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Fullbacks, Tom Dearden, Titans suck, Jack Bostock and your mailbag questions
On fullbacks
There’s something magical about the position of fullback. There are thirteen players on the team and if anyone should be offering a bit of spark, some incandescence, a quantum of electricity, it's the fullback and at least one of the halves. It's why the guys that I took the closest look at last year were Sua Faalogo, Keano Kini and Morea Morea. It's why Tamika Upton's departure to Newcastle gnaws at me while we attempt to make do with Hayley Maddick, also while wondering if Evania Pelite might consider moving up the M1. Let the three-quarters and the forwards and the hookers do the ute’s work of trucking the opposition and hauling in yards. Your fullback should be a McLaren MP4.
I think the origination of my ideal is Darren Lockyer. Idolisation would be too strong but he was my favourite player until I lost interest in the sport in my late teens, and subsequently consigned most of my childhood rugby league memories to the dustbin. I did retain a few feelings, hanging around like cobwebs in the dusty corners of my brain, and I distinctly remember the feeling that when Lockyer had the ball. Anything in that moment was possible. That’s how your fullback should make you feel.
While we waited for the Broncos to close out their waltz to victory in The Derby on Good Friday, I started thinking about Scott Drinkwater. Drinkwater took a strange route to the Cowboys. He was the standout player on the runner-up 2018 Tigers, while most of his Storm stablemates that would go on to be elite players were at the Falcons. He was picked to be Billy Slater's successor and then tore his pec. By the time he had healed, Melbourne had settled on Papenhuyzen, a decision with its own consequences, and Drinkwater instead found a home at the Cowboys in 2019. After two seasons at five-eighth, and after Tabuai-Fidow was deemed to not have worked out and Holmes became a permanent fixture at centre, Drinkwater became the Cowboys’ full-time fullback in 2022.
I had naturally assumed Drinkwater was at least in the top half of fullbacks in the league. After handling error after missed tackle after confounding defensive decision on a wet Suncorp deck, I started to probe that assumption. Here’s a taxonomy of starting NRLM fullbacks:
S-tier: Tedesco, Walsh, Trbojevic, Ponga, Papenhuyzen*
Flawed attacking weapons: Drinkwater, Tabuai-Fidow, Mitchell, Sloan
Unexciting tradesmen: Gutherson, Edwards, Nicoll-Klokstad, Meaney*
No thanks: Taafe
TBC: Bula, Campbell
Bizarre: Rapana
Now I only watch four teams regularly, so some of this might be misguided or out-of-date - case in point, I didn’t really know what to do with the Sharks’ Will Kennedy, other than use him as a symbol of my own ignorance - and I want to emphasise that this is not a ranking, just a classification. Players could conceivably move between classifications as their skills wax and wane, injuries occur and the game changes around them (both Trbojevic and Papenhuyzen could occupy a biscuity subset of S-tier, Walsh has his flaws but is not that kind of flawed, Mitchell could be S-tier but isn’t right now, Tedesco is nearing the end, etc). Argue away if you must.
We’re in a golden age for fullback play. I’d only really be upset if my team was sending out Rapana (who is there for none of the previous attempts working out), Taafe (the Bulldogs are incompetent assholes) or Sloan (who is too flawed) because it would signal a failure of process somewhere along the way to secure one of the myriad competent fullbacks available. There are better backups contracted at other clubs. Roger Tuivasa-Scheck is the third choice fullback at the Warriors, never mind Tuapiki, Faalogo, Kini, Sailor waiting in the wings at various clubs.
But I’d also be decidedly unthrilled to see any of the tradesmen out there for my team (slight exception for CNK, who is at least crazy). All other things being equal, I’d rather sit through Drinkwater missing tackles and dropping five hundred catchable bombs one night because on another, he’s going to set up three tries and score one with lightning passing and elusive footwork. Clint Gutherson only gives you that during peak Vlandoball and mostly just runs around in circles. Dylan Edwards can set up as many good starts to sets as he likes, line breaks aren’t his strong suit.
Whether Drinkwater is in the top half of the league’s fullbacks is a matter of taste. Do you prefer tidy yardage on exit sets or points and errors? You can’t separate those things, so you never know quite what you’re going to get with Drinkwater - other than the inevitable outcome if he’s one-on-one in defence - and that’s part of the thrill of watching the game.
