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Opinion
The two minor rule tweaks in the off-season are having a major impact on the first three NRL rounds with a lot more tries being scored and plenty of room to move on the field.
With players now required to get both feet back 10 metres behind the line of the referee and the call of “held, release” now happening straight away, there is more time and space for the hookers, halves (and outside backs) to operate.
We saw some pretty high scorelines across the board this round with the Titans and Storm scoring six tries each in Gold Coast’s 38-34 win on Saturday.
There are other factors behind there being so many tries – we’ve had an unseasonably warm start to autumn and the late start to the pre-season for a lot of players due to the World Cup means quite a few teams are not yet match fit.
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It all adds up to the speed of the game going back up and the teams with mobile forwards and quick metre-eaters in the back five are thriving.
(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images
The play-the-ball speed is quicker on average this year and nearly every team with the quickest play the ball speed won over the weekend.
Having to have two feet behind the referee means teams are not able as much to rush up on the attacking team with their line speed. Therefore the team with the ball can get on a roll a bit easier and get the defensive line backpedalling.
And then you couple that with the “held, release” call – last year there was a gap between when the ref would call held, then release and we saw teams in defence hold an attacking player up with three tacklers swarming all over him and it could be upwards of seven, eight, sometimes nine seconds for them to play the ball.
It was a deliberate strategy to slow down the ruck.
We’re not seeing that now with these two tweaks. There’s not as much wrestling going on in the ruck.
Scores will naturally come down as the teams get their match fitness up, they adapt to the new rules and the temperatures come down.
A team like Manly is benefiting because they’ve got mobile forwards who can exploit this like Haumole Olakau’atu and Taniela Paseka, clever halves and then Tommy Trbojevic coming off the back fence to score tries.
When I first came across him six years ago when he made the 2017 World Cup squad, he was a gangly 20-year-old.
But now he’s got the physical bulk and strength as well as his natural speed and evasion – he’s so tall, fast and powerful, how do you stop a weapon like that?
Kotoni Staggs scores. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Brisbane are another team that have got athletic back-rowers and centres and it’s no coincidence that they’re also undefeated.
I think we’ll see coaches adapt quickly and go with more mobile packs after seeing how the first few rounds have played out. We did a similar thing with the Kangaroos at the World Cup last year when we were using Cam Murray and Pat Carrigan as part of our front-row rotation off the bench.
A few years ago when the six-again stuff was introduced, clubs were complaining that they didn’t have time to tinker with their roster to shed a few lumbering big men from their roster but I think most teams now have got middle forwards who have the agility to cover a lot of ground and play big minutes.
The difference in average play-the-ball speed can only be a fraction of a second between the teams but over the course of 80 minutes it adds up and can be decisive.
Some of the better defensive teams from last year like the Storm, Parramatta and Cowboys are struggling with these new interpretations.
The grinding, defensive third man, slow play-the-ball stuff is going to come back into play a bit more when we move into winter and the night games have slipperier surfaces but at the moment, it’s a very open and fast pace.
Melbourne and the Eels have both had to bring in a few new players, especially in their pack, and it’s having an effect.
Neither team needs to start panicking but when you’re 0-3 like the Eels now are, the pressure gets turned up a few notches, particularly when you’ve got Penrith next week and the Roosters the week after.
They’ve had a bit of an unfair draw the first few rounds because they faced Manly coming off a bye and that’s happening again this week when they’ll face a Panthers side that’s had a week off.
There have been a few anomalies in the schedule early on – the Warriors will be playing for the first time in Auckland next weekend because their first home fixture was taken to Wellington and they’ve been in Australia the past fortnight and Souths have started off with three straight road games.
Tohu Harris is tackled. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
The Warriors were supposed to be the ones who would struggle in the tropical heat in Townsville but they were very impressive in their 26-12 win over the Cowboys.
They’ve got Tohu Harris in the middle who can play 80 minutes when needed and they’ve recruited Mitch Barnett and Marata Niukore in their back row to give them a high work rate in their pack that they’ve lacked in recent years.
Their back five is really powerful and they got through more than 80% of their sets against North Queensland.
Andrew Webster has changed their playing style and their mindset in a short space of time and they’re flying at 2-1 heading into next Sunday’s game against Canterbury at Mt Smart Stadium.
We’ve got Parra, the Cowboys, Melbourne, Souths, Sharks and the Raiders, who were all finals sides last year, at 1-2 or worse.
And the Warriors are up there with Brisbane, the Titans, Bulldogs, Manly and the Dolphins at the pointy end of the ladder so I’d like to shake the hand of anyone who could have predicted that a few weeks ago.
What you did last year doesn’t give you a guarantee of your position.
Even a bloke like Craig Bellamy looks more frustrated than usual, Todd Payten and Brad Arthur are feeling that way a bit too but they’ve got plenty of time to turn it around.
Kevin Walters is doing the old coach’s trick by trying to play down the hype about the game against the Dolphins next Friday at Suncorp but it’s going to be huge.
The build-up and hysteria in Brisbane is going to be enormous and Kevvy can say there’s no rivalry but with the game already a sell-out, it’s clear that there’s going to be plenty of extra feeling in this one.
Broncos vs Dolphins has the potential to become like what we saw on Friday night with the Roosters and Rabbitohs game a special event on the regular season calendar.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
And we’ve already had the Redcliffe mob poach a couple of Broncos stars in Tommy Flegler and Herbie Farnworth and then there’s the Wayne Bennett factor.
He will fire a few shots across the bow this week.
And with both teams unbeaten after three rounds, you couldn’t set it up any better.
As a “very old” former Bulldog – it was great to see their loyal fans turn out in huge numbers at their spiritual home at Belmore.
They showed heaps of class in the first 60 minutes with Josh Addo-Carr scoring a brilliant try on the back of some lead-up work from his centre partner, Paul Alamoti, on play one in kick reception.
And Matt Burton took advantage of some quick ruck speed with an outstanding solo effort under the posts.
There were some nervous moments for their coach, Cameron Ciraldo, and their fans in the last 15 minutes when the Tigers scored three tries in five minutes.
Wests at least competed and look dangerous when Api Koroisau gets out from dummy-half and it looks like John Bateman will add a bit to them this year.
Michael Hagan is a former dual-premiership winning first grade player and current assistant coach of Australia's Kangaroos team. Hagan played 183 games for Canterbury and Newcastle and represented Queensland five times. He transitioned into a successful coach and took the Knights to a premiership in his first year in charge back in 2001. He went onto coach 205 NRL games and six times for Queensland in Origin.