NRL Thursday night forecast: Cowboys vs Roosters

Welcome back to The Roar‘s NRL Thursday Night Forecast series. After the Bulldogs’ last gasp win in Round 2 we’re now two from two in our predictions. Tonight it’s the defending premiers hosting the Roosters with both teams coming off last start losses.

Recent form
At 1 and 1 and 0 and 2 both the Cowboys and Roosters have cause to be disappointed with the way their seasons have started, although obviously the Roosters have far more cause for alarm.

For the Cowboys a solid home win against a willing Sharks team in Round 1 was followed by a lacklustre performance in Parramatta on Saturday night. The made an incredible 16 errors the third worst rate of any team over the weekend and even beyond the errors the performance was marked by some poor execution which we will be considering in more depth later.

However playing an Eels team that was enjoying a postponed great unveiling of their new halves partnership it is a forgivable loss for the defending premiers

The Roosters, however, have considerably more to be concerned about. After getting trounced, walloped and shellacked at home in Round 1 the Roosters started better in Canberra on another brutally hot afternoon but were overrun by a determined fight back from the Green Machine.

While the performance of the Roosters’ forward pack was noticeably improved from Round 1 young halves Jackson Hastings and Jayden Nikorima again struggled to make an imprint. That’s to be expected of course with such inexperienced halves but the reality is that the team faces the prospect of being oh and three to start the season if they can’t find a way to win tonight

Team sheet

Despite the lacklustre performance on Saturday night Cowboys coach Paul Green has unsurprisingly named an unchanged lineup. The only real question mark will be whether he will again switch Jake Granville and Rory Kostjasyn prior to kick-off; a move presumably aimed at sparing Granville the early slog and allowing him to come in as an impact player.

One Cowboys player who could perhaps use a jump start to his season is Michael Morgan who has had a somewhat subdued opening two games.
In my Cowboys season preview I noted the importance of the Cowboys three-headed playmaking monster of Morgan, Johnathan Thurston and fullback Lachlan Coote. However thus far in 2016 Thurston and Coote have done the lion’s share of the playmaking, with Morgan only an occasional contributor.

Indeed Morgan’s statistics and play thus far are more reminiscent of a fullback with reasonably high running stats but only 20 to 30 touches of the ball and very few kicks (only three total thus far). At the same time Coote has played more like a traditional half at times with around 40 touches in both games thus far and a prominent role in the kicking game.

Whether this is by design or due to Morgan simply being off his game is hard to determine but either way, Morgan’s form will bear watching both tonight and in the coming weeks. To be clear I’m not suggesting that Morgan is in any imminent danger of being dropped. Indeed, he’s probably still among the front runners for the Queensland team in June. It is simply to say that he has been quiet so far.

For the Roosters there are no changes to the team that ran out on Saturday afternoon, though the team is different to the one that was initially named for that game with Blake Ferguson switching from fullback where he was named to right centre.

The question of who should replace Roger Tuivasa-Sheck at fullback for the Roosters was a talking point in the preseason and continued in the wake of the Round 1 flop against the Rabbitohs in which Ferguson was one of many disappointing Roosters.

Much like Paul Macgregor at the Dragons with Josh Dugan and Kurt Mann, Roosters coach Trent Robinson has evidently realised his huge mistake and returned Ferguson to right centre and promoted under 20s star Latrell Mitchell from wing to fullback.

I argued in my Roosters season preview that while I preferred Ferguson at centre that it was entirely possible that he could work at fullback given his immense physical talents. While it is probably still true that Ferguson could make an above average fullback he definitely makes for a truly elite right centre.

Ferguson is clearly a monster with ball in hand, with incredibly long limbs, preternatural balance and a powerful upper body. In 2015 he had 15 line breaks and 64 tackle breaks placing him equal first and sixth respectively in those categories among centres despite playing only 18 games. We can see that physical dominance here in this neat triptych how easily he handles former teammate Jarrod Croker

However Ferguson is not simply a tackle breaker he also has a relatively well-rounded playmaking game as well. In his 18 games last season he recorded five line break assists and seven try assists putting him in the top ten among regular centres in both categories despite playing only 75% as many games as some of those

Tonight presents a fascinating match-up for Ferguson with the Cowboys left centre Kane Linnett among the more defensively sound centres in the competition. In fact in 2015 Linnett missed only 30 tackles in 28 games, the best missed tackle rate among regular centres. It will be a battle to watch all night.

