Eight talking points from NRL Round 18

The final major bye round of the NRL season has come and gone, which means the run to the finals is well and truly underway.

In this week’s NRL talking points, we take a look at the cornerstone of the Eels season, assess Queensland’s Origin selections, ask why two teams are toast and much, much more.

Nathan Brown holds Parramatta’s keys to the finals
If there’s a more in-form forward in the competition than Parramatta’s Nathan Brown at the moment, I would like to hear about him.

Brown has been sensational all year, but he has gone to a whole new level in the last month, and he again led the way against a still world-class Storm pack.

Even without their representative players, the Storm still have one of the best forward packs in the competition, and Nathan Brown made them suffer.

After making more than 250 metres in the Eels’ last game against the Bulldogs, he backed it up with another damaging performance and 200 metres against the Storm.

While you have to acknowledge the slick combination of Mitchell Moses and Corey Norman, as well as the handy work of Clint Gutherson, the Eels wouldn’t be the team they are without their starting lock’s big minutes.

The spine gives them the potential to make a run in the finals, and Brown, in his current form makes it realistic. That’s going to be particularly true if he is backed up by other forwards who have been inconsistent – and Manu’Ma’u is at the top of that list.

Are Craig Bellamy’s post-match comments serious?
Ironic, isn’t it. Melbourne lose and coach Craig Bellamy suddenly wants to have a crack at the Eels for slowing the game down.

That’s right. Craig Bellamy, the coach of one of the game’s slowest, most grinding sides has just called out another team for doing exactly that. I know Melbourne were down on troops, but they were close enough to full strength up front, so for him to complain about the game being slow is beyond a joke.

“We get criticised a lot by opposition coaches for slowing the game down, but I thought it was really slow tonight. They were just laying on, laying on, but good luck to them – they got away with it.” said an irate Bellamy talking to the media after the game.

It’s almost unbelievable he would be the one to say such a thing. He acknowledged it, but the Storm, alongside the Sharks are the greatest grapplers and wrestlers in the game.

While it’s likely Bellamy was also frustrated with having six of his best in Queensland Origin camp, that’s no way to go about addressing things, when his own team is the worst offender.

Cameron Munster is a damn good halves option – Ben Hunt off the bench? Not so much
Let’s quickly switch our attention to State of Origin – just for a moment. Queensland have nailed one part of their selection, but not the other.

With a couple of forced changes for Game 3 of the series, the decider at home in Brisbane, Cameron Munster has been named to play in the halves, Michael Morgan the centres and Ben Hunt to take his place on the bench.

The forced changes came about because of injuries to Johnathan Thurston and Darius Boyd, with Munster to make it an all-Melbourne Storm spine and Morgan added to the centres.

Munster going into the halves seems like the smartest option – he has been outstanding there all season and will be alongside three of the greats, who he gets to play with every week.

The Storm half has made it a genuine big four in the spine this year – although, as I was quite rightly correct not so long ago, he is really the fifth player with Jesse Bromwich also in the Victorian capital.

Nonetheless, Munster’s selection in the halves maintains those combination, while Morgan has played all over the shop off the bench and is more than a suitable candidiate to play in the centres.

He is defensively very good, can buck in and do the hard yards with the ball and certainly has the size to play centre.

What it’s hard to agree with is the selection of Ben Hunt off the bench. Daly Cherry-Evans was overlooked because, according to Kevin Walters he would have to have started rather than coming off th bench.

Did someone forget to let him know DCE played Origin from the bench twice in 2014 and did a good job of it? The most in-form competition in the competition was overlooked for a player who was in the Queensland cup just a few weeks ago, and as a New South Wales fan, I couldn’t be happier.

Nathan Cleary’s game needs work
I really rate Nathan Cleary – let’s get that out of the way first. Unfortunately, there are elements of his game that need major work.

He has enough skill to do it though. He will make it big in the NRL, but not the way he is going about it currently. It’s probably part of coach Anthony Griffin’s gameplan, and that’s fine – well, it’s not because the gameplan is pretty ordinary – but Cleary is just turning to the same option again and again.

It’s not like it’s happened once or twice. Nearly every week, Cleary just wants to hoist kicks up into the clouds or put his outside men under pressure with poorly thought out passing plays.

