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.
St George Illawarra Dragons vs North Queensland Cowboys
Credit where it’s due – Ben Hunt had a blinder for the Dragons on Saturday night. He was in just about everything St George-Illawarra did with the ball in hand.
This early try assist for Mikaele Ravalawa was a slick piece of heads-up playmaking to open the scoring on Saturday night. Josh Kerr turns in a soft tackle from Coen Hess to pop the ball up for Hunt wrapping around. Cowboys’ winger Valentine Holmes has come out of the line to shut on Zac Lomax, so Hunt lofts a perfectly weighted pass over the top for Ravalawa to take at full flight.
Try time.
When the game was in the grind, Hunt’s involvement on the ball through the middle third kept moving the Cowboys’ forwards across the field, increasing fatigue and making it difficult for them to load up in defence. His running game was a constant threat around the ruck, particularly when he had support from fellow spine-players Corey Norman and Matt Dufty.
Andrew McCullough gives a clean pass from hooker, and suddenly Hunt is over the ad-line against a retreating defence. He throws a dummy to Norman which Hess gobbles up before standing in the Jake Clifford tackle long enough to offload to Dufty, who streaks away.
We noticed Hunt running this same shape against South Sydney in the Charity Shield earlier this season for similar effect.
Unfortunately, in both cases, the Dragons couldn’t turn it into points.
It’s becoming a worrying trend for St George-Illawarra and one that threatens to shatter any newfound confidence Hunt will take from Saturday night’s performance. No matter how well he plays, if the Dragons aren’t winning games, Hunt will irrespectively fall under the spotlight. They scraped home against an unconvincing Cowboys’ outfit this weekend, but the Dragons need to start turning their half-chances into full ones if they are to climb up the NRL ladder.
Hunt’s vision and execution here to bring Kyle Feldt up out of the line before looping a ball to Jack Bird in space was clutch.
The Dragons were trapped in their own end and all of their forwards gassed or offside. Hunt knew they needed something, and he produced. Special mention to Cody Ramsey who throws a great pass at full speed back on the inside to Bird before the Dragons look to shift right. Hunt, Norman, Dufty – all the right players in all the right positions, but with one poor pass, all Hunt’s good work is undone and the Cowboys are off the hook.
There isn’t much between what Hunt orchestrated here and what Cameron Munster produced against the Rabbitohs in Round 1 this season. The difference was the players around him.
Clive Churchill Medalist and Premiership winning fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen is a pretty tough yardstick to measure up against, but where ‘Papz’ turned a chance into four points, Dufty couldn’t seal the deal.
Ben Hunt can be the halfback to drag St George Illawarra up from the bottom of the competition ladder. He was good enough virtually on his own to get them past North Queensland on Saturday night. But if the Dragons are to match it with the top teams moving forward, Hunt is going to need some more help from his teammates to do it.
Sydney Roosters vs Wests Tigers
If there were any lingering doubts over Trent Robinson’s stature as an elite-tier coach, they’re surely gone now. Two offensive demolitions in as many weeks have seen the Roosters open their season strongly, but it’s the nature in which Robinson’s team won both games that speaks volumes about his coaching credentials.
In Round 1 it was Jack Gosiewski and Kieran Foran on a new-look Manly left edge. This weekend it was BJ Leilua at right centre for the Tigers. The Roosters found opportunities in those areas early in both games and attacked there persistently and ruthlessly from there on out. While credit must go to Robinson for constructing the game plans, it’s the rise of Luke Keary at halfback that is bringing it all to life for the Roosters so far in 2021.
The first time the Roosters scored on Sunday was off the back of a Keary run.
Luciano Leilua stumbles in the defensive line on second tackle and Keary burns him for speed to dig into the line and find his front. Special mention to James Tedesco who is three metres offside as Keary plays the ball but still somehow works himself into position to receive a pass from Sitili Tupouniua at dummy-half and create the overlap on the edge.
Joey Leilua makes a lazy effort once the pass beats him, which allows Joey Manu to link with Brett Morris on the paint. Tedesco backs up on the inside to score the opener – all off the back of Keary’s quick play-the-ball.
The next time they came back down this side, Keary skipped across-field to square up Luke Brooks. With a little stutter as he straightens, Keary’s tempo change turns Joey Leilua in, and he promptly passes to Lachlan Lam out the back. Tigers winger Asu Kepaoa doesn’t jam in time, affording Lam just enough time to produce a slick tip-on to Brett Morris, who does Brett Morris things down the touchline to score.
Keary wasn’t done there, though.
