Midseason NRL report cards: not great, not terrible
Broncos (7-5, 5th / 1551, 5th): B-. Evidentally, this isn’t last season’s Broncos. The season-long march to almost-greatness is going nowhere near as smoothly and it would have taken a miraculous performance from the strength and conditioning staff to have the same injury luck. Instead, a Josiah Karapani appears to be taking to the field with an alarming regularity.
While the Walsh-led Broncos have played with a high risk-reward style with ball in hand, and partly this is what it looks like when that philosophy is not perfectly in tune, of greater concern is the near-impenetrable, rock solid defence of 2023 seems to be a thing of the past. There’s too much focus on points, and attempts to rack them up, that the Broncos have forgotten that much of their success was a bend-don’t-break attitude on the goal line that allowed for the nuclear weapons strikes when possession was returned.
Last year, Brisbane conceded 17.7 points per game during the regular season (which is still high for a premiership contender) but are letting in 21.2 points per game this year. If they’re going to get serious, they’ll need to restrict the opposition to something like two tries a game for the rest of the year, but they’re not that serious.
Cowboys (7-6, 10th / 1489, 10th): C. The Cowboys are frustrating and inconsistent and shit and have the same number of wins as the fourth-placed Dolphins and a better points difference than the sixth-placed Raiders.
There’s no doubting that North Queensland have perenially underachieved the capability of their roster and the expectations of their fans for going on near enough to a decade now, 2022 excepted. Still, it’s not going quite that badly in 2024. A win over the Titans and over the Eels and this would be a 9-4 team that everyone is pencilling in as a smokey for the top four? Not winning those games is obviously partly why the Cowboys have to live with their perception, along with being crushed by the Sharks and Broncos and never looking all that convincing even when they are comfortable favourites.
Is it as simple as offloading Nanai onto an unsuspecting Maroons camp and hoping Scott Drinkwater turns up to work to finally make a tackle and Chad Townsend stays out of the way of Dearden/Clifford? That seems facile but I tend to overcomplicate things to the point of being wrong, so it’s probably true. Origin will come to an end eventually - remember that shit hot streak they hit mid-last season? - but the Cowboys’ run home isn’t the easiest. I don’t know if they have the guts to do it but they can get lucky.
Dolphins (7-5, 4th / 1509, 8th): B+. The Dolphins are a smart football team, which I respect greatly and is far too uncommon. The players seem to know what they’re meant to be doing at any given point in time, which makes up for the fact that the Phins also aren’t particularly good and certainly not sustainably top four good. Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow aside, this team is the antithesis of individual brilliance. Rather than gleaming diamonds, the Dolphins are more like polished quartz: fundamentally a sparkly rock that looks good on TV but generally not as sought after as the real deal.
The commentariat seems intent on viewing the Dolphins’ 2024 season through the lens of the 2023 season. This seems like a category error, almost on par with viewing the 2023 campaign through the lens of the Dolphins’ 2022 QCup campaign or assuming the four and a half hour trip from Brisbane to Darwin is somehow easier than the one hour flight from Brisbane to Sydney because it’s all up north if you’re down south, I guess.
Things are different, better established and less novel in Redcliffe’s second time round the big leagues. The injury crisis do hit different in ‘24, earlier and has been less painful to date. Still, with the losses inflicted during the golden point loss to the Raiders, the Dolphins are on the tipping point. They lead a pack of 6- and 7- win teams but any dip of form, attention or polish is going to chute them straight down to just above the Titans. Six more wins are needed for finals and it is touch and go.
Titans (3-8, 14th / 1436, 13th): C-. Considering 1500 is the league average form Elo rating, the Titans bottoming out at 1337 after round 5 can only be described in the literal sense of abysmal. Happily, that rating is much healthier now, a full hundred points higher after round 13. If we scrape those opening four games and one bye from the memory and chalk that truly deflating experience up to injuries, a lack lustre roster in need of direction and Hasler taking his time to get his head into the game, the run since then has still not been precisely good. 3-4 is a losing record but all of those losses have been by a handful points. At the very least, Gold Coast no longer need to concern themselves with the spoon, being reliably better than the Wests, Parra and probably Souths.
Whether that’s good enough to meet expectations is another story. The disappointment line for the season is just 8 wins and the Titans are still five shy at the midway point. Management seem to think premierships are in the offing, if not this year then soon, but the roster and results suggest otherwise.
While it’s too late to do anything meaningful this year, having claimed a spiteful scalping of the heavyweight Broncos coming into Origin and Queensland mystifyingly overlooking the one currently uninjured Titan that should be a walkup starter for the Maroons, the next month give us a crucial insight to what this team is. A run of Souths, Tigers, Warriors, Sharks and Eels will give us a good idea if there’s something here or if we’re dealing with a last-five-weeks-of-2020 type situation.
