Take the Two: Round 16 NRL 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.

• Panthers v Eels
• Sea Eagles searching out wide in exit sets
• There’s always next week for…Wests Tigers

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Penrith Panthers v Parramatta Eels

The best halfbacks in the NRL are those constantly asking questions of the defence for 80 minutes, in a variety of ways and from all areas on the park. You don’t need elaborate backline shifts or trick shots around the ruck, but you need to be consistently and frequently putting teammates into advantageous positions to attack from. 

We covered Mitchell Moses’ kicking game as a regular avenue of points for Parramatta last week and it was the case again in Round 16 with tries to both Isaiah Papali’i and Maika Sivo coming from Moses’ boot. Unfortunately for the Eels, they didn’t manage much else. 

We need to see more of this from Moses. 

Pitching big forwards like Shaun Lane one-on-one at a hooker through the middle is a repeatable action that will turn into a line-break eventually. Unfortunately, Moses and the Eels aren’t trying it enough to give themselves a chance at that eventuality. The stats back this up – from 15 games so far this season Moses has just four line-break assists. Lock-forward Nathan Brown has as many from just 14 games. For Moses to go to ‘that next level’ we need to see him more involved in moving the ball across the field, and he gets that chance with a State of Origin call up announced yesterday. 

Engaging the line, holding up defenders and passing teammates into space is what separates the good ball-players from the great and that’s what I’m looking for from Moses in the coming weeks. If he spends enough time on the ball asking questions of the defence, the opportunities will come for Parramatta in attack. Moses only needs to put a Papali’i or a Ryan Matterson half-through a gap for the offload to come and Clint Gutherson to pop up in support. It’s these actions more so than any sweeping, edge-to-edge shift that Parramatta have executed well in recent seasons, and I’m here for more. 

Penrith, on the other hand, excel at building pressure through repeatable, reliable actions, knowing that if they stay patient the points will come. 

Leading by six points midway through the second half, the Eels botched a forced left-side shift that ended with Maika Sivo going into touch. Penrith are given a sniff, and their big names step up. Brian To’o and Stephen Crichton both take strong exit carries before Liam Martin and Isaah Yeo straighten things up. 

Yeo takes the ball into the line the same way he does almost every carry – with forwards in shape around him and a half lurking out the back. In the tackle previously he’d played out the back to May who then dropped Martin under, but this time Yeo shapes to pass which sends Junior Paulo sideways before cutting back on his inside and winning the tackle. From the quick play-the-ball, Api Koroisau fires it straight to Jarome Luai on that ever-familiar left edge and the alarm bells start ringing for Parramatta. 

Tom Opacic comes out of the line which shuts down the face ball to Matt Burton while Martin is too deep and doesn’t offer an option out the back as Luai searches. With nothing on, Luai sums things up and drops a grubber into the ingoal to force a line dropout – the high-percentage play.

The next set ends in almost exactly the same fashion. 

Yeo again takes the ball into the defence, but this time he doesn’t win the contest as he would have liked. The play-the-ball is a little slow and Parramatta are up off their line by the time Luai gets the ball out wide. 

Martin and Burton run in pairs outside him but with Dylan Brown pressuring from the inside Luai again takes the safest option and drops another grubber in behind the line. Burton has free passage to the ball this time and almost plants it down but Hayze Dunster does enough to force it dead. 

Penrith have now spent the last four-and-a-half minutes in possession. In that time they worked 80 metres upfield and forced Parramatta into making 20 odd tackles, most of them on their own line. They’ve also sent the same shape at the Eels in consecutive attacking sets. Parramatta are starting to show signs of fatigue, and when you’re tired you rely on instinct in your decision making. They’ve just seen Luai and the Panthers’ left edge try it on twice in the last two minutes and they’re almost definitely expecting the same thing again. Not quite. 

This time it’s Scott Sorensen who wins a quick play-the-ball around the posts, and Penrith react. Koroisau sends it left again, and again the Eels do their best to shut it down. Opacic shoots on Luai this time and very nearly ends things there, but he can’t wrap the ball up and Luai generates some second phase play. The ball comes back to Koroisau and the little hooker heads infield towards Junior Paulo and Shaun Lane. 

Paulo had slipped off the Yeo tackle in the first set and Lane had just been beaten by Sorensen in the lead up to this action. Both big men were under pressure and fatigue and were perhaps a little guilty of switching off in the defensive line as the ball went wide. As a result, their spacing is awful when Koroisau comes back towards the posts and punishes them with some footwork on his way to the line. 

Luai didn’t play the perfect halfback’s game in Round 16. A few poor kicks would have been improved if he had positioned himself better behind the ruck and he almost gifted the Eels an intercept try with a low-percentage face ball at the line. But in the little moments, like in the actions above, Luai took the right options and executed them under pressure.

Penrith already look far better without Nathan Cleary than they did earlier in the season. This was a game they might’ve lost then but Penrith are quickly learning to play without their star halfback. Isaah Yeo is proving invaluable at pivot in their attacking shapes and is arguably their most important player with Cleary out. Whether it’s Tyrone May or Matt Burton in the halves alongside Luai for the next month or so, you can be sure almost everything good the Panthers produce in that time will come from either Yeo or Luai. 

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Manly Sea Eagles vs Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

As I said in the segment above, the best halfbacks in our game are those who constantly put their teammates into good positions to attack from. They play within structures designed to get the most out of their best players and utilise the strengths of the players around them. For the Sea Eagles, the speed of Jason Saab on the right wing has fast become a key component of Manly’s exit sets and Daly Cherry-Evans is the man getting him the ball at the right time. 

Saab is not one of the most effective kick-returners in the NRL – he ranks 42nd in that department so far in 2021 despite it being a key component of all good wingers’ games. His lanky build doesn’t lend itself to turning around quickly and charging into a set defensive line, and so Manly have adjusted to that. Wherever they can, either Tom Trbojevic or Reuben Garrick will take the early carries in exit sets as Manly work towards the left-scrum line. Once they’re there, Cherry-Evans orchestrates a long early shift to get Saab in space down the far touchline.