Thank you for reading The Maroon Observer
Pain in Titantown
You don’t need me to review the Sunshine Showdown or the OG Queensland Derby. You watched the games. Depending on your allegiances, Max Plath either deserves a present or should be in the gallows but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the Cowboys were punished for literally dropping The Big Game, robbing us of a real spectacle, and that the Titans are very, very bad. But just how bad is it?
Here’s every Titans 0-3 start with points difference (and season outcome):
2011 - 0-3, -43 (spoon)
2015 - 0-3, -43 (finished 14th)
2019 - 0-3, -43 (spoon)
2020 - 0-3, -88 (finished 9th)
2024 - 0-3, -77
We’ve memory holed the Titans getting a 40 point bashing from the Eels before the covid break and then copping a 30 point bashing from the Cowboys on the resumption of play because there was a bit going on in 2020. The Tans finished with a five game win streak, which was supposed by our experts to be a sign of better times to come and not just a random run against spiritually vacant opponents.
It’s clear that the Titans are extraordinarily unlikely to make the finals in 2024 and are far more likely to be looking at a spoon. We’ve only just completed round 4 and we’re already at an ALL-TIME BLOW UP and Titans fans being told to be patient because Des Hasler has the full support of the board.
To the eye, there is a huge disconnect between what this Titans team did well last year (e.g. get Khan-Pereira into space and let him run) and the philosophy with which they are now being instructed to play (e.g. do not give Khan-Pereira the ball under any circumstances). Even though the Titans cracked and lost huge leads in historical fashion on multiple occasions under Holbrook, at least they were able to score points in the first place.
That makes the signs for Project 2026 extremely ominous. We can pretty safely assume that this trend will continue and Parkwood will then be faced with two options: 1) blow up the roster and let Hasler rebuild it in his image, or 2) punt Hasler as a has-been and back the boys. There is a third option to give up and sell the licence to the Easts Tigers but let's call that the nuclear option and treat it accordingly. None of this is ideal but the roster has enough security that it could conceivably survive a quick coaching execution, depending on the replacement. Wayne Bennett, come on down! Oh, don’t like Bennett becuase he’s a million years old? Here’s some other options. One of them is bound to work out. Try them all if you have to.
This is not the last you will hear from me on this topic. I find institutional failure more interesting than mindlessly praising success, which makes the Titans the perfect case study. Sorry in advance. No, I am not fun at parties.
But it’s not all bad news: Titans join national fight to eradicate fire ants. But actually it is all bad news: Palasia, Liu and Sami all out and, at time of writing, Tanah Boyd hasn’t been dropped.
First Intermission
While Tom Dearden is good y’all, the aerodynamic drag caused by the collar on Selwyn’s handsome retro jersey has gone under-reported as a contributing factor in the tackle of the decade.
Mailbag
Time for your questions. From Jake:
The Cowboys NRLW team had a brutal initiation to the big show last season. I place all blame on people no longer with the club and absolutely not on the players who were as brittle up the middle as a Peter Vlandy's idea. What hope can you give a Cows NRLW fan that we might win at least one ruck per set in 2024?
It’s very hard to judge in advance what coaches are going to produce in the NRLW. There’s less attention, less money and less scrutiny paid to major program decisions. With the benefit of hindsight, two things stick out to me about the Jeffries’ regime. The first is that Fran Goldthorpe never really seemed to do much in attack. What’s the point of bringing England’s fullback over if you’re not going to throw her the ball? The second is that the pack never settled. If the Cowboys never played with the same pack twice in a nine game season is an exaggeration, it’s only just. Even if you don’t like the options you have, and even with injuries, nine games is still plenty of time to work out what the best arrangement is. It is not starting China Polata, an Origin winger, at prop.
The upside is Jeffries is now Newcastle’s problem and we’ll get a nice A-B test of the impact of coaching on the NRLW. Whether Ricky Henry will do better, worse or the same, I have no idea but it’s a point of difference.
Even with the season being a few months away, most of the rosters are pretty close to settled. The only moves the Cowboys made were to sign outside back Jakiya Whitfield from the Tigers and Harata Butler from the Sharks. Fun fact: the latter copped a one match ban for hip dropping the former last year. Butler got a mention in last week’s newsletter, having gone apocalyptic on Wynnum to open the second half for Easts, so that’s promising.
