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The Ryan Carr era at St George Illawarra has begun in dramatic fashion, with a Mat Feagai try on the last play of the game, followed by a Zac Lomax conversion, delivering a 24-22 win for the Dragons.
Trent Robinson looked shell-shocked in the coaches’ box. His side had trailed 14-0 with half an hour to play, then 18-16 with five to go, only for the late try to break their hearts.
It should have been a wider margin, not least because Victor Radley should been sent off in the opening quarter hour after landing a clear headbutt on Blake Lawrie. Had the Dragons lost, that would have been the obvious talking point.
James Tedesco had inspired the comeback from the Chooks, scoring twice, but this was a win that St George Illawarra were due.
“I just really feel like we deserved that tonight,” said Ben Hunt.
“With all the hard work we’ve put in the last two months and just falling short. Apart from last week, we’ve been in every game.
“It’s been a whirlwind of emotions this week. It’s no secret how close I am with Hook (Griffin) so I was obviously very disappointed for him.
“We finally got a bounce of the ball there at the end.”
They have lost multiple games in the closing stages, and even more as a result of poor goalkicking. For Lomax, dropped to reserve grade under Anthony Griffin, to kick the winner would have been sweet.
At times the Roosters’ spine has looked poor, but for half an hour at least, Tedesco and Luke Keary stood up. They were excellent and dragged their side back into game, but it wasn’t enough.
They can’t complain about the result, especially given their performance before the interval and the fact that they should have been down to 12.
The Roosters will surely now lose Radley for a prolonged period, and he might be joined by Nathan Brown and Lindsay Collins, who were both put on report. Collins is in doubt for Origin 1, but will likely be fine.
Brandon Smith might also miss time, too. He entered the game later than expected and left early nursing a hand injury. Blake Lawrie also suffered a suspected fractured thumb.
“It’s funny to say, but I really enjoyed the game,” said Robinson.
“You can see that we’re a team that’s fighting to find ourselves a little bit. I really enjoyed seeing the team fight for it in the middle of the game, desperate to get the momentum going.”
Before there can be any tactical analysis of this game, there has to be a discussion of the officiating. Specifically, one incident, where Radley clearly headbutted Blake Lawrie. No ifs, no buts, a Glasgow kiss of the finest order.
The Bunker looked at it enough to put Radley on report. Ben Hunt was apoplectic, and had every right to be. Referee Peter Gough missed it – fair enough, he was dealing with another penalty as it happened – but Chris Butler in the video booth has no excuse. He had as many looks as he wanted.
It’s vital to any analysis of the game because it occurred in the 15th minute. NRL teams who get a guy sent off in the 15th minute lose. There’s no reason to think this game would have been any different.
Beyond the officiating, it was a stupefyingly dim move from Radley. For a guy that, if you listen to the Roosters, is unfairly targeted, he doesn’t half give refs an excuse to send him off.
Sticking the head on someone is, even by Radley’s high standards, a really dumb play. It should have been punished and that it wasn’t, given ample time to look at replays, was dumber still.
The Dragons, under Anthony Griffin, were a lot of things. They were rubbish, yes, but also boring to watch and infuriatingly conservative given some of their talent. In the plus column, they were committed and, even at the end, it was hard to say they weren’t playing for their coach.
Tonight, we got all that commitment again, but with a mite more adventure.
Gamestate is so important in rugby league, and doubly so when you’re playing another team that is down on confidence. You might add triply when that team struggles particularly in attack.
This played out in the first half. The Roosters got all the ball, thanks to some poor Dragons errors, but St George Illawarra were able to defend them out. When Suli took an intercept, all the fastest Roosters were ahead of the footy and nobody could chase him down.
But in the second, the fragility played out as well. When the Roosters even half showed up, the Dragons were like rabbits in the headlights. They had no answer to Keary or Tedesco.
If there is such a thing as a ‘new manager bounce’, it’s usually for one of two reasons.
Either the boss before had got so tied up in themselves that anyone else coming in just puts things back where they probably should have been all along, or because the playing group had got sick of the messenger, meaning that even if the message stayed the same, the effect would be different.
This was more the former than the latter. Square pegs, square holes.
Bringing Zac Lomax back and putting him on the right, where he had always done his best work, was an absolute no brainer.
Playing Jacob Liddle, their only recognised hooker, as a hooker and giving Moses Mbye – jack of all trades, master of none – the flick could only improve this team.
This was a massive improvement in some ways, especially with how St George Illawarra came back from having lost the lead. There’s resilience there.
But it was also the bad old days, too: three opportunist tries and an interception, no clear methodology of scoring points.
Ryan Carr can’t change those things in a week. But snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, rather than the other way around, is a good start.
There’s a few things you’d have said were indestructible about a Trent Robinson team. They always played with effort and they always played with confidence, almost an arrogance that came with being the Bondi boys, the glamour club, whatever you want to call it.
Last week they were dreadful, but had the caveat of playing a red hot Panthers team. This week, there are no excuses. It wasn’t that they weren’t trying: they looked like they thought they couldn’t score.
At times in 2023, there’s been a feeling of cart-before-horse about the attack, moving the ball but not wanting to do the hard stuff. That wasn’t tonight.
For the first 40, it was a lack of leadership: James Tedesco remained a shadow of himself. Luke Keary was absent.
Drew Hutchison is an effective presence in many positions but not an expert at any, least of all halfback. Nobody knows what they’re doing at 9, because Jake Turpin started and Brandon Smith, the $700,000 man, didn’t come on until the half hour mark.
In the last good ball set of the first half, Jaxson Paulo threw a crossfield pass of close to 35m from dummy half, a looping nonsense of a ball that belied that he had no idea who was meant to be in charge.
Then, they decided to play some footy. There’s a tale that former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane used to tell of an Alex Ferguson teamtalk, in which he walked into the sheds, said “Lads, it’s Tottenham” and walked back out.
The message was simple: you are Man United, they are rubbish. Robbo might have said something similar to his charges.
After the break, Tedesco was excellent. The fullback ran twice in the first half and had four in the first five minutes of the second. It was as if someone had reminded him he was the incumbent NSW and Australia captain, a living legend of the game.
Keary followed suit. He took on the line, took over the kicking and looked like the multi-Premiership winner he is. Then they threw away it all over again.
Next week is a bye, then they play the Dogs, who are also looking more than a little shaky. The Roosters need the break and Robinson has to look hard at this team and what he wants it to be.