The Storm have still got it
While the North Queensland Cowboys attract our admiration, and the St George Illawarra Dragons our surprise, the Melbourne Storm — who endured a tough examination from South Sydney on Saturday night — are just getting on with doing what they’ve been doing for the best part of 10 years now. After finishing sixth in 2014 and dropping out of contention in the first week of finals, many (including me) expected them to struggle this season, to find themselves in a scrap to make the top eight. While that may yet happen the ground looks solid under their feet. And that’s due, in large part, to the fact that Craig Bellamy didn’t sub-contract the foundation laying to some charlatan in gold chains and a lairy ute. Rather, he did it himself, and he’s a t-crosser and i-dotter if there ever was one.
It helps, of course, that Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk are his foremen, ones who do so much more than lean on shovels and direct play by pointing the cigarette in their mouths to the jobs that need doing. Yes, the Storm’s big three are getting on, and unless they uncover the elixir of youth sometime soon their powers will wane, but for now there’s life enough left in them. Slater, for instance, has been dynamite in the past fortnight. How the Kangaroos could have done with him two weeks ago. But here we are again at the door of the Origin period which, due to its demands on the Storm’s best, may yet cause them a problem or two. Good thing Bellamy has them firing early, which has created a four-point buffer between them in equal first and the fifth-placed team. Bellamy couldn’t have asked for more before the season kicked off.
Double-movements will always be contentious
For all the stick he gets Ricky Stuart has done well this year to turn around a Canberra outfit that finished second last in 2014. Going into their match against St George Illawarra on Sunday the Raiders had won four in a row, a run of form that would have had young Raiders fans breathing into paper bags to calm themselves down, having not seen the like before. Canberra’s loss to an impressive Dragons might have broken the Raiders’ run and robbed them of a possible top four spot going into the Origin period, but the Raiders were competitive and things might have been different had Jarrod Croker not had a try disallowed for a double movement in the opening minutes.
In the press conference Stuart made a good wisecrack that “it looked like [Croker’s] Oz-Tag tag fell off” and he had a point, for while Tyson Frizell had hold of him, and Croker’s ball-carrying arm made contact with the turf, at no point was his forward momentum halted. The rules on the matter (“A player in possession is tackled: (a) when he is [grounded and] held by one or more opposing players and the ball or the hand or arm holding the ball comes into contact with the ground”) aren’t a great help as they make no mention of momentum, and my gut feeling was the same as Stuart’s, that Croker wasn’t really “held” if you take held to mean that the tackler had him under control. Sometimes it would seem easier to do away with double movement altogether but perhaps that would be the first step to anarchy and before you know it there’d be pigs heads on stakes lining the sidelines.
Relief is at hand
The media begin talking about possible Origin selections and bolters in round one, if not earlier. You see, a barnstorming performance from a brilliant up-and-comer in the season opener has the same effect on us media-spivs than a doctor tapping on one’s patellar tendon has on the lower leg attached to it. But by round 10 all this reflexive jerking about gets too much, even for us, so we’ll be as relieved as you are when, on Tuesday, both NSW and Queensland announce their squads for the series opener on 27 May. Until then (I can’t help it), we can wonder one last time about how much weight will be given to form and loyalty. If various reports are to be believed it’s looking increasingly likely that Mitchell Pearce will make his return to Origin in the Blues’ No6 jersey, despite Josh Reynolds being the incumbent in a winning team, and despite Canberra’s Blake Austin being the form New South Welshman in the five-eighth position this season. Trent Hodkinson is tipped to partner him in the halves, although will the criticisms of his game against the Roosters on Friday night by Blues legends Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler change Laurie Daley’s mind assuming it was already made up?
For Queensland, who will always seem a more settled side as long as Messrs Slater, Inglis, Thurston, Smith, Cronk, Myles and Scott are going around, outside forces — injury and suspension, that is — are their main concern this time of year. So the Maroons’ camp will be mightily relieved after hooker Cameron Smith was, on Monday, cleared to play in Game I despite receiving a grade one charge for kicking Issac Luke in the head, twice, during the Storm’s win against South Sydney at AAMI Park on Saturday night. Whether the judiciary showed leniency towards Smith because they deemed it accidental, or due to the identity of his victim, or whether they didn’t want to rub Smith out of Origin because they couldn’t bear the tsunami of conspiracy theories that would emerge from Queensland in a flood, we can only speculate mischievously. Either way, relief is at hand?
Winning ugly beats losing ugly, but football was the loser on the night
If Monday night’s mongrel of a match between the Manly Sea Eagles and Penrith Panthers had a face it would be the kind that demands a hessian sack, and if Ivan Cleary can manage to watch it again on replay he deserves a raise. And he’s the coach of the winning team. How Penrith came away winning 11-10 at Brookvale is anyone’s guess for they did all they could to lose it, first allowing Manly, boosted by some vintage form from Brett Stewart (who is increasingly resembling Jason Lee from My Name Is Earl, or either a 1970s pool man with aspirations for an amateur film career), to scoot away to a 10-4 lead at the half, and then doing everything they could in the second half not to win.
At least six times in the last 40 minutes they dropped the ball in good field position, Apisai Koroisau the culprit on a couple of occasions, and Waqa Blake on another, with the line wide open. In the end Cleary was pulled from outright despair by a Jamie Soward flick pass that allowed Sika Manu to set up Dallin Watene Zelezniak for the game’s only second-half try, and finally by a late 40m drop kick from Matt Moylan, a rare light in the gloom. That he and the Panthers didn’t even celebrate it suggests they were almost embarrassed to take the lead. It will take Cleary a few days to clear his head after tonight’s performance but when the fog lifts he’ll at least be able to find consolation in the two points gained. Poor Geoff Toovey will have no such luck.
It doesn’t pay to look ahead but…
We’re only 10 games into the season so any talk of grand finals is premature, but what the heck; had Friday night’s Cowboys v Broncos clash been the season decider only those from the deepest hollers of Brisbane would have demanded their money back. It was fast, frenetic and of a high standard, and it took a standout performance from Michael Morgan, and exceptional control from North Queensland — they completed 34 from 37 sets — to win it. Given those statistics Brisbane shouldn’t feel too disappointed, and Wayne Bennett said as much. The Cowboys, meanwhile, won’t be getting carried away but they must feel invincible at the moment. That’s seven on the trot and, in the mostly flat terrain of the NRL where upsets happen so often as to call into question their description as upsets, that’s impressive.
Both teams now share the competition lead (on 14 points alongside St George Illawarra and Melbourne) and it bears considering that they could well meet in the decider in October. What a pity that if this happens it will be in Sydney, a thousand clicks (and then some, for the Cowboys) from their fans and the one of the game’s most passionate heartlands. Currently ANZ Stadium in Sydney is due to host the grand final up to and including 2019 and though the NRL said last year it is considering moving the season decider out of Sydney, where it has been played since 1908 (unless you count the Super League grand final of 1997, and I’d prefer not to), it has yet to commit. But surely it would help sell the idea of growth and expansion if the decider were moved, ideally to suit the highest-ranked grand final qualifier (as happens in the A-League). Ground capacity would have to be taken into account (it would be a retrograde move to play the grand final at Hunter Stadium, for instance) but stadia like Suncorp in Brisbane, Etihad in Melbourne and even Eden Park in Auckland would suit. If the Cowboys and Broncos do face off in this year’s decider the emptiness of Suncorp far to the north would only underline the need for change.
