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 21 of the 2021 NRL season:
- How Melbourne handled Trbojevic
- Things I Liked
- A round to remember for…North Queensland Cowboys
- A round to forget for…Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks
- Play of the Round: Gold Coast Titans
- Plugging International Rugby League
How Melbourne handled Trbojevic
A lot of the conversation around this game during the week came down to Craig Bellamy v Tom Trbojevic. How would the master coach nullify the best player in the game right now?
Trbojevic had scored in 10 of his 11 games before Round 21 but the Storm managed to keep him from crossing the line. While he still handed out two try assists, the Manly fullback finished up with just 153 running metres – considerably short of the 219 running metres per game he had been averaging.
That’s a pretty decent outing for most players. Not for Trbojevic in his current form, though.
It required a team effort to shut him down. Bellamy spoke of what Melbourne needed to do during the week:
“We just have to be aware of where he is and when he gets into those positions, what he is likely to do and defend it from there. There will be no defending him as an individual, we’ll need to defend him as a team. Fingers crossed.”
It’s the “aware of where he is” that became clear over the broadcast. While we all miss seeing fans in the stands at NRL matches right now, we do hear a lot more of the chat happening on the field. Storm players would yell “Turbo!” when Trbojevic got into those positions Bellamy mentioned pre game. The call acted as an order to refocus and for the defensive line to get eyes on him.
The first I heard it came as Cameron Munster hung a kick in the air for Trbojevic 15 minutes in:
Josh Addo-Carr (it sounded as though he made the call in this instance) applied pressure on the kick chase and wrapped Trbojevic up with the ball. The ensuing slow play-the-ball allowed the Storm to set their line and pin Manly in their own end.
It’s a tactic Melbourne employed all night. Trbojevic registered seven kick returns in this one – equal with his most in a game so far this season and more than double his 3.2 kick returns per game leading into Round 21. Meanwhile, Reuben Garrick and Jason Saab completed just two kick returns for 13 metres between them. Melbourne made sure to kick at Trbojevic which removed his dangerous carries on 2nd and 3rd tackle as well as limit the number of times he could contribute to Manly’s wide shifts in exit sets which they do look for fairly often.
“I thought our kickers did a pretty good job.” – Craig Bellamy
Trbojevic’s first big play came only three minutes into the game as he sent Brad Parker streaking down the sideline. That is a situation that the Melbourne defence knows “what he is likely to do and defend it from there.”
While the Storm couldn’t close down the shift on this occasion, they did find success with their wingers and centres jamming in on Trbojevic out the back of shape at times. When he still managed to get the ball away, the scramble defence had already started moving when Trbojevic popped up in that position:
Trbojevic’s influence in attack this season hasn’t only been limited to the edges. He has ripped teams to shreds through the middle of the field and the Storm used that “Turbo!” call whenever he was sniffing around the ruck off Daly Cherry-Evans’ shoulder. This is another time it could be heard:
Seemingly happy to concede a few extra metres down the edge if it meant limiting Trbojevic in the middle, the Storm held in the middle while the centre and winger jammed in. Hughes tracked across the field as further cover on the occasions his outside men couldn’t shut down the play.
Christian Welch is the best defensive prop in the NRL. His activity in the middle of the field and his inside pressure on kickers is second to none. Welch hears the “Turbo!” call here as Harry Grant motions towards the fullback and reacts accordingly to take the option away from Cherry-Evans:
While Cherry-Evans manages to release an offload and Toafofoa Sipley takes the space left by a jamming Welch, those are metres Melbourne appeared willing to concede.
Greg Alexander repeatedly talked about the Sea Eagles “having no problem getting out of their own end” throughout the match. They did find success in exit sets when Melbourne’s edge defenders couldn’t close the space quick enough. Still, despite moving the Storm around the field and working out of their own end relatively well, the Sea Eagles only earned nine tackles inside the opposition 20-metre line. But it’s there that they did their damage.
“He got us a couple of times with tries down their left and we didn’t handle that as well as I would have liked but he is a hard guy to handle.”
Manly plugged Trbojevic down the left edge and targeted rookie winger Dean Ieremia in good ball. He kept jamming in as he had done all game further up the field, but without the space behind the defensive line to scramble, the Storm couldn’t stop Trbojevic from putting Garrick over in the corner twice in the second half.
No team has limited the impact of Trbojevic this season quite like the Storm did on Saturday night. Still, the Sea Eagles finished within ten points of a team that has won their 18 games this season by an average of 27.1 points.
Melbourne are still heavy premiership favourites. This is the first time they’ve been truly challenged for quite some time and still got through their work without much of a problem. They stuck to the process for the full 80 minutes and grinded out a win over a very good Manly side. However, this result does provide some hope that this premiership race isn’t already over.
Here’s hoping these two meet again in September and we see what Bellamy does with Trbojevic a second time round while also noting the adjustments Des Hasler makes having caught a glimpse of Bellamy’s hand in defence.
Things I Liked
Another Souths Variation: I have loved seeing the Rabbitohs attack develop over the last 18 months. I touched on their dual-fullback style last week before Oscar highlighted a superb team try against the Eels over the weekend. They’re at Storm-levels of entertainment at the moment. The sort that make blowouts palatable given the skill and class displayed throughout.
We saw another beauty on Friday night when Adam Reynolds threw a ripper pass across the face of Jaydn Su’A to Latrell Mitchell. This shape would typically run with Mitchell out the back and Waqa Blake knew it. However, with the ball going across the face of Su’A, Blake was forced to hold on the backrower which gave Mitchell enough space to draw Maika Sivo off his wing.
Parramatta did well to give themselves a chance of stopping Souths from scoring, but the Bunnies are in that sort of form at the moment…
Jahrome Hughes’ Running Game: I’m still shocked at how well Hughes is playing in the #7 jersey this season. Plenty had their doubts over how he would go as the primary number seven without Cameron Smith pulling the strings from dummy half. The Kiwi international has squashed every single one of those doubts – and then some.
He has done that in a variety of ways, but none more impressive than his running game.
Hughes tested Josh Schuster a couple of times throughout the game on Saturday. The young back rower and his inside man covered Hughes for the most part, but with the game in the balance and the Storm finally coming under some pressure, the Storm #7 broke through.
Schuster turning out is the signal for Hughes to run. The two decoys ran in the middle of the field to do just enough to hold Sipley’s slide and Hughes skipped through. The end of the play is messy, but how it started is a thing of beauty.
A round to remember for…
The North Queensland Cowboys played with just 41% possession in their 36-14 loss to the Titans on Sunday. Per Champion Data, just 4:48 was spent inside the Titans 20-metre line in the first half and only 10:58 across the full 80 minutes.
With errors aplenty, only 20 completed sets and next to no opportunities to unleash the Tongan out wide, we never really got to see how playing Jason Taumalolo on the edge would work.
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