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Opinion

Three takeaways from Round 1 of the NRL season

Roar Guru
15th March, 2021
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Roar Guru
15th March, 2021
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No Smith, no problem
The Melbourne Storm looked better than ever on Thursday night as they took on one of the major contenders coming into the season, the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

The Storm absolutely came out of the blocks firing as they scored all four of their tries in the opening 30 minutes, with the four-pointers going to Cameron Munster, Justin Olam, and a double from Ryan Papenhuyzen.

Melbourne was then able to hold off the Rabbits in the second half, posting an eight-point win to kick off the season. Papenhuyzen looked electric as his decision-making skills were exceptional.

My predicted 2021 Dally M Medallist, Cameron Munster, put on a show with his ball playing skills as he was finding holes in Souths’ defence and set his teammates up to run like steam trains straight through the defence.

Everyone just played their roles in their round 1 clash and by securing their first win of the new year, it has pushed their argument to be the favourites for the title this season.

The Broncos will not be getting the spoon
I can nearly confirm that my Broncos will not be ending the season as back-to-back wooden spooners. The Broncos did pick up a loss in their season opener on Friday night, however, there were many positives for me to take out of their hard-fought loss.

Brisbane was up 16-0 at half time and I thought I was dreaming, as we were playing some great football and had certainly improved from last year. Like any fan would’ve, I had thoughts of another second-half choke coming in the back of my head and that is exactly what happened.

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Kevin Walters

Kevin Walters had plenty of positives to take from Round 1, despite the loss (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

We went scoreless in the second half and conceded 24 points. Our poor second halves were the story of last year’s season, however, this second half seemed a lot better than others, as we were able to stay in the contest almost all the way through until a Junior Paulo try with two minutes remaining.

I can nearly confirm that with that performance, Brisbane will not be picking up the 2021 wooden spoon and will possibly finisher higher than 14th.

Manly are unlikely to win a game without Tom Trbojevic
The Manly Sea Eagles posted anything but a good performance on Saturday afternoon against the Sydney Roosters as they conceded a heavy 42-point defeat. The Sea Eagles seemed lost all game, as they were only able to score one try in the whole match.

There will be Manly fans coming to me with excuses saying that they need Turbo to win games, however, can I just point out that you have the Queensland Maroons captain, and a starting NSW lock, but you’re getting blown out.

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Without Tommy Turbo, you still have to put up some fight in games. It is highly likely for the Sea Eagles to not win a game before the return of Tom, as he is likely to return in Round 4 and their only winnable game before then is against the Dragons.

But if they play like they did against the Chooks, they won’t even beat Anthony Griffin’s men. If Manly does start the season 0-4, it will put a lot of pressure on Trbojevic to steer the ship around and will put a big hole in their finals chances.

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