NRL Notepad: Round 6 (Thursday/Friday)
From now through to October, I’ll look back at my notes from the prior round and highlight an area of each team to keep a close eye on from your couch.
With the Storm making headlines for apparent cheating and referees under pressure to use the sin-bin, the 2020 NRL season really is back.
Instead of focusing on the tired old storylines that come up every year, I’ve plucked out a few more interesting points to keep an eye on across Thursday and Friday night.
Friday
South Sydney Rabbitohs
Cody Walker made his return from suspension last week, and like most players following the season suspension, will be better for the 80 minutes in his legs.
That spells danger for Blake Green and the Warriors…
Green has shown a worrying tendency to either turn in early or get out in front of his defensive line recently.
Albeit with Jason Taumalolo barrelling down toward his inside man in this instance, Green is very early to move here. It’s a simple pass for Scott Drinkwater and easy exchange for the Cowboys outside backs to get over in the corner.
With Cody Walker, Latrell Mitchell and Alex Johnson no doubt linking up to send plenty of traffic down the left edge, Green is going to be asked to make a lot of decisions in defence.
New Zealand Warriors
This one is easy…
Keep running the ball, Kodi.
He dished up the humble pie last week by taking on the advice of Stacey Jones and being “selfish”. While my advice doesn’t carry quite the same weight as one of New Zealand’s greatest ever players, I also think it’s a good idea to be selfish.
Another one of these would be nice.
Penrith Panthers
The Panthers attack is coming along nicely. They’re 6th in the NRL in scoring at 20.4 points per game and have achieved that against some handy opposition at times and without Nathan Cleary at others.
It can still get better, though. Maybe inserting Matt Burton into the lineup would help? We might talk more about that next week…
In the meantime, the Panthers could do with removing the ‘give it to Kikau’ mentality that still sometimes creeps in when they’re getting desperate.
Of course, in the final minute of the game and in search of points, you’re going to look toward your best strike weapon. But look at Mitchell Moses and Waqa Blake here:
Moses is up on Kikau early and Blake has turned in on him before Nathan Cleary even shapes to pass. The Eels pair have seen this movie before. Cleary is good enough to change the channel on the fly and should have turned to the two v three overlap on the outside.
Perhaps it’s one bad play from Cleary. Maybe he had made up his mind before taking possession. Whatever the reason, it’s worth keeping an eye on this week given Melbourne’s ability to close down their opposition’s strongest weapon.
Melbourne Storm
A Cameron Smith masterclass had him back in the headlines this week. Naturally, the headlines were negative and had nothing to do with his performance, only a point toward an offside player, but Smith was in them.
He pulled the Knights pack apart in Round 5. I’ll have my eyes peels for a repeat of my Round 5 Play of the Round on Friday night.
ICYMI
Smith makes the most of the six-again call to get the Storm on the front foot through the middle. Note Jacob Saifiti (15) behind the play already and Andrew McCullough (9) making the tackle.
He then splits the markers to feed Ryan Papenhuyzen to the right edge before pulling it back to the middle on the following tackle.
You can see Cameron Munster point out McCullough and Saifiti. Sione Mata’utia is out just enough in front of the line that, rather than hitting Tino Faasuamaleaui on a little unders run, Munster takes the tackle by both McCullough and Saifiti.
Again, Smith engages the marker before Papenhuyzen hits the ball up to the right of the posts.
Here is where it comes together.
Smith takes a few steps out from dummy half. Who does he force into making a move towards him? Jacob Saifiti.
The Storm send it to the opposite side of the field they started this tackle. McCullough is awfully slow to get across the field. So too is Saifiti. As a result, they’ve left a massive gap between themselves and David Klemmer outside him.
Smith doesn’t even need to look as he approaches the ruck.
He can take his pick: Hit Nelson Asofa-Solomona or Faasuamaleaui.
He hits Faasuamaleaui on the chest — try time.
Beautiful rugby league.
Who might he target through the middle in a similar play this week? James Tamou?
Thursday
Newcastle Knights
The improvements by the Knights pack overall have taken the pressure off David Klemmer. He no longer needs to put the team on his back through the middle while an upgrade in coaching has seen an increase in his ball-playing.
He’s on track to blitz his career-high in offloads in a season.
With the increase in off-loads, Klemmer has also been shaping up to pass in general play a lot more often. While the signs are encouraging, he still has a lot of work to do to be effective in this area. We saw how a premeditated play based around Klemmer playing at the line can end in a clunky possession a handful of times in Round 5.
Seeing how this develops on Thursday night is an interesting wrinkle to monitor as Klemmer looks to advance his game.
Brisbane Broncos
The Broncos right-edge defence is…not good. Kotoni Staggs is an excellent attacking centre, but he’s amongst the worst in the position defensively.
While Staggs is out for this one, the Broncos are still left with Brodie Croft (not good either), Xavier Coates (playing in his 4th NRL game) and Herbie Farnworth (2nd first-grade game in the centres). There is every chance the Broncos right-edge defence is somehow worse without Staggs simply due to the lack of experience and cohesion.
The big worry is for Croft. He will have been circled as a target on Monday with Bradman Best earmarked as the missile. If Kalyn Ponga can isolate Croft and send Best in that direction, the Brisbane half might end up in Row 23.
