- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman once remarked that, when it came to understanding the health of a nation’s economy, “Productivity isn’t everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything.”
The definition of productivity, in reference to economics, is about how much output you get from a set of inputs.
The quote is fairly widely known, at least among those boring enough to know who Paul Krugman is, but lesser remembered is the second part, which holds that “a country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.”
It’s an interesting thought when considering rugby league, and the production of points within the game. Our sport is among the most collectivist on Earth, a true weak-link game in which the standard of your worst player is much more important than your best.
One superstar does not make a team – only eight of the 43 Dally M winners won a Premiership in the year that they were named player of the year – and one bad player fatally can undermine the efforts of the other 12.
Rugby league coaches know this, of course, and it’s why they are so intent on talking about ‘effort areas’ and ‘one percent plays’.
They’re the ones that everyone can do, regardless of ability, and which should be the baseline of any successful team. To put it terms Paul Krugman would understand, you raise your output per worker.
Only then do the innovators and geniuses get to shine. A strong collective, based on effort, gives a platform to great individuals, whereas a weak collective brings the geniuses back to the level of the pack. If you want to know what that looks like in practical terms, go watch Api Koroisau and Ben Hunt.
Usually we talk about effort areas in the context of defence, where, as any coach will tell you, effort is everything. But rugby league in 2023 is an ever-more holistic game, where the way you attack influences the way you defend and vice versa.
There are teams that can defend but can’t attack, like the Warriors, who have the fifth fewest points conceded and 14th most scored, and those who can attack but can’t defend, such as the Titans, most conceded but fifth most scored.
Most, however, are somewhere in between and the best begin their defence through how they hand the ball over in attack and help their attack through limiting the metres of their opposition.
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – APRIL 30: Joseph Manu of the Roosters attacks during the round nine NRL match between New Zealand Warriors and Sydney Roosters at Mt Smart Stadium on April 30, 2023 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Much as coaches like to talk about it, defence is, of course, not solely about effort. Nobody suggests that the Titans aren’t trying to tackle: they’re just rubbish at it. Similarly, nobody thinks that the Tigers aren’t trying to score, but they continue to struggle at it.
Both are about systems, which are underpinned by effort, and how systems operate under fatigue, which is when you need to put in the effort the most.
Where defensive effort is relatively easy to understand in linespeed, scramble and closing gaps in the line – desperation is the other favourite phrase – it’s worth considering how much effort plays into attack, but there is plenty to be said for the free stuff there too.
There’s kick pressures, which dictate how you get the ball in the first place, because the change the standard of kick that your back three receive.
And when you get the ball, there’s push supports and decoys, the number of men around the ball and offering to get the ball, which are vital in sapping energy from your opposition and giving them decisions to make in defence.
The stats are clear on this. The sides with the fewest combined supports – that is, push supports and decoys – are those that make the fewest linebreaks.
The importance of effort areas in attack has come to the fore in recent weeks in reference to the Roosters, who are now the second worst in the comp for points scored, fourth bottom for support play and third bottom for linebreaks.
James Tedesco, traditionally a master at support play, mentioned it in a recent interview, lamenting their inability to get around the footy and create deception.
“Our support and our effort areas around the ball is as low as I’ve seen,” said Tedesco to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Our push around the ball, our connection as a spine especially, it’s just not there at the moment. We are working on it.
“Thirteen of us moving in space, short passes, high supports. That’s been our footy for a long time now, but it’s just not there.”
Tedesco himself is usually among the best at this, but seems to be suffering badly from a World Cup hangover: he played the fifth most minutes in elite rugby league last year, behind St Helens fullback Jack Welsby – the Super League has more fixtures – plus Dylan Brown, Stephen Crichton and Val Holmes. Junior Paulo also played more games, but fewer minutes.
If he’s looked a little off the pace, that would go a long way to explaining why. Notably Brown, Holmes and Jarome Luai have all also had slow starts to 2023.
(Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
The importance of push supports is twofold, and explains why the Roosters (and Tedesco) are down in 2023.