For futher mid-season evaluations, here’s some analytical analysis from our friends at League Eye Test.
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Queensland 13+
With State of Origin tonight and tomorrow, we should probably talk about it a bit, what with this being a Queensland rugby league newsletter and all.
The men obviously can’t win in the pouring rain (see: Perth 2019), especially with the late recall of James Tedesco, the greatest Blues player of the last 20 years (fifteenth best overall over that same period). Backs against the wall. Injuries, flus and Bradley C Stubbs are floating around. Inevitable Blues death march to victory. No hope. Queensland 13+.
Team lists were announced last week for the second (and sold out) women’s game in Newcastle. The Blues - I refuse to call them the Sky Blues because it’s dumb - are running back the same squad. Pearson/Baxter is the obvious weak point and the Maroons have the superior spine but the rest of the Blues are strong enough to carry that through, as evidenced in game 1.
For Queensland, Emily Bass is out injured and Zehara Temara has been dropped, triggering a reshuffle that sees Evania Pelite on the wing and Lauren Brown at centre. I don’t love this. It smacks of “they’re all just footy players” from Norris. I think I’d be more inclined to drop Brill out of the mix, move Brown to the Ben Hunt role and bring on Manzelmann earlier to play Harry Grant, leave Pelite at centre and find a winger. Might be time for Jasmine Peters, Ebony Raftstrand-Smith or Montaya Hudson to be given a shot with the breakglass option of shuffling Brown into the backline if needed once Manzelmann is on.
Then instead of having the wooden spoon Capras’ team pest Emma Paki on the bench (note that former Capras teammates, the Southwells, have not been selected by NSW), add another beefy body to run roughshod and subtle lines around the ruck. There’s still scope for big bodies to riot in the women’s game and Sareeka Mooka and Essay Banu are front of my mind for that from the BMD final, but there’s a panoply of options there for 15 to 20 minutes of impact. If you had to run with a backup back on the bench, Temara offers more than Paki.
Whether these changes help or hinder the Maroons’ capacity to solve the Blues problem, we’ll see. The Maroons had more ball but less metres in the first meeting, suggesting a lack of starch in the middles, but overwhelmingly, the stats sheet is dominated by poor ball handling and completions by both teams. Whichever side solves that problem better and faster will come out on top, making game 2 a total crap shoot.
Really, there’s no way that won’t be the Blues. Mortal locks. Embarrassing that they haven’t already sealed a series sweep really. Queensland 13+.
Caps by clubs
I know I’m the only person that cares about this but here’s this year’s fun fact about Origin caps: it took the Titans until 2020 to accumulate as many Origin appearances as Wynnum-Manly had by 1987. The Seagulls had six three game series plus two one-offs to do what the Titans took 14 full series to accomplish. The Dolphins will still be about 20 shy of Wynnum at the end of this year’s series.
There are simply not enough words written on the internet about how good those Wynnum teams of the 1980s were and less still about how that likely contributed to the bankruptcy of the BRL 8, which in turn leads to the privately-owned Broncos, the Super League war and the NRL as we know it today. Everything is Wally Lewis’ fault.
I should get to work on the women’s equivalent now we’re in our seventh year of official Origin.
Shout out to Rebecca Riley and Rhiannon Revell-Blair who both played in the inaugural 2018 game but never played in the NRLW. The latter was an extremely young dual code prospect, playing under 18s Origin the next year and so being only 22 or 23 now so I guess there’s still plenty of time. Revell-Blair played for the Indigenous All-Stars in 2022 but couldn’t crack a stacked Gold Stars team in that year’s QRLW or for the lesser Cutters the year after. Nick Campton’s going to give her an amazing profile in 2038.
Lol
Mr Williamson also took aim at the Cowboys’ attempts to thwart the city’s NRL dreams.
“I’m sick of them saying this is their heartland and that Cairns is their home,” he said.
“Truth be told, there are probably more Cowboys [I assume he meant Broncos or Lions?] and Bunnies supporters up here anyway.
“They’re the Townsville Cowboys. If they wanted to be North Queensland they should have always been playing home games in Cairns, Mackay and Mt Isa.”
People talk about North Queensland secessionism from time-to-time but what about Far North Queensland secessionism from North Queensland? Who gets to keep the Foley Shield in the divorce? What if it became a game between North North Queensland and South North Queensland?
Intermission
The Wide Bay Destroyer, 42 point wunderkind and future Immortal according to the Courier Mail, Coby Black, had played all of one set of Queensland Cup football before putting up this astonishing try assist for Israel Leota in Port Moresby. Let the train depart the Hype Hauptbahnhof. The kid’s going to carry both the Mags and Broncs to a premiership this year.