With the Tigers’ left edge now half-expecting the pass out the back, Keary played them perfectly with a flat, early ball to Sitili Tupouniua one-on-one with Luke Brooks. Joey Leilua had come off his line to shut down the backline shift and was no help to Brooks as Tupouniua trampled over his opposite man to score a classic back-rowers try. Another point to Keary.
But the cherry on top was Keary’s show-and-go effort to break the line before throwing an outrageous, perfectly timed flick-pass to Brett Morris for his third of the afternoon.
It’s no coincidence that the Roosters’ right edge has been so dangerous in 2021 since Keary moved to that side of the field, after they had so much joy down their left edge in seasons past. He is the Roosters’ on-field general and their primary ballplaying threat, and is key to getting the most out of Tedesco, Morris and the likes. As the combinations develop, I’ll be watching for how he can link a little more with Joey Manu, too.
There’s Always Next Week For…
… the Melbourne Storm.
The Melbourne Storm don’t feature very often in this segment.
We’re not used to seeing them lose the grind in tight matches or miss the mark in a few snapshot moments to fall short of sealing the result. But as the Storm swam laps up and down Bankwest Stadium on Thursday night, we got our first look at how Cameron Smith’s absence will be felt this season in Melbourne.
Effort was not the issue. The Storm competed like demons in horrid conditions against an equally determined Parramatta pack, besting them on the stat sheet for time in possession, run metres and line breaks. But for all Brandon Smith offers as a defensive enforcer and an attacking spark, the Storm lacked precision in the little moments when Parramatta were on the ropes.
Smith had some promising touches early in the game, effectively picking his moments to run and getting Melbourne over the advantage line.
Christian Welch gets a quick play-the-ball and Smith takes off, swerving around the markers before straightening up which compresses the A & B defenders. Tom Opacic (defending at centre) doesn’t come in with them, so Smith throws the long ball to Jahrome Hughes who takes the space before offloading. Felise Kaufusi isn’t quite ready for it, and had he been pushing up flatter, the Storm might’ve broken the line here.
This is what Melbourne learning to play without Cameron Smith actually looks like in the flesh. C.Smith didn’t explode out of dummy-half before throwing a face-ball, at speed, at the line, like B.Smith does here. He wasn’t that sort of hooker, and Melbourne’s support players were positioned accordingly. They were deep and in shape off the half, not pushing up over the ad-line looking to play fast. It’s something to watch for in the coming weeks as Melbourne adjust to their new dummy-half.
There were some teething problems for Smith himself, too.
He distributes well in this set, hitting either side of the ruck before shifting right to Cameron Munster who finds Hughes who finds Kaufusi. Kaufusi finds his front and gets up quickly, and Smith rightly tries to send Welch back in behind the ruck. The defence was already retreating, and one more punch would have compressed the Eels’ right edge and given Storm a chance to shift wide left or raid down the short side. Instead, Smith throws a forward pass and kills all momentum. Right idea, poor execution.
At the other end of the field, Smith’s poor pass selection was almost saved by a motoring Nelson Asofa-Solomona close to the line.
Big Nelson was unlucky not to score. It was clearly a set play to get him one-on-one with Reed Mahoney on the line, and it almost worked. But in Monday’s video session, Craig Bellamy will be asking Smith why he didn’t play short to Welch, who was strolling into a sizable gap beside the upright. The set play might’ve worked against Smith here, who seemed to have premeditated the pass to Asofa-Solomona. We often took for granted Cameron Smith’s ability to pick the right pass just about every time in this instance, and it’s another example of where Melbourne will need to adjust without him.
On a night where those one-percenters were the difference, you’d like to think Harry Grant would have had a big influence on the result. So too Dale Finucane and his ball-playing through the middle. Having this pair back in the side would have also allowed Smith to play more to his natural running game. When he was moved to lock late in the game, Smith’s ability to angle around the markers and into the space behind the ruck was noticeable.
He mightn’t like to admit it, but Brandon Smith’s best role in this team might still be that impact running role off the bench. He brings a point of difference to the loping charges of Jesse Bromwich, Welch, Asofa-Solomona and Tui Kamikamica through the middle third. He has the speed to beat defenders and the strength to find his front and win a quick play-the-ball at the very least. And for all his skills as a dummy-half, Smith doesn’t have the craft and sleight-of-hand that Harry Grant possesses after just 17 first-grade games.
This certainly won’t be the last time we talk about Craig Bellamy and the Storm’s hooking rotation this season. I’ll be surprised if we’re talking about them much more in this segment, though.