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 Round 19 of the 2021 NRL season:
- Structure vs Structure: Good vs Bad
- Things I Liked
- A round to remember for…Gold Coast Titans
- A round to forget for…New Zealand Warriors
- Play of the Round: South Sydney Rabbitohs
- Rugby League World Cup Drama – So Predictable
Structure vs Structure: Good vs Bad
“Too much structure”
We’ve talked about this term a few times at RLW. Whenever a team plays poorly or struggles for points, the post-match conversation is around too much structure. However, the issue is often too much bad structure. It’s often an unwillingness to waver from what was drawn up on the whiteboard throughout the week.
The Sydney Roosters – as they so often do – provided more examples of how a good structure, smarts and an ability to adjust can translate into points. Meanwhile, the Newcastle Knights displayed the sort of signs that suggest they either didn’t see the potential weakness in the defensive line, or didn’t know how to expose it.
First, the Roosters.
With Billy Smith removed from the field with another injury, Angus Crichton found himself in the centres matched up against Kurt Mann. Crichton is an excellent athlete. He’s more than capable of filling in at centre, and with his size advantage, offers up something different for the Roosters attack.
It took a while for the Roosters to get on top of the in-game injuries they faced in this one, but presented with their first attacking set in the second half, they went straight to where they had an advantage. Newcastle have the numbers but with Mann caught up in the tackle and Crichton running straight at a much-smaller Phoenix Crossland, Tedesco gets onto the outside of Tyson Frizell and Hymel Hunt has no choice but to jam in.
This approach isn’t too dissimilar to what the Roosters did to the Cowboys right edge last week. North Queensland struggled to defend on the edge and the Chooks went back at it again and again and again.
Later on Friday night, Drew Hutchison exposed the power and size mismatch between Crichton and Mann. As he skips out and isolates Crichton onto Mann, the Roosters backrower tramples over the top of his opposite before taking the ball back to score in the corner.
It doesn’t matter who is on the field for the Roosters and in what position. They’re so well-drilled and well-versed in their structure of play that all 13 players know where to be on the field and when. Good structure produces good results. The Knights, on the other hand, failed to make the most of a Roosters right edge defence made up of Sam Walker, Lachlan Lam in the centres and Joseph Manu on the wing.
A lot of teams have already sent traffic at Walker this season for some success. The Knights appeared to be doing the same as they forced Walker into a career-high 22 tackles. However, we repeatedly saw the play move away from where playmakers wanted it.
The Knights ran a big body at Walker before sending another runner into the middle of the field here. As the ball swings to the right, Jake Clifford and Mitch Barnett are both left wondering why they haven’t been given another chance down the left edge with Walker and Lam defending beside each other.
Shifting the ball early two minutes later, Barnett once again forced Walker into a tackle. The Roosters are caught short on the edge this time and Kalyn Ponga sweeps around to attack the left edge. While the Roosters managed to shut down the play on this occasion, Cooper Cronk called this “the blueprint for Newcastle in the second half.”
We rarely saw the Knights produce this action across the last 30 minutes. Instead, they continued to hit Barnett and Daniel Saifiti short to attack Walker. They didn’t adjust to the potential defensive issues and a lack of cohesion further out. They had a game plan and stuck to it.
“We played how we prepared. We wanted to play fast and through the middle…We just didn’t manage our second half.” – Adam O’Brien
The top teams adjust on the fly and expose weaknesses mid-game. They train the defence and work to areas of the field to throw a punch. Trent Robinson has his team – injury-depleted or not – on the same page every week. Newcastle still has a long way to go if they’re to be recognised as one of those top teams any time soon.
Things I Liked
This is my favourite play at the moment.
The Tunnel Ball.
When the attacking team gets it as perfect as the Melbourne Storm do here, it’s near impossible to defend.
Tom Dearden has a tendency to shoot out and Jahrome Hughes knows it. The Kiwi international engages the line with a lead runner short and Cooper Johns trailing out the back. It looks like a fairly typical block shape and Dearden reacts to it. The ball is instead fired across Johns’ face to Nicho Hynes. With the left edge back-rower offering another line angling in at the defence, he holds up the Cowboys centre to leave Hynes with a three v one situation. Josh Addo-Carr and Justin Olam link up to do the rest.
Cody Walker has thrown a few beauties throughout the year including this one back in Round 17:
On Saturday night, Tyrone May used a similar shape to stop the defence from sliding which eventually allowed Brian To’o to go over in the corner:
Tyson Gamble’s feet are all over the place as he weighs up Dylan Edwards out the back of the block and again on Luai’s inside shoulder. Matt Burton is running an inside line at the same time which allows Viliame Kikau to get on the outside of Kotoni Staggs and force Jamayne Isaako to jam in. Lovely.
A Round to remember for…
If you’ve been reading this column or the Notepad every week you’ll have seen me pleading with the Gold Coast Titans to find new ways to use David Fifita. His individual efforts have papered over the cracks of a poor Titans defence too often this season. Now, they’re starting to get somewhere.
Justin Holbrook started Fifita on the bench this week with the 21-year-old scoring a try, setting one up, running for 160 metres and breaking 13 tackles.
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