Brisbane’s pair of lethal weapons
There will be many wondering (and some hoping) if the Brisbane Broncos have peaked too early. On Sunday afternoon at Suncorp, the ladder-leading Broncos ran in eight tries to beat the Wests Tigers 42-16 for their seventh-straight victory – an excellent run that has taken them, unscathed, through the Origin period. Have the Broncos ever weathered Origin as comfortably? Less open to debate is the fact that Wayne Bennett’s team have now put themselves in a position where a top-four finish, and with it a home final, is a near certainty. Not that they’ll be planning on catching up on some kip in the shade of the Story Bridge anytime soon, but it gives them the luxury of a few off days before the finals without compromising their premiership chances.
And it’ll also give their young halves pairing of Ben Hunt and Anthony Milford a slightly less pressurised environment in which to continue to build on their alliance that Bennett, on Sunday, likened to the one of the all-time great partnerships. No, not Astaire and Rogers, or Riggs and Murtaugh, but Allan Langer and Kevin Walters. Hunt and Milford – both mere keystrokes away from an eye-opening, NSFW, Google search – were certainly eye-catching on Sunday. Hunt was in everything and set up the opener with the kind of evasive run you rarely see outside of a greased-pig chase at a Kentucky fairground, while Milford had some top-shelf touches, like a no-look inside ball to Darius Boyd that led to a try on the half-time hooter to an excellent Jack Reed. “They aren’t at their prime yet,” said Bennett, “and are only starting to get an idea for it” but you could tell he was excited about the future. And if he’s excited, who are we to disagree?
The Dragons’ days of disco look over
After their closer-than-it-looks 28-8 loss to Souths at the SCG on Saturday night – their sixth consecutive defeat – the Dragons, as if bound to an anvil, have dropped out of the top eight. If Paul McGregor is thankful for anything it’s that he has no more hair left to lose. But as bad as it looks there have been mitigating factors, not least a rotten run of injuries that has denuded the Dragons of many of their best performers for long stretches. And if their decline and fall tells us anything it’s how important it is to have a deep roster. The Dragons’ is so shallow you could walk through it without wetting your ankles.
To St George Illawarra’s credit, however, the team spirit that drove their defence and propelled them to the premiership lead just two months ago, hasn’t deserted them. They’re losing, yes, but not through lack of effort. Not once in those six weeks – including Saturday night’s game when they trailed 12-8 with just eight minutes remaining – have they been blown away despite fielding some teams where half the players might have worn L-plates on their backs. The challenge, however, as we saw against Souths, is to reclaim their confidence and combinations, and win their share of key moments. And then to score points – something the Dragons have struggled to do all season, even during the halcyon days of two months ago, back when the sun caught McGregor’s scalp like a disco ball and sent rays of hope spinning all over Kogarah and Wollongong. The Dragons have the look of a breakaway cyclist caught by the peloton and then dropped off the back. It’ll take a mighty effort to claw back into contention now.
Sandow leaving the Eels looks the only option
Parramatta clearly had high hopes (and rocks in their heads) when, ahead of the 2012 season, they signed Chris Sandow from Souths for a reported $550,000-a-season. It’s safe to say that that investment hasn’t borne fruit – or at least the kind you’d want to eat (I’m looking at you, durian). While Sandow has in him a free-spirited, off-the-cuff ability to create something from nothing, such centre-stage performances are too few and too far between to command that kind of coin (not that it’s Sandow’s fault the Eels offered him so much). And he doesn’t always play well with others, appearing to see a game-plan in the same way a budgie sees a pair of wing clippers. It’s fair enough that Sandow might disagree with Brad Arthur’s tactics, particularly when he feels that they constrain his ability to do what he does best, but it’s highly problematic when he makes his gripes public – and Sandow does have that tendency to drop his head and wear his worries and dissatisfaction on his sleeve for all to see. Or air them on Twitter.
Ahead of the Eels’ loss to Canterbury on Friday night Sandow requested an immediate release to join Super League side Warrington but that was denied. After the Eels’ loss to Canterbury – when it was reported Sandow was marginalised by his unhappy team-mates – Arthur changed his stance, saying Sandow could go but only if the Eels did not have to pay him out. Sandow jumped on to Twitter, as if from a frying pan into a fire, to drive a further wedge between himself and the club. The issue of money makes the water decidedly murky but it seems clear that Sandow leaving to start afresh is in the interests of both parties and the only way forward.
The Warriors are nothing if not reliable
Even without Shaun Kenny-Dowall – stood down by the Sydney Roosters after he was charged with a string of offences including the common assault and stalking of his former partner – the Sydney Roosters hosted the New Zealand Warriors on Sunday and reminded us of two things: 1. After their slow start the Roosters are warming up like yesterday’s curry and are very much contenders; and 2. The Warriors have their own special way of popping our party balloons. In the three games leading up to Sunday’s match the Warriors won all three by playing crowd-pleasing football; the kind of football we played in our daydreams as kids, the kind that makes you forget your own allegiances. The increasingly confident Roosters, however, were always going to be a test of the Warriors’ form and in that respect the men in black have been given a reality check. They simply couldn’t deal with the Roosters’ forward power, what with Aidan Guerra, Dylan Napa, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Sam Moa and Siosiua Taukeiaho all clocking up 100-plus metres. Little wonder the Roosters’ gilt-edged backs had so much room to carve the Warriors up. And with that loss the Warriors drop back to seventh and we chastise ourselves once more for getting caught up in romantic notions.
Everywhere is home for the Cowboys
Ordinarily, for visitors, Brookvale Oval on a Monday night has all the allure of a disused slaughterhouse at 3am. But North Queensland’s 30-12 win there underlines just how far they’ve come (and, yes, how far Manly have fallen) and why they are as well placed to win their first premiership than at any time in their history. It’s not all that long ago that the Cowboys, no matter how well they were playing at home, went to jelly whenever they left Townsville, let alone made it to suburban fortresses like Brookvale. But their comfortable and controlled win over Manly made it a remarkable eight wins from nine away games this season. And apart from early in the second half when Brett Stewart scored his obligatory Brookvale try to reduce Manly’s deficit to 20-12 the result was never in doubt.
It’s almost redundant to mention it, such is his consistency, but Johnathan Thurston was outstanding: running plays, kicking, backing up, intercepting passes, and goal kicking. The Cowboys were well served by the likes of Ben Hannant, John Asiata, Michael Morgan and Kane Linnett, but Thurston stood out yet again. He’s just so hungry for the ball, for the win. Indefatigable is the word for it. Imagine him stuck between a rock and a hard place – wedged between Willie Mason and Steve Matai, say – and you can just see him chewing his own arm off in order to get free and back into the game. As long as he stays healthy the Cowboys are in this up to their necks.
