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Opinion
We can safely put a line through the Titans, Dolphins and Sea Eagles after they lost in Round 24 and Parramatta’s season is on life support with the switch about to be turned off next week.
Gold Coast, the Dolphins and Manly have done well to stay in the race this long but I think they are now out of contention even if mathematically they still have some hope.
And the Eels, now that Mitchell Moses is out for the rest of the year with a fractured eye socket, are waiting to be put out of their misery
They’ve got the Roosters coming up this Friday at CommBank Stadium who have found a bit of spark the last couple of weeks with Drew Hutchison at halfback and James Tedesco finding some form at fullback.
(Photo by Jeremy Ng/Getty Images)
Manly threw everything they could at Penrith on Thursday night and Daly Cherry-Evans pulled out every trick in his bag but he didn’t have enough accomplices to trouble a top team like the Panthers.
For the Sea Eagles to record an upset in a game like that, they needed 15,16 or 17 players at their best but it looked like DCE was fighting a one-man battle at times.
The Dolphins and the Titans went out with a whimper and it looked like they were looking forward to the end of their season and the scoreboard reflected that against the Roosters and Sharks respectively.
With a few weeks to go I think a few of the sides will drop off like that with their first contact and line speed in defence.
It’s very hard to motivate a team in the final few weeks of a 27-round season when there’s not a finals spot to play for.
When the end is nigh, the energy and enthusiasm can just disappear from a team very quickly.
Lachlan Croker reacts after the loss to Penrith. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
South Sydney beat the Dragons but there wasn’t much to write home about.
I feel like we’ve all been saying the same thing for the past few weeks that Souths are about to click but they seem like they’re stuck in second gear.
They need to get into fifth gear in a hurry, starting with Sunday’s trip to Newcastle.
As I mentioned earlier, doing well in the finals is about the planets aligning and one of those factors is the draw.
The Rabbitohs have been all over the place from the Sunshine Coast to Tamworth to Perth to Cairns and they’re not using the travel as an excuse for their up-and-down form but it’s taking a toll.
They’ve still got a reasonably good run into the playoffs with the Knights, a bye and the Roosters but they haven’t been consistent enough.
They’ve still got those guys like Latrell Mitchell, Cody Walker and Damien Cook who can produce moments of magic out of nothing but Souths haven’t been able to put it all together in a match for a while now.
You’ve got to be playing a better brand of footy at this time of year and their coach, Jason Demetriou, challenged them by saying they need to make a decision on how they want their season to end.
They’re looking frustrated with their body language.
You contrast that with a team like Brisbane and it’s chalk and cheese.
Every time the Broncos did something good in their big win over Parramatta on Friday night the players were all in there high-fiving each other and back-slapping.
Kevin Walters and Alfie Langer were always fun guys as players and you need to have that light-hearted spirit at times over the course of a long season.
To succeed at this time of year in the NRL, you need to have the planets aligning.
Everything needs to be working in your favour from a healthy roster, to not having any judiciary problems, to dealing with the workload of your Origin players and keeping the players motivated.
All sorts of stuff – even things like pregnancies that happen in a player’s personal life, can be a distraction that you have no control over as a coach.
And you need luck on top of that as well.
No one can definitively predict what will happen in these last few weeks of the season but it’s about putting yourself in the best possible position to succeed.
Penrith, Brisbane and the Warriors are the only teams fitting that bill at the moment and maybe Melbourne after they bounced back from their loss to the Panthers with a rousing victory over Canberra on Sunday.
The Panthers didn’t risk Jarome Luai and Mitch Kenny against the Sea Eagles because they had faith in their depth and it’s paid dividends for them again.
The Broncos might not want to go back to Suncorp Stadium after winning three on the trot at the Gabba – the Women’s Football World Cup hasn’t halted their momentum.
They’re nearly as potent on either edge with the ball at the moment and they’ve been super impressive for a long stretch now, not just the 54-10 triumph over Parramatta the other night.
The Warriors were not at their best against the Tigers but they look like they’ve wrapped up a top-four spot now so they just need to keep their momentum going for a few more weeks and who knows how far they can go in the finals.
If the Storm can get Ryan Papenhuyzen back on the park at NRL level after a couple of weeks getting back into the swing of things in the Queensland Cup, he’s the kind of player that can make a difference for them.
The Knights completed a remarkable double against the Bulldogs with another emphatic win against them on Sunday giving them a 108–6 aggregate for the season.
They are a well balanced team playing with confidence in attack and resilience in defence. Senior players Tyson Frizell and Dane Gagai are doing a great job for their coach.
They copped a couple of bad injuries to Jackson Hastings and possibly Phoenix Crossland who have worked well together alongside Kalyn Ponga and Tyson Gamble.
Achieving six wins on the trot in the NRL is hard to accomplish and they have been great to watch over this period.
Michael Hagan is a former dual-premiership winning first grade player and current assistant coach of Australia's Kangaroos team. Hagan played 183 games for Canterbury and Newcastle and represented Queensland five times. He transitioned into a successful coach and took the Knights to a premiership in his first year in charge back in 2001. He went onto coach 205 NRL games and six times for Queensland in Origin.