The Knights’ response
The poor Dragons. After a club-record seven losses in a row they would have been looking ahead to their game against Newcastle on Sunday and thinking, ‘Thank God, we’re playing a team going even worse than we are; finally we can get back in the winners’ circle.’ And then what happens? Such is the Dragons’ luck, Newcastle sack Rick Stone meaning the Dragons will now be worrying if they’ll fall victim to the ol’ dead cat bounce (the temporary lift a struggling team so often seems to gets when a sacked coach is replaced mid season). But surely not?! Against the Rabbitohs last weekend the Knights were in full stage rigor mortis and had all the potential bounce of a brick: “Embarrassing … As bad as it’s been,” admitted captain Kurt Gidley, and now in-coming interim coach Danny Buderus — who retired from playing at the end of the 2013 season — will have the job of holding everything together for another six weeks until a full-scale review can be conducted about what’s gone wrong in the Hunter (aside from the fact that whenever Wayne Bennett leaves a joint it’s as if he takes with him a load-bearing wall, as the Dragons know well enough themselves). Buderus may as well make some major changes and take some risks. It can’t get any worse.
Manly have no more room for error
If Manly are to avoid missing the finals for the first time since 2004 (one hell of a record) they can’t afford to lose another game; yet look at their draw ahead —it includes Brisbane, Souths and the Roosters. In their favour, however, if you’re inclined to near empty glasses being half full, is the unstable surface on which many teams ahead of them have found themselves standing: The Warriors have lost Shaun Johnson and he could be the loose thread that sees them unravel; The Sharks could be down a pair of Fifitas, and maybe even a Luke Lewis, for the remainder of the season; The Bulldogs’ Josh Reynolds and Frank Pritchard are in major doubt for weeks to come, and, more pointedly, the Dogs’ run home is very tough; The Dragons are slip sliding away (although their run home is not too scary); and the Raiders are up and down. But apart from a recent rally in which they’ve won four from six Manly are not the team they were and now coach and one-time favourite son, Geoff Toovey, has been told his coaching days at the club are over at the end of the season. The Sea Eagles must be rattled by that are they are just holding on by their fingertips after that win against the Warriors last week. But this week, on the Central Coast, they come up against the ladder-leading Broncos who are on an eight-game winning streak and now combine a staunch defensive with an increasingly expansive attack. Manly need vintage performances from all of their stars to give themselves a chance. With Toovey on death row do they have the heart?
Can Ricky’s Raiders take a big scalp?
Ricky Stuart’s team have been hanging in there of late and at times have proved throughly entertaining, racking up big scores thanks, in part, to the hillbilly smarts of Blake Austin (I’m convinced the NSW selectors would have picked him this year but for that beard) and the calmness and cunning of English hooker Josh Hodgson who, prop Paul Vaughan told the Canberra Times this week, is steering the Raiders’ forwards around with the smarts of Magellan. Well, Vaughan didn’t say that exactly, but he had high praise for ‘Hodgo’ who so far this year is, the Times reports, “third in try assists (six), third in dummy-half metres (770), third in dummy half runs (107), equal fourth in line-break assists (five), fourth in kicks made (41), fifth in tackle breaks (28), fifth in offloads (12), fifth in run metres (893) and fourth in number of runs (124)”. The Raiders will need all of that and more to defeat the Cowboys on Saturday evening in Townsville. For all the Raiders’ progress this year they don’t have a good record against the top teams. It’s 11 weeks since they beat a team (the Rabbitohs) above them on the ladder. In fact, the closest they’ve come to an upset in this period is against the Cowboys just six rounds ago, losing 21-20 to a late Johnathan Thurston field-goal in one of the season’s best games so far. If the top eight is going to happen for the Canberrans it’s time they showed they’re worthy of a spot.
The Roosters’ and Rabbitohs’ push to continue
Both the Sydney Roosters and the South Sydney Rabbitohs have had moments this season where their premiership credentials have been brought into question. But like the best 1500m runners they’ve heard the bell and have begun to position themselves nicely for the run home; the Roosters by winning their past six (with an aggregate score of 145-57) and the Bunnies by winning six of their past eight, including last week’s 52-6 demolition of the Knights. But while the Roosters seem to have it all going on, the Rabbitohs have shown moments of frailty that should worry them, not least a 20-6 loss to Penrith three weeks ago (with no Greg Inglis) and a 34-6 loss to the Tigers (with no Inglis or Issac Luke) in round 14. This week Souths get a rematch against Penrith and there will be no excuses this time. Souths are full strength (and Luke Keary and Adam Reynolds have now had a few games to re-establish their understanding while Inglis got in the groove last week with three tries, one try-assist and 182 metres run) while the Panthers are again struggling with Dean Whare (broken thumb), Nigel Plum (concussion) and Peter Wallace (torn ACL) all unavailable. The Panthers, now four points out of the eight, will be desperate but the Rabbitohs should stand up.
Some welcome (war) dancing
There’s nothing I can add to the Adam Goodes story that hasn’t already been said (my colleague Russell Jackson hits the mark with this piece) simply to point out how pleasing it was this week to see some of the NRL’s indigenous stars speak up in support of Goodes. First Greg Inglis suggested that any indigenous player who scores a try this week top it off with a war dance to, as Thurston explained to Triple M radio, “show solidarity and stamp out this racism”. Then Thurston went on to say he felt NRL crowds were more progressive than AFL crowds when it came to the treatment of indigenous players. Though it was interesting to hear that observation we shouldn’t think to congratulate ourselves on not being racist (or, worse, not being as racist as AFL crowds). Not only because not being racist should be the default position, but because you don’t need to search too hard to uncover plenty of occasions when rugby league has had moments to be shameful about when it comes to the treatment of indigenous players. That sport is so often an escape for young indigenous men and women seems to add to this insult (and on this front you may find this piece relevant, one I wrote a couple of years ago, about Cathy Freeman’s grandfather. Times have changed but perhaps not as much as they should have). So in short, let’s hope to see some war dances this weekend —dances given the thumbs up by NRL CEO Dave Smith— and NRL crowds responding favourably to them.
