The NRL Preview Notepad helps you get ready for Round 23 with talking points, players to watch and trends to follow every week.
Thursday Night Members Preview
I still can’t believe the Sydney Roosters are 14th on the NRL ladder after 22 rounds… But, I’ve played around with the Ladder Predictor and there is still hope for the tri-colours.
Dolphins on the edges
The Dolphins have exceeded expectations in their first NRL season. They’ve shown an ability to pile up points or hang in games at the very least. In typical Wayne Bennett fashion, they’re far from the easy beats most predicted them to be ahead of Round 1. However, their defence on the edges has been a worry all year.
While Tesi Niu is dangerous with the ball and strong as a yardage winger, his defence has been a target. He is still figuring things out positionally and finding the balance between holding his spot on the end of the line or jamming in.
Niu is out there on the wing this week, but it’s in the centres where the Dolphins are most under threat.
Valynce Te Whare’s strength is in his attack – we all know that by now. He’s proven to be serviceable in defence at times, but it’s an area still very much in development and opposing teams routinely test his lateral movement.
At this stage, it’s fair to say Te Whare is providing enough with the ball to ensure he’s a net-positive most weeks.
Kodi Nikorima, on the other hand, is known to be a target in the line and has been named to play in the centres this week with Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow at the back.
There is a pretty good chance Bennett is playing games and simply put Nikorima’s name in Euan Aitken’s spot with no intention of actually playing him there. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s taken the easy approach to a team list on Tuesday. However, the Newcastle Knights will be licking their lips at the prospect of running at Nikorima on the edge should that be where he ends up.
Centre is the most difficult spot on the field to defend. It requires quick decisions, cohesion and communication. You don’t see the best defensive teams in the competition rotation through their edges very often. Edges react and move as one, but the centre is the chassis of that chaos engine.
It’s a position that requires experience and Nikorima has little – if any – at the position heading into Saturday.
The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs picked him out on the line last week:
He will likely be on the right edge with Bradman Best in front of him should Tabuai-Fidow not move up, and Best will like the look of this one, too:
Nikorima gets up off the line well but does his inside and outside man no favours by stepping out and falling onto his heels. Had he stayed up in the line and allowed Te Whare to hold or jam depending on the pass, the Bulldogs more than likely run out of space on the edge. Jacob Preston’s run is mistimed, too. Instead, Jake Averlio doesn’t even need to make the pass with the gap Nikorima has offered him inside.
Bennett has made a few head-scratching decisions in his time but most tend to work out. He’s earned the right to be trusted when you raise an eyebrow at a team list. Still, it’s been an area of concern for the Dolphins all season and something to keep a close eye on this week.
The Knights edges are flying. Kalyn Ponga, in particular, is on fire and looking back to his best targeting the left edge. He’s forming a nice partnership with his halves. Both are prepared to straighten the attack and wear a shot to engage the defence. As a result, Ponga is being given time and space to do Ponga things on the edges. It looks like a potential bloodbath on paper, but footy is played on the field and we know better than to assume the worst when it comes to Bennett and the Dolphins.
Papenhuyzen Returns
Finally, Ryan Papenhuyzen is getting back on the footy field.
It’s been a long road. The Melbourne Storm put together a documentary on the earlier stages of his recovery in March that is worth a watch: In Due Time: Ryan Papenhuyzen
Now, over a year since he sustained the injury in Round 18 of the 2022 NRL season, Papenhuyzen is taking the field for the Sunshine Coast Falcons when they take on the Ipswich Jets on Saturday afternoon.
I’ve already had my Papi-fan cousin ask how he can watch, so given there is unlikely to be any extra promotion of the service or a flexing of the feature game, you’ll be able to find it a QPlus.tv.
Notably, Justin Olam will also be out there for the Falcons. Good luck, bottom-of-the-table Jets…
If you’re not signed up already, it’s worth the $10 a month for any fan of a club with a Hostplus Cup affiliate. The competition is close and we’re set for a huge three weeks to finish the regular season.
