NRL Round 4 Review: Eels in Attack, Roosters Defence & The Chaos of a Haas Carry

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If this NRL season has taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected. Upsets dominated Round 4 as the ladder becomes more congested every week. Tipping competitions were turned on their head with 4/8 considered a decent enough score.

While the Parramatta Eels and Dolphins are without a win, it’s early in the season, and the teams above them are cannibalising themselves enough to give hope to a Top 8 push.

At the top, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs have announced themselves as a legitimate contender with a win over a fellow contender while carrying significant injuries.

What's to come this week:

• How The Eels Want To Look In Attack

• Quick Play-the-Balls

  • The Usual Over-Correction

  • Roosters Goal Line Defence

  • Leka Halasima

• Setting Up For A Shot: Dragons vs. Lomax

• Try Time: The Havoc One Haas Carry Causes

Big Takeaway From the Week: How The Eels Want To Look In Attack

Tackle one can make or break a set of six. First up here, we’re breaking down what makes for the biggest talking point of the week.

The Parramatta Eels are without a win and haven’t really looked like finishing on top in any of their four games in 2025. Still, Jason Ryles remains confident and optimistic in his press conferences. He would, though.

The Cumberland Throw is a staple read for the Eels faithful and my first stop when I want to gauge the fan base's mood.

The Weekend Wrap sums it up in a sentence:

“While there are certainly technical aspects to address, fundamentally – and don’t roll your eyes – it feels like the Eels are just losing out in key efforts areas all over the park when in possession.”

The technical aspects to address are what I always want to focus on, and Ryles offered a hint into how the Eels want to play when everything is working, technically, as it should:

“For the last five minutes, I actually asked the boys why we attacked like that because that’s what we look like when we train.”

So, what does it look like?

First, what it doesn’t.

I hate that I’m saying this because “structure” has become a dirty word despite every team playing with it in some capacity, but the Eels do feel particularly structured in how they move the ball right now.

One-out carries - often down one side of the field - for two or three tackles, then two passes to the opposite edge backrower before a shift³ . It’s an approach that can work, as we will soon see with their first try, but it’s one that misses opportunities if it’s stuck with too firmly.

That’s a player left on the ground and one marker, with Dylan Brown, Shaun Lane and Will Penisini (who is clearly frustrated when the ball goes away from him) all flattened up to run at a late-retreating shortside. Perhaps for a premeditated tap set to test Tom Trbojevic’s positioning at fullback?

Fast forward to the try, and the Eels take a similar approach, again from a structured restart after Daly Cherry-Evans sent his kick out on the full. It reflects a lot of what happens in the final five minutes Ryles mentions as their style of footy.

They’ve put some work into the Sea Eagles’ middle defence before shifting the ball. Brown does a nice job of straightening the line to put Isaiah Iongi in a good spot and continues to move the middle. Rather than firing the ball wide to the opposite edge as the bad Eels have done in the past, J’maine Hopgood puts another dent in the middle defence.

The set has done its job to tire the Manly middle. Siosiua Taukeiaho, Ethan Bullemor and Nathan Brown have all made multiple tackles and are tangled up in bringing Hopgood to ground. That leaves the diminutive Jake Simpkin isolated one-on-one with Junior Paulo on the back of a quick play-the-ball. Corey Waddell acts as you’d expect and steps in to help his smaller teammate, but Joe Ofahengaue responds with a fade line through the gap to score.

That’s more what I expect from the Eels - test the edge without forgetting the work through the middle. Their final five minutes looked similar and almost resulted in another try if not for a forward pass to Russell on the wing.

More support and activity around the ball generated quicker play-the-balls. With them, Parramatta found more success down the edges. Josh Addo-Carr, in particular, produced a decent chunk of his 132 running metres in the final period of the match.

With the game over, they seemed to play with more flair—the sort that lacked earlier in the match when points looked particularly hard to come by.

Mitchell Moses would make a massive difference to how the Eels make the most of their strong plays. He’s a wizard down short sides and spots opportunities others miss. It’s worth considering what this team will look like when he returns. However, will their Top 8 hopes already have been dashed?

They will likely use that final five minutes as the blueprint for their must-win Round 5 game against the St George Illawarra Dragons. Whether or not it’s a winning blueprint across 80 minutes - if they can string it together - remains to be seen.

Quick Play-the-Balls

We’re generating momentum through the middle of the article with a couple of quick carries.

The Usual Over-Correction

We’ve seen this movie before…

Too many times.

The Bunker has been told they missed four sin-bin offences over the weekend. At least two² were fairly clear-cut for everybody watching at home. In response, rather than simply working towards getting them right next time, Round 5 is set to be Sin Bin Round.

Andrew Abdo has tried to clear things up following the initial report of a harsh crackdown…

I wouldn’t want to be the first player making even the slightest high contact, though.

