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Nicho Hynes’ stellar start to the season shows no sign of slowing down after the Sharks halfback inspired a second-half blitz that saw Cronulla run out 22-12 winners over the Roosters.
The Roosters had looked the better side late in the first half despite a Nat Butcher hip-drop tackle that saw him sent to the bin, but couldn’t deal with Hynes’ creativity as the second half wore on and ended up imploding completely.
Brandon Smith, for a high shot, and then Victor Radley for a professional foul, were both sat down, leaving the Chooks to finish the game with 11 men in a game in which they conceded 14 penalties, the most in an NRL game since 2020.
Things had looked rosy for the Roosters, who responded to their poor start – a 0-7 penalty count early on – with determination and were decent value for a halftime lead, but they didn’t contend with Hynes’ turning in the best 40 minutes of an already-impressive year.
Cronulla had dominated the ball in the first half, but failed to threaten a resolute Roosters line. In the second, they threw caution to the wind and got their rewards – with five line breaks to one and, of course, two points in their back pocket.
“It was about time he had a crack,” laughed coach Craig Fitzgibbon about his superstar half, who recently signed a bumper new deal.
“The show of faith from the club is a sign of how much we believe in him. The thing that’s most impressive is every day he walks through the door, he works hard. He doesn’t stop.”
Trent Robinson was angered by a no-try call on Lindsay Collins, with the Roosters boss insisting that the prop had grounded the ball.
“Lindsay’s try was disappointing,” he said. “It was pretty clear from the angles that I saw that the ball was on the line.
“I thought that was a poor excuse (to support) the on-field decision. There were enough angles to say it was on the line. I think they missed it, to be honest.”
The hip-drop has been rugby league’s biggest talking point for a few weeks now, and it reared its head again early in this one with Nat Butcher binned for one on Briton Nikora.
This might go down as the peak of the hip-drop craze: it was hardly a pure example, far from the worst you’ll see and almost certainly an accident – but nobody seemed to dispute it at all. This where we are now with this tackle.
It’s for the best, too. Pretty much every coach has had their say, and claimed that they don’t coach it, and there’s not really any reason to doubt them. It’s both liable to incite injury and highly ineffective as a tackle.
The difference in Butcher’s was that it happened after just 15 minutes. Speaking to coaches, they largely put hip-drops down to accidents caused by fatigue and the larger, more powerful frames of players in the modern age.
There’s no doubt that the strength of athletes is now up, and that the bulk of hip-drops come when a tired tackler attempts to use momentum or their own leverage to ‘win’ a tackle that, in fact, they have already lost.
That was what was strange about this one. Just a quarter of an hour in, it’s hard to say that Butcher would be overly fatigued. He tries to hold Nikora, falls off as the Sharks man gets underneath and, in the process to attempting to hold on, lands on the back of his legs.
It’s not really a hip-drop in the traditional sense. It’s certainly not a deliberate attempt to injure. But it is, in 2023, a sin bin every day of the week.
Nicho Hynes won the Dally M Medal last year, and it was really difficult to argue with it. But, at the same time, it was also hard to say that he was the best player in the NRL, especially when it mattered most.
When compared with the likes of James Tedesco, Harry Grant, Latrell Mitchell and Nathan Cleary, Hynes seemed just a spot behind.
It could have been argued that his actions in the games where you need your star player to be the difference, Nicho wasn’t always at his best.
He’s got the clutch gene, as proven by late kicks against the Eels and Bunnies in particular standing out, but in terms of a truly dominating performance, where he was unquestionably the best player on a field filled with elite players…less so.
Tonight might be the first time that Hynes has manage it. This game was meandering without anyone taking it by the scruff of the neck for a long time until Nicho wrested it to his will.
He made a major impact with two line breaks of his own – one a superb piece of heads up play – and was the crucial part in the try that ultimately won his side the game.
It was also Hynes’ pass that could have put Braden Hamlin-Uele in, and the final score came from the subsequent play the ball.
For 20 minutes, this was perhaps the strangest game of the season so far. These are two of the better sides in the league, with plenty to play for, in decent enough conditions for footy. Yet it was, diplomatically, uninspiring stuff.
The Roosters conceded a frankly ridiculous seven penalties to none, but the Sharks did very little to fire back and threaten. It was a total false start.
Eventually, after the Butcher binning, Cronulla did kick into gear with a Matt Moylan try, but playing with 12 seemed to galvanise the Roosters more: they cleaned up their play and as soon as Butcher returned, they kicked on with two tries in close succession.
The late-half blitz laid bare a major criticism of the Sharks this year: their goalline defence. Luke Keary tore a huge hole in the sliding D for Egan Butcher, while Brandon Smith’s close range effort was excellent stuff from the Cheese, but softer than soft for the tacklers.
It’s something that plenty have noticed. In conceding plenty to the Eels and Warriors, the resilience and organisation were far from the standards that they need to be if Cronulla want to compete later in the year.