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. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
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.
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. (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.
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. (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.
What did you make of the shortened round? And what will we have in store next week as the competition heads north?
steveng
Roar Rookie
Yep mate, Raudonikis (RIP) would be turning in his grave and would have been outraged in seeing a shameful act like that in RL, just like I was! We old timers won’t brought up this way.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Nonsense mate. The rule has always, always been about fatigue and stopping blatant penalties. I think it has reduce the wrestle but you clearly disagree so have at it. I have never claimed that it would get ride of the wrestle. The NRL also claim the rule is not about fatigue and hasn't brought in any fatigue which is clearly rubbish so anything they say I wake with a massive grain of salt.
farkurnell
Roar Rookie
The reason the walker play is being debated is it’s an evolution of the Non-Enforcement of the Voluntary Tackle Law.if Walker was penalised near the Dogs line for a Voluntary Tackle it would immediately stamp this type of “Stunt” out. No rule change required.
R N
Roar Rookie
I must say I am a little torn over this. I think it was both a smart play and not a great look. I suppose two things can be true at once. That said, I agree that its low on the spectrum of things in the game to be concerned about. And I agree re the fake injury. I much preferred this over the Kenny Edwards.... his fake cramping makes me think he has never had a real cramp in his life!
Joey
Guest
We aren’t seeing teams get run down from impossible positions anymore either. Seeing a team dominate for 60min and then see them suddenly concede somehow penalty after penalty and their lead vanish was probably harder to watch than the current version of league. Refs aren’t involved in big momentum shifts in a game as they used to. If you take away the current rule, this is what you go back to. For me, I’d rather see a team win by 40 and know the better team won, rather than lead by 20 and suddenly have to pull it out in golden point maybe, watching WWF disguised as rugby league.
souvalis
Roar Rookie
The only other NRL player who’d do that would be Josh Reynolds..wasn’t that long ago he tried to end the half teasing a Titan player then throwing the ball over the touch line..it was called an intentional forward pass by the ref and he was penalized..karma gets them.
andrew
Roar Rookie
Could you imagine one Tom Raudonikis doing that steveng. Not in a million years.
David Shilovsky
Expert
I'm a Chooks fan and while I appreciate the smarts of the Walker play, it's just not a great look. The league equivalent of going to the corner in the 88th minute in football - definitely within the rules but it's just not a good look. That said, the Doggies could have put a lot more pressure on him.
steveng
Roar Rookie
Yep “matth” butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths that’s for sure :laughing: but no Bunnies player(s) in my over 60 years and the many years that I've played the game has ever done a clown shameful act like that, I thought it was way way beneath the spirit of the game. If a side is good enough there should not be any reason and/or factors especially in the last 20sec when they were in the opposition 40m, for them to resort to such an act. That is the first time I’ve ever seen that happen in a game and to tell you honestly, I never thought that it was legal and most certainly it’s a shameful act and its just not done by a fair dinkum player or side. Unfortunately this has invited other sides to do the same in the NRL comp and you wait and see, as I really hope that the Dogs do the same to the Chooks next year when they have a better side, you wait and see it will happen.
The Barry
Roar Guru
ARL Commissioner Pearce talks about the rule eradicating wrestle techniques: https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/nrls-bid-to-eradicate-wrestling-techniques-from-the-game/a87cbb39-db70-433c-8ada-840adabb5613 NRL press release talks about the rule speeding up the ruck: https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/06/30/arl-commission-approves-six-again-variation/ NRL article that talks to the rule being introduced because the NRL was looking at ways to reduce the wrestle and because referees were reluctant to blow as many penalties as were warranted https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/06/01/eight-years-in-the-making-six-again-rule-cuts-out-interchange-debate/
The Barry
Roar Guru
Rubbish. Since day one this rule has been about getting rid of the wrestle. It was brought in in direct response to teams giving away cynical penalties slowing the play the ball down to reset their line We’ve actually had discussions about this before where you’ve said it’s led to faster play the balls and less wrestle. It hasn’t The problem is partly the rule… there’s too many situations where it benefits the transgressing team as opposed to an outright penalty. But mostly it’s - as you say - because just like with the old rule - teams have called the refs bluff. They’re quite happy to give away a 6 again, because a) it benefits their team and b) they get away with 20+ before they cop a 6 again So this rule has contributed to (not caused) lopsided scorelines and one of the most boring, predictable seasons I can remember, but not provided any benefit to the game
farkurnell
Roar Rookie
What was the point of The Magic Round crackdown? A Distant memory for fans and officials.I saw a least half a dozen head slaps over the 4 games - with no sin binning, incurring the same penalty for a player picking the ball up a foot in front of his team mate.While officialdom rightly grapple with Covid.They’ve dropped the ball on cleaning up HIA.,back to situation normal pre blitz
Rellum
Roar Guru
The six again rule was never about speeding up the play the ball. You have invented that in your own head. It is about speeding up the "game", i.e. getting more fatigue, not the play the balls. The other main reason is to get rid of the blatant penalties given away defending on your own line,(which ewe can now see was the only defence some teams had). Never once was it mentioned that it would remove the wrestle. People have said it has and I think it has reduced the wrestle but it was never going to get rid of the wrestle with six agains alone. And I keep saying this, players and teams who blatantly or consistently break the rules must be binned, but the refs are scared to bin people, and in part I don't blame them giving the blow back they always get.
Phil
Roar Rookie
I stand by my statement. A first grade RL player does not run away from the opposition.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Or to line up and make the tackles he does in games.
Forty Twenty
Roar Rookie
Saab got a couple of panic passes when there was nothing on , can't blame him. Cust has been watching the ball players sending Saab streaking away for tries and wanted a piece of the action. Do we have a sniff? It's still about several factors. A good run with injuries , hitting a peak at the right time , a bit of luck and making the top 4. A spine of Fainu , DCE, Schuster and Turbo is close to the best in the comp in my opinion.
Paul
Roar Guru
I just can't get past anyone calling a first grade NRL player a coward especially a little bloke like Walker who did exactly nothing wrong. The only people to get stupidly upset was a loser like Voss and you I'll bet big money you wouldn't have the courage to say that to his face, especially with a few of his mates around.
farkurnell
Roar Rookie
That used to happen at Belmore Oval ,way back when the Mortimer boys were running around.Added to the last minute theatre,until they realised 7 minutes had elapsed.
Andrew01
Roar Rookie
The clock stops when a try is scored in the last 2 minutes or 5 minutes or something, not sure about scrums. But you know, there has been a fair bit on this week and it has been a few weeks since we had a crackdown or a rule change, so we are over due.. If Hadley comes on NRL360 this week and slams Walker for the play, you can be sure PVL will change the rule next week.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Des is very stubborn with his selections…