Recap the latest round of the 2023 NRL season with the Repeat Set as we break down some of the best plays from the weekend.
With only five games and little to get really excited about given the impact State of Origin had on Round 19, Jason and Oscar have linked up for one review this week with some Origin chat still to come before kickoff on Wednesday night.
– Breaking down Sexton’s debut
– Alex Seyfarth did what?
– Zac Woolford behind the ruck
– Luke Metcalf’s ball playing
Breaking down Sexton’s debut
It’s early days and his performance came against a decimated South Sydney Rabbitohs side, but Toby Sexton’s Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs debut is a testament to his work in reserve grade this year, and once again shows the importance of allowing young players the opportunity to work on their craft away from the NRL.
Playing 10 games for the Tweed Seagulls this year, Sexton displayed the improvements he has made at Queensland Cup level on Saturday night. There is a lot more to come, too.
Let’s start with how he engaged the line.
Albeit against 12 men, the principles and execution are on point here as Sexton digs in and targets the space around the three-in defender, creating the numbers advantage out wide.
Two minutes later, a similar action translated into points as Sexton again targeted the space around Lachlan Ilias to make the most of the numbers advantage out wide.
Digging into the line and playing late wasn’t Sexton’s strongest area to start his NRL career but he has come a long way over the last 12 months. It’s only a minor detail and he isn’t credited with the try assist, but engaging the right defenders and playing the pass at the right time is crucial. Pass too early and the defence can slide and scramble across in cover. Engage two defenders with a lead runner off your hip and it’s a different outcome.
I don’t want to say “unleashed” because it feels as though anybody said to be unleashed is never, in fact, unleashed. Sexton can free up Matt Burton and maximise his running game, though.
It will be interesting to see how the numbers shape up across the rest of the season, but Burton finished up with 38 touches (well below his 45.9 season average), 161 running metres and 119 kicking metres in Round 19.
Burton used the extra time and space he had with the ball to take the line on and run for his most metres since joining the club last season. Playing off the ball, his 119 kicking metres is his lowest mark as a Bulldogs.
There are plenty of examples of how Burton will get more out of his running game playing alongside Sexton but this one captures how the Bulldogs played for it and how dangerous he can be on the second layer of the attack.
Pulling the defence to the right edge before shifting back through the middle, Sexton again attacks the space around the three-in defender to present Burton with half a gap. Burton’s acceleration is exceptional and he’s a lot stronger than he looks in contact. There is a prime Jack Wighton feel to how he could feature as a ball-runner.
The Bulldogs rank 16th in the supports through 19 rounds but did a good job of putting bodies around Sexton when he had the ball on Saturday night. As he continues to improve in his distribution, Sexton will have more opportunities to run the ball as he did this week. The 129 running metres he managed against the Rabbitohs is the second-most of his 23-game NRL career.
Sexton and the Bulldogs are off to a good start and there is a lot of room for improvement. The 22-year-old’s kicking game wasn’t at the standard it usually is and a lot of his passes behind the lead runner were too low and out in front of Burton. The pair will get their timing right in the coming weeks.
In what is fairly typical Bulldogs fashion in recent years, they look primed to finish another season strong but fall short of the NRL Finals. Still, their success over the remaining weeks won’t be measured in wins and losses, but in how well the new-look spine combines. They’ve certainly started down the right track.
~ Jason
Seyfarth did what?
I’ve seen enough.
Alex Seyfarth needs to be spending more time in the middle for the Wests Tigers.
Their pack is a strength but can be one-dimensional if John Bateman is starting on the edge. David Klemmer will always find roughly 150 metres per game. Stefano Utoikamanu averages only 109 metres per game but is capable of more when his motor allows it. Seyfarth, however, clearly has a pass that can throw some doubt into the defensive line.
We bang on here about “repeatable actions” and while we don’t see it often yet, he’s played this pass too well for it not to be repeatable.
He’s picked out who he wants in the line, stepped into the defender to take him out of the play, and made a superb pass at the line for Shawn Blore to score.
It came from a scrum with Isaiah Papali’i dropped off on the left edge in a setup-like play so there is a good chance the pass is somewhat premeditated. Still, Seyfarth has nailed it and I’d like to see him pop up in more actions like this as the season progresses.
It’s happened earlier than many Tigers fans expected before the NRL season kicked off, but we’re into ‘playing for next year’ territory already. For Seyfarth, he’s playing for a contract. There is still a lot to play for across the board regardless of their ladder position.
