Take the Two: Round 11 Review

If the beer’s 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 plays each week in the NRL.

• Newcastle Knights v North Queensland Cowboys
• Brisbane Broncos v Sydney Roosters
• There’s always next week for…Parramatta Eels

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Newcastle Knights v North Queensland Cowboys

If you purchased some Todd Payten stocks over the offseason you’re feeling like a pretty clever investor right about now. The Cowboys have five wins from their past seven games and are playing a tough but clever brand of football at the moment which plays their strengths. I covered the Cowboys’ ability to move the ball up-field smartly a few weeks back, and inside the first five minutes on Thursday night they showed similar intent. 

The camera work doesn’t give us a good view of the preceding play, but Scott Drinkwater at first receiver shovelling a ball onto Javid Bowen is enough to get the ball wide of the ruck and attract Knights’ centre Simi Sasagi into the tackle. Bowen wins the contest and the Cowboys head straight for Sasagi’s vacated centre position on the following play. 

Drinkwater sizes up Blake Green at A-defender before easily skipping to his outside to engage Daniel Saifiti who has filled into Sasagi’s spot in the backline. The big prop-forward bites on Drinkwater leaving Starford To’a to chase down Murray Tualagi when he gets the ball in space. The Cowboys didn’t score off this piece, but Payten wouldn’t have minded one bit. It was great control from Drinkwater here to set up his winger a play earlier and then have the skills to execute the pass so early in the game, and so deep in his own half. 

Payten has clearly instructed Drinkwater and Valentine Holmes to play on the ball as often as possible, and the pair were the catalyst for most of what North Queensland did in attack in Round 11. 

Again we see North Queensland happy to attack from inside their own half, and early in the tackle count. Jason Taumalolo almost fumbles it but if anything it only compresses the defence further as he passes out the back to Drinkwater. Some lovely quick hands from Holmes on the edge is enough to put Bowen into space before Tualagi does the rest. Special mention must go to Drinkwater for his effort off the ball here – the five-eighth swinging to Tualagi’s outside does enough to hold Kurt Mann up at fullback and Tualagi finishes it from there. 

With Tualagi in rare touch to begin the match, Drinkwater and Holmes did little more but give their winger early ball the next time the Cowboys ventured down that edge.  

The key to this action is Holmes not overplaying his hand in the lead-up. Holmes doesn’t try to beat his man or position his winger any more than he has to, and with the pass coming a fraction earlier, Tualagi has an extra yard of space to work with. A big left foot step beats To’a on the inside and Tualagi has too much strength for Sisagi coming across in support. 

If Tualagi can maintain this form across the season he will finish 2021 as the Cowboys’ go-to strike weapon out wide. North Queensland have the ball-players in Drinkwater and Holmes to create attacking chances on the edges but have at times lacked genuine finishers to make those chances count. Tualagi has all the physical attributes to be a top-class winger but is still developing positionally – he was two metres behind the play when Holmes fired a cutout pass his way later in the game to let a certain try go begging. Still, Tualagi had a career-game in Round 11 and formed a nice combination with Bowen beside him, too. 

With threats starting to appear across the park, it’s North Queensland’s ability to play to their strengths that has impressed me most. Just as Jason covered with the Manly Sea Eagles last week, the Cowboys are finding ways to get the best out of their key players – particularly in yardage sets. 

As they did against the Broncos in Round 9, North Queensland shifted the ball early in the count as they worked out their own end and it got them into position to attack later in the piece. The Cowboys took three rolling hit-ups to the left in the lead up to this play, which compressed Newcastle down one side of the field. 

On third tackle, my man Tom Gilbert slots into first receiver allowing Clifford and Holmes to drift wide of the ruck and take advantage of the space on the edge. Aside from Kyle Feldt’s looping pass back on the inside, it’s nothing but short, simple passes done at speed that creates the opportunity, and if Jordan McLean hadn’t knocked on in the tackle, you would’ve backed North Queensland to score on the following play. 

I’m stealing a term from Jase’s Notepad this week to talk about repeatable actions from the Cowboys in Round 11. 

Early shifts of the ball from edge to edge might feel like champagne footy, but in reality Payten has the Cowboys playing a very simple and repeatable brand of football. There is nothing elaborate or special about a double block-shape shift on third tackle, it’s just working so well because North Queensland are building for these actions and earning the right to shift the ball first. Bowen bringing Sasagi into the tackle before Drinkwater and Tualagi raided the short side is one such example. There is no reason that same shape won’t work against a superior defensive team like Melbourne or Penrith in later games, and that is what has me excited about the Cowboys at the moment. Special mention must go to Reece Robson who is directing traffic superbly from dummy-half of late which has allowed Drinkwater and Holmes to pull the strings out wide from afar. 

North Queensland won’t be hit as hard by rep duties throughout the Origin period as they have in recent years and this side has a real chance to cement themselves in the bottom half of the top eight in the coming weeks if they can maintain this form. 

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Brisbane Broncos v Sydney Roosters

From an analysis perspective, it’s hard to say much about attacking shapes when the attacking team already has a numbers advantage. Given how many sin-binning’s we’re seeing at the moment, however, that potentially rules out quite a bit of content for us to break down here at RLW each week. Instead, it’s become more a case of who can make the most of that numbers advantage while their opposition is down to 12 men. 

On Saturday night, the Broncos were gifted 20 minutes of footy with Victor Radley watching from the sidelines, and they were good enough to make it count. David Mead’s first try of the night came just two minutes after Radley was sent for a high shot. The Broncos forced a drop-out to build pressure and in the following set, two strong carries from Matt Lodge and Payne Haas laid the platform for Brisbane to attack down their left edge at Sam Walker.