The NRL Preview Notepad helps you get ready for Round 24 with talking points, players to watch and trends to follow every week.
Thursday Night Members Preview
It was all or nothing for the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles last week. Losing to the Roosters put a massive dent in their finals hopes and they’re now playing for them against the favourites for the 2023 NRL premiership.
Rabbitohs: Taking lessons from the loss & hints from the Sharks
The South Sydney Rabbitohs can’t name a full-strength team. That’s the obvious issue plaguing the premiership hopefuls right now. Just as it looks as though they might start to get everybody out there, injury and/or suspension hits and Jason Demetriou is again forced to tinker with his 17 and how he rotates it across 80 minutes.
This would be a different side with some luck in the injury department. Still, they’re underperforming with what they’ve got to be 8th on the NRL ladder, on the same number of competition points as 9th and 10th, and no guarantee of playing finals football this year.
Demetriou made a few interesting comments following their loss to the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks:
“I said to the playing group, they’ve got to make a decision and make it quick about what this season means to us because we’re saying the right things but we’re not putting it out on the field, and not consistently.
“They got the jump on us physically and we tried to come back but discipline killed us.
“One team was more desperate tonight and once we were more desperate it was too little, too late.
“I felt like we’ve shown some signs we’re heading in the right direction and I really like the way we fought from 26-0 to get back to 26-16 and we just lacked any smarts in the last eight minutes to give ourselves any chance.
Reading between the lines, he wants more energy and effort from his team, particularly early, and only then will this still-dangerous attack have a chance to fire.
Up against the St. George-Illawarra Dragons this week, the Rabbitohs have been presented with an ideal opportunity to play themselves back into form. As they know all too well, one win – like that of the Sharks – is enough to start turning the tide this late in an NRL season.
Ladder position aside, the Dragons profile as a favourable opposition for the Rabbitohs. They’re not particularly strong in yardage and jam in defensively on the edges.
Like most struggles in form, working out of it starts in the middle. Tom Burgess is out, Jai Arrow is under an injury cloud, and the Rabbitohs are light on middle forwards in general. Still, they should have enough to match the Dragons in the middle. Even with the injuries throughout the year, South Sydney’s 1,717 running metres per game ranks 6th in the NRL to St. George Illawarra’s 15th-ranked 1,602 metres per game.
Demetriou mentioned South Sydney’s poor completion rate after his side made 15 errors against the Sharks. Looking back at them all, most came when the Bunnies tried to shift the ball to the edges, often when the pass wasn’t there.
If we want to get really optimistic, we can attribute a few to a rusty Latrell Mitchell and safely assume an improvement in the coming weeks. Nonetheless, one error came from an attempted intercept and another via an ill-advised offload in yardage. But outside of those unforced errors, most of the remaining 13 were a result of pushing passes and moving the ball – often early in the count.
Again, the way to start connecting on those passes is to win the middle of the field to compress the defence, creating more time and space for the ball-playing on the edge.
Hitting shorter on those passes is a likely adjustment this week, too.
The Dragons are aggressive on the edges. They jam early and often to close the space and force the attacking team into quick decisions. As their 16th-rank defence conceding 28 points per game suggests, it’s not an approach that has proven particularly successful for the Red V and it looks as though they have pulled back on their jam-heavy nature recently.
Rather fittingly, the Sharks provided the Rabbitohs with a few hints on how to beat it and it’s not difficult to imagine South Sydney faces on these Cronulla-Sutherland jerseys.
Here the Sharks play around the posts to bring the defence around the ruck before getting the look they want and firing a shot. Play Lachlan Ilias for Matt Moylan, Keaon Koloamatangi for Briton Nikora, Cody Walker for Nicho Hynes and Latrell Mitchell for Will Kennedy – it’s made to look easy.
The middle does a good job of compressing the defence, Nikora holds up the slide with his line and the Red V’s approach of getting behind the ball and defending what’s out the back sees Hynes skip straight through.
They hit the same hole in a different way later in the game as Nikora runs a beautiful slip line past the outside shoulder of the three-in defender. Koloamatangi is one of the best line runners in the NRL…
Once again using a lead runner to tie up the four-in defender which forces three-in to bite and hold on their slide, Nikora exposes the space given to him by the centre and winger getting off the line and in front of their inside man.
None of this is new for the Rabbitohs. We’ve seen them pull off these plays at their best throughout the season. The Sharks ran for 1,968 metres in this one – 826 more metres than the Dragons. The Bunnies have only won the yardage battle twice since Round 15.
If Souths can earn the right to explore down the edges, the points will flow.
ICYMI: Tackles inside the opposition 20-metre line & why they don’t matter for the Broncos
“Tackles inside the opposition 20-metre line are the latest trendy number thanks to a sponsorship of the stat on the NRL’s major broadcaster. They’re another that requires a lot more thought beyond the number, though.”
Strange on debut
We’re catching a glimpse of the future for the Canberra Raiders this week with 18-year-old Ethan Strange making his NRL debut in the centres.
The jump from NSW Cup to NRL is a lot bigger than most give credit and even bigger for a young player still finding his feet playing against grown men week-in week-out. However, of all the young names constantly flying around social media, Strange is one I’m particularly excited about.
The 72 metres per game he averages at Cup level don’t paint an accurate picture of his ability in the centres. He’s often named at five-eighth and tasked with moving the ball rather than carrying it. Still, he averages 3.25 tackle breaks per game in a relatively limited number of runs.
He has quick feet and pushes through contact well. His experience at five-eighth sets him up well as a potential ball player, too.
Given his age, inexperience and the general difficulty of not only defending in the centres but doing so with new faces around him, the concerns for Strange come in defence. He’s had the benefit of defending a little bit closer to the middle but will find himself out on an island at times on Sunday afternoon.
Craig Bellamy is a master in picking out weaknesses and will no doubt spend some time looking for one or two in Stange during the week.
His appearance for the U19 Blues will add some hype to the equation. That hype usually exceeds the reality. I’ve long been a fan of Strange, though. His debut has come earlier than expected, but I don’t think he will look out of place on the day.
ROY: Isaiya Katoa
There is a little bit of chatter growing around the Rookie of the Year.
While Jacob Preston, Jahream Bula and Alofiana Khan-Pereira seem to be the popular picks, I’m firmly with Isaiya Katoa.
Taking nothing away from the others, Katoa is doing things you simply don’t see from a 19-year-old halfback. You might see flashes. They will often come early in the year before the rigours of an NRL season catch up on a young body and mind. However, Katoa is going from strength to strength and this play here to set up Jamayne Isaako’s second try in Round 23 sums up how far ahead he is of most young players at this position.
The Dolphins are playing with an extra man and have the numbers advantage down the short side. Newcastle looks to counter as both markers quickly turn to the short side while the defender at A shoots off the line. But with one step off his right foot and the slightest change of speed, Katoa is able to preserve the space and overlap on the outside for Kodi Nikorima and Isaako to link up for points.
Katoa isn’t credited with a try assist and it’s not an action that will show up on the highlight reel on Dally M night, but man, that’s a level of detail and focus we don’t often see in somebody so young.