If the beers are cold and the afternoon’s long enough, we’d be talking footy all day, every day until kickoff on Thursday night. With so much to review, let’s break down some of the key players and actions throughout each week in the NRL.
Round 9 NRL Review:
– The Battle of the West
– There’s always next week for… Newcastle Knights
– SuperCoach Shout-outs
– NRL Play of the Round
The Battle of the West
We haven’t seen the bounce of the ball go against Penrith for what feels like three years now. In saying that, the Panthers haven’t often left it to the bounce of the ball to decide a result in that time either. In Round 9, 2022 however, a few uncharacteristic errors from Penrith with the game in the balance proved to be the difference as the Eels snuck away with a 22-20 win on Friday night.
The Panthers were far from poor, but far from their clinical, calculated best too. Cold drops from James Fisher-Harris and Isaah Yeo in the final quarter are mistakes we haven’t seen from Penrith very often – if at all – over the last few years. Nor the back three letting an attacking bomb hit the deck for Dylan Brown’s try midway through the second half.
The saying goes that you make your own luck and the Panthers have been doing that consistently since 2019. But instead it was the Parramatta Eels who would fight and scrap on Friday until finally getting a result against the premiers.
The Eels threw 17 offloads in Round 9 – significantly up from their average 11.9 per game so far in 2022. Given their eagerness to promote the footy on Friday, it’s fair to assume this was a game plan from Parramatta leading into this one. Considering how effective Penrith are at defending within their systems, the Eels’ unorthodox approach to their attack – multiple offloads, doubling up down short sides – is perhaps a bit of a blueprint for how to use the ball against the Panthers. The key in Round 9 though was that Parramatta earned the right to throw those offloads and search those short sides by first playing direct.
Five of the Eels’ forwards comfortably clocked over 100 running metres on Friday. Reagan Campbell-Gillard (150m), Isaiah Papali’i (186m), Nathan Brown (120m), Ryan Matterson (177m) and Junior Paulo (205m) consistently bent the line as Parramatta worked upfield and put fatigue and pressure into Penrith’s defensive line. Their eagerness to win the first contact and generate ruck speed allowed Parramatta to create the second-phase play that led to three tries on Friday.
Regular readers will know I’ve been calling for the Eels to use their backrowers like this for a while now. In this case it’s Papali’i who drops under Moses and into a hole. His combination of size and footwork makes Papali’i almost impossible to bring down in actions like this and it’s only a superb tackle from Dylan Edwards that saves the Panthers here.
With a reasonably quick play-the-ball, it’s still advantage Parramatta following the Papali’i half break. The Panthers’ defensive line is under pressure and disorganized as Paulo takes possession down the short side.
Despite standing flat-footed when he gets the ball, a little hit-and-spin from Paulo is enough to get the ball away and suddenly Gutherson is a few metres out against a sliding defensive line. He and Viliame Kikau both hit the deck but only Gutherson gets to his feet to play the ball, and it’s some great eyes-up footy from Will Penisini to push into contact and offload back to Gutherson in the space vacated by an injured Kikau.
It’s not a repeatable attacking action but against the best defensive team in the comp, not too many scoring actions are. It’s exactly the kind of opportunistic chance you need to take against the Panthers and the Eels weren’t done there.
Junior Paulo was immense in Round 9. He led Parramatta’s line speed all night and made a number of back-to-back defensive efforts to help trap Penrith down their own end. He was also an absolute monster in yardage. Paulo is so damaging with the ball because he can hurt you in so many ways. 205 running metres aside, Paulo’s involvements in the lead up to Dylan Brown’s try got Parramatta more than halfway up the field from the kick-off upfield and into position for an attacking bomb.
Paulo’s first involvement in this passage is a bruising carry off the back fence into – you guessed it – another offload. The strength of his carry gets Paulo in a favourable position to promote the footy despite four Penrith defenders on him and Gutherson takes the extra 10 metres on offer. Two tackles later and there’s Paulo again, this time tipping on to Papali’i down a short side. This little action helps Papali’i to find his front which earns Nathan Brown a positive carry on fourth which in turn buys Mitch Moses plenty of time on the last to get this kick away:
The Panthers don’t let this bounce without Paulo’s involvements in the lead up. Taylan May and Izack Tago are both out of position having been forced to consider Paulo and N.Brown two tackles previously and Edwards can’t get to the mid-field bomb in time to catch it on the full. The result is a wicked bounce favouring Parramatta which Dylan Brown snaps up to score.
