are eight defenders around the ruck as Chapman plays the ball and all are too crowded to organise themselves in the line. In the disruption, Breayley-Nati sells a big dummy before darting over beside the ruck.
The Titans played out an almost-perfect preliminary final last week. They made Mille Boyle a target all game which limited her involvements in the Roosters attack. From there, by winning the ruck and embracing the grind, the Titans waited for their opportunities to score in the final minutes of each half.
It’s exactly how to approach finals football and it’s exactly how they need to approach Newcastle this weekend.