More good NRL & NRLW reads
The demise of Twitter has made stumbling on good NRL content even more difficult so I think it’s important to share it around where possible. Here are a few things – sometimes not specifically rugby league related but lead me to rugby league thoughts – that I’ve read or listened to recently:
- Parramatta 2023 – A Diagnosis (Autopsy) Of The Season, Part One: An Incomplete Roster
- The state of NFL analytics: It’s more than going for it on 4th down
- ‘It hasn’t really sunk in yet’: Papenhuyzen set for 384-day return
- Valkyries and Tigresses
- THE WEEKLY: The court jester will dance a merry jig
Eels’ short side defence
Dylan Brown returns this week to feature in his first match for the Parramatta Eels since Round 13.
His ability to attack will dominate much of the discourse in the build-up. He joins a side that, while third in the NRL in scoring at 25.4 points per game, has struggled to score against the top teams in the competition of late. However, it’s what he offers in defence that can really make a difference to Parramatta’s push towards finals football.
ICYMI: I covered how the Melbourne Storm pulled the Eels apart last week in a fashion that revolved around getting four onto the short side and targeting the space around Daejarn Asi.
In contrast, Brown is one of the best technical defending halves in the NRL. Tackle efficiency isn’t an accurate measure of how good somebody is in defence, but Brown’s 93% highlights his ability to stick when making contact. It’s an area halves typically struggle in.
Melbourne provided the St George-Illawarra Dragons a bit of a blueprint last week and their right edge already scores 56% of their tries per Stats Insider. Assuming that Ben Hunt, Zac Lomax and Mikaele Ravalawa are once again prominent features of the Dragons attack, I’ll be keeping a close eye on how the Eels defend short-side situations following their struggles in Round 22.
Raiders hooker rotation
Danny Levi, Tom Starling and Zac Woolford have all been given a crack at the Canberra Raiders hooker job in some form or another throughout the 2023 NRL season.
For Levi and Starling, we know what they are at this point in their careers. Woolford has shown glimpses but ultimately has not kicked on in the way some may have hoped. Now, following a long recovery from injury and three games at NSW Cup level, Adrian Trevilyan has been named to come off the bench.
He’s long been held in high regard amongst the Raiders faithful or the ‘Trevilheads’ as Dan at The Sportress calls them. Many consider him to be the best long-term option available at the club and they’re said to have recently signed him through to the end of the 2024 NRL season.
He put in a strong early shift against the Warriors to spy an opportunity down the short side for the Raiders to score their opener a couple of weeks ago. Shortly after, he caught an over-chasing marker to set up their third try inside 15 minutes.
Having played 60 minutes in his last two NSW Cup starts, Trevilyan should be fine in regards to match fitness in what I’d imagine to be roughly 30 minutes off the bench. Where he might be tested is in defence where the West Tigers carry a few big bodies in what, despite their ladder position, is a relatively strong middle.
The Raiders are a chance at featuring in the NRL Finals but probably aren’t in the premiership hunt. The remainder of this season is just as much about finishing strong as it is carving out what things might look like in the next. Trevilyan has a chance to wear the #9 jersey to end 2023 if he performs in the coming weeks.
More Sharks stuff
We didn’t learn much about the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks last week at all, as it turns out.
Injuries put an end to the new-look side I had anticipated an improvement from. Now, they’re back to playing a combination of the dodgy left edge defence and have Connor Tracey at fullback.
Siosifa Talakai’s time as an NRL centre seems numbered. I’d have liked to see Kayal Iro in there instead given he’s a genuine centre that is performing well at NSW Cup level and, at only 23-years-old, has a future in first grade if he’s given a chance. I have him circled as a similar prospect to Isaiah Tass who has made the leap to first grade well following a decent Cup career.
Nonetheless, Craig Fitzgibbon has gone back to the well with Talakai and it remains to be seen whether or not a brief period away from the position helps him at all this week.
Tracey at fullback is interesting, though. It’s where he has played so well for the Newtown Jets and he profiles well as a competent replacement for Will Kennedy. He’s quick enough to react to cues and get to the edges, is a strong enough carrier of the ball himself but, more importantly, can throw the right pass. Whether or not he can do it under pressure will determine how well he fills the Kennedy-sized hole in the Sharks backline.