Firstly, they increase the amount of fatigue in the defensive line, as tacklers have to be accountable for anyone in motion who might get the ball, even if they don’t.
Lee Briers, attack coach at Brisbane, appeared on Sky Sports’ Super League coverage two weeks ago and explained his coaching philosophy in such terms.
“My philosophy is all about support play,” he said. “Everything revolves around support and making sure we take energy from the opposition.”
That used to be Teddy’s role, taking the ball in support and burning tired forwards with his speed and elusiveness, but also just lurking around as the sort of person who might get the ball.
Mental fatigue is as important as physical fatigue, especially for those defending in the line around the ‘seam’ between middle and edge.
Middles tend to defend straight up and down, but halves, back-rowers and outside backs are in a constant stream of decision making around sticking, sliding, jamming and hanging back, depending on what they think the opposition are about to do. More men in motion creates more decisions, which increases the chance of a bad one.
The other aspect is ‘pinning’, where players are forced to stay on a man until the last moment, creating space elsewhere.
If you’ve ever backed Cronulla to win and both wingers to score, this is why it’s such short odds.
They use their push supports and decoys to hold the defence narrow – think Briton Nikora on a crash line – which creates the room outside for Sione Katoa and Ronald Mulitalo. It’s not an accident or a coincidence.
Briers’ Brisbane have improved this massively in 2023. He explained to the Sydney Morning Herald recently that having men around the footy was vital to increasing Payne Haas’ ability to offload – gotta have someone to offload to, right? – but it also works in creative qualitative advantages in attack.
Where Cronulla create quantitative advantage – an extra man, leading to a simple draw and pass to a winger – the Broncos are able to get their strike players, Herbie Farnworth and Kotoni Staggs, into one-on-ones with opposing centres.
The old gripe that Staggs never got enough good ball was a product of the defence previously being able to slide out to him – now, they’re pinned by the movement of other Broncos.
This used to be the stock-in-trade of the Roosters: they used off-ball motion to get Joey Manu isolated on his opposing centre, or Sitili Tupouniua on the crash line, or the Sam Walker harbour bridge pass to the winger. Now, they get none of it. Those players didn’t get worse, but the collective production did.
Royce Hunt is tackled by Corey Horsburgh. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
Push supports are vital, but they aren’t the be all and end all. The Tigers and Manly are right up the top for supports and right at the bottom for line breaks.
In the case of the former, it doesn’t matter how much you run off the ball if the half with it isn’t seen as a threat, and in the case of the latter, it doesn’t matter how much motion there is in the attack if you play too far from the defence, and the Sea Eagles are second last for line engagements.
It’s also possible to attack well without relying on push supports, too. Souths and Cronulla – last year’s best supporters – are now in the middle of the pack, but they combine off-ball effort areas and deception with exceptional pinning through line engagements, each player holding a defender then shuffling out into shape, and execution levels.
There are still men around the footy and still runners in motion, but the threat of contact is just as important to creating the space elsewhere.
It’s hard to do that, though. Not every team has a Cody Walker or a Nicho Hynes to draw the man, or a Siosifa Talakai or Campbell Graham to make the catch-pass in one motion. Everyone, however, has blokes who can run push supports.
That’s where the Krugman maxim matters. Everyone can make the runs that create space for others, and it’s absolutely free for them to do it, too. Every team could raise its output per worker.
For failing sides like the Roosters, it should be an absolute non-negotiable at the moment. In rugby league, everything comes from a baseline of effort – both with and without the ball.
The Bulldogs, who have injuries removing elite players and forcing them to be replaced with rookies, it should be among the most important factors they are instilling into their young players: Harrison Edwards and Samuel Hughes can’t become Viliame Kikau and Luke Thompson overnight, but they can run and run and run.
Stats, all of them, are just production that, collectively, leaders to points. In attack, you make the metres, run the supports and decoys, generate the line breaks and score the tries.
It’s easy to judge players on the simple metrics, tries and assists, but so much happens before that to create the conditions those stars to thrive. As ever in rugby league, it comes down to effort.