Let’s dream a little and say that form continues and translates to the NRLW. The Cowboys’ pack then is probably 8. Harden, 10. Butler, 11. Power, 12. Raftstrand-Smith, 13. Weale, which should be competitive, and some combination of Chester, Reeves, Peacock, Banu, Mooka and Ngatupuna (who is playing union but the club has an option) off the bench. NQ are short a proper starting prop, could use a shorter drop to the bench and most of what the bench offers is bash and barge, rather than finesse and deftness, and I’m not sure who’s keeping pace with Manzelmann playing like prime Damien Cook, and ffs sign Emily Bella to play 14, but that’s Ricky Henry’s problem. On the other hand, the non-brand name forwards are young and have time to develop. This year should be better for them.
Hope this helps!
From Kyle:
How can us readers support you financially? You put in so much effort with little recognition to date. I'm an engineer with 2 young kids and have to carve out time to read your newsletter, let along the time it would take to write it. I guess that rambles into a second question about time management as a working dad.
The answer to the first part is you can’t, and your best bet is to buy me a beer (or coffee if it’s before 11.30am) if you happen to meet me.
Before I elaborate, if you, generic reader, want to skip some navel gazing and some earnestness, then scroll down to the next section.
The reasons I don’t charge for The Maroon Observer are myriad. We don’t have to commodify our relationship as writer and reader for us both to get value out of this newsletter. I have a job and I make good money (if a paywall goes up unexpectedly, it might be because I no longer have a job). I don’t want to give Substack a 10% cut. I would probably need to pay income tax on any subscriptions. Doing anything other than subscriptions is not worth the time to administer for the potential return. If I don’t charge you, I feel I can stop at any time, which means this is fun and not work.
Longer term, I’d like to drop a day a week at work, throw up a partial paywall and do this part time but roughly running the numbers now, I’d need about six times as many subscribers as I currently have to make that viable, so I’m at least five years away from that.
We’ll see if I last that long. If recognition was important, I’d be doing a bad Clarkey impression, but you can have impact without plumbing the depths of social media algorithms. There’s enough of that going around already.
Your time management question should have been directed to one of my friends who is an ambo, whose wife is a nurse and they have four kids. I couldn’t even begin contemplating living that life but they’re all still alive. There’s always someone with a more difficult situation who is managing to survive because that’s what you gotta do.
Triaging what you do and don’t need to do is a skill that’s only really honed through experience because it is largely bespoke to you and your family. You will only see what people are doing and take to heart what you’re not doing. You might not be taking into account what they’re not doing. You see me writing a 3000 word newsletter every week but you don’t see that I’m dogshit at those immaculate grid games and have no interest in spending time to get better at them.
You can create lots of pairs of far less trivial examples and work out what kind of trade-offs you want to make as a parent and partner, because you will have to make them. Those trade-offs will need to change over time in response to everything else happening around you. That’s not easy to juggle but it is a lot easier if you’re aware that you’re juggling. The juggling will get easier with practice.
At the other end of the range, my friend is raising four kids but “you should make time to get to the gym and look after yourself better” or “you should do cloth nappies and spend four hours a week on that” is asinine advice. His potential trade-offs are far more limited in scope. There’s only so many hours in the day, and only so many kilojoules in the body.
It also helps if you have a hobby you can do during your workday without drawing undue attention and be able to do your job faster than anyone can reasonably expect of you. “Get paid for full time, do a full time workload but don’t really work full time hours” seems like a big part of it if I’m honest.
Thanks to both Jake and Kyle for their questions and their support. If you’d like your question answered at a non-specific time in the future when the newsletter is a little light on content, send it in to maroonobserver@gmail.com (or just reply to any newsletter - it’s not a reply all, it’s ok).
Second Intermission
I thought this was pretty cool too.
Upcoming Slate
The southerners have not ended their sickening dalliance with their perverted timezone, so we must wait until Sunday for them to return to God's own time and to bring NRL kick off times with them.
