I always have a particular match, trend, team, or player in mind to focus on heading into each round of the NRL season. This week, I’m breaking down a couple of simple yardage sets.
We always hear how rugby league is a simple game. It’s crash and bash, cart it up and kick. While it might look like that at times, there is often a lot more detail to it all.
Oscar explored the more expansive elements of yardage sets in his video this week, so I’m exploring one or two of those crash-and-bash sets that look like little more than a pathway up the field.
Most teams look to play from one scrum line to the other in yardage. They’ll move middles from one side of the field to the other, putting fatigue in their legs before firing a shot on the 4th tackle. It might be a shift through a ball-playing middle, or a fullback taking the space in front of him around those tired middles in preparation for a kick.
The St George-Illawarra Dragons do things slightly differently, and it starts with Mikaele Ravalawa fielding the kickoff. More often than not, he starts the set himself. From there, the Dragons play to that side of the field.
Note Thomas Burgess and Siliva Havili in the opening two tackles.
They have the option down the short side if it’s on. In this case, they like the look of running at a smaller half in his NRL debut. Havili is again involved around the legs before Jaydn Su’A gets the Dragons back inside the scrum line via Burgess.
The Dragons are looking to shift the ball from here. Ben Hunt is out the back of a block, but the Rabbitohs edge defence does a good job of getting high and shutting it down. Instead, Blake Lawrie carts it up ahead of Ben Hunt’s kick.
Back to Havili and Burgess. Havili has made multiple tackles in the set and his attempt to apply kick pressure from in front doesn’t impact the kicker. Meanwhile, Burgess is late back from the prior tackle and catching his breath through the middle. With no energy to make things difficult for the kick-chase, the Dragons are able to flood through the middle of the field to contain Latrell Mitchell on the kick return.
The North Queensland Cowboys are a little bit different again. They play to the middle of the field, where they look to pounce on a slow retreat.
From the kickoff here, the Cowboys take two down the left edge. It’s a good kickoff that doesn’t allow Griffin Neame to open up the field and play more to the middle. He’s forced into the tap line, where the defence can load up on the second tackle.
Reuben Cotter’s typically quick carry gets the set started before Jordan McLean carries on the back of it. The Cowboys are now in the middle of the field and looking for their cue.
They’re a team that puts a lot into following the late man out of the tackle. If he’s a moment too slow or there is an issue with the line organisation, they’re in a position to make the most of it.
McLean doesn’t get Tallis Duncan (white headgear) into the tackle, but the South Sydney Rabbitohs forward is up around the ball for long enough that Reece Robson still follows him out of dummy half. With nothing on, the Cowboys can still play the ball around the scrum line for Scott Drinkwater – a left-footed kicker – to get a good strike away to complete a successful yardage set.
They don’t look like much. A lot of the time, the goal is simply to complete the set and end it with a good kick. But none of it is by accident. Teams have a specific approach to how they work up the field out of yardage and take a similar path each time.
It’s not the most exciting element of the game, but the best teams in the NRL consistently do it well. They get up the field and finish the set with a good kick to slowly start winning the territory battle.
For more on yardage-specific NRL content, I broke down how the Melbourne Storm targeted the same Parramatta Eels players for points in their Round 11 win HERE. In THIS piece for NRL.com I took a dive into the timely offload around halfway that is helping the Storm get up the field.
We’re getting deep into the detail here, but it’s in the detail where games are won and lost.