Then we had some classic Guy Hamilton bullshit to seal the Broncos Bowl for Burleigh on Sunday. We’re so back.
Meanwhile, am I attracted to Kenny Bromwich? Good lord.
In something more relatable, we’ve all been here.
Upcoming Slate
The Phins and half the QCup are on a bye this week, so it’s pretty slim pickings in the aftermath of Origin.
QRLM - Pride vs Bears at Barlow Park, Saturday 3pm
Are the Pride frauds? They are equal top of the ladder, behind Norths by only +11 points difference. In 2014, the last year Northern won the Cup, they were 5-3-3 after round 12 and now they’re 7-3. This game, against the perennial contenders of the Burleigh Bears, will provide some evidence one way or another. The Bears are pretty good, might be a little lighter on troops than usual with Origin, but the same will apply to the Pride. Tip: Bears
NRLM - Titans vs Rabbitohs at C-Bus Super, Saturday 3pm
It truly is a Super Saturday with all NRL games in the Sunshine State, so let’s start by watching David Fifita smack seven shades of shit out of South Sydney. Should be fun. Tip: Titans
NRLM - Cowboys vs Warriors at QCB, Saturday 5.30pm
The Cowboys were inexplicably the most Origin-effected club in the NRL and the Warriors have exactly zero Origin implications. New Zealand are trying to work their way back up the ladder after a disappointing start to the year and should find the short-handed Cowboys easy work. Tip: Warriors
NRLM - Broncos vs Sharks at Suncorp, Saturday 7.35pm
In theory, this should be a top of the table clash. The Sharks are on a slide, after proving to everyone they were the real deal by beating the Storm, they got their pants pulled down by the Panthers and the awful Eels. The Broncos have not been consistently good but have usually had the measure of Cronulla in general play and during Origin specifically. We won’t know who’s backing up for either team until much later in the week but what are you going to do? Live a rich and fulfilling life? Tip: Broncos
(Tips 17 / 34)
Watch Guide
Weather - Finally! Some decent weather in the civilised parts of this country.
Pootown: Wednesday 11 - 17 light rain; North Pootown: Thursday 11 - 16 partly cloudy; Brisbane: Saturday 10 - 19 clear; Gold Coast: Saturday 9 - 20 clear; Rockhampton: Saturday 9 - 22 clear; Mackay: Saturday 9 - 21 sunny; Townsville: Saturday 13 - 26 sunny; Cairns: Saturday 16 - 25 sunny; Toowoomba: Sunday 3 - 16 clear.
Notes
Normally I would wait for team lists and fire this off on Wednesday morning but with Origin making a mockery of that venerated tradition and the Watch Guide being blind to selections anyway, the newsletter ready to go now. I have thing about the PNG team which was too long for this newsletter but I should fire off later this week. Then I might be able to get back to stats collecting.
While I was away, the Jets fired Ben Cross. That’s not a particularly surprising development given the trajectory on the field during his tenure, which has largely gone from bad to impossibly bad back to merely bad again since the Titans got on board. Mal Meninga coach Tye Ingebrigtsen, who one assumes is related to world class Norwegian middle distance runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen, takes over as interim.
Titans confirm NRLW development players for '24 and Cowboys 2024 NRLW squad announced. NQ looking good and ready to prove that I’m never wrong, just early, plus eyes emoji for Emily Bella in the development list.
Oscar from Rugby League Writers had a great insight into the Cowboys’ playing a high line defensively. I haven’t watched closely enough since reading that to see if its an ongoing issue but the examples he’s cited make it clear that shooting out of the line and then coming to a dead halt is pretty questionable against the Tigers, never mind the good teams.
Raiders Review: Chaos. I didn’t care for the result but I did like this from our friends at The Sportress.
“Southeast Queensland’s Allan Langer Trophy also got started with a huge upset, Ipswich State High defeating reigning state champs Palm Beach Currumbin 34-0. PBC’s side featured several of Tweed’s dominant Mal Meninga Cup premiership winning side,” and other interesting treats from Rugby League Observer.
Parramatta Eels urged by asbestos sufferers to drop James Hardie sponsorship. Funny how PVL has tossed the sport’s revenue into the maw of the NRL clubs at the expense of everyone else, forcing them to be profitable, and they still go and sign up literal asbestos for the front of their jersey. You’d hope the money was worth it. I don’t know how it could be.
Rob Burrow passed away. I found out on LinkedIn, which is mildly horrifying, and you don’t want to read the tributes while at your desk.
Not Queensland: North Wales Crusaders to be taken over by Dubai company. Curious.
Rewind
Speaking of those Wynnum teams, I can’t wait to explain to my kids that Wally Lewis was like the Ezra Mam of the 1980s (but without the speed… or the grace… or the quality of opposition).
Nickelware
