NRL Power Rankings: Parra plunge, but Broncos and Bunnies bounce their way to the top

Round 19. Nenenenenenenenene-nineteen. Paul Hardcastle’s classic track took on disasters in the tropics involving bunkers, and there’s probably a metaphor in there if you look really hard.

Prior to 79:59 of the Cowboys vs Tigers game, this was one of the best rounds of the year. Indeed, if you subscribe to the ‘I guess that’ll give foreign correspondents of the future something to write about” school of diplomacy, then it probably was the best round of the year.

Lucky for us, referees don’t get a Power Ranking and we don’t factor it into where we put teams at the end of a round. Ashley Klein is the only person to underperform in Super League and get a move to the NRL off the back of it. I’ll leave it at that.

Let’s get stuck in.

1 – Penrith Panthers (-)

What more do you say about the Panthers? They always find a way to win. The current record for biggest margin at the top of the tree in the NRL era is eight points, set by the 2006 Melbourne Storm, and it looks like Penrith will breeze through that. The all-time premiership record of 11 set by Souths in 1951

Nathan Cleary. (Photo by Matt Blyth/Getty Images)

2 – Brisbane Broncos (+4)

The real deal Broncos is a phrase that I used a lot, then forgot, and now will be using again. This team is legit. Playing on a Thursday night generally means folk forget about what you achieve because, by the time the Monday wraps are written, it’s the dim and distant past.

Not me. I thought they couldn’t do it with players out. They did. I thought they couldn’t beat contenders away. They have. The way they manage transitions – not to plug my own work, but go read – is exactly as good in person as I thought.

It’s strange to think of a Brisbane team without expectations but this is it. There might be an experience hurdle that undoes them in the finals, but it’s all good in the long term. Oh, and four of the next six are at home, which means they’ll get at least some finals at home too.

3 – North Queensland Cowboys (-)

The Cowboys are – and you can tick this in your pommy slang bingo – awfully jammy gets. They beat Manly when they shouldn’t have, because their opponents collapsed. They beat the Tigers when they shouldn’t have, because the bunker has a collective brain fade.

Oh, and OG Power Rankings Cru from the first weeks of the year will remember that they have, by far, the easiest draw.

Valentine Holmes celebrates after kicking the winning penalty goal. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)

None of this is to diminish their achievements, because you make your own luck in this sport. If DCE doesn’t make a horrendous error, they lose, but then if Scott Drinkwater doesn’t do the 1% to make the conditions for the error, they also lose.

But there have been some severe cases of positive variance in their favour and none more so than Sunday night. It’s not their fault that the bunker did what it did.

Beware though: they get the Dragons away, who make every game hard through tedium, and then the Dogs, who make every game hard through manic entertainment, and they round out the year with the Bunnies and Storm. It’s not impossible that the Cowboys miss the top four – if their luck was to turn…

4 – Melbourne Storm (-)

Barely clinging to the top four are Melbourne. One might wonder why, given they have now lost four straight, but bear with me: this is, as I have thrashed out over weeks of ranking power, a list of performance indicators and what that might mean in terms of finals.

The Storm have a reservoir of experience and nous that runs very, very deep. If they finish outside the top four, they will likely end up travelling to one of Brisbane – they have lost about once in a decade at Suncorp – or North Queensland, who have exactly the opposite amount of finals experience.

It’s wishful thinking, however, because they did look quite bad on Saturday night. Unless they add some outside backs this week, I think this might be the last time we see them in the top four.

5 – Cronulla Sharks (-)

The Sharks get this week’s ‘good defeat’ points, going down to Penrith in valiant circumstances. Well, that’s one view of proceedings.

On first look, it seemed to be a rerun of their loss in Melbourne, where the Sharks competed very well for a period, caught their opponents cold and then proved unable to keep it up.

On reflection, I think it might have been that they stopped doing what they were doing when they thought they had something to hold on to. Penrith were excellent and hauled them in, but were assisted by Cronulla’s unwillingness to throw back.

When they defeated the Warriors with 12 men – 11 at one point -Craig Fitzgibbon told me how important it was that he had told the team to keep attack and not to sit on their lead. If you don’t throw back, you invite long periods of tackling.

That advice would have been welcome on Saturday teatime. In the long run, it’ll be a lesson learned now that they don’t have to learn in the finals.

6 – South Sydney Rabbitohs (+6)

Souths’ trajectory continues up and up. It makes me wish I’d been more bullish than I was on them earlier in the year: and, for the record, I was really, really bullish on them. I watched that team lose a lot and thought they were 3% in completion rate away from battering sides.

It’s simplistic to say that the return of Latrell Mitchell has made the difference. The Bunnies are undoubtedly improved by one of the best players in the world coming back into the side, because who wouldn’t be, but his comeback has coincided with a change in luck, a refinement of their attacking process and an upping of their defensive resolve.

One man does not make these things happen, but he certainly does contribute. Latrell is underrated defensively, because he barks instructions through and organises superbly from the back. He also plays a split second deeper, and makes defences more accountable, which means Souths play slightly further from the line, which reduces their errors.

Oh, and the intangibles that I generally hate, he has in spades. His confidence is contagious.

(Photo by Scott Gardiner/Getty Images)

7 – Parramatta Eels (-5)

A drop from second to seventh is usually the sort of thing that happens in Power Rankings in the first couple of weeks of the season, when nobody really knows how good anyone is. Not for me: Parra get the trapdoor.

