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It can’t keep on like this, right? The best NRL season to date (through eight rounds at least) kept on going with another slate of excellent games.
The Bunnies v Panthers affair kicked us off in the best possible fashion and might well have been the highest-quality game of the year so far. The Cowboys-Knights and Manly-Tigers fixtures were not that, but you couldn’t doubt the tension and narrative on offer.
The Titans-Dolphins clash was the maddest in a long time and both Anzac Day clashes had the right mix of guts, skill, comebacks and redemption moments to tick all the boxes a Tuesday arvo punter could wish for.
Another belter in the books through two months of the NRL, so let’s get down to business. Let’s get ranking.
Your new frontrunners are Souths, and how couldn’t it be? They defeated the reigning Premiers by playing their footy, which won out in a close game for the first time against a system best primed to stop it.
There have been false dawns before – remember Parra’s win in Penrith last May – but in general, this the closest that a team has come to genuinely coming up with a plan to defeat the Cleary system.Souths are far from a peak and get the pleasure of testing themselves all over again, with the Broncos in Brisbane then the Storm at Magic Round in consecutive weeks.
Internally, they might have taken one from three of that run, especially considering the benign trot they get afterwards all the way through to the backside of Origin.
Now, with Payne Haas out, two from three or even going unbeaten is on the cards, and that would sit Souths right up there in pole position.
The Panthers’ reign as the undisputed best team in the comp is over, in that they faced a side who defeated their style of footy with an alternative style of footy that worked better. That’s one reading.
The alternative would be that they were about 20 seconds from winning another game against a side that might well be their biggest rival at the end of the year. Either way, they fall beneath Souths due to losing to them in a relatively best v best scenario, but are still lightyears ahead of most everybody else.
Payne Haas. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
We’ll refrain from giving Brisbane the true ‘real deal Broncos’ treatment after being spectacularly burned by doing that prematurely last year, but it’s going to be harder and harder to ignore them at this rate.
This Broncos side looks altogether more complete than previous incarnations under Kevvie Walters and they disposed of Parramatta, who had looked somewhere between decent and not terrible until Friday night.
Time will tell for the value of a win over the 2023 Eels, but on the value that it currently has, it’s a great weekend for the Bronx.
The Sharks finally win back to back games – three if you include their triumph over Bye. Defeating the Bulldogs might be worth only fractionally more than Bye at the moment given the injury toll, and the further that Saturday moves in the rearview mirror, the less the win means.
Granted, a win is a win and Cronulla can only beat what is in front of them. Their defence has looked better across the last two weeks, but is still their weak point and the area in which the jury is most out.
But Newtown smashed the Dogs in reggies, too, which speaks to the general depth and good vibes out in the Shire, and let’s look to positivity. A good week for Fitzy et al.
The Storm got there against the Warriors, after a fashion. The spine dug them out of it with Cam Munster, Harry Grant and Nick Meaney – who envisaged him being this good? – the difference.
The wobbles are still there, and the way Addin Fonua-Blake strolled through them was so un-Melbourne as to merit a demotion all on its own. But in the end, the good outweighed the bad.
Our ‘good defeat’ points could only go to the Warriors, who put in the sort of performance that they have all year but were, as will happen in the big jobs, beaten by a side with a clear talent advantage. The calls that went against them didn’t help on the night but as a totality, this is still a hugely successful 2023 so far.
The Chooks win and, at times, looked great. The ball movement in the forwards was Robboball at its best. But that defence leaves a lot to be desired and if a team like the Dragons were able to make it look a bit silly, imagine what a side that is good at attacking will do.
This column has long awarded ‘good defeat’ points for sides that lose but go alright in the process. Now, we award ‘bad win’ points too, and they go to Manly.
Not only were the Sea Eagles rubbish, they also lost Tom Trbojevic for an unspecified period that might be nothing or might not be.
Admittedly, he’s clearly not fit in the first place, and as we all know, it is only a matter of time before he breaks down again, Manly lose, and we all sit around waiting for the next false dawn to arrive. Can you remember which team the column supports?
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
It says everything about the Knights this year that they went to North Queensland, lost, and will be absolutely filthy at themselves. Nothing but progress so far, but you can’t win ‘em all.
Parramatta are basically as good as their props are: they were bad twice without Junior Paulo when he was suspended recently, and will be even worse without the now-injured Reagan Campbell-Gillard.
All Pommy solidarity is exhausted for Josh Hodgson, too, who might do well to take off into that good night (or move back to Hull FC, where we would definitely take him) and let Brendan Hands have first crack.
It tells you plenty that they go into a home clash with Newcastle and probably won’t be favourites.
Redcliffe are miracle workers. They’ve turned ultra-defensive footy into a way of overturning a 26-point deficit, and all it needed was the most frail, collapse-prone team in the NRL to facilitate it.
Don’t take a thing away from the Dolphins, however. They compete so hard and do all the free stuff that any roster of 17 solid pros can do. The Titans could learn plenty.
A week off for Ricky’s Raiders. They get their two points over Bye and we get one week closer to seeing Xavier Savage, now comfortably ensconced as the player who has improved the most without playing a single minute of footy.
TOWNSVILLE, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 22: Kalyn Ponga of the Knights is tackled during the round eight NRL match between North Queensland Cowboys and Newcastle Knights at Qld Country Bank Stadium on April 22, 2023 in Townsville, Australia. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
All that was said for Newcastle is true in reverse for the Cowboys. That a narrow win over the Knights at home is something to celebrate tells you where they’ve fallen.
Now, though, they get to return to the site of perhaps their best night of last year and attempt to relive it with a victory over the Sharks.
“Another week, another major injury, another defeat” read last week’s Power Rankings, so positivity abounds in Belmore given that only two of the three are true this week.
The Dogs went alright, swapped their halves around and looked marginally better. It goes Dragons (A), Raiders (Magic), Warriors (H), Titans (H), Bye for the Dogs next, and you’d be amazed if they don’t take at least a few wins there.
Heart, effort, dig, ticker, guts. These are things the Dragons have. They are playing for their coach. They are playing for each other.
However, that doesn’t quite cut it at this level and large aspects of their play against the Roosters beyond the second half blitz were awful. Letting a team go straight down the middle, twice, is pretty unforgiveable.
That’s the bad. The good is that Tyrell Sloan showed exactly what he can do when empowered to do so. Allow a bit more freedom and St George Illawarra will shoot up these rankings.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Last week the Power Rankings referred to the Titans’ ‘defensive nonsense’ and, boy howdy, was that turned up to eleven against the Dolphins.
It’s beyond unacceptable how frequently the Gold Coast manage to throw away such commanding leads, but somehow also not really Justin Holbrook’s fault. He’s not sending them out there to do it, and they did it well before he arrived too.
It’s chronic failure that makes you want to throw your hands up in the air and declare a pox on them permanently.
Are they worse than the Wests Tigers? Let loose in the comments on whether it’s worse to lose after leading so frequently or if it’s better than never leading in the first place.
The Tigers play the Panthers next weekend and the score could be absolutely anything.