Is it even a shock anymore? The Dolphins have done it again, confounding experts and expectations alike with another thumping win, this time 36-10 over the Cronulla Sharks, in Wayne Bennett’s 900th game as a coach no less.
This might be the best of the lot. They were rank outsiders, shorn of pack leader Jesse Bromwich and debuting a roly-poly centre against the game’s best right edge.
The Sharks are legitimate Premiership contenders, the league’s highest-scoring attack and rolled into Magic Round on the back of three consecutive wins. They weren’t just beaten, but thrashed, with said roly-poly centre, Valynce Te Whare, scoring twice.
Round 1 might have been written off as a fluke, a fired-up Dolphins catching a complacent Roosters cold. A week later, their win over the Raiders was a little fortunate. The record comeback over the Titans was pure chaosball. This wasn’t. It’s not luck anymore.
Bennett brings all the nous and experience a group could need. The likes of Kenny Bromwich and Felise Kaufusi – as well as the absent Jesse – brought culture from Melbourne, as well as knack of turning up in milestone games.
“I did enjoy that,” said the famously taciturn coach. “We had three quality props out tonight and a couple of good backs missing.
“I just give guys a jersey and they get the job done. It is quite remarkable and a credit to them. There’s a lot of trust there. I encourage them and trust them.”
Craig Fitzgibbon must have known that something like this might happen. He could only watch on as it unravelled, 30-0 within 35 minutes. Like everyone else, he was speechless.
“It was a good lesson for us to be honest,” he said. “Tonight meant more to them than it did to us.”
They keep doing it. Redcliffe might have the worst 1-17 in the NRL – remember, this is a team with Kodi Nikorima at 6 and Jamayne Isaako on a wing – but they play as teams for a reason, and it’s hard to think of many collectives that are better. With Mr 900 in the box, we shouldn’t be surprised.
It’s not groundbreaking stuff. Their opponents showed what a highly sophisticated attack looks like at times, with choreographed men in motion, but sometimes it doesn’t have to be overly complex. Get ball, run ball, and hard.
It’s impossible to get all the bits in place to run overly structured stuff in such a short amount of time, and much easier to get the intangible things right. Bennett is the master of that.
Don’t think there’s not sophistication at play here, though. The Dolphins knew exactly where Cronulla were weak and went for the jugular. Their willingness to spot up Matt Moylan, to challenge a goalline defence that has looked shaky at times, is all formed in coaching and video.
Don’t confuse straightforwardness for lack of detail. The Dolphins know exactly what they are and what they are not, and play exclusively to their own strengths. The first half they completed high, kicked long, charged up in defence and targeted halves.
It did seem as though Redcliffe has got themselves stuck in the second half. At times there has been an issue with playing a little too one out when ahead, which nearly cost them against the Cowboys and did cost them against Souths.
Stopping attacking often invites errors, and that looked like it would be the case. The defence, however, carried the Dolphins through and eventually, the ship was righted through another Te Whare try. From then on, there was no catching them.
Cronulla seemed to believe their own hype a little bit. There was a strong element of cart-before-horse at times early on, putting on passes that weren’t there. Do that against the Dolphins and you’ll end up struggling.
Add to that the clear enthusiasm gap in the first half and you end up with a 30-0 scoreline. Cronulla won’t have seen the game before this, but it would have helped them to watch how Penrith dealt with a similarly committed, conservative side in the Warriors.
The Panthers fought fire with fire in defence and backed their skills to win the arm wrestle. The Sharks weren’t interested in the arm wrestle early and got sprung.
Once they got a chance to put their footy on, Cronulla looked great. They always will given how fluently they can move the footy and how potent their backline can be. It was all a little too late, however. The start killed them.
Worryingly for Fitzgibbon, this was remarkably similar to last year’s Magic Round. Then, they were 6-3 against a Raiders side that were underwhelming to say the least, but got jumped early and never recovered.
Cronulla are a side that like to skirt towards the lower edge of completion rates, and usually that suits their style. Today was down in the low-60s for the bulk of the game, however, and that will only go one way against a side like the Dolphins.
The entire Dolphins project is basically a fairytale playing out in real time at this stage, a Hollywood-esque yarn in which the wizened old veteran gets a ragtag bunch of rookies, journeyman, past-its and never-wases and turns them into a feelgood story.
All it needed was a cult hero, a guy who looks like he shouldn’t be an athlete at all, an everyman. Enter Val Meninga.
The nickname is probably 95% joke: Bennett himself quipped the only thing Te Whare shared with Mal was a shorts size, and when Uncle Wayne is cracking the gags, you know that everyone is on board.
What would have happened in the cinematic version? Scoring two on debut with the family in the stands as part of an upsert victory might have been shouted down for a being a little too on the nose.
Yet that’s what transpired. We were promised hard running, tackle busting, defensive errors and a big bloke who knew but one way to run. Oh boy, did we get it.
Seriously: the bloke was cutting the grass at Redcliffe Oval a year ago. His whole family were in the crowd. He’s in game one when his coach is in game 900. It’s storybook stuff.
If the Valynce Te Whare story ended now he’d go down as a legendary figure, but one suspects that it won’t. The rugby union convert is just 22 and will get more cracks at the top grade. Long may it continue.
In particular, he is furious over the Bunker constantly taking tries away from players.
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All the team list information for Round 9.
