Recap the latest round of NRL action with the Repeat Set: Talking points, highlights, lowlights and the Play of the Round.
A split round in the NRL means we’re splitting Take the Two and Repeat Set in half. A split round also means State of Origin is just around the corner so keep an eye out for our Game 3 preview for Free and Premium members this week.
Here’s Take your Repeat Set for Round 17 of the 2021 NRL season:
- Walker, Rabbitohs & a premiership-calibre attack
- There’s always next week for…New Zealand Warriors
- Play of the Round: Warriors
Walker, Rabbitohs & a premiership-calibre attack
Thank you, Freddy.
Thank you for giving us Cody Walker in Round 17.
Whether you’re with Brad Fittler and his decision to play Mitchell Moses and Jack Wighton in State of Origin III or not, nobody can argue against Walker being more than capable of doing the job had he been asked.
He tore strips off the Cowboys edges on Friday night as he picked them apart on the left side in typical five-eighth shifts before filling a Latrell Mitchell-like role on the right side.
Everybody expected the Bunnies to look left in this one. Tom Dearden had struggled against the Knights a week earlier, the Rabbitohs left edge attack leads the NRL in tries scored with 43 this season while no team had allowed more tries through their right edge than the Cowboys’ 36. While Souths did eventually find success down the left edge, they looked right early.
Walker got a feel for how the defence would react to his sweeps over to the right side only four minutes in.
Shortly after this shift above, Hame Sele completed the Cameron Murray role with a strong carry and quick play-the-ball on the right post. That is usually the setup for a South left shift in good ball. However, they went right for Walker to stab a kick into the in goal and force a repeat set. It appeared as through
We saw Souths run a handful of their typical shapes with Reynolds at pivot and Walker playing out the back to his fullback. He’s a 22-year-old making his first start in the #1 jersey, so Blake Taafe wasn’t always where he needed to be when he needed to be there. He obviously doesn’t create the same level of concern in the defensive line either. In this case, the Cowboys are happy to slide with the Souths shift and force Braidon Burns back in-field.
Whether it was by design or simply taking an opportunity put in front of them, Souths went to the tried and tested left side after the Cowboys built a lead. Reynolds with some deception at pivot, Walker makes an excellent read and even better pass, and Johnston comes up with the goods in the corner. Classic Souths.
Having slowed down the Cowboys – it’s no coincidence that it all turned to custard for North Queensland when Taumalolo went off – the Rabbitohs looked to their right again.
Walker’s first and second official try assists came using the same shift two minutes apart.
Connelly Lemuelu had a shocker defending it the first time as he turned in on Campbell Graham’s lead run with Walker out the back. Walker simply needed to draw the winger and shovel the ball on for Taane Milne to score.
Minutes later, he attacked the weakness again.
Murray Taulagi is lagging behind the line and Walker sees it. Walker once again gets to the outside of his man and heads straight for Lemuelu’s inside shoulder. Taulagi isn’t up with his inside man so needs to follow him when he turns in. As soon as Lemuelu commits to the tackle, Taulagi follows and Walker hits his man on the chest. Perfect.
Presented with one more attacking set before the break, the Bunnies once again return to what works.
We had already seen Javid Bowen and Kyle Feldt jam in a few times at this point. Walker had previously hit Taafe out the back and his lead runner short. This time, he skips them both to find Johnston.
With all of the momentum and both of North Queensland’s edges in disarray, South Sydney went wide early in the second half. Another Walker line break assist sent Burns up the field before Johnston rolled over the line to score his second.
Walker is credited with three try assists on the night. This tap on is an unofficial fourth and the best of the lot. It perfectly captures his role in the Rabbitohs attack in this match, and how he adjusted to help make up for the absence of Mitchell.
Mitchell is normally the one out behind Reynolds in that part of the field. His gravity as a ball-carrier and elite hands are finally seeing Mitchell recognized as one of the best fullbacks in the NRL. On Thursday, Walker stepped in as though he had been there all season with the semi-regular right-side sweeps we’ve seen a few times throughout the year paying dividends when Souths needed them most.
We really started to see the makings of this last season when Mitchell was ruled out for the year. Walker and the Bunnies explored down the right side for some success, but not quite at this level.
South Sydney’s defence remains an issue. Their 20.1 points conceded per game is still the fourth-best mark in the NRL, but is considerably more than the Eels (15.4), Storm (12.1) and Panthers (9.8). However, if their right side attack continues to develop and adds some more variation to their good ball sets (Souths scored a whopping 61% of their tries down the left edge before this game), the Rabbitohs could have enough points in them to cause an upset in September.
~ JO
There’s Always Next Week For…
… the New Zealand Warriors
The New Zealand Warriors are falling painfully short across 80 minutes of football at the moment. Chad Townsend’s field-goal shocker last week against St George was the wrong play given the context of the match, but it wasn’t what lost them the game. It’s unfair to single out individual moments like that when collectively the Warriors are missing so many chances across the park and from siren to siren.
