Take the Two: Round 16
NRL Round 16 under the microscope
If the beer’s cold and the afternoon’s long enough, we’d be talking footy all day, every day until kickoff on Thursday night. With so much to review each week, let’s break down some of the key plays each week in the NRL.
Gold Coast Titans vs St George Illawarra Dragons
If you’ve been following my articles here at Rugby League Writers in the last few weeks, you’d already know I’m a big AJ Brimson fan.
But with David Fifita and Tino Fa'asuamaleaui (among others) joining the club over the offseason, I’m going to get in now before the bandwagon comments start flowing and say I’m big a Gold Coast Titans fan too.
Some in the game have suggested it was risky business to recently extend Head Coach Justin Holbrook’s contract through until the end of the 2024 season - namely given the troubles in Brisbane this year regarding Anthony Seibold’s long term deal.
But if the signs of a good coach are 1; getting your players playing better than before and 2; getting your team working to a game plan, then Holbrook already has runs on the board.
Big name recruits Jarrod Wallace and Tyrone Peachey, for example, have for the most part failed to fire since joining the club, yet both have been instrumental for the Titans in the past few weeks.
Chasing points mid-way through the second half, Wallace takes a carry one-off the ruck, pushing through a tackle before offloading to Peachey back through the middle:
Peachey takes the space on offer before finding Jamal Fogarty, who is unlucky not to link up with Corey Thompson for a try in the corner.
While they didn’t score here, the fundamentals of working back in behind the ruck and against the grain in this passage also applied to their match-winning play in the dying minutes, in a sign that Holbrook’s coaching is starting to take effect.
With less than four minutes on the clock, Mitch Rein fires a wide ball to Ash Taylor at first receiver, forcing Josh Kerr to chase hard from marker. Unfortunately for Kerr and the Dragons, Ben Hunt doesn’t ‘shut the gates’ and slide with him, and Taylor promptly turns the ball back inside to the ever-present AJ Brimson:
Brimson shows great balance and speed to push past Tyson Frizell before linking up with - yep, you guessed it - Fogarty, who caps off another captain’s knock with the well-deserved match-winner.
For Titans’ fans, there are a few things to be pleased about here.
With the game in the balance, it was Gold Coast’s key players - Taylor, Fogarty and Brimson - who stepped up in the clutch moments. More than that, they stuck to a game plan to play close to the line and work back in behind the ruck, even if it didn’t result in points earlier in the match.
At a club where excuses used to be found in every disappointing loss, it’s easy to forget that the Titans were missing captain Kevin Proctor, Jai Arrow, Nathan Peats and Moeaki Fotuaika on Friday night.
Holbrook can take much of the credit for this.
He gave Fogarty a start back in Round 3 and the halfback has developed so much so that he is now captaining the side.
He has fringe first graders like Jaimin Jolliffe and Sam Lisone playing their roles nicely, while the likes of Brian Kelly, Moeaki Fotuaika and Brimson are surely close to career best form.
And as his fellow players step up around him, we’re starting to see the best out of Ash Taylor too.
Justin Holbrook has made serious impressions on the Gold Coast this season, and it won’t be long before the rest of the competition is forced to take notice - if they haven’t already.
Cronulla Sharks vs North Queensland Cowboys
Cronulla Sharks Head Coach John Morris is another rookie mentor ticking boxes this season, as his team continues to successfully navigate injuries to key players, particularly in the spine.
Fullback Will Kennedy continues to impress in first grade as both a ball runner and a more than capable ball player in attacking sets - this cut out pass for Sione Katoa’s first of the afternoon was a beauty:
But it was another member of the 2019 Newtown Jets premiership winning team that stole the show for me on Saturday night, with young halfback Braydon Trindall impressing with his vision and poise while filling in for the injured Shaun Johnson.
Just three games into his first-grade career, Trindall has proven to be a big body with great hands, linking up with the recalled Briton Nikora for great effect early in the first half to bag his first try assist in the NRL:
Nikora probably takes the credit for his superb hole running here, but Trindall did well to not overplay his hand; attracting Coen Hess to get Nikora one-on-one with Daejarn Asi, who couldn’t stop the mobile back rower.
Some excellent vision should’ve bagged Trindall his second try assist as he kicked to Josh Dugan in the corner after the Sharks regathered a loose ball, but Dugan was found to be offside and the try was disallowed.
But Trindall’s finest moment was a touch of class to link up with his outside men following another strong carry from lock-forward Toby Rudolf, who has been a standout for Cronulla this year.
In a season where ball-playing locks are proving to be worth their weight in gold, Rudolf takes the ball at first receiver and dummy’s to Trindall out the back, which causes Hess to shoot out off his line:
Rudolf charges into the now scattered defensive line, earning a quick play the ball for hooker Blayke Brailey to pounce:
Hess and the Cowboys’ left edge are barely onside as Brailey scoots from half and links with Trindall, who produces a lovely flick pass to Nikora into space before Siosifa Talakai finishes it off.
With the likes of Kennedy and Trindall putting their hands up this season, injured big name stars Chad Townsend and Matt Moylan may be facing an uphill battle to reclaim their starting jerseys with just four regular season games remaining.
A great problem for John Morris to have as he enters his second finals series as a head coach.
There’s Always Next Week For…
… the Manly Sea Eagles.
It has well and truely entered ‘mathematical chance’ territory, but there is still next week for Des Hasler and his battered Sea Eagles.
Three season ending injuries in the last three weeks (Moses Suli, Brendon Elliot and now Rueben Garrick) coupled with the long-term absence of five-eighth Dylan Walker and star fullback Tom Trbojevic means the Sea Eagles find themselves needing to win all four of their remaining games to give themselves a chance of playing finals footy in 2020.
After being dismantled by South Sydney last week, many expected a response from the Sea Eagles, up against one of their rivals in the Melbourne Storm.
But after a solid start that saw them enter the sheds still in the match at 14-6, the Storm ran away with it in the second half as their big name stars rose to the top.
There was talk around the game earlier in the week that too much of Manly’s cap - and in turn their premiership hopes - are invested in too few players.
Daly Cherry-Evans and the Trbojevic brothers are all exceptional players and well worth the pay cheques they demand, but Manly’s poor form when one of this new-age Big Three are missing is worrying.
That being said, the inclusion of fullback Tom Trbojevic is unlikely to have had much of an effect on the mediocre 29.2 meters per set the Sea Eagles averaged against the Melbourne Storm on Sunday.
For reference, even a struggling Broncos pack missing Payne Haas, Alex Glenn, Tevita Pangai Jnr, Matt Lodge, Tom Flegler and Jake Turpin managed more meters per set on average over the weekend, against defending premiers the Sydney Roosters no less.
Given Manly’s injury concerns across their backline, and the quality of their starting forward pack which is currently at full strength, it won’t surprise to see the Sea Eagles look to attack through the middle in their remaining games.
Injuries have forced countless reshuffles in the backline, and while the likes of Tevita Funa have had some promising involvements in recent weeks, it’s too much to ask of such an inexperienced group of youngsters to replace the output of stars like Trbojevic and Walker consistently.
We picked out Jake Trbojevic a few weeks back as the most likely attacking foil for Cherry-Evans in Manly’s attacking sets, and he gave us a glimpse of his play-making abilities early in the first half against Melbourne:
I won’t claim to have predicted the workhorse lock-forward had these kinds of tricks in his playbook, but perhaps we’ll see him combine more conventionally as a ball-player with Cherry-Evans through the middle of the field next week against the Wests Tigers.