The Notepad identifies one key player, stat, trend or talking point for every team, every round of the 2022 NRL season.
Saturday
Warriors
Honestly…
That 80 minutes last week was one of the worst I’ve ever seen the Warriors play and I’ve been supporting the club for as long as I can remember.
Surely, SURELY, they come out fired up on Saturday afternoon.
I’ll be looking for a few little things around Chanel Harris-Tavita, Rocco Berry and how the Warriors get up the field through the middle, but any positives we manage to catch will be for nothing if we don’t see a huge response out of this group.
Sidenote: Berry looks every bit like a right-side centre. The way he moves and holds the ball looks like it would be a lot more effective on the right.
He’s not looked comfortable on the left all year. If we see that response from the Warriors early, my focus will turn to Berry and how he looks on the left.
Broncos
Plenty has already been said about Kotoni Staggs. He was in this segment last week and, well, he wasn’t very good. Staggs touched the ball ten times making four errors with his six runs for 74 metres significantly less than what he is capable of producing at his best.
I do want to highlight his defence, though.
Staggs missed four tackles in Round 3 but not all missed tackles are created equal. Importantly, he’s making better reads than he has done in the past and doesn’t look as lost when the ball swings his way.
Per Stats Insider’s Try Scoring Analysis, the Broncos have only conceded four tries through their right edge so far this season.
It’s nothing spectacular and the numbers could turn in an instant if the Warriors find success down that side of the field on Saturday. Still, it’s something to follow closely after the Broncos allowed 42 of the 77 tries conceded in 2021 (55%) to come through their right edge.
Sea Eagles
Tom Trbojevic touched the ball 36 times in Round 3. It’s the most times he has touched the ball in a game this season and slightly above his 2021 average of 35.1 touches per game.
Now, the Sea Eagles no doubt explored ways to score points without Trbojevic over the summer. They had to add some variation to their attack if they want to catch up to the elite teams in the NRL. In Round 3, however, it was all very 2021 right down to the one-out crash balls on the line.
The Sea Eagles have just been awarded six-again and Trbojevic has gone looking for a carry in a spot he found success last season. He then ran straight at Paul Vaughan and Luke Thompson and they handled him with relative ease. Where he may have broken through a couple of tired defenders last season, he’s unlikely to get through the line quite so easily in 2022.
Des Hasler’s side were desperate for a win last week so it wasn’t too surprising to see them force the ball to Trbojevic a little more often. I’m curious to see how they approach their time with the ball on Saturday and whether or not they continue to look like the 2021 version.
Raiders
Tom Starling has been named at hooker and Matt Frawley in the #14 jersey. It’s fairly safe to assume Ricky Stuart will do as he did last week and swap the two of them around before kickoff. It makes sense given what Starling can do against a tired and slow defensive line.
What doesn’t make quite as much sense is Adrian Trevilyan being left out of the side.
“Adrian Trevilyan is in my view is good enough to play first grade now. While he’s only played twenty minutes of top line footy he offers more at nine than Frawley did on the weekend. He has width to his passing game, and an ability to manipulate markers around the ruck that is more akin to what Josh Hodgson would have offered this attack” – Dan, The Sportress
Trevilyan is a genuine hooker that displayed enough throughout the preseason to suggest he’s more than capable of filling those first 25 minutes of a match Frawley is being tasked with at the moment.
I don’t buy Stuart’s explanation of protecting Trevilyan so Frawley’s utility value might be what attracts him. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of making selection decisions based purely around possible injuries. Even if I did, Trevilyan makes just as much sense given the potential injury Starling could suffer.
Oscar has circled Starling’s time on the field in his preview so I’ll take Frawley’s and look out for any obvious reasons he is being crow-barred into the side ahead of the up-and-coming Trevilyan.
Cowboys
The Cowboys are one of the most intriguing teams in the NRL right now.
I’m not sure anybody is entirely settled on what they think about the side and the decisions Todd Payten has made to start the season. However, Round 3 suggests Payten has had a plan all along and that we’re starting to see it play out now.
Tom Dearden has been excellent. There is no doubt that he deserves to be the starting five-eighth until he plays himself out of the #6 jersey.
And then there is Taumalolo. He played 51 minutes in Round 3 but I think we can assume that he would have played at least another ten if the Cowboys weren’t playing with such a big lead. And the pass…
…how about the pass?
It’s not the first time Taumalolo passing the ball has been on the list, but it’s the first time it’s been on the list after throwing one like that. It doesn’t need to end up with a teammate crossing the line to tick the box this week either.
Roosters
Ritchie on Twitter asked if I “have anything around the roosters faltering attack?” during the week. I don’t right now, no. I’ve put a lot of the Roosters’ struggles in attack down to a lack of match fitness, cohesion and a fairly Roosters-like slow start to the NRL season. Still, it’s on the list for this week if the Roosters struggle to create point-scoring opportunities on Saturday.
More specifically for the Roosters is Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
Tell me it’s roughly three or four weeks into an NRL season without telling me it’s roughly three or four weeks into an NRL season:
He’s 33-years old so I’m not expecting huge numbers from Waerea-Hargreaves every week. His 110 running metres in 29 minutes off the bench in Round 3 is more than enough, though. In a big game the Roosters are desperate to win and up against a strong yardage team in the Cowboys, I think this might be one of those weeks Waerea-Hargreaves flicks a switch.
Sunday
Storm
The Bulldogs don’t have many options when attacking in good ball and Jahrome Hughes will remove another one this week.
There is no half in the NRL better at dropping back behind the line to clean up an attacking grubber. It’s not glamorous and it won’t be what anybody circles when deciding on their favourite player in the game, but for us nerds that read into everything too much, it’s a pleasure to watch.
He even got a quick play-the-ball away there too!
