NRL Round 24 Review: Breaking Down Attacking Kicks, "Footy Maths" & Trend-Setting Panthers

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What's to come this week:

• Breaking Down Attacking Kicks

• Quick Play-the-Balls

  • “Footy Maths” & Finals

  • Speed Kills

• Setting Up For A Shot: Running On Last

• Try Time: Katoa Creating The 2 v 1

Big Takeaway From the Week: Breaking Down Attacking Kicks

Tackle one can make or break a set of six. First up here, we’re breaking down what makes for the biggest talking point of the week.

Coaches around the NRL are always looking for an edge. They’ll bend rules as much as they can and, lucky for them, a lot of those rules were broken from the start.

The latest is the recent interpretations of players being tackled in the air.

We’ve seen different rulings already. I thought Ashley Klein got it exactly right in State of Origin, but he was part of a more dubious ruling as Teig Wilton fell to the ground in the arms of Tyrell Sloan in Round 22.

Since then, high-flying wingers have become the most dominant force in the NRL.

Plenty will call it “inconsistent”, but the over-correction from one side of the interpretation to the other is just about the most consistent element of officiating in rugby league.

Just this season, the crackdown on rolling balls came and went within a fortnight of the regular season starting. Sin bin round ended the next cycle of overcorrecting to a bad call in Round 8.

It's the latest in the usual cycle in which obvious mistakes are made and a gross overcorrection follows before it returns to normal 3-4 weeks later. We’ve just cleared four weeks since those mistakes in Round 4. We won’t see half as many sin bins in Round 9, particularly with State of Origin around the corner. - Sin Bin Round

History suggests we’re now towards the end of the ‘tackled in the air’ crackdown, with Round 25 likely to bring things back to normal.

Still, the last three weeks have given us plenty to dive into when it comes to contesting the ball in the air.

This Jamal Fogarty kick in Round 23 caught my eye:

He’s one of the best kickers in the NRL. He can put the ball on a dime, and I’m not so sure that his kicking it deeper than we’re accustomed to seeing is an accident. Not only is it a difficult catch for a defender running backwards, but if you’re getting a penalty try for being tackled in the air, the attacking players only need to catch the ball to all but guarantee a try.

With the advantage already given to attacking players due to their approach to the ball, along with the new interpretations, we might be starting to see kickers adjust their strategy.

Cooper Cronk spoke more about how halfbacks might be changing where they want to land the ball.

“I’m kicking it in the in-goal, putting it at the highest point over a smaller winger, and if he can not physically get his hands up to it, he’s got two options. One, knock the ball out. Or two, tackle the person in the air, and it’s a penalty try.”

The risk of landing it beyond the try line hasn’t been worth it over the years, with hanging it just short of the line preferred.

“When you put the ball in the air, it used to be a 50/50 contest. Now, if you put it in the right spot, and they get their timing right, it’s 75% the attacks way,” Matty Johns added.

Having scored one already in Round 24, Xavier Coates handed one to a teammate.

There is that slightly deeper kick again…

And look at the Panthers defenders. The centre has eyes for the ball, but is an escort for Brian To’o to get his best leap into the contest. Izack Tago can’t do any better there, and To’o physically can’t out-leap or reach a giant like Coates. With Tago closer to the sideline, having tried to play Coates off the ball, the ball falls straight into the hands of Joe Chan to score.

Daniel Tupou had similar success later in the weekend as the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs adopted a similar approach to containing him.

“They had a pretty clear game plan to stop Toops tonight. So it's not only just putting the ball down over the line. Both teams were defending well, and Toops had to work hard for both of those first two tries. They had a defensive system that they wanted to play on him and he had to work that out and adapt around it, and he did.” - Trent Robinson

You can see how the Bulldogs wanted to contain Tupou by using the centre to hopefully impede his run to the ball. But unlike the Panthers, who sat To’o deep in goal to run at the ball in the air, the Bulldogs pushed the winger up, possibly looking to match Tupou’s approach to the ball running back to the line.

It didn’t work as Tupou still managed to find a way over and above his opposite number to score.

He then changed his approach to the ball by getting in front of the winger. Wingers will often stay wide and come in for the catch, but he made his move in earlier. We’ve seen some commentators speak about the need to wait for the winger to catch the ball and hit the ground to simply tackle him on landing. As Enari Tuala found out trying to do precisely that here, it’s not quite that simple…

The coaches are so often a step ahead of the rule-makers, and on the occasion that those rules suddenly change, they’re exposed and corrected relatively quickly. Cronk’s focus on safely getting them to the ground, like you would any tackle, seems the most likely approach.

Despite the contest in the air no doubt rolling back closer to 50/50 sooner rather than later, I’ll be keeping an eye on attacking kicks around the goal line. It’s a trend that could remain for the best aerial threats in the game, given the new focus on how teams defend it. One trend tends to create another…

Quick Play-the-Balls

We’re generating momentum through the middle of the article with a couple of quick carries.

“Footy Maths” & Finals

Every so often, somebody asks a good question in the post-match press conferences. They’ll often get a pretty good answer in response.

I like how Craig Fitzgibbon spoke about “footy maths” after being asked about the improvements he’s seeing (along with signing players) that tell him the Sharks can be a better team come finals than they have been:

“I just don't think footy math works. Like you just, just 'cause a team beats another team, just 'cause a team adds a player and whatever, you can't account for draw scenarios, timing when you play a certain team at a certain time, their turnaround, your turnaround. There are so many elements that come into it. You can only focus on what you can do.”

He also spoke about how he expects the game to change when finals footy rolls around and the style they’re trying to play in preparation for the differences. Despite scoring 52 points and dominating for most of the game against the Titans, Fitzgibbon was most impressed with how his team responded to the more difficult moments:

“For what style of footy the semis become, which is obviously live exchanges, referees stay out of the game and you get going, I think we're playing right in that part. We're looking forward to that, but it's also on us to be more disciplined and more connected in the way we're playing. So, we've seen parts of it, but love to see a total package.”

We grow accustomed to ‘coach speak’ and non-answers, but the good questions and the thoughtful answers we sometimes get are worth listening out for every week.

Speed Kills

Like Matt Burton’s 40/20 last week, some moments in our game don’t need a lot of words around them.

This is pure speed and skill.

Setting Up For A Shot: Running On Last

Teams play to points with the following tackle in mind. Here, I’m touching on something to watch next week as we try to keep ahead of things happening on the field.

We looked at the opportunity for teams to run it on the last tackle from around halfway a couple of weeks ago.

We saw the Panthers execute on almost exactly the same look in Round 24 to score.

Like Viliame Kikau in the first clip, the kick pressure comes from the four-in defender with two outside him, and the winger dropped back.

Rather than simply hanging the ball in the air, Nathan Cleary takes the space out wide to run the ball.

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