Many in the comments section were perplexed by my call to have Parramatta as second, but I did so based on my belief that they were a side gearing up for finals and thus could be expected to kick into gear when the going gets tough.

Then I saw them on Thursday night. I’ve seen a lot of the Eels, both good and bad, and that was as bad as it gets: previous losses could have been attributed to one-offs and lack of motivation, but the Broncos defeat was them losing to a better team, who played better than they did and were better.

It also scotches their top four hopes, which I always thought were vital to them getting anywhere. They need a serious momentum shift: good job, then, that they get a chance against Penrith on Friday night.

Jospeh Suaalii celebrates scoring a try. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

8 – Sydney Roosters (+1)

The Chooks moved into prime position for the top eight with a win over Newcastle – go them, I suppose – but I don’t know that it actually helps us.

On field, they look like they can score points from anywhere but they’ve faced the Dragons, who can’t attack, and the Knights, who can’t do anything. It’s the defence that is the issue and we learned zilch there.

Obviously, their trip to Brookvale on Thursday looms over this because if they win that then you’d have to say their points difference will be enough to raise them clear of the Sea Eagles, and after that, it’s just a late Raiders charge to see off.

But then…12 wins is the goal. They have nine. Three more needed and their draw is really, really hard. They’ll get one against the Wests Tigers and they have four home games, so it should be possible, though that includes the Cowboys, Broncos and Bunnies, plus a trip to Melbourne.

9 – Manly Sea Eagles (-2)

I’m not sure how much to read into Manly’s defeat to the Dragons. They had three starting forwards out, then lost two of their replacements within the first half hour. Most teams will struggle with that. It was clear that they would have also taken off a few others, Josh Aloiai and Haumole Olakau’atu top of mind among them, if they’d had the subs to spare.

A win would have made the Sea Eagles clear favourites for the finals, but now they sit in 9th and have a huge run of fixtures ahead of them. Taking on the Roosters on Thursday without seven players boycotting the match over the pride jersey, followed by the flapping Eels the week after, both of them at Fortress Brookie. It’s unlikely but things might look very rosy in two weeks’ time, or they could be on the beach early.

Well, they’re always on the beach because they’re Manly, but you get the point.

 (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

10 – Canberra Raiders (-)

The Raiders have a knack of doing exactly what is needed, and very little more. Every game they have played, win or lose, since their win over Souths in Round 11 has been close.

You can see this one of two ways. They challenge everyone and stay in the fight, which is good, but are also in the fight late against teams they should bash up on. Saturday afternoon was the latter kind of affair, and a proper side beats the Warriors easily, but one suspects that Ricky Stuart will take the points and move on.

They run into the trash Titans on Saturday, a game that will take place after at least one of Manly and Roosters have lost. With a big differential to turn around over the Roosters, Canberra can’t afford it to be close on the Gold Coast.

11 – St George Illawarra Dragons (-)

The Red V got the big red pen last week and then promptly beat Manly. Kudos to them for keeping their finals hopes alive for another week, but come on: this team is not making finals and, if they do, they’ll get trounced in the first week.

Though the Dragons sit on the same points as Manly, Canberra and the Roosters, their for and against sees them essentially a win fewer and they would have to win four of the next six to make it, or three and overturn 100+ points on other sides.

They’re a one-man team, too, and it’s not really sustainable for Ben Hunt to do absolutely everything every week forever.

12 – Canterbury Bulldogs (-)

Trent Barrett promised The Dogs of War, Mick Potter delivered The Entertainers. Now granted, I attend Bulldogs games as a journalist and not a fan, so a team that can score a lot but also concede a lot are generally one that I enjoy, because I don’t care if they win or not.

As Potter has pointed out, fans (and players, and coaches) are interested in results. I disagree: fans will tolerate bad results if the team give them something to believe in, and this side, which attacks with such flair and gives young players a chance, is that.

Jason Kiraz makes a break. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

13 – Newcastle Knights (-)

“I don’t care what people think is happening. We don’t want injuries, obviously, but we’ve got guys in our team. We don’t pick them up off the street, they’ve been playing footy a fair bit.

“They need to go out, catch the ball, pass the ball and make a tackle. For parts of our game, we can’t seem to do that. Other times we do it well but we’re not playing a consistent game for 80 minutes. If we got 65 or 70 we’d be doing better than what we’re doing at the moment.”

These were not the words of Adam O’Brien, but those of Craig Bellamy after his injury-hit side lost to South Sydney. AOB et al would do well to take note. No amount of injuries is an excuse for the defensive issues that his side have had, which had led to 42, 40, 12, 42, 36, 50, 39, 30 and 4 against them in their home games this year.

14 – New Zealand Warriors (-)

The Warriors put the willies up the Raiders, then chucked it away. I hope they fire up against the Storm on Friday teatime, because New Zealand deserves it, but in reality I expect that they will fire up, then fall off and lose by 20.

Jackson Hastings after Wests Tigers lost the Round 19 match against North Queensland. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)

15 – Wests Tigers (-)

Cannot take a trick this bunch. Yes, they were better than they have been – a lot better, at that – but really: what do we learn. The Tigers Banter Years took an unexpected, but somehow also predictably farcical, turn this weekend. at least this one wasn’t their fault.

16 – Gold Coast Titans (-)

Justin Holbrook thinks he needs an experienced halfback. Justin Holbrook let an experienced halfback walk out the door before the season started. Justin Holbrook thinks his team need an experienced hooker. Justin Holbrook played Erin Clark as a hooker for 16 rounds before deciding that he was a lock.

Oh, and their outside backs are allergic to tackling.

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