NRL Round 6 Review: The Tigers Attack Is Real, A Dolphins Tap Set & McInnes Moving The Ball

We’re six weeks into the 2025 NRL season and the competition is wide open. Outside of the Melbourne Storm best, there isn’t a team that looks head-and-shoulders above the rest. There has been a lot less “it’s early” chat around the game to start this season, too. It feels as though every match means something, and teams don’t have time to explain away struggles with a point towards the calendar.

State of Origin will be here before we know it, and that will only add more chaos to the NRL competition and the fight for finals spots.

What's to come this week:

• This Wests Tigers Attack Is Real

• Quick Play-the-Balls

  • Early Challenges 🤦

  • A Dolphins Tap Set

  • Latrell + Jye

• Setting Up For A Shot: McInnes Moving The Ball

• Try Time: Dragons Changing Things Up

Big Takeaway From the Week: This Wests Tigers Attack Is Real

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.

We’ve seen the Wests Tigers string together nice periods over the last 10 years. They’ve offered hope of a resurgence before quickly dashing those hopes with a lengthy losing streak.

A lack of repeatable actions in attack has limited their improvement in recent years. Always capable of creating something out of nothing, relying on offloads at times and kicks at others, they’ve looked like they’re coming good before that lack of repeatable threat with the ball is exposed.

This version of the Tigers attack looks different, though.

Their overall style might not be one that beats the top teams right now. Their last plays are inconsistent, and they’ve not consistently displayed the sort of flow with the ball you’d want to see break down the best defences in the NRL. Still, Wests scored two tries on Sunday, which highlights the work they’re putting in during the week and their ability to play to points and execute the game plan when the opportunity presents itself.

They drew this one up:

You can hear “he’s back!” being yelled in the broadcast.

“He” is Greg Marzhew, and he’s deep on the goal line defending the kick, providing a Tigers team that has a tendency to run it on the last, whether it’s the right decision or not, to move the ball through the hands.

Lachlan Galvin does a good job of skipping across the A defender to engage B with a lead runner inside C. That brings Marzhew up, but he has too much ground to cover and is too late to close the play down.

Later, the Tigers used that earlier try to create another.

Terrell May is crunched in the tackle, but note the spot on the field and the split. They’re back into the same area with four down the short side. This time, though, Galvin is helping to drag Kalyn Ponga to the long side. He’s fanned out wide outside Jarome Luai with the Knights fullback anticipating a shift towards the dominant playmakers² .

It’s 4th tackle, but Marzhew surely has the first try in his mind. He’s neither up with his line nor tailing off to defend the kick. With Ponga preoccupied with Luai and Galvin, the space opens up for Jahream Bula to roll one in behind to score.

Both look like opportunistic tries out of nothing, but they’re a product of their pre-game discussions and in-game execution.

Now 3-3 for 7th on the NRL ladder, excitement is starting to build. Even the Galvin news³ can’t put a dampener on the hopes for the future. Unlike recent runs in the past, this one feels real.

Quick Play-the-Balls

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

Early Challenges 🤦

The idea of a captain’s challenge being available is to provide teams with the opportunity to correct a howler. The sort of call that can change a game - typically late.

It took the captains a little while to get a good read on when to challenge. The early numbers of successful vs. unsuccessful leaned heavily in favour of the officials to start¹ . While there has been an improvement over the years, we still see too many head-scratches. None more so this week than Daniel Saifiti’s call after only 10 seconds…

A Dolphins Tap Set

The Dolphins offered little in attack to start the NRL season. Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, in particular, struggled to get himself involved in attacking actions. That has all changed over the last two weeks, though.

Presented with a tap start in yardage, the Dolphins start working towards a spot to use their most dangerous attacking players. Even from this far out, you can manipulate the line to get the look you want.

It starts with two carries into the Panthers left edge defence.

Liam Martin shoots out of the line in an attempt to stall the set on the 3rd, but Daniel Saifiti spins out of the tackle and brings Scott Sorensen - the Panthers left backrower - into the tackle.

That’s important.

It’s now that the Dolphins make their assessment of the line in front of them.

With a middle forward in Lindsay Smith at A down the short side (and with Thomas Jenkins nowhere to be seen on the left wing), the Dolphins make their move.

The tempo in Isaiya Katoa's run is perfect. He holds up Smith and engages Blaize Talagi with Kulikefu Finefeuiaki’s lead before putting his speed men into space out wide.

Where the Dolphins struggled to offer a lot of threat down the short side in the early rounds, they’re now finding ways to keep the defence guessing on both sides of the ruck while bringing Tabuai-Fidow into positions to dominate.

Latrell + Jye

This decision has become a lot more difficult than I thought it would…

Latrell Mitchell would walk straight back into my South Sydney Rabbitohs #1 jersey if they were healthy. But they’re not. Wayne Bennett is trying to make do with what he’s got, and he might have something exciting in Mitchell and Jye Gray on the field together.

Whether it be in the centres or at five-eighth, Mitchell is a threat with the ball. He’s looked good in both positions over the last two weeks, and any time you can get him heavily involved in a game is only a good thing. The big knock on him is how often he can get through a game without looking for the ball or forcing himself into it. That isn’t a problem for Gray, who is always sniffing around the ball and trying to have an impact - for better or worse.

The big question mark for Gray comes in defence. He’s a massive spot for the opposition when defending the goal line. Still, he’s a net-positive at the moment.

With Cody Walker, Jamie Humphreys and Jayden Sullivan all unlikely to feature in Round 7 we should get at least one more look at Mitchell and Gray on the field together before Bennett has some more difficult decisions to make.

Setting Up For A Shot: McInnes Moving The Ball

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.

Cameron McInnes passes this season:

Round 1 - 3
Round 2 - 8
Round 3 - 9
Round 4 - 7
Round 5 - 8

Round 6 - 20

Having played fairly one-out throughout the first five games of the NRL season, McInnes and the Sharks made a notable change to how they moved the ball in Round 6.

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