- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
This is one hell of a wacky competition we’ve got all of a sudden. What’s going to happen next?
Are Melbourne going to crumble to a heavy loss at the hands of Canberra to finish off a round that has been extraordinary in terms of results?
To be fair, it wouldn’t be a shock if the Raiders won that game. While the Storm are on top of the table, Canberra were in third place entering this round and are playing at home. Last week, they beat second-placed Cronulla on the road.
But it would be a shock if they beat up on Melbourne. After all, there is no better team in this competition than the Storm when it comes to knowing how to stay in the contest. It should be a close one.
So what about those stunning upsets so far? South Sydney beating the Warriors 41-22 – and on the road at that. St George Illawarra, previously one of the most barren teams in the competition, coming up with 32 points against Cronulla’s 18. And Sydney Roosters knocking over North Queensland, 22-10.
I know, it’s the Warriors. They have a history of mostly being inconsistent at best and defying all manner of logic at worst. They are meant to occasionally leave us shaking our heads at their results. But this one was definitely in the defying all manner of logic category.
Again, I know the Rabbitohs were unlucky not to have beaten Melbourne on the road the week before, but this was a game in which the result was huge for the Warriors as far as making the finals was concerned. And they were playing at home.
But after the Warriors scored the first try of the match they then proceeded to concede five tries before halftime and trailed 31-6 at the break. Seriously, even when you’re talking about the Warriors, where does a performance like that come from?
Before their game against Cronulla, St George Illawarra had scored just 257 points in 20 games at an average of 12.85 points per game this season. The Elephant Man had more chance of scoring than them. But suddenly they came out and nearly tripled their average against Cronulla.
How did that happen? Well, it probably says more about how the Sharks are going at the moment than it does about the Dragons, but you’ve got to admit the Dragons were good. Still, the result, with the Dragons racking up 30-plus points and winning by 14, was amazing.
The only other team the Dragons have scored at least 30 points against this season is Newcastle, who are a punching bag for anyone who gets on the same field as them. Twice, the Dragons have scored zero.
If you were being ultra nice, you would call them conservative in attack. If you were being fair dinkum, you would call them horrible.
North Queensland came to Sydney for the second week in a row and lost. Last week a Wests Tigers side that was on the rise beat them. This time, it was the 15th-placed Roosters, who had been towelled up 38-18 by Penrith the week before.
Granted, the Roosters do still have plenty of good players and Mitchell Pearce was back to steer them around, but the thing that stood out about this match was how flat North Queensland were and how the Roosters consistently beat them to the punch in most aspects of the game.
The Cowboys are the premiers, but their defence is taking on water. Johnathan Thurston tried his heart out, but he looks like he could do with a rest.
Ideally, he should be told to have a week off and go and relax somewhere well away from Townsville. Recharge the batteries. But it’s too late for that now.
There are only three rounds to go after this one and the Cowboys look likely to miss out on the top four. They need to quickly steady the ship and start building momentum.
The Cowboys remain a huge threat at their best, but against the Roosters they were firing blanks.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.