NRLM - Storm vs Broncos in Melbourne, Thursday 7pm
The drought was broken with an emphatic 26-0 in week 1 of the finals last year but is it broken broken or was that just an aberration, like a brief sunshower during peak El Nino? We won’t know until game time but of course the mysteriously injured Cameron Munster is back in time to take on the Broncos. Of course. Tip: Broncos
QRL - Capras vs Bears in Rockhampton, Sunday 12.05pm (W) and 14h10 (M)
In lieu of any particularly spicy matchups in the BMD1, we’re resuming CAPRAS WATCH. Can Upton, Southwells, et al break their duck? Will they start a fight or get beaten to a bloody pulp by Rilee Jorgensen, Dannii Perese and Chelsea Lenzarduzzi? The men’s game is the feature game for the week and might be a more competitive battle between Lionel Harbin and the competition blue bloods. Unless the Cutters are actually good (it’s only round 4), I think the Capras’ loss to the Cutters is a more meaningful sign than the Bears’ round one loss to the Devils. Tip for both: Bears
NRLM - Cowboys vs Titans at QCB, Sunday 4.05pm
Yes, this is the least watchable game on the slate and only has one of the two stars, and is included in this list, because it’s a Queensland NRL derby. Even if it is the weakest of the six permutations2, I hope Scott Drinkwater and Valentine Holmes have taken some time for themselves to get their heads straight. Lord knows the Titans aren’t going to apply anything like the pressure of Jordan Riki chasing an Adam Reynolds kick, so that should make things much easier. Tip: Cowboys
(Tips 9 / 12)
Watch Guide
Weather - This weekend’s weather proves that Eurocentric season names are completely incapable of the task of describing Australian weather. It’s April but summer isn’t over yet. If anyone has a link to season names from any of Queensland’s first nations, I’d love to hear it.
Melbourne: 11 - 17 partly cloudy; Brisbane: Saturday and Sunday 20 - 26 scattered, then light thunderstorms; Ipswich: 19 - 26 light rain; Gold Coast: 21 - 26 scattered thunderstorms; Sunshine Coast: 21 - 26 scattered thunderstorms; Rockhampton: 21 - 28 scattered thunderstorms; Townsville: Saturday 25 - 29 light rain, Sunday 24 - 30 isolated thunderstorms
Notes
Kyle from the mailbag runs a stats collection and analysis service for lower grade rugby league. Check out Rugby League Stats Pro if you’re in the game and need some numerical assistance to put you over the top.
Breakthrough in war between Qld Rugby League and NSW Rugby League with ARLC over funding issues. The “breakthrough” is they’ve agreed to negotiate to avoid the courts. I had assumed the silence around the lawsuit of the century meant they had reached a boring accord that no one thought was worth reporting. It’s going even slower than that. We know how this is going to go, so PVL should just capitulate now, give them the 8% and save everyone some time.
Great stuff from a fellow Rugby League Observer: Remember When: A 40-all draw 14 years ago
I meant to spend the Easter weekend going through the rivalry survey responses but I spent most of it watching Slow Horses instead. Recommended.
Broncos: Walters extends. We can quibble over Walters’ methods and capabilities but he’s got enough runs on the boards that he deserves the job security (to 2026 at least, which is less than e.g. Ezra Mam), even if he has no realistic prospect of coaching anywhere else in the NRL.
Dolphins: Katoa officially re-signs. Here’s a conveniently timed video analysis of the Dolphins attack from Rugby League Writers, justifying Katoa’s extension.
Weird: Where have they gone: Gold Coast club refuses to answer questions after women’s team disbanded
Not Queensland: Bulldogs, Warriors coming in to the NRLW in 2025. The Bulldogs will be more or less irrelevant, both competitively and for recruitment, but the Warriors will suck Kiwi talent back across the Tasman. Clubs relying on New Zealanders may struggle to retain, e.g. Harata Butler.
Lee Briers, Broncos assistant coach, speaking to the BBC rugby league podcast. Probably more Super League chat than is usual for this newsletter but provides more interesting perspective on the NRL as a semi-outsider.
Impress your friends with your knowledge of commodities markets that you got from a rugby league newsletter.3
Magpies vs Cutters is the feature game and should be good but I really have my doubts about Souths Logan just getting it together in 2024.
The ex-Cowboys on the Dolphins gives the Battle of the Bruce a bit of juice, while the Brawl on the Beach has a nice thematic touch. The Cowboys and Titans have been playing for 17 years now and I still don’t think anyone has found anything reliably interesting about it. Maybe once the Frizelles sell to the Tigers, they can rebrand as the South Queensland Titans? Now we’re talking: Civil War.