Meanwhile, for the Roosters Dylan Napa has somehow recovered from the truly brutal blow that was definitely worthy of both a sin bin and suspension that Joey Leilua dealt him during Saturday afternoon’s game and will take his place in the front row.

THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTY, LIKE EVERY NRL GAME, IS LIVE ON FOXTEL

What to watch for
In previous weeks we’ve looked at some very well designed and executed plays from the Eels and Bulldogs, however the main observation from the Cowboys game against the Eels in Round 2 was the uncharacteristically poor execution of the Cowboys.

On a half a dozen occasions the team established good field position or manoeuvred to provide an opportunity for a set play but each time the positioning was wrong or the timing was off or the crucial pass went astray.

Here is a great example of a really interesting formation creating an opportunity to apply pressure being undone by poor positioning or at the very least poor execution.

This play is late in the first half and as we pick it up in this frame it is the last tackle and the Cowboys have created a great opportunity to run the ball from just inside the Eels territory. It starts with fullback Lachlan Coote coming into the line at first receiver putting the magic man Johnathan Thurston at second receiver and no doubt generating general consternation for the Eels defence.

Unfortunately, though, nobody seems to have told Antonio Winterstein that the run play is on because he is already up pressing on the offside line, presumably getting ready to chase a kick.

As the play continues we can see that Coote has passed to Thurston but that Winterstein is now applying the handbrake as he realises that he needs to get behind the ball to be in position for a run play.

With no depth in his backline and Beau Scott closing fast, Thurston has little choice but to dump the ball to Gavin Cooper who simply trucks it up to the line innocuously and the Cowboys surrender possession.

While the above sequence showed the team failing to exploit an unusual opportunity to run on the last in this next play we see poor execution of fairly standard play.

After a series of quick play the balls the Cowboys have a roll on and have established a numbers advantage with right centre Brad Takarangi committed to come in on Lachlan Coote leaving Clinton Gutherson isolated against Kane Linnett and Antonio Winterstein. Coote will simply pass the ball to Linnett who will most likely either slice between Takarangi and Gutherson or pass to Winterstein who will have a footrace to the corner post with Eels fullback Michael Gordon.

Or at least that is what should happen.

However as the play unfolds we see that one or both of Coote and Linnett has got their timing or angles wrong and they’ve ended up in a group hug with Takarangi and Gutherson as Coote tries in vain to shuffle the pass out to Winterstein.

Unsurprisingly we see in this final frame that the pass from Coote has gone astray, going behind Winterstein and into touch. Even if the pass had been catchable, the clunkiness of the play has given Gordon plenty of time to improve his position and it’s likely that he would have had a fair shot at challenging Winterstein one on one

These two plays were far from the only times in which the Cowboys established good field position or set up for a good play but failed to execute. No doubt the Eels will claim credit for putting pressure on the Cowboys and forcing that poor execution and that is no doubt part of the explanation but the Cowboys were certainly well off their best as well.

The question is will the Roosters will be to apply similar pressure and will the Cowboys continue to make things worse for themselves.

First try scorer tip – Jake Granville or Antonio Winterstein
So I’m cheating a bit with this one but you can blame Cowboys coach Paul Green after he pulled a smokescreen last week and started Rory Kostjasyn at dummy half in place of the listed starter Granville.

If Granville starts he is my man but if he doesn’t I’ll take Winterstein

Prediction – Cowboys
As we’ve seen the Cowboys were fairly disappointing on Saturday night in Parramatta. Their execution was poor at times, and it’s also worth mentioning that the team also attempted unnecessary or speculative plays on a number of occasions when a more conservative approach was called for.

However on the other side we have the Roosters who were unable to defeat a Raiders team that firstly lost a big minutes forward to concussion 30 seconds in; then had virtually no possession in the first half (38 play the balls to 70); then lost another player at half time; then had a player sin binned and all the while made 16 errors in only 32 sets.

To say this is concerning for the Roosters is to undersell it a bit. Even if the Roosters improve considerably on their performances in rounds one and two it is still hard to see how even a competent performance from the Cowboys isn’t enough to get the two points.

Shoe in of the week
At some point in the broadcast someone will refer to Jake Granville as being “underrated” despite the fact that he was perhaps the second best player in the grand final last year. Granville is a classic example of a player who everyone agrees is underrated thereby actually making him properly rated if not a little overrated