Talking points from NRC Round 2: Backs will take you forward

Round 2 of the National Rugby Championship saw Brisbane City and the Sydney Stars, of all teams, continue their unbeaten run, while Perth’s 19-point loss at home to North Harbour raised some serious questions.

And in the middle of all that, the Horan-Little Shield changed hands for the first time in 2015.

But will City put the Shield on the line in Toowoomba?
When the Horan-Little Shield was established at the start of the competition, the rules of challenges and defence only stipulated that the Shield must be put up at home, and that once defended twice, every game home and away thereafter.

Melbourne, as inaugural holders, very graciously put the Shield up for the first game of the season against Queensland Country on the Gold Coast, and defended it. Come Round 2, in the four-seasons-in-one-day conditions at Harlequin Rugby Club in Ashwood, in southeast Melbourne, the Rising let the Shield slip from their grasp, in the 45-21 loss to Brisbane City.

Which means that with Queensland Country set to host Brisbane City out in Toowoomba, in front of what is expected to be a big crowd at Clive Berghofer Stadium, Brisbane City have to decide whether to add a cherry on top of what is already a much anticipated clash by putting the Horan-Little Shield up as well.

There were two ways the Shield could’ve become available for the Toowoomba clash, and thus, the Queensland Rugby Union marketing geniuses have got their wish one way or the other.

Queensland Country Rugby are celebrating their 50th anniversary this week, with Country and City already playing for the Andy Purcell Cup, in recognition of a man instrumental in the establishment of Darling Downs Rugby and the creation of QCRU. Putting the Shield named for two other legends of Darling Downs Rugby on the line, in Toowoomba, just makes sense; you honestly couldn’t write a better script.

Excellent scrum is just not enough for Perth
I first noticed this during the opening match of the competition up at Ballymore, and it was again evident in Perth’s first home game on the weekend. If they don’t have the best scrum in the competition, then it must be right up there. And further, there’s no degradation when the reserves come on. Indeed, there’s an argument that it gets better again.

However, while the Spirit certainly had the scrum ascendency, they really didn’t have a lot else in a disappointing performance, losing 45-26 to the Rays. The Rays were very good at the breakdown through Jack Dempsey and Boyd Killingworth, and just seemed to be able to find space in the Perth defensive line.

After getting out to a 29-13 lead just after the break, it looked like Perth might run down the Rays, hitting back with two tries of their own to reduce the margin to just three points. Yet despite the Super Rugby experience on the field for Perth, it was the unheralded North Harbour forwards who hit back, conjuring tries in the 56th and 71st minutes to seal the win.

Perth now face tough games against the unbeaten Stars in Sydney this weekend, the impressive-looking Canberra Vikings at home in Round 4, and simply must post a win in at least one of those games. They made the finals with just three wins last season, but the NRC in 2015 is a lot closer already. I’d be very surprised if any team qualified with fewer than five wins in 2015.

Somehow, Perth need to find some semblance of attack, too, of which there seemed no discernible pattern on Saturday. In a competition geared around open, attacking rugby, Perth’s very Force-like limited attack really brings them back to the pack.

Smart coaching coming to the fore
We’ve already seen in the first eight games that most coaches have worked hard on their defence setups and fitness levels this year, and while there have actually been more tries scored than by the same point in 2014, we haven’t really seen the blowouts. The two three-plus-tries bonus points earned this round were the first for the year, whereas there had been four recorded after Round 2, 2014.

Certainly, we’re seeing teams fan their defences out across the field, and generally speaking, teams aren’t committing to the breakdown as much as in Super Rugby. It’s the same observation of ITM Cup rugby in New Zealand, for what it’s worth.

So I wonder if we’ll see teams starting to pick-and-drive a bit more in the coming weeks. We saw Karmichael Hunt, when mic’d up for Fox Sports in Round 1, suggesting the pick-and-drive to his team, so as to give the forwards a bit of a break from all the running around, and that would certainly be one reason.

But against teams who are fanning out in defence, the pick-and-drive will also suck more defenders into the middle channels, in turn creating more space out wide. There’s more than one way to de-fur a feline.

Canberra start ominously
They have one of the stronger squads on paper in 2015, just as they did in 2014, but on their first outing of the season the Vikings looked very impressive in a 37-13 win over NSW Country.

The speed and intensity of their defence proved too strong for Country, and though the Eagles scored first the four tries in the 20-minute periods before and after half-time essentially closed out the game for the Brumbies-laden Canberra side.

Ita Vaea was outstanding against the side that relaunched his rugby career, and any number of his Brumbies teammates were up there with him. But I’ll mention Ben Alexander, who I thought carried and hit rucks with intent in his second half cameo. The way flyhalf Rodney Iona and fullback Isaac Thompson lifted in elite company would’ve pleased the Vikings, too.

Not good enough, Fox Sports

There’s no question the NRC is in a better position this season with a competition-wide live streaming platform, but I’d have been mightily annoyed if I specifically paid for the ‘super access’ to the Fox Sports website, only to miss the start of two games on Saturday.

There are numerous points of failure along the line in the live streaming process, and I understand that the issue may have even originated at the grounds themselves. Ultimately, though, it looks the same to the consumer on the other side of the screen: blank.

Hopefully all lessons have been learned and all problems rectified for this weekend coming.

The hobbyhorse – goal-kicking
After outlining my concern last week, it’s only fair I mention marked improvement in Round 2. All up, just nine conversions were missed in 38 attempts, or 76.3 per cent success for the weekend, including 5/5 from Queensland Country’s Sam Greene, and 5/6 from both Brisbane City’s Jake McIntyre and North Harbour’s Hamish Angus.

Overall, it lifted the competition rate to 73 per cent, which is much better. And still no attempts at penalty goal in 2015.

Random trivia to finish: I do love props scoring tries, so it’s only fitting to mention that at the completion of Round 2, the NRC leading try-scorer is Sydney Stars tighthead, Tom Robertson, with three!