Fittingly, Ricky Stuart’s Canberra Raiders - one of the most ill-disciplined teams in the NRL - open up Round 5 against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks on Thursday night.

Roosters Goal Line Defence

Mark Nawaqanitawase is an incredible athlete. It’s noticeable on TV, but it's obvious after seeing him in person. He played a lot of rugby league growing up, so the game isn’t foreign to him, but some of the finer details might be.

I’d imagine AJ Brimson’s try for the Gold Coast Titans on Saturday might become a teaching moment for him.

How the Roosters treat their goal-line defence is something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks, but his desperation to get home¹ gave Brimson a clear passage to the line.

The Titans shifted the ball to the right edge, bringing Nawaqanitawase into the tackle.

Jayden Campbell motions to play the ball back inside to Reagan Campbell-Gillard - at Nawaqanitawase tracking across from marker - but takes the line on himself to generate a quick play-the-ball.

I’d love to know if this is something the Titans spoke about because Brimson leaps into action incredibly quickly, flipping to the shortside and making a line to the space Nawaqanitawase or Nafahu Whyte (depending on what Trent Robinson wants to do here) should be filling.

That amount of space around the ruck on the line isn’t by design. Something has gone wrong in the organisation and communication. It’s great footy from the Titans, and there is some detail in the Roosters' defensive line that is worth keeping an eye on.

Leka Halasima

Everybody has seen Leka Halasima’s try by now. It’s one of the best career-first tries you’ll ever see.

Those who have been paying attention will have seen him doing freakish stuff in reserve grade for two years already.

He’s 17 and 18 years old in these highlights…

Setting Up For A Shot: Dragons vs. Lomax

Teams play to points with the following tackle in mind. Here, I’m touching on something to watch next week as we try to keep ahead of things happening on the field.

Zac Lomax will go up against his former club this week.

While his departure from the St George Illawarra Dragons seems on good enough terms, he will no doubt be out to make a statement in this one. Meanwhile, Shane Flanagan, I’m sure, will have a few ideas on how to exploit a player he knows so well.

Few players in the NRL are working harder than Lomax right now. He’s putting up impressive numbers, and his effort in a four-times-beaten side can’t be questioned.

He’s putting his hand up for everything, including mid-field bombs on the last tackle.

But all of that ground he’s covering from the right edge to make a play on the last tackle could hurt them later…

If Lomax isn’t able to collect the kick or at least disrupt the opposition catch, this space here is up for grabs if the kick chase isn’t up to the task through the middle of the field.

The Eels right edge remains as a target for shifting teams out of yardage, too.

Admittedly, it’s towards the end of the game, and Lomax is gassed. You can see him look to the sky, searching for energy, on his way back to the right centre following his kick chase.

The Sea Eagles played two more carries down their right edge before shifting the ball. Only now is a knackered Lomax getting back into the line.

While he makes the tackle, the right centre is slow to get back in the line. That impacts Parramatta’s kick defence on the last.

We’ve spoken about how they defend with the fullback and wingers back before, but Sean Russell can’t leave the short side while Lomax tracks back into the line.

As you’d expect, Daly Cherry-Evans spots the opportunity and executes his kick into open space to perfection. I’ll be looking out for how Flanagan attacks the Eels right edge in Round 5.

Try Time: The Havoc One Haas Carry Causes

All of the best sets in rugby league finish with points, so that’s how we wrap up the round.

I’m back on my play-the-ball for points gear and Payne Haas in this one⁴ , but it’s a perfect example of both.

Just look at how a single distructive carry can cause havoc to the defensive line.

Haas breaks the first tackle, leaving Max Plath on the ground behind him. He pushes through the second tackle, forcing Daniel Saifiti to the legs, which brings Jeremy Marshall-King and Tom Gilbert up top. That’s four defenders he impacted on a one-out carry.

That carry creates the Gehamat Shibasaki try.

The reverse angle shows the chaos Haas’ carry creates.

Plath (12) has tracked back to the shortside while Saifiti (8) is late out of the tackle and doing the same. Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow (1) is half-filling in the line, but only until the ball is past him. Once it is, the Broncos have a stacked long side against five Dolphins defenders.

The Dolphins edge tries to solve the overlap by jamming in, but Ben Hunt is too quick. The shortball creates half a break for Jack Gosiewski, who sends Shibasaki over untouched.

Haas is built different, and he’s demolishing defensive lines every week right now.

1  If a player tries to get “home” in the defensive line, they’re trying to track back into their typical position. In this case, Nawaqanitawase is trying to get two-in at centre.

2  I’m all for shithousery, but Reed Mahoney’s dog shot has no place in the game.

3  This comes from a tap start, so it’s a bit more scripted than a typical yardage set, but it best sums up what I’m seeing overall.

4  ICYMI: I covered Payne Haas in the feature segment last week.