Friday night’s clash between Parramatta and Canberra is one of the hardest games of the year to pick, especially from a tactical perspective.
The Parramatta aspect of it is quite easy to predict, because they broadly try to do the same thing most of the time and the variable – and lord, how it can vary – is generally their ability to execute.
Canberra are much more difficult beast. They are one of the most opaque teams in the NRL, tactically-speaking. We’re into the 27th week of the 2022 NRL season and I’m still not quite sure what they try to do.
Part of this is my own fault. You can’t judge a team tactically off the telly, and I’ve only seen Canberra in person twice all year: at Magic Round against Cronulla and on the last week of the regular season against the Tigers.
This game at CommBank Stadium will be only their third in Sydney all year, as Manly and Souths chose to take their fixtures to the country, the Sharks played them at Suncorp and the Dragons were in Wollongong for their game. In fact, depending on whether you think Penrith is Sydney or not, it might be just their second.
It’s hard to get a true read off one garbage time game at Leichhardt Oval and another sandwiched between seven other fixtures in Magic Round.
But the other aspect is that Ricky Stuart doesn’t really have a tactical identity to be found. He’s an arch pragmatist, operating largely without a philosophy and instead using man management and psychology. He’s highly adaptable to opponents and relies a lot on delegation, which is one of the reasons he’s been able to stay in post for so long.
This isn’t a criticism, by the way. Lots of great coaches are great because they maximise their individuals. Sticky’s good pal, Craig Bellamy, might be the best example of this, or even Wayne Bennett, particularly in his later years.
Ricky has long been one of the best at using analytics, and identifying weaknesses in opponents, as well as creating a siege mentality that galvanises his own troops. The results, and the stats, bear this out.
Insert your own ‘the scoreline is the only stat that matters’ klaxon here, because much as I detest using something as prosaic as results to decide who was any good, it’s really necessary for the Raiders.
They rarely have a major system win (read last week’s preview for ‘system wins/losses/draws, but short definition: major tactical supremacy) and have only recorded four 13+ wins all year, two of which were the last two rounds when the other side had chucked it.
Then again, they rarely get thumped either. They copped five 13+ers against, and they were to the Panthers (twice), one to a full-strength Melbourne, a Turbo-powered Manly and the Cowboys in Townsville, so pretty tough territory.
What we can gauge is that they are really good at being in the fight. They can negate opponents, take it deep and then let variance (again, see last week) go their way.
Sometimes it doesn’t, such as their losses to the Warriors in golden point and to the Dragons after a refereeing blunder, but sometimes it does, like their reverse fixture with the Dragons, their late win in Round 1 over the Sharks and two point wins over Newcastle and the Titans.
(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)
This speaks to the two overarching tenets of Stickyball: defence-first, empower individuals. Canberra can be relied upon to keep their line, as evidenced extensively last week in Melbourne, to build pressure and let their star players shine.
In a lot of ways, they are quite like the Storm. They have a fair amount of plodders, guys who do a job and little more, which allows them to empower their more talented players.
Elliott Whitehead, their captain, is probably the best example of this. He’s the ultimate reliable, utilitarian forward who plays long minutes, doesn’t do much wrong and does a lot of things quite well rather than a few things very well.
You can throw Adam Elliott – described to me once as ‘nowhere near the best player in the NRL, but makes every 17 in the NRL’ – and Ryan Sutton into the mix here too.
In fact, while you’re there, put Jordan Rapana, Corey Horsburgh and Corey Harawira-Naera in with them. Canberra have a lot of set and forget, 7/10 guys.
They also have a few very, very good guys. When we think of the proverbial ‘licence’, it’s clear who Ricky gives it to. The front row pairing of Joseph Tapine and Josh Papali’I, first and foremost.
They can offload, they can ball-play, they can do basically whatever they want. This is, I think, a key distinctive factor for Canberra against Parramatta.
Parra plan to offload because it suits their system, but for the Raiders, who are the second-most frequent offloaders in the NRL, it is a product of their players and not the other way around. Notably, only their forwards offload and rarely their backs.
They have gone as high as 25 in a game, but as low as four in others, and there’s no correlation between offloading and winning, unlike with Parramatta. It’s something they do sometimes because they don’t bake it in.
After the front row pair comes Jack Wighton. He’s Canberra’s most influential player and their X factor. Side note: can Fox League commentators stop referring to Xavier Savage as having an ‘x factor’, because he doesn’t, other than that his name starts with an X.
Wighton’s running game is the key to victory for the Raiders. Again, this is hardly news to anyone who has seen them play. His ability to challenge the line directly is the culmination of their virtuous circle: if the forwards win, it creates space, which he can then exploit.
The five eighth is usually good enough to do a fair bit even if the forwards don’t win, but empowering him to play run-first is central.
This was evidenced when Jamal Fogarty was out, as Wighton had to do other stuff to cover for more inexperienced/ineffective players in the 7 jumper, which in turn lessened his effectiveness at his own game.
His possession numbers are routinely higher than his halfback partner and up there with the busiest five eighths in the comp, which is both a blessing and a curse.
A qualitative-based attacking system, where your good guys get the ball where they need it, is based around them getting them ball in the first place, but often less is more. Canberra do have a tendency to chuck it to Jack and hope for the best.
(Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
You might have just read all of this and thought: tell me something I don’t already know. You’d be right. Canberra are that kind of side, however. It’s fairly obvious to say that they have a few standout players who do a lot of their best work, but that’s them.
The stats back this up. They might be the least remarkable team in the NRL: the only categories that find them anywhere near the top or bottom are to do with them running hard and straight. They’re top of one man hit ups and second for offload, but last for line engagements and general play passes.
They don’t score that much, but don’t concede much either. We know they will be dutiful and committed in the forwards, especially with ball in hand. They’ll be tough to beat. Ricky Stuart will certainly know everything about Parramatta and have a tailored game plan to negate what the Eels want to do.
The issue will be that Ricky’s style, in as much as it is a style, is predicated on his individuals being able to outshine the opposition.
That’s very good for getting you into the finals, because Canberra have better individuals available to them than eight other teams, and it can work in knockout matches to some extent, because you only have to be better once and you can play to stay in the fight and attract variance.
Against Melbourne, in particular, it worked because it is close to Craig Bellamy’s style and last week, the variance went their way.
It affected negatively against the Storm, as a try rebounded off a guy’s head and Cam Munster made an uncharacteristic fullback error, but also positively for the Raiders, who put themselves in the position to get the luck through good goalline defence at crucial periods and superior execution in key moments.
Whether that style will carry much longer than one week in the finals remains to be seen. There’s certainly a world in which the Raiders’ front row is equal to or better than Parramatta’s, who have been shown up by worse teams than Canberra on several occasions this year, and everything can flow from that.
I’m not sure that I’d back it to go four weeks to a Premiership, Ricky will know everything, his players will know exactly what they have to do and they’ll play hard and committed. I’ll not be taking anyone 13+, that’s for sure.
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