NRL Round 3 Review: Bulldogs Deception, Panthers The Benchmark & Tristan Sailor Highlights

NRL Film Room - Round 3 Highlights

Quick Hits

The Feature Reel: Try of the Week

Josh Curran throws a nice ball to Jacob Preston to crash over and score, but it’s the play leading to the try assist that this as the feature try of the week.

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs to an excellent job of selling the shortside to the Raiders markers to generate the linebreak.

First, it looks as though Connor Tracey is already in position to target the shortside to make it 4 v 4 on the edge. When Matt Burton makes his late move from the longside to the shortside, the second marker is forced into action. He follows Burton down the shortside as the first marker takes care of Bailey Hayward at dummy half.

With the two markers split, Tracey straightens up and hits the hole in behind the ruck, flying into the backfield before the Bulldogs use the momentum to score under the posts.

The deception isn’t an accident. Cameron Ciraldo and the Bulldogs must have seen a trend in the Raiders defence to draw this one up, and it’s come off to near-perfection.

Round 3 NRL Notes

Storm v Broncos

• Broncos Bench: In contrast to the overuse of the six-man bench across the first two rounds of the NRL season, the Broncos went the other way using only two interchange players. They’re blessed with big-minute middles in Payne Haas and Patrick Carrigan while Cory Paix is capable of playing a full game at dummy half. While it’s not a rotation Michael Maguire is likely to employ often, it’s good to know he can roll out a finals-like middle in a big spot as he did in Melbourne here.

• Sua At The Back: Sua Fa’alogo has impressed and exceeded expectations to start the season, but it’s important to pump the breaks on him and look at his performance through a Craig Bellamy lens. He’s scoring tries, breaking tackles and generating running metres. His footwork is incredible and he is always dangerous on the edge. However, it’s not always where Bellamy wants him to be and the young fullback is still working out when to distribute or take the line on himself:

  “He’s got a lot of improvement in him to be quite honest. Just learning more about the game and learn how to use his pace and his change of direction. I think, sometimes, he probably gets across field a bit too much.” - Craig Bellamy

Eels v Dragons

• The Penalty Try: It’s one of the few areas the Bunker has been relatively consistent in recent seasons. I can’t think of many that I have egregiously disagreed with, until today…

  Did Nine have coverage of this game? I assume they said something along the lines of “how can you be certain he would have scored?!?”

  That isn’t the rule. However, with three defenders around him, including Jayden Su’a draped all over him early, it seems unlikely that Jonah Pezet would have got over the line from here.

• The Escorts: The NRL has clearly put a focus on calling escort penalties and we saw four called in this game alone. While I’ve seen a few questionable decisions across the first three rounds, they were all fairly obvious in this one. Teams need to be smarter, and I expect they will be in the coming weeks.

• Atkinson’s Development: It’s a pretty good sign when Cooper Cronk mentions the need for Daniel Atkinson to play it short to set the game up in commentary, and for the Dragons halfback to recognise as much himself to make the pass shortly after for the Red V to score. However, presented with a backrower in the centres for much of the second half, and that same backrower in the bin for 10 minutes, Atkinson and the Dragons failed to take enough of an advantage against 12 men. While they started to look dangerous down that side in the end, as they used the lead inside three to isolate Moses, it came too late.

• Offloads: The Dragons finished this game with 18 offloads after managing only 16 across the first two rounds. They’d thrown 11 by halftime in what appeared to be a clear plan against what has been a fairly loose Eels middle to start the season. It’s something to monitor against the Titans in Round 4.

Cowboys v Titans

• It’s Becoming A Problem: I really don’t want this to be a weekly gripe. Like the players and coaches, we simply need to adjust despite there being numerous voices in the game offering opinions that have, unfortunately, come too late³ .

  This isn’t the kind of rugby league that I love, though:

• Campbell Straight Back Into It: While there are still questions around how effective Jayden Campbell can be in a #7 jersey, the Gold Coast Titans are desperate for his quality with the ball. He needed only 15 minutes to spot a cue and score on his return to the side.

  With one Cowboys defender left on the ground and only one marker at the ruck, Campbell takes the space back in behind to score a beauty. It only took five more minutes to have a second try for the Titans to take a lead.

  Whether or not he can lead a dangerous attack in a good team remains to be seen, but he’s enough on his own make the Titans a lot better.

Player Spotlight - Thomas Jenkins

Despite putting up impressive numbers, Thomas Jenkins was always at risk of falling out of the Penrith Panthers side last season. He did by the finals in a decision that proved to be the right one for Ivan Cleary in the end.

However, Jenkins is making the decision even easier this season - he’s staying there.

Coaches love to know what they’re going to get from a player. More than a flashy moment, it’s often better to be able to trust and predict what they’re going to produce. Jenkins is providing Cleary with that trust and predictability at the moment. He doesn’t always need to do a lot to score, as evidenced by his four-try haul this week. Still, he’s producing in yardage to earn his keep in the side throughout a match he acts as a finisher in attack.

The Pipeline - Tristan Sailor, St Helens

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

While he hasn’t played in the NRL since 2024¹ , Tristan Sailor stood out for St Helens this week, and given the six-man bench and growing importance of genuine utility options, we may not have seen the last of the 27-year-old down under.

Sailor laid on a nice try for his winger, finishing it with an offload with two defenders hanging off hime.

Shortly after, he produced a moment of brilliance. Jumping up and over the opposition player, Sailor managed to find an offload on the ground with his back to his teammate.

Even with the requisite “it’s only Super League” prefaces, Sailor is at the very least a versatile attacking player who can provide moments to turn a game.

Member Mailbag

“It’s Penrith and then daylight”

It’s pretty hard to argue against that at the moment.

Defence wins premierships and the Penrith Panthers have conceded 10 points in three weeks. They work hard, are smart in defence² and have found the consistency in the side they lacked to start last season. A relatively inexperienced group learned some hard lessons to start 2025, but Cleary has stuck with what worked so well in winning four consecutive premierships and Penrith is starting to reproduce the same again now.

It’s not a style of play too dissimilar to a few teams around the competition at the moment, but Penrith is once again the benchmark.

1  Shoutout to RugbyLeagueProject.org for always being the go-to place to confirm anything like this.

2  Willie Mason lifted the lid on something a lot of people already knew, and many predicted would be the case upon the revised six-again rule.

3  Jason Ryles on Ryan Couchman’s hip-drop tackle: “It’s not intentional. But unfortunately you keep throwing fatigue into the game and you keep making them (more tired). They happen. So that’s reality. You just have to practise and mitigate it as much as you can and hope that it doesn’t happen. It’s really disappointing (for Hopgood).”