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'Video game smarts in the NRL': Six talking points from Round 17

11th July, 2021
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11th July, 2021
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Only four games in the second split round for 2021, but there’s still plenty to talk about. Here’s your talking points for NRL Round 17 ahead of Wednesday’s Origin finale.

Rugby league? That’s in Queensland
Forget about the eight teams going around this weekend, you have to ask whether or not this round should have been postponed to get everyone up to Queensland as Sydney’s COVID-19 outbreak grows.

The NRL have just announced three Queensland-based hubs, with the Sydney clubs, Newcastle, New Zealand and Canberra headed north; while North Queensland stay in Townsville and the Storm stay in Melbourne.

Hopefully there are no issues arising from taking an extra weekend to play four games which easily could have been slotted in another time, because we know state and territory governments are making rapid decisions about who’s allowed in and out. Teams won’t be in Queensland until Wednesday and who knows what restrictions will be in place by then.

The ARLC and Peter V’landys will need to be at their absolute best in their negotiations with the Queensland government, or we could see the season crumble quickly.

Illegitimate joy is still joyous
Playing Manly without Tom and Jake Trbojevic is like taking on Prince Adam and Cringer instead of He-Man and Battle-Cat.

The shorthanded Canberra Raiders did the job over a shorthanded Sea Eagles to keep in touch with the top eight – never mind they still played a 2019 style of running nothing but forward and leaving the centres and wingers to catch nothing but frostbite.

Hudson Young and Ryan Sutton celebrate.

Hudson Young and Ryan Sutton celebrate. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

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Canterbury were able to get closer with a big effort against an injury and Origin impacted Roosters side, and the Rabbitohs were probably defined by the players who weren’t selected, with Cody Walker and Adam Reynolds doing as they pleased against the Cowboys.

The good news is this was the last split round. State of Origin players will filter back in over the next round or two and we’ll be back to full tilt, wherever that may be.

I’ve stolen the term ‘illegitimate joy’ from Twitter, where a Panthers fan blew up about getting done by Wests before Origin one. Is beating a team missing their best players a real reflection of where your team is at?

Of course it’s not, but who cares? In this season of blowouts and bludgers, fans of teams from 6th down to 16th will grab any win with both hands.

Sam Walker’s runaway on full time was great
Tony Iro in 1998 for the mighty Adelaide Rams, Jake Friend in the 2018 grand final, and now Sam Walker have made the eminently sensible decision to run the clock down and secure victory by just sprinting away with the ball in hand.

Walker has been copping it for his version, simply because it was a rather dramatic 90 metre sprint towards his own goal-line to kill twenty seconds and win the game 22-16.

There’s no rule against it – there was still plenty of time for an opponent to chase him and dispossess him (Lachlan Lewis went after him, but all the other Doggies conceded), but the main thing is he removed the chance for any big hits or one-on-one strips in a game where the difference was a converted try.

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Well played to him. It was video game smarts in the real world. So in ya boot to all those grumps out there who ripped into him. If Walker was on your team you’d have celebrated what he did.

Joseph Manu is the league’s best ‘Swiss Army Man’
The Roosters are short in the halves? Manu goes to five-eighth, scores a try and sets one up.

James Tedesco’s away at Origin camp? Manu goes to fullback, knocks out almost 300 metres, scores a try, saves a few and gives one up.

He’s a marvel, the Kiwi international. 192 centimetres and 98 kilos of just smooth rugby league skills and game awareness. On top of that, he’s still only 25 and on the books at Bondi until the end of next season.

I’d be giving him whatever he wanted to come and play at my team. Manu quietly goes about his business, but don’t sleep on his status as one of the game’s elite.

Joseph Manu scores a try.

Joseph Manu scores a try. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Souths need to feast more on the also-rans
With eight games left until finals, teams will soon be breaking out the calculators to see how many points they’ll need to score to improve or secure their ladder position.

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South Sydney in particular did their part with a 46-18 pasting of a dismal North Queensland, but if they want to stay in the top four, they might need to tee off even harder when they have the chance against the lesser teams.

Melbourne and Penrith are reasonably set in first and second, and although the Bunnies have are tied with the Panthers for premiership points with 28, they trail them by 163 on differential. The Bunnies are two games ahead of fourth-placed Parramatta, but they’re 52 points behind on the differential, leaving them still vulnerable, while the Roosters also boast a superior points situation despite being a further win behind.

Their last eight games include the Bulldogs, Titans, Warriors and two against the Dragons. They’ve got plenty of chances to fill their boots.

Are Cronulla good enough to be a finals spoiler?
The Sharks won a pretty uninspiring contest with the Warriors to move themselves into eighth spot. They’ve been able to beat the teams around them and have a pretty soft run home as they look to play finals for the seventh straight year.

I’ve been rough on Cronulla in 2021, particularly around how their management handled the exit of John Morris. In the weeks after Morris was punted they looked shocking, but they’ve always been a team with grit and tenacity; and with five wins from their last six, it looks as though the fight is back.

Braden Hamlin-Uele of the Sharks stands over Jack Williams after post try celebration.

Braden Hamlin-Uele of the Sharks stands over Jack Williams after post try celebration. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

With Canberra no good, St George Illawarra in the sin bin and Newcastle wildly unpredictable, will it be Cronulla who plays the ‘spoiler’ role to knock a few teams off balance in the lead-up to the finals? They’ve got Manly, Melbourne, Canberra and Newcastle in the run home, and the Sharks are more than capable of wobbling or ending the season of more than one of those clubs.

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What did you make of the shortened round? And what will we have in store next week as the competition heads north?

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