Dogs bolt, Bunnies bleed
Things are building at Belmore. Des Hasler’s combination of mobile big ones with soft hands and sneaky little ones with soft hands, and really, really fast ones who can leap through the air and burst through defensive lines and run as if their backsides are on fire, with soft hands, it’s simple stuff, and brutally effective. The Dogs play to their many strengths and put a Sam Kasiano-sized dent in the confidence of South Sydney Rabbitohs on Friday night at ANZ Stadium. Kasiano, Frank Pritchard and James Graham all have more skill than sizeists would give big men credit for. Trent Hodkinson ran the show beautifully, rookie hooker Damien Cook scored a try and set another up with a charge-down and a leaping dead-ball bat-back, and the Morris twins did what the Morris twins do – run screaming-fast, hard, effective, incisive lines. And they’ll welcome Josh Reynolds back in coming weeks and look well set to contest their third grand final in four years. Top squadron.
Souths? Were listless. Appeared listless. You can’t play first grade in the National Rugby League and walk about like you don’t care. But they appear to lack a strike forward (like Sam Burgess) and a super-fly wing man like Dogs man Curtis Rona who sits on 19 tries equal with flying Fijian Eel Semi Radradra. And Joel Reddy and Bryson Goodwin do not. Rabbit people will pray for the knee-meat of Greg Inglis.
Thunder child steps up
The Roosters suffered huge blows with the “four-to-six-week” hamstring tear suffered by half Mitchell Pearce and the season-ending knee injury to powerhouse prop forward Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, the man would rank as Most Scary Forward if the players opened up about their fears. And thus the Roosters premiership favouritism has been immediately reeled in despite them besting comp-leading Brisbane Broncos.
Still, Sam Moa will be back next week and he’s more bowling ball than man. And flame-haired thunder-child Dylan Napa stepped up mightily to fill the JWH-sized hole on Friday night. He was great, Napa - hard-charging surges, hard-shouldered beastly “D”, probably his best game in the tri-colours. And if the tribunal had rubbed him out for a “shoulder charge” that saw Napa’s arms nearly envelope the admittedly jolted attacker, I would be writing this column nude. With the acquittal of charges against Jorge Taufua, Aiden Guerra and Isaac Luke (a player with more form than Black Caviar) the tribunal’s made something of a statement on what they believe a “shoulder charge” is. And it seems if there isn’t any “charge” in the act and the player is “bracing” for impact by bunching his shoulder to absorb the other man’s momentum and thus protect himself, then … then that’s cool. That’s good. Carry on, nothing to see here in this funny little court of rugby league law.
Unlike Brisbane whom we’ll be seeing deep into September because they’re tough and worthy and were in this game up to their bootstraps for all 80 minutes.
Sharks: difficult to figure out
In one passage of play on Saturday afternoon at the Shark Park now known as Remondis, the Sharks were the equivalent of a boxer prepared to wear a couple of shots to get a good one in. So far backwards did they pass, fumble and otherwise scoop the Steeden, they lost easily 50 metres in one harum-scarum piece of rugby league. And then they threw it out the backline and made most of the metres back against Wests Tigers who looked every inch the spoon favourite they have become.
The play was a microcosm of the game and indeed the Sharks’ aspirations to the premiership. The Sharks have been super-solid in the forwards – get past the Michael Ennis niggle-business and he’s a tight and rugged forward – and entertaining and even funny everywhere else. Their backs are fleet-footed and in Valentine Holmes and Jack Bird there’s a couple of kids who have a red-hot go. Michael Gordon can really scoot and kicks goals like frozen rope. But even though they’re on 30 points and equal with the Rabbitohs with two rounds to go, you’re still not tipping the Sharks to put any sort of dint in the finals. Sooner or later, one feels, they’ll be found out. (Though whether it’s Parra next week or Manly last round one couldn’t say because those teams were both so bad on Sunday afternoon it should be illegal.)
Here they come again, Manly and Parra
So bad in fact, that it amounted to fraud. Impersonating a footy team, all that. How about them? They were … bad. Really, really bad. As anyone with a passing knowledge of rugby league would tell you, the building blocks of successful rugby league are called “sets”, and teams “complete” these “sets” by holding onto the ball and crashing their way upfield with a combination of mobile giants bashing it up before the tricky ones do their thing in the latter stretches of the six-tackle count. Simple enough.
Yet Manly, by dint of playing a drunk-on-the-beach version of rugby league in conditions closer to Christmas in Scunthorpe, were out-played by Parramatta who were really quite bad also. And those fans who braved the elements witnessed a “fair dinkum bludger of a game”, as the funny talking-head Matty Johns would describe it. And thus those who tipped Manly in tipping comps – not to mention those who, ahem, bet on them giving up 19.5 start with certain corporate bookmakers – were humbled and left to rue their life choices.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere, Titans beat Raiders, Dragons beat Panthers, and Knights upset Storm. And Jarryd Hayne ran like a hairy goat afire with a cattle prod for a fend in America and rugby league was left to think how many more NRL stars might like a peek States-side. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, for instance, would appear to have the happy feet and speediness to be a point of difference in the NFL. Could be wrong. Probably am. Pass those delicious beer nuts.
