Recap the latest round of NRL action with the Repeat Set: Talking points, highlights, lowlights and the Play of the Round.
Here’s your Repeat Set for Round 11 of the 2022 NRL season:
- How the Panthers pile it on in the middle
- My man crush
- It was a round to remember for… North Queensland Cowboys
- It was a round to forget for… South Sydney Rabbitohs
- I can’t stop thinking about…
- Play of the Round: Api’s deception
How the Panthers pile it on in the middle
The Penrith Panthers are quite clearly the best team in the NRL at the moment. As Melbourne Storm dominate for periods, the Parramatta Eels threaten to take the next step and the North Queensland Cowboys fly up the ladder, Penrith is in a league of their own when it’s all going right.
Their ability to build pressure and sustain it until the opposition cracks is what separates them from the rest. Every team can ride waves of momentum into points. Even the worst teams in the NRL have a day where it all clicks and they surprise an unsuspecting opposition. However, when it comes to the Panthers it’s every week. For the full 80 minutes, they press the opposition and more often than not, end up on top.
Penrith tops the competition in yardage and it isn’t particularly close. Their 1,834 running metres per game is 90 more metres than the Parramatta Eels at second on the list.
Leading the NRL in possession at 53.9% per game, the Panthers run the opposition into the ground.
Dylan Edwards (225m), Taylan May (176m) and Brian To’o (173m) account for 574 running metres per game. Izack Tago (141m) and Stephen Crichton (141m) make sure to feature as well. Note the similarities in numbers between the wingers and centres.
Penrith’s yardage sets often start with members of the back five plugging down one side or through the middle of the field.
The way they start Penrith’s set lays the groundwork for the likes of James Fisher-Harris, Moses Leota, Spencer Leniu, Viliame Kikau, Liam Martin and Isaah Yeo to get involved later on.
It’s now that Yeo and/or Cleary start to get involved and move the ball to the opposite tram line. Whether it’s Yeo slotting it at first-receiver and shifting the ball, or Cleary floating across the field and using a change of tempo in his run and deception with the ball to compress the middle, the Panthers continue to work their way up the field out wider.
From there, the Panthers either fire a shot if they’re in striking distance or it’s back to one of the senior middles to carry the ball forward and promote a quick play the ball for Cleary to kick behind.
Just like that the Panthers have traveled from their own ten metre line and asked the Roosters to travel 99 metres if they’re to score.
It tends to run a little bit tighter when sets start further up the field. Yeo and Cleary move the team through the middle, slowly compressing a defensive line that is starting to feel the fatigue of the relentless pressure Penrith builds set after set. They’re looking at how the defence splits their numbers and responding accordingly.
This set started on the 40 metre line following a Roosters penalty. Scott Sorensen charges at Angus Crighton, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Lindsay Collins before Fisher-Harris brings Nat Butcher, Siosiua Taukeiaho and Drew Hutchison into a tackle to get the ball up the middle and into attacking field position.
Cleary then drops Martin off onto Crichton, Waerea-Hargreaves and Butcher before Yeo takes the tackle of Waerea-Hargreaves, Butcher and Hutchison.
Koroisau catches Crichton slow to peel and sends Sorensen straight at him. Crichton scrambles for a legs but Waerea-Hargreaves and Butcher are forced to finish the tackle off over the top.
It’s now that repeating all of those Roosters names makes sense. In the box below we’ve got four Roosters: Butcher (first marker), Waerea-Hargreaves (second marker), Hutchison (A defender), Taukeiaho (B defender). Four players that have been asked to make numerous tackles throughout the set. Meanwhile, Cleary, Fisher-Harris and Yeo are bunched tightly close to the ruck.
Koroisau throws a lovely tunnel ball to Cleary from dummy half but Fisher-Harris’ line and the presence of Yeo force those tired defenders to hold up just for a moment. Cleary straightens on the run before quickly shoveling the ball out to Jarome Luai who is now on the outside of Collins as a result of the Fisher-Harris and Yeo decoys and fatigue in the legs of the inside defence.
Bang.
A barnstorming Tago is isolated onto the much smaller Luke Keary and the Panthers centre goes straight through him. Only a superb effort from James Tedesco stops the Penrith from scoring.
It’s a well-executed and repeatable set that brings all of Penrith’s greatest strengths together.
Penrith’s dominance through the middle is unstoppable at times. Not only do they have the cattle to generate yardage, but they have the footy IQ to pick their spots and add more to every carry than simply running metres. Whether it’s in yardage sets working up the field or in attacking field position, their middle lays the foundations for the super stars out wide.
My man crush
I think Leaguel Counsel on Twitter might be right here…
Teig Wilton has become one of my favourite players in the NRL this season. His hole-running is simply superb and is the most underappreciated aspect of the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks attack when it’s firing. Now that he’s playing fewer minutes and even started the last game on the bench, his impact on the Sharks left edge is even more noticeable.
Wade Graham started on Sunday evening. The Sharks were the better side throughout and looked destined to start piling up the points at some stage so it isn’t all down to Wilton’s introduction, but they looked and executed a lot better with him out there.
His line here is so nice.
It’s a role that seems so simple but as we so often see, it’s not always as easy as it looks. Wilton first nails the timing and hits the hole at exactly the right moment. He starts a little bit wide but where many other hole-runners hold their line and stay straight, he makes sure to swerve to the inside shoulder of Esan Marsters before straightening through. That line holds up Marsters and Nicho Hynes has his pick of who he wants to pass to out wide.
If Hynes doesn’t throw the floater to Ronaldo Mulitalo, he has the option short just as Matt Moylan did for Siosifa Talakai to score in Round 7.
The hole-running of edge backrowers is often overlooked. It’s not a highlight play itself but is often a key feature of a highlight play overall. The South Sydney Rabbitohs scored down their left edge with relative ease last season and while the absence of Adam Reynolds has played a big part in their form in 2022, Keaon Koloamatangi’s move to the right side has surely played a part in that, too.
The Sharks attack is one of the best in the NRL. Few teams look as good with the ball when they get it right. Wilton is a massive part of that and is worth keeping an eye on whenever they start to engage on a long-side shift to his edge.
A round to remember for…
We’re covering some old ground from last week but having already established that the Cowboys are a good football side, Round 11 was about seeing how good they were. As it turns out, they’re very good.
The Penrith Panthers are head and shoulders above the rest while the Melbourne Storm are working through an injury-riddled poor patch. Still, the Cowboys deserve their spot at 3rd on the NRL ladder and the gap between them and the top two teams is closer than most people thought.
Todd Payten is an excellent coach. He clearly has his ideas but isn’t married to them as other coaches often are in this competition. He works with what he has, gets the most out of it, and adds or develops features along the way.
