From The Couch: Round 4

 

16 Problems for 16 Teams: The biggest issue/issues with each club through four weeks. 

Brisbane: Poor coaching mixed in with very poor play/decision making from the right edge (Staggs/Cobbo)
Canberra: Inability to travel is a worry while the persistence with Jordan Rapana is disastrous
Canterbury: Horrific coaching and team selection that has led to an ineffective attack
Cronulla: Combinations are taking time
Gold Coast: The inability to get David Fifita involved/motivated
Manly: The centre play at Manly has been incredibly poor
Melbourne: Depth is a major concern, particularly in the pack.
Newcastle: Very conservative attack that is not going to cause any decent team a worry
New Zealand: A coach who tinkers is bad, a bad coach who does it can be crippling
North Queensland: Lack class, Townsend far too involved
Parramatta: Edge defence is their biggest worry
Penrith: Depth will be their concern but look very impressive when 1-13 strongest
St George Illawarra: Arguably worst spine in NRL with a backline that is truly heinous defensively
South Sydney: Lack of depth already showing impact particularly with dreadful centre pairing
Sydney Roosters: James Tedesco showing wear and tear while goalkicking is very poor
Wests Tigers: Shocking recruitment/retention calls and a failure to believe in the coach, who all believed would be fired last year

Sin Bin Fiascos: The sin bin debacles that beset the weekend were utterly abhorrent and it should come as zero surprise that the two referees front and centre with Chris and Gerard Sutton. The decision to sin bin Thomas Flegler for a hit around the shorts was as bad as the decision to leave Jazz Tevaga on the field for a clear cannonball. Then Gerard managed to top them all by dismissing three Cowboys – the Griffin Neame and Chad Townsend ones utterly obscene. The return to the use of the sin bin has been a positive over the last few seasons but the random and inconsistent application, particularly from the Suttons, is having a major impact.  

Long Live The Pap: Ryan Papenhuyzen is truly one of the most exciting players Rugby League has seen and seeing him back at full health is a true delight. The Storm fullback scored four tries against the Bulldogs and probably could have had more. He has scintillating speed and great vision but it is his willingness to get into the game through the middle, to back up, to do the unfashionable that has him so compelling. He is Billy Slater mixed with Terry Lamb. Pap at full health is truly something else. 

The Steve Georgallis Curse: Having Steve Georgallis as your assistant or interim coach is a fairly definitive indication your team is not very good. 

Penrith 2006-11: Six seasons  – five finishing 12th or worse including a wooden spoon, one finals appearance. 63-79-2.

Wests Tigers 2012-13: Two seasons – finishes of 10th and 15th after back-to-back finals appearances. 18-30.

Manly 2014-15: Two seasons – finished 2nd off a Grand Final showing before finishing 9th, ending a 10-year finals run. 29-21.

Canterbury 2018-20: Three seasons – no finish higher than 12th including a 3-17 season where he was interim coach for the final half of the year. 21-47.

North Queensland 2021-22: One full season – finished 15th. 7-17. 

Career as an assistant/interim: 14 seasons, 2 finals campaigns, 0 Grand Finals, 10 seasons finishing 12th or worse, 138-194-2 record.

The Hero From Hat Head: Aiden Tolman has come to personify the unheralded type in Rugby League. He tackles and runs slow and tackles and takes another hitup. So it was great to see him score a try in his 300th game.   

The Worst Game Imaginable: Tryless affairs are usually highly exciting. The famous 8-1 clash between the Dragons and Eels about 15 years back was one such example. The weirdness is compelling. The games often memorable. Not the complete cluster that was the Titans and Tigers, who appeared to be racing to take the zero points. The game seemed destined to be the first tryless game in 29 years until a bit of luck and some Tigers incompetence. Some of the decision-making – see the decision to take the two late from the Tigers – and nearly all the execution would not be tolerated in bush league let alone the NRL. 

Dally M Disasters: Round 4 Dally M atrocities:

• Greg Inglis, in one of the most egregious decisions of the season, gave Luke Brooks a point for his 0 try assist, 0 line break, 0 line break assist, 1 error, 13 post-contact metre game
• Tim Mannah failed to give Shaun Johnson the three votes against the Broncos despite being the key to the Warriors’ win

2022 Field Goal Update – 6: Daly Cherry-Evans nailed a late field goal against the Raiders, his second of the year, but note needs to be made of Mitchell Moses’ completely disrespectful shot against the Dragons when leading 48-14 to cap off a spiteful finish. Ryan Papenhuyzzen seemed set up for something equally disrespectful. Let’s hope 2022 is the year of the disrespectful field goal. 

Fun Fact #1: Despite spending a huge sum of money and salary cap space on backs Matt Burton, Josh Addo-Carr, Matt Dufty, Braidon Burns and Brent Naden, Canterbury have managed just five tries in four games, half of the lowly 2.5 the Bulldogs managed under Trent Barrett in his first year. 

Fun Fact #2: Luke Brooks has one try assist through four rounds. He now has 20 try assists in 45 games across the last three seasons. 

Fun Fact #3: St Helens hooker James Roby played his 500th game on the weekend, a remarkable career that has been played at St Helens for 19 seasons. This is 428 games shy of Jim Sullivan’s astonishing record of 928.  

GGOA 2022: If you want to get an edge betting on the NRL this year, subscribe to my GGOA set with different packages available. This is the old Punters Guide set. There are a heap of packages available. 

Betting Market of the Week: What does Jake Averillo have on Trent Barrett:

$4.00: Results of Barrett’s IQ score
$2.50: Trademark on the fact “Barrett finished 2nd last with Tom Trbojevic”
$2.00: Barrett is actually Averillo’s father

Rumour Mill: Luke Brooks has been linked with a mid-season move to Canterbury. Kyle Flanagan would head to the Tigers in a signal that Shane Flanagan is being lined up to coach the Tigers. The Dolphins have not landed a blow with their recruitment but they are shortening significantly to sign both Kalyn Ponga and Cameron Munster. There is supposedly video of two Broncos players involved in an altercation doing the rounds with the forward in the video showing little respect for his teammate, a back. Mitch Barnett is expected to sign with the Warriors. The Tigers are doing very Tiger things chasing Briton Nikora and Franklin Pele. 

The Coaching Crosshairs: The pressure is mounting on Kevin Walters. The first two weeks have long been forgotten. Embarrassing losses to the Cowboys and Warriors has this looking increasingly likely that 2022 will be his final year in charge of the Broncos. It is not only the results. Brisbane are playing with some ridiculously simplified attacking schemes while there is very little accountability for the likes of Kotoni Staggs. 

Moronic Coaching Decision of the Week: There was a whole raft to choose from this week including Justin Holbrook tinkering with nearly his entire team, Taane Milne being persisted with at centre and Moses Mbye being started at fullback but Trent Barrett deciding to drop Aaron Schoupp to play Jake Averillo is truly astonishing. Schoupp was a great find last year, ignored this year and then was very good, particularly defensively, in his only start. He got dropped for a bloke they’ve been trying to turn into a halfback for 18 months. 

Watch It: With Thursday night’s “classic” between the Tigers and Titans, let’s go back to one of the great finals of all-time, St George and Newcastle, a tryless encounter won 3-2 by St George on the back of a Peter Coyne field goal. Watch it here.