He needs more creativity, more vision and clearly more say in what the team are doing. It looks as if they are being run from the sideline, rather than on the field at times and despite a win on the weekend, the big loss to the Rabbitohs a week ago is still fresh in the memory bank of a side struggling to stay in the top eight.

How terrible was Friday night’s game?
It just about put me to sleep – and I blogged it for The Roar. Seriously, the game was garbage, and the worst possible advertisement for the famous rivalry and NRL as a whole.

There will be more on Souths, because they were trash, but with the Roosters’ Origin players out, they had no right to come away with a win, yet found a way.

It was a mistake-riddled, penalty-a-thon. Both teams lacked direction in attack and neither team defended well. But it was the stop-start nature that sent fans running from their TV screens. Garbage is a word that sums it all up in one go.

The Rabbitohs and Bulldogs are both cooked, and there isn’t a turnaround in sight
Let’s go straight back to talking about South Sydney. Incompetent is a word you could use to describe their ‘effort’ against the Roosters on Friday.

They made errors, gave away dumb penalties at crucial times and were both boring and predictable in attack. Their veterans couldn’t do anything, Sam Burgess gave away one of the worst penalties of the lot and they were generally horrible to watch.

Their first try came through Robbie Farah ten minutes after halftime as he found some lazy marker defence. That came up five sets of mind-numbing attack on the Roosters line.

They offered nothing. Adam Reynolds looked out of play, Cody Walker didn’t touch the ball enough and John Sutton is an over the hill second rower who shouldn’t be playing NSW Cup in the halves.

It might seem harsh, but that’s the way it is.

The Bulldogs, on the other hand, desperate for a win against a Newcastle side who didn’t even go close to winning last week against the battling Wests Tigers put in a similarly insipid performance, but found a way to win – they didn’t deserve to in the slightest though.

Despite Craig Frawley being moved to the starting team – a move many agree with – he was still left out of position at hooker and even the return of Josh Reynolds didn’t help.

Apart from realising how much Canterbury will miss Reynolds next year when he finds himself at the Tigers, there hasn’t been many revelations for the Bulldogs this year. They have played badly, Des Hasler has been re-signed and things are only getting worse with the loss to the bottom of the table Knights.

With completions down and Moses Mbye seemingly in two minds everytime he touches the ball, a turnaround just doesn’t look to be in sight, either this year or next.

Alongside the Rabbitohs, mass changes are needed for next season. Des Hasler has reportedly been threatened with the sack if he doesn’t make the finals, but even that might not be enough.

There is a lot of work to do at Belmore and Redfern respectively.

Manly’s defence makes them a premiership dark horse
Up against a 14-4 penalty count, the Sea Eagles turned up again and again to deny the Panthers on Saturday evening. Only letting two tries in with that sort of a territory split and nursing running injuries is a monster effort.

In fact, it was two tries to two, with only a pair of conversions and a pair of second-half penalty goals proving the difference. Penrith essentially conceded defeat trying to score tries, kicking two penalty goals in the second half to take the lead from four to six and then six to eight.

They made sense, but Penrith had all the running and should have been able to score tries. Instead, Manly just kept turning up, making last ditch tackles and keeping the points off the board.

It’s not the first time they have done it this year, and despite the loss, they still find themselves in the top four. Don’t be surprised if they stay there – Daly Cherry-Evans is on fire and the defence is outstanding.

Manly have all the makings of a team who can make a deep run in September.

The Knights can’t take a trick, but could still get off the bottom of the table
The Knights were the better team for 76 minutes against the Bulldogs. Then there were two tries in four minutes and a missed penalty goal from Brock Lamb off the kick-off to ruin their afternoon.

It’s just incredible how much bad luck the Knights get. Just when you think they are going to win, something amazing happens and they give up the lead to let their opposition back into it.

Honestly, the Knights have a difficult run home and to win two games more than the Tigers will be a tough ask.

But the Knights, who have fought hard, for the most part this season showed last week’s effort was a one-off performance – a blip on the radar, rather than something that might become normal as we approach the end of the season.

It reminded us of 2016 in Newcastle, rather than 2017. Their loss to the Bulldogs reminded us where the team are going and why they will be a force in the next few years.

However, Newcastle play all of the Warriors, Raiders and Dragons on the run home – if they can get one of those three and poach another few from somewhere, chances are they could, at very least bring it down to a for and against situation for the spoon in 2017.

Roarers, what did you make of Round 18? Drop a comment and let us know.