What we've 'found out' is Trbojevic's not superhuman after all but he's still elite

There was talk during the week suggesting that Manly star Tom Trbojevic had been “found out” and if the official definition involves not being able to cope with Penrith, then there aren’t too many players in the NRL who haven’t been.

It’s enough to make you wonder what people’s expectations were on the back of arguably the greatest individual season in the NRL era.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t a kernel of truth in the feeling that Turbo is, if not totally stoppable, he might be more stoppable than previously thought.

Let’s start with the caveats. Tom Trbojevic’s 2021 was beyond elite. It was probably unsustainably elite. Unless your name is Michael Jordan, Simone Biles or Lionel Messi, it’s not really possible to keep that kind of one-year form up long term.

For mortals, regression of some sort is inevitable. The problem with being really, really good is everyone is trying to work out how to stop you all the time and it’s likely some of the cleverer coaches will have come up with something effective.

Rugby league, on a structural level, is highly resistant to individual domination: it’s a weak link sport, where you’re only as good as your worst player, compared to (for example) basketball or ice hockey, where one exceptional individual can transcend the limitations of the unit.

And that’s before you get to the ‘getting smashed’ part of being a very, very good rugby league player.

The most obvious way to stop an exceptional individual is to drastically increase their workload, either by running your attacking traffic towards them (see: Nathan Cleary) or by kicking away from them as early and often as possible, as Penrith did to Tom Trbojevic last week.

With 250 words of caveat in the bank, we can finally talk about why Tom Trbojevic might have been found out. Well, we can’t, because he hasn’t been. Yet, at least.

James Tedesco (Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

What the Panthers did last week has been the blueprint to stop Tom Trbojevic all along, and in fact as has largely been the blueprint to stop an elite fullback for a long time. Melbourne figured it out last season and (if you were watching closely enough) so did Newcastle.

Stop them getting up a head of steam by kicking well enough that they don’t get to run with it. Win the forwards to limit the ability to play on the back of shape. Defend in an umbrella shape to cut off outside passing options and force them inside.

The Roosters, who Manly face on Friday night, will know this playbook well. They should, because Newcastle (them again) did it to James Tedesco last Saturday.

At Penrith, Turbo managed 157m total, of which 31 kick return metres. At the SCG, Teddy managed 150m with 41 from returns.

There’s another layer to this. The bulk of kicks were fielded by Jason Saab for Manly (8) and Daniel Tupou (3) for the Roosters, with Saab managing an average of 2m per return (no, really) and Tupou way up there at 8.6m per return.

How do you negate a very tall, fast but somewhat (by NRL standards) slender winger? Kick well enough so the ball essentially drops on them and your chasers can line them up and, the second they catch the ball and land, stick a shot in.

Teams call this caging their opponents – basically they’re in a cage of defenders the moment they catch the ball and there’s little they can do to escape.

Sean O’Sullivan kicked five bombs last Thursday night and Adam Clune kicked three, with their halves partners chipping in with one each. Guess who inevitably took the next hit-up after their winger had been targeted?

“Let’s talk about play-the-balls and exposure to play-the-balls,” said Manly coach Des Hasler. “They [Penrith] had infinitely more than we did, fifty if you want to put a number on it.

“Against a side like Penrith, they’ll put you in a corner. It’s not only your exposure to play-the-balls, it’s where you start your sets. When you’re starting five by five (in your own back corner) against Penrith, it’s very hard to play any kind of football.

“We know the kind of footy that we want to play and we like to think that we’re one of the most expansive sides in the competition – on last year, the numbers reflect that.

“We know that we need to address that whole question of possession. It’s complex but we have to make it simple and be able to play with field position.”

With those sort of set starts, what did we expect Tom Trbojevic to do? He’s good, but he’s not a miracle worker. It didn’t look too crash hot for Tedesco either.

The truth is that neither are ‘found out’, and indeed, both will likely be among the top five players in the competition again.

The second point that came to the fore during the week was the positioning of Trbojevic on the field, with suggestions that he might be better used at centre.

On the face of it, there’s some logic to that. In Origin, where Turbo featured as a roaming centre, as discussed at length in my tactical preview of the season, he excelled.

While it would certainly free Trbojevic to get more ball, it would largely be limited to one side of the field – not necessarily a bad thing, if you put him up against a Billy Smith, who missed five tackles in 53 minutes last week and will turn out again in the centres for the Roosters.

The problem might then come because Manly don’t have an elite fullback anymore, but instead an elite centre. There’s a very good reason the best fullbacks in the NRL command the most money of basically anyone and the best centres don’t. It’s a harder position to find talent.

If, for example, Manly had an very good fullback they were struggling to get into the side – like perhaps Canberra do with Xavier Savage, or Melbourne had with Nicho Hynes – then you could see an argument for moving the deckchairs around.

They don’t, though. The regular deputy is Reuben Garrick (which only moves your fullback problem onto a wing) and the next cab is a youngster like Kaeo Weekes or Tolutau Koula. What you would gain doesn’t outweigh what you would lose.

When Turbo lost matches last year – after he missed the first four fixtures, all of which Manly suffered defeats, plus Origin-affected games – it was against the Storm (twice), Panthers, Souths and the Knights.

So unless you’re the Knights, who proved last week an outstanding ability to shut fullbacks down, then you had to be a top-three side to beat Trbojevic. Naturally, most teams are not top three teams – by my calculations, 13 of the 16 in the NRL.

Melbourne and Penrith have developed a clear tactical set-up that can blunt the game’s best fullback, but as ever with tactics, the theory and the execution can be wildly different things. The evidence to date is that other teams can’t execute any plan they have have formulated with any great effect on him.

It’s highly unlikely Trbojevic has been found out. Even if he has, it’s more than likely he’ll be good enough to overcome it anyway.

Whatever the answer is, it’s not in games like last week against Penrith, or this week against the Roosters, that will be where we find out.

var request = new XMLHttpRequest();

request.open('POST', '/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php', true); request.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;'); request.onload = function () { if (this.status >= 200 && this.status