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.
- Melbourne Storm v Brisbane Broncos
- Wests Tigers v St George Illawarra Dragons
- There’s always next week for…Gold Coast Titans
Melbourne Storm v Brisbane Broncos
Most teams at an NRL level improve with each week. They may have form slumps or horror runs of injury and suspension from time to time, but generally speaking, there are always lessons learnt in the losses. More often than not we find ourselves here at RLW highlighting those small moments or improvements in beaten sides that might help them climb up the premiership ladder.
But as the bottom teams take two steps forward and one step back, premier clubs like the Melbourne Storm continue to kick on in a sobering reality check for any finals footy hopefuls.
Go back to the beginning of the season and the Storm weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
They had just lost the greatest player of all time and also the one who touched the ball more than anyone else on the field but still, it wasn’t the well-oiled machine we’ve come to expect from a Craig Bellamy coached side. I’m going to focus on two players in particular for this piece – Brandon and Reimis Smith. Two players filling new roles in the team, and two players I wrote about earlier in the year (here and here) as they settled into the side.
In Round 1, Reimis Smith was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. He and George Jennings formed an entirely new-look Storm right edge and were horribly exposed by South Sydney down that side of the field all game. Jennings made a number of poor reads coming in off his wing while Reimis made 12 tackles for five misses and one ineffective effort. You can imagine the bake he copped from Bellamy in the video review.
Eleven weeks later and Reimis is now statistically the best defensive centre in the game per FoxSports. He has made 173 tackles (equal most for full-time centres) for a tackle efficiency of 87% – easily the best by a player with more than 10 games at centre this year. To put that in perspective, Josh Morris – who is widely regarded as one of the best defensive centres in the competition – currently defends with an 86% tackle efficiency.
Take away Reimis’ off night in Round 1 and he has missed just 14 tackles in 11 games since – outrageous numbers defending in arguably the most difficult position on the field. With most teams trending towards a left-heavy offence Reimis is often the man tasked with shutting down set attacking shapes and he is largely responsible for Melbourne conceding just 12 tries down that edge so far this season. Only the unbeaten Panthers (five tries) have conceded less.
The next time you watch a Storm game, take note of how many times Reimis makes the right decision in defence, wraps up the ball and shuts down the play. He is the latest example of Bellamy’s ability to bring the best out of his players. He is given one job – the same job – every week and under Bellamy’s tutelage he is nailing it. Reimis Smith has gone from fringe-first grader to top-tier centre inside of 12 months and it’s all down to the club he’s playing at.
On the other side of the ball, it’s all about Brandon Smith for me right now.
The Hectic Cheese scored a double and set another one up on Thursday night as Melbourne routed the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp, and his involvements were again testament to Bellamy’s credentials as an elite NRL coach. In their narrow loss to Parramatta back in Round 2, the Storm missed a couple of opportunities in attack as they began adjusting to life without Cameron Smith. In Round 12 they showed us what fast learners they all are.
When Brandon Smith darted out of half eleven weeks ago, his teammates just missed the jump with him. Cameron Smith didn’t attack at that kind of pace in the back end of his career and perhaps Brandon’s teammates simply weren’t used to playing that far over the ad line. Brandon burnt the markers to engage both A and B defenders before passing to Jahrome Hughes, but both Hughes and Felise Kaufusi were marginally too deep in support and Melbourne failed to crack the line. As we’ve come to learn, it’s not often you see the Storm make the same mistake twice.
When presented with a quick play-the-ball on Thursday night, Brandon again scooted out of half to beat the markers, engaged A and B defenders and then looked to pass. Unlike back in Round 2, Hughes is right up there off his hip while Nicho Hynes pushes up where Kaufusi wasn’t earlier in the season. Smith throws a face ball at speed and at the line to Hynes in the space and Melbourne cross for another.
The bottom teams may be improving from week to week, but so are the sides above them.
Melbourne and more recently Penrith are continuously raising the bar with every match in the way they evolve and adapt to the players in their line up and to the rules of the game. Just when you figured out how to stop the last thing they threw at you, they’ll get you again somewhere else. I’ve loved watching Melbourne change how they play in the absence of Cameron Smith this season, and again in the way they’ve navigated the absence of Ryan Papenhuyzen, Cameron Munster and Harry Grant – all elite-tier players in their respective positions – at times in 2021. They learn from their mistakes better than any team in the comp and for that reason alone I’m on Justin Olam watch for Round 13.
The charging centre mistimed a few runs on Melbourne’s left edge early in the game on Thursday and the Storm hardly went back there again for the rest of the match. Olam’s timing with Hynes was off in three backline shifts I counted, and I’m expecting him and the Storm to get it right next week.
Wests Tigers v St George Illawarra Dragons
I gave myself some Wests Tigers homework this week with a focus on how Luke Brooks and Moses Mbye in particular performed as a halves pairing given Adam Doueihi’s influence on the side at five-eighth a few weeks ago. I’m still very much a Doueihi guy but Mbye and Brooks had some nice involvements in attack along with Daine Laurie in the Tigers’ rout of St George on Friday night. I’m going to look into Laurie a little more next week in our Q&A segment, so for now let’s focus on the halves.
In their first set inside Dragons’ territory on Friday night, we got a look at how the Tigers would attack for the rest of the match. Brooks and Mbye linked up often to get the ball two wide of the ruck and hit either a backrower short or Laurie out the back. In this instance it goes to Laurie who dishes onto Doueihi and the big centre wins the contact and takes the metres on offer. I liked how Wests involved Doueihi in their attacking shapes in Round 12. He had 21 receipts – fairly high numbers for a centre – which goes some ways to allaying my frustrations around his positional change. If Doueihi is playing at centre the halves must find ways to get him the ball, and they achieved that in Round 12.
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