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They went around and around, and when the music stopped, the Dragons were left without a chair. Despite the close margins involved, Anthony Griffin might be left without a job.
It was at this point last year that we saw our first coaching departure – Trent Barrett from the Bulldogs -and it would not be surprising if something similar happened with St George Illawarra. They were dreadful again, defeated again, and the powers that be might have seen enough.
Losing 18-16 is no disgrace, but doing so to the Tigers might be. Both sides are now 2-7, but Tim Sheens’ men have picked up both of their wins in the last two games. In all but two of the Dragons’ games, they have matched their opponents’ number of tries and still lost.
This was another game of insipid attack and boneheaded plays at crucial moments. Ben Hunt was shifted to hooker for a long part and Jayden Sullivan – equally excellent and misguided – came into the halfback role, but the song remains the same for St George Illawarra.
“The story of the season isn’t it,” Hunt told Fox League after the match. “Honestly, we were just that dumb today. Some of the things we did … it’s not NRL standard. Silly penalties, and then we got a good ball set, we dropped it or went out on tackle two or three… you just can’t do that.”
It’s hard to argue with him given some of the decision-making late on. Hook Griffin can’t control that, but it does seem to happen time and again under his watch.
“It’s heartbreaking for everyone,” said the coach. “You’re losing by two. You can change a few of those situations in the game you’re not trying to score a try with 30 seconds to go. There is a knife-edge in it. We could be sitting here being in a whole different position.”
“It’s about keeping going; we can take that attitude, become defeatist but that’s not going to happen. We’ve got to stare it in the face and keep going. We could have had three or four wins over the last five weeks, but we haven’t.”
The Tigers were just about value for their win. This is the first time they’ve recorded successive victories since early last year and will do wonders for their confidence. It was scratchy as all hell, but having played well on multiple occasions this season and lost, Tim Sheens’ men will take whatever they can.
Jahream Bula, a revelation at fullback, iced a key attacking move for a try and came up big in defence again. Having stopped Nathan Cleary in his tracks to secure last week’s win over the Panthers, he did the same to Mikaele Rawalava, twice.
“We were losing heaps of those moments in the first few rounds,” said Api Koroisau, the Tigers captain. “Two weeks in a row to make those huge tackles; it’s no surprise we’re winning games now. Those little efforts creates belief in the team … it makes us feel incredible.”
There’s a few ways we could look at this game. On the one hand, this was a super-competitive game between two evenly-matched sides with plenty on the line. On the other, it was the clear two worst teams in the competition playing out a scratchy affair, pretty scratchily.
It’s not that there weren’t quality moments, or quality players on show, but not a lot of it came out. That sort of stuff doesn’t matter a jot, however.
Rugby league is one of the few sports where there is essentially no correlation between the standard of spectacle and the standard of participants: rubbish players routinely brilliant games and great players routinely produce stinkers. Two bad players playing tennis or golf looks terrible, but it doesn’t work like that in rugby league.
The final play for the Dragons had it all. It was nowhere near good football, bouncing balls everywhere, Hunt streaking through and offloading to nobody, then recycling the ball only for Bula and a coterie of Tigers to bundle Rawalava into touch. Good? No. Exciting? Definitely.
The quality level was on the floor throughout. Two of the four first half tries were errors from kicks, another was a horrendous defensive error and only one could be said to have been well constructed. There were two more in the second half, both the result of poor tackling rather than offensive excellent.
The Dragons looked like they’d never met each other in attack, the Tigers looked like they were playing slow motion when Bula didn’t have the ball.
Api Koroisau, once again, was left shimmying out from dummy half, befuddling the markers and then looking around for someone to pass to. His deception is so good it regularly does for half his own team.
Wests’ attack was littered with poor last tackle options and rocks and diamonds kicking from Brandon Wakeham. He kicked a 40/20 one minute, then missed touch with a penalty the next, before he pulling off the luckiest dropout of all time.
The dropout and the missed touch finder exemplified the chaotic, rudderless momentum of this game.
Within a set of Wakeham failing to kick the ball out, Sullivan walked through nonexistant Tigers tackling to score and bring the Dragons back into it. Within a set of the Tigers’ five eighth’s miracle dropout, Junior Tupou had put them back in front.
By the 78th minute, they were in front and had the desperation to get to the corner and stop Rawalava in his tracks. It helped that the Dragons bombed it, but they had to be there and were.
The much-discussed move between Hunt and Sullivan was pulled in the 24th minute. It paid off almost immediately, with Jayden Sullivan scoring from a midfield dart, though it’s hard to say if Hunt wouldn’t have also scored it given the porous defence put together to stop it.
Later on, he got a second with a superb jinking run that caught Isaiah Papali’i and Alex Twal flat-footed. Again, it wasn’t a banner moment for defending, but Sullivan pounced ruthlessly. You don’t pick a halfback based on how many tries they score but it certainly doesn’t hurt his case to get over the stripe twice.
Griffin might, instead, look to a long kick that went needlessly dead with ten to play, or the late play where the halfback was posted missing, leading to Jack Bird being caught on the last.
It’s possible that further games will iron out the teething problems, especially late in the sets, but the jury remains out on Sullivan as the halfback over a guy about to crack 300 games.
On Hunt’s side of the argument, there was a smart 40/20 attempt, his stock-in-trade in a Queensland jumper, and a few clever runs from behind the ruck. His distribution is perfectly fine and he can make as many tackles as needed in the middle.
Hunt is an improvement on Moses Mbye as a dummy half, though that doesn’t say much. Jacob Liddle, who was recent extended, remains on the outer.
It’s difficult to judge the impact of playing Hunt at 9, because the main issue with it is his absence from the 7. Halfback is the most important position on the field and one of the few blessings that St George Illawarra have is that their best player plays there.
While the Tetris of moving Hunt to 9, Sullivan to 7 and Mbye to the bench sort of works. Sullivan is best at halfback, Mbye is best as a utility and Hunt is still able to influence and lead. In terms of net good players being on the field, it makes sense.
But it takes the best player out of the most important role. Sullivan had a good start to life as the Dragons’ halfback, but next week’s opposition won’t be as helpful to his cause as the Tigers’ were.
It might only be his third game in first grade, but Jahream Bula is already the best thing about the Tigers’ season.
He was good in patches in his first, against Manly, then excellent in the win over Penrith last time out. Today saw him tested in all the facets of fullback play – and he passed.
There was one outstanding, tips of the fingers catch from a high ball. There was a one-on-one tackle against a rampaging Rawalava that saw him stop the Fijian in his tracks in the first half, then the dramatic group effort to win the game.
In attack, Bula got a try assist after smartly adjusting his carry to shovel a pass away to David Nofoaluma. He threatened regularly down the middle of the field, offering an option on the inside to Api Koroisau and Luke Brooks. There were countless jinking carries from the backfield.
Everyone gets a grace period in first grade and Bula is right in the middle of his. But at a time where any green shoot is good news for the Tigers, he’s exactly what they need.