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Five questions from NRL Round 6: on actual footy!

13th April, 2015
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Des Hasler looks set to return to the Sea Eagles. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
Expert
13th April, 2015
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After all the drama in the previous round of the NRL – and the resulting fallout – it was a welcome change to have a weekend where the attention and focus was almost solely on the actual football.

T’was quite the round of footy too, with yet another number of unexpected results, a golden-point thriller in Brisbane, and a bizarre game between the Rabbitohs and Cowboys.

Mum always said that when you’re on a good thing, stick to it, so I see no reason not to fire up the ‘Five Questions Machine‘ once again.

1. Where are those Wayne Bennett detractors?
Remember after Round 1, when the knives were out for Wayne Bennett? I called out the stupidity of it at the time, but the criticism of the supercoach looks even more absurd now that Brisbane sits atop of the NRL ladder.

Sure, there’s a long way to go and the Broncos have had some luck, but they’ve also improved every single week, and deserve to have ten competition points after six rounds.

Ben Hunt and Antony Milford are slowly developing a nice chemistry in the halves, while Bennett’s other masterstroke – firing up Sam Thaiday – also seems to have worked wonders, with the international forward at his terrorising best of late.

I don’t know if Brisbane have enough firepower to win the competition, but once they have their full complement of players, and Bennett fully stamps his authority upon the club, the Broncos will be a tough team to beat.

2. What is going on with the Bulldogs’ attack?
The Bulldogs’ fifth tackle options on Sunday against the Dragons will be the evidence I produce against anyone who continues to believe that the Dogs have good playmakers.

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For a few seasons now I’ve sprouted the rhetoric that Canterbury’s halves simply don’t enough flair, creativity and correct decision-making, and Sunday afternoon is definitive proof of that line of thinking.

The Dogs were nothing short of diabolical when attacking the Dragons try-line, and it wasn’t via lack of opportunities either.

Taking nothing away from the Dragons brilliant defence, but the Dogs consistently took the wrong option on the fifth tackle, and for large parts of the game, didn’t even have an option. It was simply ‘shuffle it to Tony Williams’, or run around like headless chooks.

I don’t care that Josh Reynolds and Trent Hodkinson are the incumbent NSW halves. I don’t care that the pair took the Dogs to the grand final last year. Des Hasler needs to do something drastic with his team’s playmaking if he wants to win the 2015 premiership, especially with Brett Morris out for an extended period.

Whether that means looking around for a disgruntled half at another club locally or overseas, or altering the way the Dogs play in attack, something’s got to give out at Belmore. When Tony Williams and James Graham are your best ballplayers, you’ve got issues.

Sunday was embarrassing, but it was emblematic of concerns I’ve had with the Dogs for a while now.

3. Should Tyson Frizell have been sent off?
The short answer is no, I don’t believe that the Dragons’ Frizzell should have been sent off for his high shot on Tim Browne.

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However, when a player is stretched off the park courtesy of a high swinging arm, the punishment needs to be greater than the same that is handed out for simply being offside, or holding on too long in the tackle.

I’m mindful of sticking strongly to my opinion that punishments should be decided upon independent of any injury that is sustained, but if a player can get ten minutes in the bin for swearing at a ref, I’m pretty sure illegally taking another player out of the game should – at the very least – receive the same reprimand.

Frizzell should have been sidelined for 10 minutes.

4. Are Canberra as bad as their ladder position indicates?
I have to be honest, I’ve been really impressed with the Raiders over the last two weeks.

After opening their season with a win over the Sharks, Canberra looked pretty poor in losses to the Warriors, Dragons and Roosters. They then had a solid win over Manly in Albury, and were desperately unlucky not to knock off Melbourne on Sunday afternoon, in what turned out to be a cracker of a game.

Halves Blake Austin and Sam Williams do a good job leading the team around the park, and while they still make errors you’d expect of young players, they have undeniable talent and a lot of potential.

The Raiders forward pack more than held their own against the Storm, and the Green Machine also has some exciting outside backs as well.

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It’s shame that they’ve lost Josh Hodgson and Shaun Fensom for a couple of weeks after both suffered second-half injuries against Melbourne, but credit where credit is due, Ricky Stuart looks to be building something nice in the nation’s capital, which belies the Raiders’ spot on the ladder.

5. Are we making it too difficult to score tries?
In the space of a couple of minutes just before halftime in last night’s Rabbitohs versus Cowboys game, two tries were disallowed by the video referee, when I thought both were legitimate tries.

Firstly, Greg Inglis appeared to ground the ball on a little skirt from dummy-half, but the 50/50 call went against him. Then almost immediately after, the Cowboys were called for obstruction on a play in which Glenn Stewart was never-in-a-million years going to make the required tackle.

I was shocked at both decisions, but I’m not going to take the boring, lazy option of having a go at the referees. Regardless of whether they were fair four-pointers or not, the question that actually popped into my head was this – are we making it too difficult to score tries?

More specifically, do we look for too many reasons not to award tries?

I’ll let Roarers have their say, but my two cents is an unequivocal ‘yes’.

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