The shoulder-charge is missed
In the highly entertaining Roosters v Bulldogs match on Friday evening there was a moment that had many reminiscing about the good ol’ days while simultaneously forgetting recent tragic history. The moment? When Kane Evans met the charge of Sam Kasiano by planting his shoulder, with extreme prejudice, into the big Bulldog’s chest, sending him reeling backwards and on to the seat of his pants. Kasiano got up grinning ruefully, Evans was congratulated by his team-mates, commentator Phil Gould hooted joyfully like a barn-owl in a barn full of fat lazy mice, viewer Sonny Bill Williams tweeted ‘BRING BACK THE SHOULDER CHARGE!!!!!”, and the referee… well, he penalised Evans for a shoulder-charge. Balloon, meet pin.
It was certainly a spectacularly visceral moment in the match and the fact that Kasiano got up straight away added weight to both the regret of some that the shoulder-charge was outlawed at the end of 2012, as well as the pleas that it should be re-instated because, ah, doesn’t it rattle the rafters when it comes off? It does, yes, but we can’t go back. There’s a reason it was banned and a good one: the health of the players who play the game.
Too often shoulder charges go awry resulting in shoulder meeting head, like when Greg Inglis put a sickening hit on Dean Young in 2012 (Young, it should be said, was against the ban). Exponentially worse, only last month James Ackerman, a young father of two, died two days after being knocked out by a shoulder charge in a QRL Super Cup game, a tragedy that extends not only to his family, friends and team-mates but to that of the young man who tackled him. Speaking after Friday’s game Roosters coach Trent Robinson put it all into perspective: “I wasn’t a fan [when the decision was made to ban it], but what we’ve learnt over the last couple of years, the welfare and health in our game and the duty of care that we have, we’ve got it right.”
Could the win that Manly needed also be the loss Brisbane had to have?
I wrote in Friday’s weekend preview that if Manly were to be any chance against the ladder-leading Broncos they needed vintage performances from all of their stars to give themselves a chance. Those performances were duly delivered; Jamie Lyon, in particular, turning back the clock like Marty McFly in a Delorean. All game he was one step ahead, as if (to labour the filmic reference) he had a sports almanac from the future in his possession and thus knew what was coming before it happened.
Yet it was the scale of the win that truly stunned: 44-14, a result surely no-one saw coming. Perhaps Manly can re-hire Geoff Toovey every Monday then sack him again every Thursday thus prolonging the “Do it for Tooves!” motivation. But as we stand now, Manly, after a woeful first half of the season, are on the cusp of the eight, and this could be just the kind of momentum-building win that sees them go on a roll. Next up, Souths.
As for the Broncos, they’d won seven straight prior to the loss so the belting from Manly hardly does them any great harm. The welts may even help. Long winning streaks come with a pressure of their own, so that’s gone now. Moreover, Manly have just reminded the Broncos, emphatically, what happens when you come out half-hearted. No team is so ahead of the pack that they can afford to phone it in.
The Tigers have exposed the Storm
If Manly’s win over Brisbane was a surprise, the Tigers’ thrashing of the Melbourne Storm was a shock. This is the same Tigers team, after all, that prior to the game had found a way to be worse than even Newcastle, Gold Coast and Parramatta, which takes some doing over 20 rounds. And it’s the same Tigers team that – led out by Aaron Woods – couldn’t even break through the banner before the game, the one made to celebrate Woods’s 100th game. The portents did not look good. But then, lead by an incandescent James Tedesco, the Tigers did to the Storm what they couldn’t do to the banner. And now the Tigers only share the bottom rung of the ladder after the win – which as much as it would have pleased their fans must frustrate them too. Where is this Tigers team every week?
The Storm were left to rue their performance and the loss which saw them drop to sixth on the ladder putting them within reach of the chasing pack. Coach Craig Bellamy, perhaps hoping to inspire his team by publicly castigating them, publicly castigated them, saying he’d never seen such a bigger bunch of surrender monkeys in all his years. Or words to that effect. Certainly, the Storm couldn’t match the output of Woods and Keith Galloway, nor could their defence cope with the raids of Tedesco, Kevin Naqaima and David Nofoaluma. That’s now four losses from their past six games which puts the Storm on shaky ground.
If the Titans win and there’s no-one there to see it, did it really happen?
After five straight lamentable losses – 34-0, 30-2, 38-6, 20-10, 36-14 – the Gold Coast Titans finally won again, beating fellow strugglers Parramatta 24-14 in the graveyard shift that is Monday night football. At full-time, after the Titans’ four tries to three win, you could hear Neil Henry’s sighs of relief down the eastern seaboard, something made easier by the fact there was not a lot of noise inside Cbus Super Stadium what with only 7,496 being in attendance.
While the NRL has increasingly become a TV game (and the ratings are solid), this is yet another worrying attendance figure in a season where average crowds are down 6% at the same point last year and seemingly falling. All manner of reasons for this have been put forward (and on the short list are: ticket prices, food and beverage prices, parking costs, poor scheduling, Origin, family un-friendly kick-off times, family friendly rule changes – “Bring back the shoulder charge! Bring back the biff!” – too many games at the soulless ANZ, the game is too structured) but the fix, if it exists, is far from obvious. Which is more worrying still.
It’s a game of skill
Now, flying in the face of that gloom, some cheer. League’s greatest strength lies in the skill it puts on show – thus flying in the face of detractors of rugby league who like to deride the game by reducing it to the collision. And you don’t need to trawl through history here, and throw out, like witnesses for the defence, names like Messenger, Langlands, Gasnier, Johns, and the likes of Hanley, Alex Murphy and Marshall… you just have to watch a single round of rugby league. Take the one just gone.
In the North Queensland v Canberra game, for instance, Johnathan Thurston smuggled a try-assist pass between two converging defenders and into the arms of Jake Granville. It took a slow motion replay to confirm he hadn’t somehow discovered a way to teleport a ball. In the Dragons’ drought-breaking win over Newcastle Benji Marshall turned back the clock by making a dummy out of everyone. When Manly played Brisbane the exciting Tom Trbojevic (“I can’t spell it but I love shouting his name out,” shouted commentator Andrew Voss) batted a cross-field kick into the arms of Jamie Lyon and the veteran caught the ball while facing the sideline but turned and kicked inside in the one motion for Jesse Sene-Lefao to score. And in the Wests Tigers v Melbourne game Tedesco had a Penn and Teller evening. There was his no-look try-assist pass to Kevin Naiqama then came his one-handed touchdown for a try as his body was airborne over the sideline. Just another week in rugby league.
