As is so often the case, the two best teams across the regular season will meet in the 2023 NRL Grand Final.
For the Penrith Panthers, they’ve been here and done it all three times on the bounce already. There will be no surprises for this group when it comes to pressure and preparation. They’ve been the best team over the last four years, are arguably the best team in the NRL era, and will head into the 2023 NRL Grand Final as favourites.
Meanwhile, it’s new ground for this version of the Brisbane Broncos. Improving every year since finishing 2020 holding the wooden spoon, Kevin Walters has put together a team that can score from anywhere on the field in a variety of ways. With what they offer through the middle with the ball, they’ve made strides defensively this season, too.
Both won their Preliminary Finals relatively comfortably. The Panthers never really looked troubled against the Melbourne Storm, while the Broncos eventually blew out a New Zealand Warriors outfit that made things difficult for the first hour.
So, what did we learn from the weekend that was, and how might it translate to the Grand Final?
More of the same for Penrith
Dominate possession ✅
Win the yardage battle ✅
Defend well ✅
Expose a weakness in the opposition ✅
The Penrith Panthers have been doing this for years and did no different in the Preliminary Final. They played with 56% possession, ran for 482 more metres than the Storm, conceded only 1,330 metres and four points, and piled up 38 points of their own.
I highlighted the quintessential Panthers set earlier in the week, and while they did play to it when necessary, their domination and field position put the middle forwards in position to run the ball more often. The Panthers moved up the field with relative ease, and we saw Isaah Yeo at his very best. Relatively quiet by his standards this year, Yeo pulled the strings through the middle of the field, dropping players back underneath or tipping the ball onto a big forward running at a smaller man.
In good ball, Nathan Cleary took over and made the Storm left edge defence his target.
Craig Bellamy has never said why Justin Olam was dropped to reserve grade (I assume somebody asked…). My suspicion is it had to do with his defence and I think that was confirmed on Friday night.
The Papua New Guinan struggled to deal with Cleary’s deception and looked out of sync with Cameron Munster inside him.
Here’s Yeo using his ball playing to set up the first try of the night. He tips Moses Leota into half a gap to generate a quick play-the-ball. That half-second poking his head through takes off the ruck is what provides Cleary with enough time to step off his left foot, dummy to Liam Martin dropping under, and get at Munster’s inside shoulder.
Izack Tago’s lead holds Olam and Reimis Smith is forced to jam in on Dylan Edwards who has the hands to tip the ball on to Brian To’o.
The second follows a similar pattern. Again, Cleary is trying to straighten on Munster’s inside shoulder. There are question marks on whether or not Leota’s lead and where Cleary catches the ball could be called an obstruction. It looks as though he caught it inside and Bronson Garlick is forced to move around Leota to impact the play. Nonetheless, it was given the green light and Garlick still managed to do a good job of getting to Cleary. Those outside him don’t recover themselves, though.
Munster moves well, but Olam isn’t on the same page. Up, in, back and out; the Storm left edge isn’t working as a unit and the Panthers will pick that off more often than not.
To’o scored a third late in the game but it’s Cleary’s work – the same as the two earlier – that creates the space for the Panthers winger to stroll over.
The Storm clearly wanted to pressure Cleary from the inside. It’s something we anticipated being the case earlier in the week. Still, in the moments the A defender got it wrong, Cleary made them pay.
Nick Meaney gets off the line fast here. Too fast. By the time he slows his feet and makes a play on Cleary, the halfback is on his outside and engaging Munster at B. Again, the Storm left edge moves in different directions. Munster takes a step back to buy himself time, but Olam reads that as a signal to jam on the lead. As Smith plants his feet and commits to Tago, To’o crosses the line untouched.
What did we learn from all this?
Nothing new, really. This win simply reconfirmed the fact that by being able to trust what the yardage game and defence will provide, the Panthers playmakers can zero in on specific targets. The Broncos pack will put up more resistance through the middle than the Storm did here. They won’t have quite so many opportunities to circle those targets in good ball. I’m excited to see what Ivan Cleary and company can conjure up throughout the week, though. From what we’ve seen of the Broncos defence, there isn’t an obvious area, like the space around Munster and Olam, that they can repeatedly attack.
Broncos adjusting to the opposition
Kevin Walters may have seen something in the tape, or perhaps it just came about on the fly, but the Brisbane Broncos threw offloads at will on Saturday night. They finished up with 23 for the match, having released only 25 offloads in their previous three games combined and never more than 17 in a game all season.
The offload has been a part of Brisbane’s game all year, but never to the extent it was in this one. They looked to throw one at every opportunity. It provided them with a comfortable passage up the field, and as the game opened up, they explored a little bit wider after the offload for points.
Brisbane’s success, as it has done all year, started in the middle. Payne Haas ran for 226 metres, Tom Flegler for 165 metres and Keenan Palasia for 168 metres off the bench. While the Warriors started well and hung in there for the first 55 minutes, Brisbane’s power game laid the foundation for a fast finish following the unfortunate Jordan Riki try.
Andrew Webster summed it all up well enough post-game:
“The forward pass was so wrong it wasn’t funny, but at the end of the day, they made a linebreak, we allowed the linebreak and the forward pass comes off the back of that,” he said.
“We weren’t defending well during that period. The forward pass was wrong, but we’re not crying over that and it didn’t cost us the game.”
While the Warriors didn’t defend as well as they have done for most of the NRL season, they finished the year as the third-best defensive team in the competition. They’ve consistently been difficult to break down but the Broncos managed to find 42 points on Saturday. They did so by doing more than finding Walsh on the edges or capitalising on some Adam Reynolds wizardry. Walters and the Broncos managed to design an attack that neutralised the opposition forwards and brought fatigue into the game early to win it late.
The Panthers are an incredible defensive team and nobody has been able to go with them set-for-set consistently. Instead, the Broncos look well-prepared to throw something different at them. The second phase can scramble the defensive line through the middle and create opportunities on the edge. With 263 metres and seven tackle breaks, Herbie Farnworth is a weapon on the edge and Kotoni Staggs can’t be forgotten either. The Broncos aren’t afraid to make the right sort of errors and take a peak Sydney Roosters approach to their risk and reward.
Walters will know better than to try beating the Panthers at their own game. On paper, you can see how they might be one of the few to do it. But a Grand Final isn’t a time to risk it. The Broncos coaching staff will need to change things up a touch if they’re to break down the Panthers and lift the Provan-Summons Trophy.