Farewell Wahs
Last week’s Golden Point loss to Redcliffe all but saw the One NZ Warriors’ 2024 NRL campaign come to a close.
I can’t recall seeing a team drop so many winnable games inside a single regular season.
Injuries, suspensions, poor form and just plain bad luck have all been obstacles for Head Coach Andrew Webster to navigate this year and while there have been excuses at every turn, ‘Webby’ summed it up best last week:
“We’ve created our own destiny [and] been close in a lot of moments but close isn’t good enough in the NRL.” – Andrew Webster, NRL.com
Boasting a roster that profiled as deep as any in the NRL before a ball was kicked, we never saw the Warriors roll out the same starting lineup in consecutive weeks. That lack of continuity and cohesion across an under-pressure roster eventually took its toll in little moments throughout the season.
Rewind back to NRL Round 1 (don’t do it to yourself, Wahs fans) and New Zealand opened their account with some of the best attacking footy we saw from any team this season. Rushing out to an early 12-point lead against a stacked Cronula outfit, the Warriors then lost Taine Tuapiki and Wayde Egan to injury 30 minutes into the contest and the wheels fell off.
The following week they went down to Melbourne and almost put away the current competition leaders, only for Xavier Coates to score the Try of the Season in the 79th minute and spoil the party.
Throw in another three games lost on goal kicking alone, alongside a number of contentious refereeing decisions and this simply hasn’t been New Zealand’s year.
Last week’s loss to The Dolphins encapsulated the Warriors 2024 campaign inside 80 minutes.
The Wahs won the yardage battle and dominated most of the contest in NRL Round 23; outscoring Redcliffe six tries to five and dropping another over the line. In the same breath, one try conceded off an individual error, another off a deflected attacking kick and another off a questionable pass from Jake Averillo undid any of the positive work New Zealand did on Sunday afternoon.
While no doubt disappointing to miss the finals after last year’s improvements, the Wahs will enter season 2025 with dangerously low expectations and one of the higher ceilings in the NRL.
Undisputed
What Nathan Cleary is doing right now needs to be seen to be believed.
Since returning from an extended injury layoff in NRL Round 2, ‘The Iceman’ has all but single-handedly delivered Penrith eight competition points.
In NRL Round 20 he slotted a two-point field goal in extra time to sneak past The Dolphins.
A week later in NRL Round 21 and Cleary posted three tries, two assists and seven from eight off the tee in a whitewash against St George-Illawarra.
With the scores tied up against Newcastle in NRL Round 22, Cleary brushed off multiple Knights defenders to score the match winner with 10 to go.
And then in NRL Round 23, down by 14 to Parramatta and with just seven minutes on the clock, Cleary produced three try involvements in three minutes to clinch an impossible comeback win.
Clutch.
Cleary’s ability to consistently produce these winning plays (g’day, 2023 Grand Final) in pressure moments is in part due to his own incredible talent but they’re also a testament to Penrith’s elite systems.
Go back through the tapes and you’ll notice most of Cleary’s highlight reel moments aren’t miracle, ‘eyes up’ footy… they’re repeatable actions.
Last week, Cleary spotted up Shaun Lane and Daejarn Asi in all three of Penrith’s comeback tries. In NRL Round 22, he exposed a Knights middle that was conditioned to slide outwards rather than compress around the ruck.
The best player in the world playing in the best system in the NRL; an inconceivable four-peat is looming ever closer for Nathan Cleary and the Penrith Panthers in 2024.
Dogs of Four?
With just two points separating the fourth-placed Sharks from the fifth-placed Bulldogs, Canterbury-Bankstown are in poll position to do the seemingly impossible in season 2024.
With a Top Four finish in sight, the Bulldogs defence against St George-Illawarra was superb again last week. They made the most of their luck to score early through Matt Burton and front-loaded their defence from there to grind the Dragons out of the contest.
The numbers from NRL Round 23 are a nice reminder that stats don’t always paint the full picture in rugby league. With 43 missed tackles and another 19 ineffective per NRL.com, Canterbury read a little messy on paper.
In reality though, those missed or ineffective tackles are a by-product of the Bulldogs aggressive, mobile defensive systems.
Their line speed is quick and they stay high on the edges to get in the face of the ballplayer and/or runner. While this often sees a smaller defender (say, a half rushing a backrower) bumped off by a bigger body, that ‘missed’ tackle succeeds in slowing the momentum of the ball carrier or forcing the attack to turn back in towards the middle of the field where the line is set.
Burton’s early intercept try in NRL Round 23 is a lovely example of this.
Staying in the system, Burton worked quickly off his line to get high on his edge and in the face of Jaydn Su’A. Not only did the Bulldogs’ line speed pressure Hunt into an error, it also put Burton into position to pounce on the stray pass and streak away.
Canterbury’s defensive resilience is allowing them to finetune what is a rapidly improving attack leading into the finals. We saw them shift the ball out of yardage in NRL Round 21 to ambush the Broncos and over the last few weeks Toby Sexton has orchestrated some encouraging new looks in the Bulldogs attack.
Currently in the bottom half of the Eight, the Bulldogs are the big fish in a little pond right now.
Fast-forward to NRL Round 27 though and Canterbury-Bankstown would look anything but out of place sitting inside the Top Four.
Written by Oscar Pannifex | rugbyleaguewriters.com