Poor decision making in the halves and at hooker is costing New Zealand dearly in attack. There is no fluidity or intent in the way Kodi Nikorima, Sean O’Sullivan and Wayde Egan are attacking with the ball and the Warriors’ offence is horribly unthreatening as a result. Each tackle is played in isolation and there is no evidence for me that New Zealand’s spine are even attempting to build for attacking opportunities later in the set.
This trick shot off the scrum in New Zealand’s first genuine attacking chance of the game filled me with some hope, but it was short lived.
Reece Walsh is one of the few players in our competition quick enough to try this on and it’s only a great cover tackle from Will Kennedy that saves Cronulla here. The Warriors mightn’t have scored, but already they had exposed the slow lateral movement of Siosifa Talakai on Cronulla’s right edge. You’d expect Penrith or Melbourne to hit the right post before coming straight back at Talakai here, but instead he isn’t asked to make another defensive effort this set as the Warriors searched sideways before turning it over on the last.
For me, that is the biggest problem with the Warriors right now.
There is nobody identifying weaknesses in the defensive line and then sending teammates at those weaknesses in a variety of ways. Shaun Johnson arriving next year is elite at doing just that, but this is a Next Week not a Next Year column. With Chanel Harris-Tavita on the sidelines and Walsh still finding his feet in first-grade, the Warriors desperately need Nikorima, O’Sullivan and Egan to form some sort of combination in attack. If their first attacking effort of the game was disappointing, then their first of the second half was downright diabolical.
The Sharks turn it over midway through an exit set and suddenly New Zealand are on the attack. Walsh looks to counter and makes inroads down the left edge while Cronulla scramble to get onside.
Sharks’ players are still retreating as Walsh plays the ball here and there was surely space on the far side of the field, but instead New Zealand take two one-out settlers through the middle. By the time O’Sullivan and Nikorima string something together on third tackle, Cronulla have already reset in defence and they slide accordingly.
Braydon Trindall and Connor Tracey in Cronulla’s defensive line are already turned out anticipating the shift before Nikorima gets the ball. They’ve had two tackles to read what’s coming and they read it perfectly, sliding sideways to sheppard Walsh towards the sideline.
With their lone planned attacking shift comfortably shut down, New Zealand’s attack crumbles. Nikorima takes it upon himself to get the ball back infield, putting on a wrap-around play with Leeson Ah Mau and running straight in front of his halves partner O’Sullivan in the process. Bailey Sironen does well to react and pushes into half a hole to find his front, and suddenly there is half a chance on the left with Cronulla stripped for numbers on the short side.
New Zealand now have a numbers advantage in good field position, a quick play-the-ball to attack from and three of their primary creative players positioned around the ruck. Marcelo Montoya at centre shapes to run a lead for O’Sullivan on the left, but Egan wraps around late and crowds the space as Nikorima tries to link with his halfback.
Egan’s run obstructs the defence down the short side which kills the play and forces O’Sullivan to head back infield. The camera pans right to reveal just three Sharks defenders on the left edge covering almost half the field, but there isn’t a playmaker in sight for the Warriors. Walsh is still getting onside after his involvement earlier in the set while Egan, Nikorima and O’Sullivan untangle themselves from the mess around the ruck. Ben Murdoch-Masila is forced to take a nothing settler before Nikorima tries to go around them on the last, but he is a tackle too late and Cronulla slide in defence to force the error.
New Zealand can put some of this down to missing their first-choice halfback through injury and playing a 19 year old rookie at fullback. There will always be growing pains associated with developing a young gun playmaker but that pain is amplified when another gun fullback is wasted on the left wing. It’s been the narrative since Walsh’s debut but the Warriors need to find ways to better use Roger Tuivasa-Sheck in attack, and this one – the play of the round – was a long time coming.
~ OP
Play of the Round
Penrith tried it on with Stephen Crichton last year and Brisbane have thrown Corey Oates in there at some point too, but this action needs to become synonymous of Tuivasa-Sheck and the Warriors in 2021.
The Warriors have made their intentions clear both through their recruitment and playing style. They want to bash the door down using big bodies through the middle. Big bodies don’t create a lot of points themselves, but they can ask questions of the defence as lead runners close to the line. Melbourne, in particular, are excellent at using the likes of Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Tui Kamikamica around the ruck close to the line. New Zealand, while they have the size, don’t have the playmakers to make those snap decisions at the moment. They can all hit Tuivasa-Sheck out the back of shape, though.
They are flushed with big bodies through the middle who demand attention from the defence and whether it’s Tohu Harris or a half playing at the line, Tuivasa-Sheck is going to slip through this hole more often than not. We need to see this one again a few times between now and September.
~ OP & JO