NRL Repeat Set: Round 22

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 22 of the 2021 NRL season:

• Brooks’ latest bounce back
• Eels haven’t evolved, now they’re getting left behind
• A round to remember for…Brisbane Broncos
• A round to forget for…Trent Barrett
• Play of the Round: Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
• Graham Annesley’s Briefing Summary

---

Brooks’ latest bounce back

Halfbacks in rugby league cop more unwarranted criticism than any other position on the field. They are the focal point of the attack and if that attack doesn’t fire – for whatever reason – the criticism is directed at the halves more often than not.

The scrutiny is even tougher for young halves. If they’re not the finished product early on into their career, they need to be showing regular glimpses of becoming an all-time great to earn a pass mark.

Fanaticism takes over for a lot of people. A few bad games in a row? It’s time to go. A young bloke tasked with leading a group of grown men against another team of grown men doesn’t make the right play in the clutch moments? Maybe he never will…

The reality is it takes time for playmakers to develop their skills. They need consistency not only on the field but also in the coaches box and preferably at the same club. There is quite often an element of luck involved too.

For Kyle Flanagan, he was pushed out of the Roosters last season with the club identifying Sam Walker as their future young half – bad luck.

With so many clubs set for #7’s at short notice and wanting to play regular first grade, Flanagan signed with the worst team in the NRL – bad luck, and in hindsight, probably a bad decision.

Now, Flanagan is being talked about as the next export headed for the Super League.

George Clarke put together a great piece on the pressure young halves come under in the NRL. He highlights Flanagan, Tom Dearden and Brodie Croft as players being moved around or moved out of the competition entirely as their young careers failed to live up to the bloated expectations of others. All three players have had their ups, but are mostly judged on their downs.

Then there is Wests Tigers halfback, Luke Brooks.

A true rugby league enigma.

Was he really the best #7 in the NRL when named Dally M Halfback of the Year in 2018?

No.

Is playing 169 first grade games without a finals appearance an accurate way to judge him as a footballer?

No.

As is the case with so much in rugby league, the answer is somewhere in the middle.

One of the unlucky players forced to wear a “the next [insert great of the game here]” tag, Brooks entered the NRL under huge expectations. Called “the next Joey”, Brooks was being compared to a rugby league immortal at 19-years-old.

Now 26-years-old, Brooks is roughly the age players begin to enter the prime years of their career.

Rugby League Eye Test put together an excellent piece breaking down the ages of where players peak statistically. For halves, 24 is when the playmaking skills really start to show. Roughly two years later, running involvement maxes out and drops sharply from there. You could argue that the prime of a half is closer to 30-years-old, but mid-20’s is when it typically starts coming together for a #7.

Unlike Flanagan, Croft and Dearden, Brooks wasn’t moved along early in his career. For better or worse, he has been given the opportunity to work on his game at the same club since 2013. Although, the fact he has taken pre-match orders and handled the gameplan’s of five different coaches in that time is an understated element of his stop-start development as a halfback.

The cynical pre-season Brooks cycle took it’s usual twists and turns over the summer. Speculation over this being the season it all came together triggered meme-like headlines around the Tigers ‘unleashing Brooks’ in 2021. However, there was one pre-season piece that offered genuine hope of improvement and it links up well with Rugby League Eye Test’s idea of a half turning into a more well-rounded player between 24-26 years old.

“I’ve looked at deception stuff and playing around the ball … coming up with ways to trying to outsmart the defence,” Brooks told NRL.com in March.

Developing deception and changing tempo are must-have skills for halfbacks right now. It’s the biggest difference between a 2019 Nathan Cleary that many considered overrated and undeserving of the wide-ranging praise in media and State of Origin selection, and the 2021 version of Nathan Cleary, arguably the best halfback in rugby league right now.

It’s something Brooks identified in the buildup to this season, and it has slowly been working its way into his game.

His match-winning performance against the Cowboys in Round 22 is a timely reminder of how valuable time, consistency and cohesion is to the performance of a halfback.

That deception Brooks mentioned is on show in the Tigers first try on Saturday afternoon.

Following a David Nofoaluma break down the right edge, the Tigers look left. The Cowboys prepare for a wide shift and begin to slide across the field. As Brooks slows down his run to hold up the two middle defenders, he looks long to put Tom Dearden on his heels but plays short to put Stefano Utoikamanu through a gap to score. Lovely.

We can throwback to Round 3 when Brooks sent Utoikamanu through a gap in similar fashion for an early glimpse of this action starting to come together as a consistent weapon.

Brooks isn’t credited with an assist for Ken Maumalo’s try in the corner on Saturday, but his pass from the same spot on the field he threw it to Utoikamanu 12 minutes earlier played a big part in Wests second for the afternoon.

He doesn’t crab across the field this time. Instead, Brooks takes possession and straightens the attack with a step off his left foot. That little step and the memory of Utoikamanu busting through earlier holds up the two middle defenders and provides the Tigers with a four-on-three overlap which Adam Doueihi capitalises on.

Regular readers here know what I’m about to say…

Repeatable actions.

Whether actions to score tries are repeatable or not are the difference between good and bad teams. The Wests Tigers have scored a few points this year, but they’ve not come through repeatable actions often enough. A good halfback is usually the catalyst to those actions and Brooks came up with the goods here. We saw something similar in the second half, too.

The Tigers worked the right side of the field after halftime. That’s another thing that came up before Round 1:

“The way we’re going to play is having that traditional halfback and not having it split left and right.”

A nice long ball from Jacob Liddle hits Brooks on the chest and the halfback again straightens and engages the line. Whatever Brooks’ form, he has made sure to engage the line. No player in the NRL has recorded more line engagement’s than Brooks’ 149 this year while he is fourth in average line engagements with 7.1 per game.