~ Jason
Oscar’s Round 19 NRL Shout-Outs
Zac Woolford
Zac Woolford is just 30 games into his NRL career but is already looking like a blue-chip dummy half.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone. The writing was on the wall right from his first-grade debut in Magic Round last year:
“In 37 minutes on debut, Woolford made 20 tackles for no misses and set up two tries – a lovely short ball to isolate Josh Papali’i onto Nicho Hynes on the line and another for Brad Schneider as the clock wound down.
The stats sheet tells us Woolford ran the ball just three times on [debut]. The highlights package tells us he picked his moments perfectly.” – Take the Two: 8 Magic Moments from Magic Round
Fast forward to Round 19, 2023, and Woolford is doing similar things.
Against the Dragons on Friday night – in his first 80-minute stint in first-grade – Woolford punched out 42 tackles with no misses.
He also had three try involvements.
The Raiders clearly liked what they saw in the spaces around Moses Suli in this one. They searched there in yardage for metres, and in good-ball for points.
Matt Timoko is impossible to contain with this much room. He beats Suli for speed to break into the backfield and find Jamal Fogarty in support.
A settler through Elliott Whitehead on the following tackle slows things down as St George reset on their own line. There’s space on the open side but when Woolford arrives at dummy-half he sees something he likes on the short side.
The wide angle shows us what Woolford saw:
Paul Turner is lurking behind the ruck as a false defender. He’s in the defensive line for now but his first movement will be to drop out and track the ball back to the open side.
You can see Turner pointing Jack de Belin – who has filled up at A-defender on the short side – to watch that channel as Whitehead plays the ball, but Woolford fools them both.
A little shimmy to the left sits Turner on his heels and prompts Jack de Belin to jump in-field and out of the line. He leaves a space at A on the short side that Jayden Sullivan, who Woolford holds up at marker, can’t cover in time.
A simple pass into the space created does the rest.
That’s very clever dummy-half work from Woolford. In a fraction of a second he manipulates three Dragons defenders to create a try-scoring opportunity.
And he wasn’t done there.
Woolford’s ruck recognition is mint. He knows when to stand and pass or when to run the ball himself. He might only run a few times each game but he picks those moments smartly.
In NRL Round 19, a Joe Tapine quick play-the-ball was the trigger for Woolford to run midway through a Raiders yardage set:
Seeing the markers are late into position, Woolford scoops and goes.
Speed gets him to the outside of the A-defender, creating a three-on-two situation on the edge. Good hands from Canberra – and some poor defence from St George – finishes things off from there.
Having had some success isolating Ben Murdoch-Masila around the ruck, Woolford went back to the well for the match-sealing try.
Again presented with some poor marker defence, Woolford runs from dummy-half:
He’s spotted Francis Molo and de Belin filling up down the short side and immediately works to expose them. He runs rings around Murdoch-Masila as the lone marker, creating the space in behind the ruck for Sebastian Kris.
Molo is in no position to contain a much faster man as Kris steps back on his inside to score, but we can put this one down to Woolford’s smarts and vision from dummy-half.
It’s taken Ricky Stuart a little long to realise Woolford’s influence on the Raiders attack, but he’s forced his way into a big-minute role. Tom Starling and Danny Levi offer similar qualities from behind the ruck but neither of them read a game or manipulate defenders like Woolford does.
He’s a clever and creative dummy-half who will play a leading role in Canberra’s push to the NRL Finals.
Luke Metcalf
As a long-term resident on Te Maire Martin Island, I didn’t jump aboard the Luke Metcalf hype train this season.
After watching him carve up in NRL Round 19 though, I’m being forced to reconsider.
We know he’s lightning quick but some of Metcalf’s ballplaying involvements seriously impressed as the Wahs wracked up a cricket score against a depleted Eels outfit.
From passing teammates into holes in yardage…
… to pushing Shaun Johnson out of the way in good-ball…
… Metcalf was everywhere in Round 19, but I hadn’t credited him for this level of ballplaying:
That double pump is the difference between Marcelo Montoya diving over in the corner here or being barrelled into touch.
It’s a minor action but the kind that only genuine ballplayers can execute.
He’s just 13 games into his NRL career but these involvements suggest Metcalf will spend a long time in first grade. He’s got the speed to put panic into the defence and now he’s got the ball skills to turn that panic into points.
This isn’t going to be the last time we talk about Metcalf here at RLWriters…
Let’s Gone.