Round 9 Repeat Set: Where it went wrong for the Warriors and how not to attack against 12 men

Repeat set

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 9 of the 2022 NRL season:

  • Where it went wrong for the Warriors
  • How is this still happening?
  • It was a round to remember for… Parramatta Eels
  • It was a round to forget for… Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
  • I can’t stop thinking about…
  • Play of the Round: Roosters clicking

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Where it went wrong for the Warriors

The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks produced one of the gutsiest performances in recent memory to beat the Warriors 29-10 in Round 9.

With Will Kennedy sent off in the 16th minute and Jesse Ramien sent to the naughty chair for ten minutes in the second half, the Sharks spent most of the game playing with only 12 men.

Sitting in the famous Red Fox Tavern in Maramarua waiting for a tow truck, our group made up of Warriors fans watching the game collectively thought “surely they can’t blow this…”

But blow it they did.

The Warriors found success in the first set after the send-off with Dallin Watene-Zelezniak going over in the corner. Viliame Vailea scored shortly after while providing the Warriors with the attacking blueprint against 12 men.

“Just spread the ball” is often the call from the stands against depleted defensive lines but that isn’t the right approach.

The Warriors showed us why on Sunday night.

Nathan Brown talks about “moving defenders” and promoting fatigue by “playing footy”. Whether that is a plan that can work out later in the season remains to be seen, but the lack of adjustment after halftime in this one is a huge cause for concern.

Back to the second Warriors try – the blueprint.

Matt Lodge crashes into the middle of the field and, notably, brings the four-in defender into the tackle. That leaves three players on the Sharks’ right edge against four Warriors and a sweeping Reece Walsh. Lodge releases an offload on this occasion which activates that overlap and Walsh flies into the space. But even if Lodge had been taken to ground, the Sharks defence has a lot of ground to cover if they’re to get over to that side and fill up the line.

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The worst-case for the Warriors is Walsh or Daejarn Asi takes possession one off the ruck and runs at a retreating defensive line with an extra attacking player.

It’s simple footy, but most importantly, it’s triggered by an action in the middle of the field to split the defence.

While the Sharks finished the half well to lead 12-10 at the break, it’s now that the Warriors should have changed their approach. Even without knowing they would soon be presented with ten minutes against 11 men, the messaging only needed to be simple.

Hit the middle to get up the field and split the numbers. Find the four-in defender to create a 6-3 or 5-4 split and move the ball accordingly. If the Sharks leave three down the short side, hit it through Shaun Johnson on the right and Reece Walsh on the left. When the Sharks take the short side option away, then you can look long, but not before engaging the middle defence to create the space out wide.

There were moments they played to the right points and execution let them down. This play here highlights two things:

a) Teig Wilton’s incredible individual performance and how the Sharks defence kept the Warriors out throughout the second half.

b) The lack of patience, control and execution the Warriors played with despite the extra man – in this case, two men.

Just look at where Wilton starts on this play and how he applies the inside pressure on Walsh. That pressure allows Moylan to slide and force Walsh into the long pass. A defence down a man wants teams to go around them and Wilton’s pressure forces them towards the sideline. Still only 4th tackle, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak panics and throws what is a speculator at best.

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Onto the following attacking set – again against 11 men – and we see the best and worst of the Warriors across four tackles.

Johnson’s short ball to Ben Murdoch-Masila is a beauty. Lodge attracted three middle defenders into the tackle prior and with Dale Finucane reloading at A defender on the opposite side of the ball, the Warriors have the numbers on the right edge. Only another superb effort from Wilton stops the Warriors from scoring.

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Johnson’s dart from dummy half isn’t ideal but what it does do is bring eight defenders onto one side of the field. You can see Wade Graham under the post with only two defenders outside him. Walsh sees it as well and instructs Jack Murchie to run a hard lead line for him to sweep out behind.

Asi’s pass is a poor one but the opportunity to score isn’t gone.

Wayde Egan spots the numbers down the short side and creates an overlap. The work has been done if Murchie releases the pass but a scrambling Finucane tracks across from marker to drag him down just short of the line.

