The NRL Preview Notepad helps you get ready for Round 25 with talking points, players to watch and trends to follow every week.
Thursday Night Members Preview
Round 25 kicks off with what could well be the best game of the weekend as the North Queensland Cowboys fight for a finals spot when taking on a resurgent Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks. While the Sharks have made improvements in recent weeks, the Cowboys defence will be a more difficult line to crack.
Knights in defence
The Newcastle Knights are a different team from that of two months ago. Suddenly, they’re in the Top 8 and are likely to play finals football to finish the 2023 NRL season.
Much has been made of Kalyn Ponga’s move back to fullback as the reason for their revival, but it’s more to do with the cohesion they’ve been able to develop than anything else. They lost three on the bounce with him at fullback before this winning streak and won only three of the 14 games he played in 2022.
The major difference is in the lack of turnover. On the edges, in particular. Jackson Hastings and Tyson Gamble have struck up a great partnership but, again, have been allowed to do so by consistently playing with the same people around them.
Dane Gagai, Bradman Best, Greg Marzhew and Dom Young have all played the majority of the season with Best’s injury in Round 23 the only occasion the backline hasn’t remained the same over the last five weeks. Phoenix Crossland’s development into a serviceable hooker can’t be understated either.
The attack has benefited from the consistency of personnel and has piled up points over the last six weeks. However, this week against the South Sydney Rabbitohs will be their biggest test defensively throughout the streak.
I touched on the Rabbitohs fancying themselves against a jamming St George Illawarra Dragons defence last week and they cashed in for 26 points. The Knights will offer up more resistance on Sunday afternoon, though.
The Knights do a good job of moving as a unit on the edges. You can see in the close clip here that the three players on the edge get high in a line and while they track backwards to buy time for the four-man to slide, they do so as a unit.
In the second wider angle clip, Gamble bites slightly on the lead. Still, Gagai holds his position, keeps Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow on his inside shoulder, and goes at him to take away the option of using his speed to burn on the outside.
That isn’t to say the Knights never jam in, though. It’s the jam and what cues they jam on that I’m interested in seeing this week.
I’ve effectively ignored their training run against the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and spent more time looking at their win over the Dolphins in Round 23. It looks as though they’re most conscious of the space around the three-in defender, particularly Gamble on the right edge, and look to close down the shift when he’s held up in the line.
Some teams will try to keep their centre and winger high in the hope of the inside defence recovering, but there are a few examples of Gagai and Young jamming when the opposition engages Gamble.
The Dolphins tempted Gagai into jamming a few times and just one play after Herman Ese’ese went close to scoring with six minutes left on the clock, turned the action into points.
The difference this time is the lead came further inside and allowed Isaiah Katoa to get straight at Gamble as the ball player.
Tyson Frizell tripping over certainly helped, but Katoa gets to his man anyway. The extra man throws doubt into the Knights line leading Gamble to bite, Gagai to slide out and Young to jam. It’s messy when compared with the other examples above.
If there is one team that is superb at targeting the defender three-in and creating points, it’s Cody Walker and the Rabbitohs. They’ve been doing it for years and, like the Knights over the last six weeks, the more time they spend on the field together, the more often they’ll ice their shifts to the edges.
The Knights have defended well in recent performances. There is a lot to like about how they’re holding up on the edges. It’s a different story this week, though. Hastings likely missing the game throws another spanner in the works, too.
Premierships and finals games are won with defence. The Rabbitohs and their high-powered attack know that better than perhaps any club in the NRL. For the Knights, we’re going to learn a lot about their finals potential on Sunday. They have the points in them. It’s whether or not they’re on the same page defensively out wide that will determine the result in this one.
Tom Weaver on debut
With Tanah Boyd out for the season, Tom Weaver has been named to make his NRL debut on Saturday evening.
The 20-year-old has made 18 appearances at Queensland Cup level across the last two seasons, and as it so happens, I’ve seen all of them.
There is always a somewhat unfortunate blend of hype and hope when a young half makes the jump from Cup to NRL. Most fans will only ever see a few highlights pop up before a player makes their debut which starts to push the hype train out of the station. For a team like the Titans who are searching for their long-term option at halfback, the hope is that this guy will be the guy.
For Weaver, there are plenty of highlights. He made significant improvements over the summer following two games in 2022 to look exceptionally good for somebody so young throughout the 16 he’s played in 2023. Playing in one of the best-attacking teams in the competition, Weaver hasn’t been short of opportunities to throw the last pass to register 12 try assists to go along with four tries this year.
Weaver is small in stature but fearless when digging into the line. He knows how to get at the right man, straighten up, and throw the right pass.
Talk about Weaver’s highlights wouldn’t be complete without a reference to the harbour bridge pass he throws on the edges. If the Penrith Panthers want to jam in, Weaver will throw it over the top.
However, Weaver is a young half still learning the game. Having seen a lot of Toby Sexton’s development over the last couple of seasons, Weaver now reminds me a little bit of Sexton at this time last year. More time in reserve grade really helped Sexton and it can do the same for Weaver if he ends back up there to start 2024. Nonetheless, he will take a lot out of this experience regardless of how long he holds the jersey this time around.
Like most halves, he can be a spot in defence. There is little doubt that Scott Sorensen will feature heavily in the Panthers attack whether it be with the ball in hand or as a decoy.
Whatever happens on the day, I’m looking forward to seeing how Weaver’s impressive Queensland Cup form translates to the NRL.
ICYMI: How the Sharks attack to cues
“Piling up points hasn’t often been an issue and wasn’t in Round 24 as they hung 36 on the Gold Coast Titans. I’ve picked out the first three tries of the night for the story they tell about the Sharks attack and their ‘play on every play’ approach.”
A golden opportunity for the Raiders
The Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs have conceded a whopping 37 tries through the middle of the field this season. No team has conceded more than 30 with the Titans’ 25 the second-most in the NRL per Stats Insider.
You can usually tell a lot about how a team is applying themselves to defence by their performance in the middle and it isn’t looking good for the Bulldogs right now. It’s not about to get any easier either.
The Canberra Raiders have overperformed results-wise by hanging in games and coming up with big plays when it matters this season. However, they aren’t a particularly dangerous side with the ball.
Canberra spends a lot of time around the ruck in attack. They will look to crash and bash their way over the line before looking wider if they look wider at all. It’s where the best players in his squad feature so Ricky Stuart understandably tries to put them in positions to impact the game. It’s not an approach that works often enough against well-organised defensive lines, but the Bulldogs don’t play with an organised defensive line…
The Raiders are playing for their spot in the finals and with the Broncos and Sharks to come, this is their best chance to pick up what could be an all-important 13th win of the 2023 NRL season.