General NRL Discussion

8 is the sweet spot. I don’t want to see it go down any further. The ball-playing lock is largely a Gus Gould fantasy. We may see smaller blokes with footwork and ball skills shift there late in matches but the Brad Fittler, Jim Dymock, Jason Smith types are gone for good.

Unlimited interchange was around in 91 and then again from 96 to 2001.

All reducing the interchange does is make hard-working forwards more valuable. If they happen to be smaller and have ball skills then good for that team. But it doesn’t make Taumalolo or Merrin or Burgess any less valuable. Nor Wade Graham or Jack Bird any more valuable were they to play lock consistently.

 

And the smaller guys are just as likely to be defensive, Dallas Johnson types.

 

Thank fuck for 2015 because this would stung even today. lol

 

What do you think they need to do to be good in attack again?

 

The most obvious is to reduce the amount of wasted plays. Starting a set inside the opp. 20 should see them trying to produce 4 or 5 attacking maneuvers instead of 3. "Set-up" tackles are extremely overused. Less structure, more ad-lib football like the Cowboys of old.

Taumalolo should not be used as a battering ram in the middle when they're in range. He needs to be playing off Thurston's hip. Or if he's going to be played through the middle to just ruck it up into a brickwall then he needs to be designated as the offloader with Granville looking for it. Hitting the line and spinning deliberately to create second phase rather than metres which then gets immediately shifted wide once the line has compressed.

There are a million ways to refresh their attacking play. More wraps-arounds, face-balls, and a hell of a lot more cutout passes instead of block play shit out the back. Thurston used to throw far more cutouts, 5 or 6 years ago. It's no longer a regular weapon in his arsenal which beggars belief.

Less of the modern structure and more of the traditional play. You never see Nth Qld do a width-of-the-field shift. It's always get middle, hit an edge, get middle, out the back to Coote. Garbage...

 

It's all well and good for Ennis to say we're losing the emotion by having the VR being deferred to. But he'll be the first complain if a bad call costs Cronulla a premiership. Give the referees some latitude for god's sake. It's bloody hard to see the grounding of the ball at full speed, even in that position.

The real question this year is surrounding the degeneration of the video referral system. The money spent on the bunker has pretty much conclusively now been shown to be a waste.

 

Jeez the Broncos are shite.

 

Can't argue with that. Especially agree on Taumalolo. He should be used as a scoring weapon rather than just to hit it up constantly. Work with him like JT does with Cooper, Taumalolo is a real weapon on the edges too.

 

Bennett needs to be shown the door tbh. The magic dust is gone. They should’ve given Kevvie a go. Look what he did against the odds with QLD. He’s apprenticed under Bellamy and Bennett. And he is firm on discipline and culture within a playing group.

Wayne is senile.

 

I still don’t get how that wasn’t a try to Jennings. For the second time I’ve seen this year the ball is already on the ground and a finger puts downward pressure on it. I don’t get how the fact that there’s also lateral pressure and movement of the ball negates that...