The best of the night however was Ryan Matterson’s try to give Parramatta the lead with 15 minutes to go.
It looks like the Eels are setting up to drop Matterson under like Parramatta did with their edge-forwards all night. Cleary certainly thinks he can see what’s coming and rushes out at Gutherson to shut things down but some lovely footwork from The King beats Cleary on the inside to stay alive. Matterson reacts perfectly to accelerate into the space and score a very, very classy try.
I loved what Parramatta produced in Round 9. They took necessary risks but were smart about when and where they took them. The stats sheet backs this up – Parramatta were patient and disciplined (85% completion rate, two forced drop-outs, four penalties) enough to earn the right to push the pass when they needed. The offload count of team’s playing Penrith in the coming weeks is going to be an interesting stat to watch given how effectively the Eels employed second-phase play in this one.
There’s Always Next Week For…
… the Newcastle Knights
Take a bow, Kalyn Ponga.
The last man standing in Newcastle’s first-choice spine stood tall in Round 9 and looked like dragging the Knights to an unlikely win for a moment there on Saturday night.
Almost anything Newcastle looked to do with the ball involved Ponga in some capacity. His first try involvement came from an attacking scrum, taking possession on the right edge and creating the overlap for Tex Hoy and Dom Young outside him. A lovely tip on from Hoy found Young who went over untouched in the corner.
Ponga’s second scoring involvement was a pinpoint kick at the posts for Jacob Saifiti to score under the black dot. Joey Johns’ fingerprints were all over this one – it’s impossible to defend a ball that bounces off the posts and Ponga executed it to perfection in this instance and very nearly reproduced it later in the game.
There’s been plenty of chatter about moving Ponga into the halves to get him on the ball more in attack. The reality is that Ponga has been doing this across the opening nine rounds of the competition regardless of the number on his back.
In both scoring actions from Round 9 Ponga put himself into very half-like positions. First receiver off the scrum is a fullback role but the action – digging into the line with a lead runner and passing out the back – is a half’s one. And his assist for Saifiti – playing at first-receiver smack bang in the middle of the field – was again a half involvement.
Jase touched on this just last week:
“Ponga is one of the best-attacking players in the competition. O’Brien knows that and he’s trying to get him involved in different ways. Perhaps too involved and in too many different ways. His 43.3 touches per game is the most of any fullback in the NRL and up on the 38.9 touches per game last year. Where Ponga was once a quality over quantity involvement in the attack primarily down the left edge, he is now being deployed across the field and being used more often.”
I’m a little more on the fence. I agree that Ponga is most effective playing as a fullback out the back of shape or orchestrating short side raids and in an ideal world that’s where he’d be used. But Newcastle is not an ideal world right now. With the spine struggling around him, Ponga getting more involved is probably happening by nature as much as it is by design. Until a genuine half stands up for the Knights (Anthony Milford, anyone?) then I can’t argue with Adam O’Brien employing Ponga on the ball in attack.
The other benefit of playing Ponga in the halves is that it means Tex Hoy could come into the side at fullback. Hoy was a little underwhelming last year but his last two first-grade games – against Penrith in Round 3 and now vs. Cowboys on Saturday – have been promising. I won’t be surprised if he features a little more regularly for the Knights moving forward.
SuperCoach Shout-outs
We’re keeping an eye on a few players in our rolling SC watchlist as part of my ‘Heads In!’ weekly review, but this segment is reserved for any special mentions from the round that was. You’re clever enough to find the top scorers yourself, so this is for anything I liked, noticed or want to see again.
Adam Reynolds – HFB – $651,500 – A try and two assists against his old club was as good as it gets for Reyno. He’s playing on the ball more than he’s ever done throughout his NRL career and looking all the better for it.