On this occasion, he gets deep enough into the line to hold up the defender but it’s that shape to pass and super subtle hold of the ball that sends the four-in defender out to Adam Doueihi, allowing Brooks to hit Kelma Tuilagi short.

Simple but oh so effective.

Just as he did in the first half, Brooks soon used a similar shape to create another try.

Jake Simpkin makes the pass from dummy half this time. It’s more good service coming from the ruck, but it’s the run while the ball is in the air that makes the play. Brooks makes a beeline for the same gap in the defensive line he did only eight minutes earlier. Tuilagi is back to target the inside shoulder of the four-in defender who does turn in this time around. That allows Brooks to play out the back, and with the overlap, Doueihi is once again able to make the right play for his teammate to dot down.

Brooks is only credited with two try assists for the match, but his influence on the Tigers attack is clear. All of the things he talked about in the preseason were laid out on the table for him to produce his best game of the season.

Now, this has come against a poor Cowboys side that has been horrible defending the edges all season. Brooks should have dominated this match-up. He hasn’t always turned up in these moments, though. In Round 5 earlier this year against the same opposition, Brooks and the Tigers failed to make the most of Scott Drinkwater and Jake Granville defending beside each other in the centres as they left their run too late in the 34-30 defeat.

These are good signs for Brooks and the Tigers. The club has signed Jackson Hastings for next season and he was surely talked about as a possible option for the #7 jersey long term. Brooks can give Michael Maguire a serious selection headache if he keeps up this sort of form, though. Brooks, Hastings, Doueihi and Daine Laurie can make for quite the playmaking trio for 2022 and beyond.

---

Eels haven’t evolved, now they’re getting left behind

The Cumberland Throw – the premier Parramatta Eels content creators – sent a message through on Twitter requesting that we put together a piece on the evolution of their attack from the end of 2020 to the start of 2021 earlier in the season.

I liked the idea and added it to the list. Unfortunately – or maybe not – I didn’t quite get around to penning that piece. As good as the Eels looked to start the year, something held me back.

Perhaps it was Isaiah Papali’i taking the NRL by storm to claim the Buy of the Year award before Round 10? Maybe Bryce Cartwright offering positive actions threw me off? Then there was Reed Mahoney becoming one of the best hookers in the NRL and Nathan Brown passing the ball at a Jake Trbojevic clip certainly looked good for a while there.

Individuals surprised in their performance and roles as the Eels piled up 29 points per game throughout the first 15 rounds. Still, the individual nature and beating up on bottom-end teams kept me and many others cautious.

However, as we now know, the numbers deceived us. Faced with a tough draw against premiership contenders, the Eels have scored just eight points per game across their last month of football.

It has been a theme for the best part of two years now, but the Eels still get stuck in the habit of trying to go around teams early in a set. I referenced the “Eels at their worst” in the season preview and we saw more of it in Round 22.

When somebody can say “they’re going to swing it left and run a block play. Now they’re going to do the same down the right” while sitting at home watching the game on TV, there is a problem. But that is exactly what happened when the Eels were faced with a full set attacking inside the opposition 20-metre line.

Clint Gutherson hanging out the back of a block worked earlier in the season but defending teams have caught on. The same happened last season when Parramatta dominated with double lead lines from their edge backrower and centre on the left edge before being shut down later in the year.

When looking at the top three teams, it’s their constant improvement that has kept them there. Early in the year we referenced how the Panthers tried a few different trick shots after running up a lead. The Storm are constantly adapting and adjusting to the players named in key playmaking positions as they navigate injuries and representative duties. More recently, we’ve highlighted here how the Rabbitohs have added a dual-fullback-like style to their right side to avoid being too one dimensional on the left.

Once again, we’ve not been able to talk about the Eels in that capacity this season.

The same goes for their defence.

Waqa Blake was scapegoated as the man responsible for a poor right edge defence earlier in the year. The Eels conceded 47% of their tries through the right edge across the first 12 rounds of the 2021 season. Ten rounds later and with Blake on the left edge, the right side accounts for 49% of their tries conceded. While Blake is certainly not a world-beater on the defensive end, he is clearly not the problem with Parramatta’s right edge. The only adjustment they seem to have made is moving Blake and it hasn’t changed a thing.

Like the Eels attack, they’ve shown little improvement – if any – in how they defend the right edge as the season goes on. Again, we look at the better teams in the NRL. The Panthers and Storm have been elite defensive teams all year. However, the Rabbitohs have made massive improvements without the ball following a poor start to the year in which they leaked 50 points twice.

It’s another area we can’t mention positively for Parramatta.

Brad Arthur is under massive pressure. Those around him in the coaches box will be looking over their shoulders, too. While it’s always easiest to blame the coach for poor on-field performances, the Eels are fundamentally and tactically poor right now. We’re 22 rounds into this season and haven’t seen enough evidence of effective coaching to steer the blame away from Arthur and his staff. It’s difficult to imagine him still being there if the Eels end their season in Week 2 of the finals – if they get that far…

---

A round to remember for…

I’m sure there is a section of the Brisbane Broncos fan base cautiously optimistic about their recent performances.

Plenty feel as though, while a decent enough fill-in for the job following the Anthony Seibold nightmare, Kevin Walters is limited as a first-grade NRL coach. He has been frustratingly slow to adapt to the game as the season has gone on and relies on fiery pre-match blowups to get the most out of the playing group. Coaching two months behind the trends of the game can only take a coach so far. Yelling at a playing group and demanding a response on the field only works a handful of times as well.