Five Metre Gap: Rd 14 Wrap
Like the way of the five metre gap in defence, looking at the points you may have missed from round 14 of the NRL. Eight teams were on the bye with a host of big names also missing due to Origin duty.
This weekend provided an interesting look into the future for NRL clubs as some fringe players and various NBT’s (Next Big Things) got a chance to shine across both Australia and New Zealand. Starting off in Auckland Jackson Hastings, who has featured sparingly for the Sydney Roosters off the bench in recent weeks, started at halfback in place of Mitchell Pearce and was influential in his side’s late 25-21 win over the New Zealand Warriors. After a slow start, including down 14-0 just before the break, Hastings and James Maloney marshalled their team to their seventh win of the season. Hastings, 19, was incisive on the occasions he kicked producing some great midfield bombs and the cross-field kick for Brendan Elliot to score the visitor’s second try. Perhaps in a nod to his attacking prowess Jackson was in line to get the ball from scrums with the senior player Maloney feeding the ball on occasion. Not missed in defence the former Dragons utility was forced into making 21 tackles and held his own missing two of the 23 attempts.
On Sunday, despite a 24-12 defeat, the Bulldogs launched the NRL career of Shaun Lane and the 198cm forward performed creditably making 20 tackles to go with his 10 runs during 46 minutes on the park. By way of comparison team-mate Sam Kasiano in six more minutes on the park also had ten runs and made 22 tackles so the workrate output was similar. However Kasiono’s ability to break tackles and the fact he picked up a four-pointer underscore the difference his experience brings. The 20 year-old will also need to work on the four missed tackles. But given he has primarily featured in the Under 20s competition (aka touch football with NRL jerseys) until this year he has probably not been used to the consequences of so many missed tackles leading to tries given the high scores in the junior showpiece. Both Lane and the afore-mentioned Hastings are ones for the future for, fantasy and, real-life NRL sides.
Four of South Sydney’s starting forwards failed to register a tackle bust as the defending champions were humbled 34-6 on Friday night by the Wests Tigers at ANZ Stadium. Starters Dave Tyrrell, John Sutton, Chris McQueen and Ben Lowe couldn’t trouble the Tigers in defence in that regard but bench forward Chris Grevsmuhl managed four tackle breaks in his time on the park. Contrast that with the winners who had Martin Taupau make eight tackles busts and it’s a good indication that Michael Maguire’s men simply couldn’t make any significant ground in their sets. The Rabbitohs totalled 1064 metres compared to the 1440 metres for the victors.
As the style of play of Queensland Cup side the Ipswich Jets has become more widely known in recent weeks thanks to TV coverage and an interesting article from Paul Kent of the Daily Telegraph it’s worth nothing kicking to advantage paid dividends this weekend. Gold Coast halfback Aidan Sezer rolled the dice on the second tackle and came up trumps with a 40/20 kick which led to a key Titans try to Kevin Gordon in their win over the Bulldogs. Essentially the Jets’ philosophy is to be attacking even if it means relinquishing possession early in a set. The Titans could have been facing the Bulldogs on attack with 30 seconds to go if there kick didn’t come off but it proved positive for the home side who up until that point had made the only 40/20 kick all weekend.
Finally, an apology to Parramatta coach Brad Arthur. Having played forward Daniel Alvaro for only six minutes in Round 12 we tracked his progress and wrote in our Round 13 wrap that the 22 year-old didn’t play at all as the Eels capitulated 36-30 at the hands of the Cowboys. That was wrong, after a Tuesday update the stats showed Alvaro played one minute of that game. We can only assume we glanced away from the screen for the minute in which Arthur decided to give the former Bronco his ever so brief cameo. The Mittagong junior didn’t feature against the Storm as the Eels shocked the home side 26-22.
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Hamish Neal
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