Dissecting the NRL Finals

Week one of the NRL finals saw matches involving the two top teams go to script, with both Manly and the Storm putting on performances worthy of lengthy discussion.

Despite the one-sided scorelines, something about the way they played made it worth watching. The other two matches were tight but lacked that spark or air of desperation that so often invigorates a finals match when sudden death is imminent.

I reasoned the latter with a thought out argument centred on player nerves and the prospect of a second chance being enough to take the edge out of the game. I braced myself for what was surely to be a great second week.

You had the team I’ve spent my life supporting, perennial over-achievers, a quintessential semi-final rugby league footy club, the Bulldogs. They were playing their classic rivals, Parramatta, a team chock full of absolute superstars, under a new coach with a history of first-up success.

In the other match, two completely opposite but uniquely gifted and unconventional football teams, North Queensland and the Warriors, clashed.

They could not have been scripted better. The games though, were an anti-climax to the hype surrounding them.

I’m going to put the Cowboys-Warriors match down to the extreme heat that saw the channel 9 commentators dispense with their ubiquitous commentator blazers. I’ll go so far as to say the Warriors could never have won under those circumstances and focus instead on the other game and the one thing that disappoints me the most - how little the Bulldogs and Eels learnt from their preceding hit-outs.

Parramatta were absolutely atrocious but the Bulldogs were worse. I don’t think the match offered one conventional backline movement or any aspect of what one might label enterprising or creative football. This is not to say these teams are incapable of that style of play, just unwilling to provide it.

The one question that should be asked is why? The Bulldogs came out and played the same one-dimensional football that saw them lose their preceding 3 games. They had in their starting line-up Utai, Tonga, Mason, and Maitua, not to mention the injured Williams, all devastating runners of the football, but offered no plan to present any of them with an opportunity to isolate opposition defenders and show their class with ball in hand.

They would have been better served by a half-back plucked from the under 9’s (which is a harsh thing to say given my soft spot for shifty Sherwin, but to suggest he was hopeless that night would be an under-statement) who are not allowed to kick the football.

They were ill-disciplined and looked to be playing at a snails pace compared to the Eels, who themselves possess the strike power of Inu, Hayne, Tahu and Grothe but could do nothing more than rely on the smarts of seasoned footballers like Hindmarsh(es) and Riddell to consolidate their frenetic pace of play.

Parramatta’s strength is also their weakness. Their speed makes them dangerous but it also makes them lazy when it comes to building phases and momentum. Parramatta’s speed inevitably keeps their opponents scrambling, forcing them to infringe so often they sacrifice so much quality possession and position that they can’t possibly win.

But with a team like the one they have, why not stand up and execute your plays? Why not stamp your class on the game? Why not take your opposition completely out of the equation, a la the Storm and Manly in week 1? Why not win the game rather than not lose it?

I agreed with a post of Zolton’s a while back that the Storm were the team to beat and suggested there were only 3 teams capable of beating them. My justification at the time was an ability to play ad lib unstructured football and the teams I suggested that were capable of said football were the Tigers, Eels and the Warriors.

There’s only one of these teams left now and they get their shot this weekend. If they play like they are capable of playing then they’re most certainly a chance. If they play like they have been, then they’ll most certainly lose in a big way. It seems that my look into the future discarded the kings of ad lib – the Cowboys.

I thought at the time and still do that their defence was just too poor to win big games but they keep finding ways to win and I did tip the Tigers to make the 8, so who knows?

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