Captains Call: Round 12
Welcome to Week 12 of Captains Call
What a wild weekend it was! 14 sin bins and a send-off.
While I agree with the use of the sin bin for a ‘professional foul’, I do believe there are more that go unpunished and the inconsistency in the use is hurting the teams and the game itself.
The perfect example was when Dylan Walker fronted up to Curtis Scott, egging him on so he hit him. By no way was it a ‘king hit’ as some media would like you to believe, but it was a send-off offence, so he got his marching orders. Api Koroisau comes in from the side to land one on Scott and is only sent to the sin bin. If you send one off for a punch, then you need to send all off who threw a punch. On top of that Dylan Walker got sin binned for what I can only assume was for being a general pest and head butting Scott’s fist. Then there’s the length of time Scott and Koroisau will miss due to suspension but let’s not get into that one. The repeated infringement sin bin is an annoying one as while there might be some penalties that are a deliberate ploy, some are almost unavoidable and the offending player is doing there best not to get penalised and currently it feels like the referees are trigger happy to not only penalise, but to use the sin bin.
Talking about the sin bin, there’s nothing worse than naming a Captain who gets sent, like Cody Walker was this week. Minus eight is not the return you would have been looking for. Next on the scale of disappointment is when your Captain gets injured, as was the case for Sam Burgess. On his was to a workhorse, Burgess came off with a glute injury, hopefully it won’t keep him out too long. Andrew McCullough did what he does best, racking up an easy workhorse. He had enough involvements for a double but wasn’t even close with the meters. Ryan Matterson kept it tight with a 41 involvement workhorse to increase his run of scores of four or higher to seven. Best of the week and I hate that I was right with this one was Matt Dufty. Dufty was a constant threat all day and it was capped off with a great solo try to win the game for the Dragons. He also added a try assist and two line breaks to his tally.
Let’s review five more so don’t forget to vote or leave a comment below.
GOD (Damien Cook) – safe bet
Coming off a great game last week, Cook will be looking to further his chances to get that hooker role for NSW. He comes up against another inform hooker in Isaac Luke and it’d be fair to say which ever hooker wins the battle, their team should win the game.
Andrew Fifita – safe bet
Fifita has been on fire of late, averaging 59 involvements a game for the last three weeks. He’s really starting to hit that 2013 form which saw him rack up five double workhorse tries. Needs to pick up his attacking stats and he might just do so against the Knights.
Tyson Frizell – safe bet
The top off the table clash should be a very tight game so you’d expect Frizells involvements to be right up there for a workhorse and if there’s any player that can break the game open then Frizell is the man. Leading into Origin, I’m expecting another big game from the Dragons best forward.
Latrell Mitchell – risk and reward
Coming up against the second worst defensive team in the comp, Mitchell will be looking to cement himself in that Origin team. He is looking better every week and I feel sorry for the Titans right edge who have the task of marking him. Mitchell scored a try last time these two teams played, expect at least one this time around.
Valentine Holmes – risk and reward
Holmes has been in some try scoring form with eight tries from his last seven matches. He comes up against the worst defensive side in the comp in the Knights so expect the best finisher to cross the line again.
.
Adam Hewat
Latest posts by Adam Hewat (see all)
- Captains Call: Round 24 - August 27, 2019
- Captains Call: Round 21 - August 6, 2019
- Captains Call: Round 19 - July 23, 2019
