NRL Round 10 Review: Knights Look The Goods, Four From 50 & Storm Win

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NRL Film Room - Round 10 Highlights

Quick Hits

The Feature Reel: Try of the Week

“This team looks genuinely good” - Round 9 Review

The Newcastle Knights looked good again in Round 10, and while it came against what is an historically bad St George Illawarra Dragons team at the moment, Justin Holbrook has this group dominating with repeatable actions.

I covered Dylan Brown’s influence last week. Given his relative lack of counting stats and the marriage a lot of people are in with their pre-season opinions about his ability as a #7, we’re still a few weeks away from him being recognised as an in-form half.

But, once again, his work in a very halfback-like spot through the middle created a linebreak on the edge. Brown’s speed across the field allows him to get into the four-man with a lead inside three.

Brown is there to back up on the inside, but as he’s reeled in by the Dragons defence, the rest of the Knights quickly get in position for the following play.

We so often see confusion and indecision from teams in these spots. The ball finds its way into the hands of the wrong player, the play is wasted, and the defence is allowed to set.

Not here…

Everybody knows where the ball is going. It doesn’t seem to matter who is where on the field, they’re all on the same page, and it ends with Greg Marzhew over in the corner for his first of five tries for the afternoon.

Round 10 NRL Notes

Dolphins v Bulldogs

The Bulldogs Halfback Situation: If Cameron Ciraldo and the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs had any intention of playing Lachlan Galvin as a five-eighth at all this season, we’d have seen it in this one.

While there might be some debate around Galvin’s best position, Sean O’Sullivan is a genuine halfback but played second-fiddle for the most part in good ball.

The Dolphins’ domination in the second half makes it difficult to get a read on the touches. Galvin and O’Sullivan finished with a relatively even split, but with so few coming inside their attack half after the break, the first 30 minutes is all we really have to go on.

I did sit up in my seat, pen at the ready when the Bulldogs were presented with an attacking scrum early on.

It’s clunky, but the Bulldogs put some work into the defence, stretching them across both sides of the field before Galvin gets the look he wants. The drop gets Stephen Crichton into the three and four man which forces a middle to travel. As a result, a relatively small Max Plath is isolated in the middle with a fair amount of space either side of him.

You can see Galvin motion for the double lead before taking possession.

It’s a well-worked and smart play from Galvin to get them on the board. A lot of their positives in attack ended there, though. The clunkiness of that try-scoring set remained and they couldn’t overcome it with a moment of quality as they did on this occasion.

It seems as though Galvin wants to be the halfback; get his hands on the ball, accumulate touches and pass his team around the field. His desperation to get in on the ball following Jacob Preston’s line break, in which the better option might have been to hold width and look for the cues out wide before taking possession, is another example.

Galvin is still very young. Unfortunately for him, and Ivan Cleary nailed it last week when speaking about Joey Walsh and the cycle of overhype and hate, he more than likely still faces more rough patches than good. But based on Round 10, it seems as though he’s locked into the halfback position for the foreseeable future and I’m curious to see how he continues to develop under pressure.

Premium Members got this one on Friday. Sign up here for exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox and for more on Isaiya Katoa’s wizardry in this one.

Dragons v Knights

Time To Cook Dinner: One benefit of a game being over at halftime is that you can get an early start on dinner and not miss any of the next. The numbers after 40 minutes are all you really need to see of this one:

Standing Tackle For Points: It’s been a point to keep an eye on since covering standing tackles ahead of Round 9, and this one stood out as soon as Jacob Saifiti played the ball.

Anybody constantly counting numbers when watching the game, and when the camera angle allows it, could see what Dylan Brown and company were seeing here:

‘Four from 50’

With Saifiti walking through the tackle to leave the third man in behind, the Dragons can’t fill up their line and they’re left with four defenders from the middle of the field (50%).

Brown knows exactly where he wants to get in the line, and it’s the same as the try covered above: Into four with a lead inside three.

That puts Kalyn Ponga on the outside of the three-man, and the right edge does the rest.

We regularly hear about “eyes up footy” and everybody seems to have a different definition of what it actually is. Seeing the cue in the line and playing to it, at speed, as Brown did here is mine.

Storm v Tigers

Repeatable Actions: The Melbourne Storm will take a win in any form right now. Blessed with a Wests Tigers team ravaged by injury in front of them at AAMI Park in Round 10, Craig Bellamy’s side made the most of the opportunity.

The positive to take out of the result is how well they executed on planned actions.

The first try came from a nicely disguised reverse block with Shawn Blore acting as the ball player to Sua Fa’alogo out wide. It always felt like a game primed for Harry Grant to dominate against the Tigers middle, and when you’ve got him breaking into the backfield with the other three spine players pushing in support, you know the Storm are on.

But Melbourne’s second try is my favourite. Not only because of how well it was drawn up, but with how quickly they sprung into action when the opportunity presented itself.

The cue is Heath Mason being involved in the tackle. Fa’alogo follows a Grant scoot out of dummy half with another to force Mason up into the line. Now watch Jahrome Hughes and Nick Meaney…

Meaney starts the play wide, but in order to best isolate Will Warbrick onto the smaller Luke Laulilii, he needs to tighten up and Hughes tips him up to the play. It tightens the centre up with the three-man in defence leaving Laulilii on an island.

Warbrick knows what’s coming though. He holds his width and swings to chase a kick from the moment the ball leaves Grant’s hands at dummy half.

With a running start against a smaller man running backwards, Warbrick collects the pin-point Hughes kick to score a beauty. This is the Storm how we know them.

Player Spotlight - Jason Taumalolo

His 159 running metres per game this season is his highest output since putting up 207 metres per game in 2020.

While Taumalolo’s yardage numbers aren’t jumping off the page like they once used to, the eye test tells us he’s playing some of his best football from the last five or six years. Take his numbers from Friday night against the Parramatta Eels:

They aren’t outrageous, but watching the game, you could see the stress Taumalolo put in the defensive line, the shrinking of the middle and the opportunities it created for his edges.

Taumalolo right now strikes fear into the defensive line. With fear comes indecision. The North Queensland Cowboys have surprised a few people and exceeded expectations to start the NRL season, and it starts with Taumalolo’s uptick in health and form.

The Pipeline - Faaletino Tavana

Looking beyond the bright lights of the NRL to the lower grades, one player caught my eye this week.

A horror six-error display in Round 9 saw Faaletino Tavana dropped from the Wests Tigers NRL side to instead line up for the Wests Magpies in Round 10 of the New South Wales Cup.

You want guys on the fringes of first grade to stand out in reserve grade. They should look too good for the game, and Tavana did at times.

He finished with 166 running metres and returned the ball strong. His footwork is a constant danger for the defence and he added another good finish in the corner to his portfolio.

However, the five errors are what will stand out for Benji Marshall and the Tigers coaching staff. He’s a talented young winger who can seem to do it all with the ball, but until he can hold onto it more reliably, we might see him in Magpies black and white for a little while yet.

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