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Desperate after two near-things didn’t translate into points, the Warriors resorted to simply spreading it wide. With the tackle starting on the far side the Sharks defence slid across the field with relative ease to keep their line intact. Looking long at every opportunity gives the defensive line time and when you work as hard as the Sharks do, they’re going to use that time to shut it down.

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We go back to the blueprint. Twice in one set the Warriors put together promising actions to expose a depleted defensive line but they worked further and further away from those actions as the game went on. Too often they looked for the easy path to points when patience more than likely pays off in the end.

Five minutes later and it’s more of the same. A Vailea break down the left edge has the Warriors hot on attack but they once again try to go around the defence.

Here the Warriors have Lodge, Murdoch-Masila and Addin Fonua-Blake lined up on Blayke Brailey and Moylan. Johnson sees it and points Lodge into the space. Lodge has two good options here: Use his massive frame against Brailey which also brings Moylan into the tackle creating the overlap down the short side behind a quick play-the-ball or, tipping onto Fonua-Blake who does similar running at Moylan.

He also has a wrong option: just fling it wide. Add Fonua-Blake’s unconvincing decoy which allows Moylan to scramble wide and the Sharks again close down the shift.

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While the Warriors had a numerical advantage on this long-side shift, they provided the Sharks with time. Hitting the middle and playing fast and short with an extra number removes that time for the defence to recover.

Lodge managed only 144 running metres while Fonua-Blake picked up just 96 metres. In a game that required little more from the big middles than carting it up and bringing defenders into the tackle, they produced their worst attacking performance as a prop pair of the season. Strong carries, Lodge tipping the ball on and Fonua-Blake’s footwork at the line should have been more than enough for the Warriors to assert their dominance in the middle.

The Sharks deserve a lot of credit. Most teams drop their heads after conceding two quick tries following a send off but Craig Fitzgibbon’s side managed to get through to halftime relatively unscathed and put together a plan for the second half. The Warriors, on the other hand, approached the second half as though simply playing for 40 minutes would produce points.

In a season the Storm beat them by 60 points, this is the worst loss of the Warriors’ season. Perhaps the worst in the club’s history. Add two of the ugliest ‘winning’ performances any footy fan has ever seen and we’re looking at a bottom four side regardless of what the NRL ladder says. They aren’t improving in clear areas of weakness and injuries can only account for so much. This Warriors pack should still be one of the toughest in the competition to handle but now ranks dead last in yardage averaging only 1,360 running metres per game.

There is too much talent in this side to have looked this bad across nine rounds. While Brown is billed as a rebuild coach with an eye to the future, he might not be there in the future without a turnaround soon. For that, the Warriors need to start playing to their strengths.


How is this still happening?

Right, I thought the 90 times Jackson Hastings touched the ball in Round 6 would be the most any non-hooker touched the ball all season.

Since then:

Round 7 – 102 touches.
Round 8 – 96 touches.
Round 9 – 94 touches.

For some context:

While the Wests Tigers look better for Hastings’ involvement right now, there will come a time it becomes an issue. They’ve lacked direction and he is certainly providing it. However, opposing teams will eventually be able to read that direction depending on where Hastings is on the field.

He isn’t going out there to touch the ball 90 times – it’s happening organically. Watching the adjustments will be interesting, though. Do they add some more ball-playing to the role of their middles? Does Luke Brooks move a little bit closer to the ruck at times to take the pressure off Hastings? It’s unlikely, but does Hastings keep this up all year?

I’ve talked about it a lot here over the last month but I’ve never seen anything like it. Recording 90 touches in his return from suspension was a shock and the 102 a week later blew my mind. To see 382 touches in a month is crazy. It will continue to be the first number I look at after a Tigers game until it starts to drop below 90.


A round to remember for…

How many times have we been here with the Parramatta Eels over the last three years…?

Please, Parra, remember this game. Remember how you beat the defending premiers to end their streak of 20 wins at home and take it into games against opposition you’re expected to beat.

The Eels are one of the few teams that can compete with the Panthers through the middle. Where most others eventually crumble under the pressure, the Eels can apply some of their own through strong carries in the middle and destructive runs on the edges. It’s those runs on the edge, in particular, that the Eels used well on Friday night but tend to ignore throughout their poor performances.

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