Round 16 of the 2022 NRL season is here and so is Your Edge. This week we’re checking in on net yardage, Jason Taumalolo’s developing passing game, Latrell Mitchell’s return, and the Warriors back at Mt Smart Stadium.
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Net Yardage Update
With the Penrith Panthers hosting the Sydney Roosters this week, it’s a good time to check in on the NRL’s Net Running Metres list.
As expected – and has been the case all year – the Panthers are way out in front. They lead the NRL in yardage with 1,847 running metres per game while keeping their middle active in defence as the opposition tries to come back the other way. They’re in a world of their own when it comes to getting up the field and staying there. For the Roosters, however, they’ve struggled on the defensive side of the ball.
Only the Panthers and Cowboys average more running metres than the Roosters’ 1,682 per game. Despite an all too regular turnover of players in the middle, they still find a way to get up the field. It’s their inability to build pressure and pile up points that is proving to be an issue.
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves’ injury hasn’t helped and is perhaps worse than expected with the rumours around the potential signing of Matt Lodge. Victor Radley’s work one-off the ruck is also crucial to how the Chooks move the ball and he has once again spent a lot of this season on the sideline.
Yardage is typically a reliable metric to measure a footy side. It’s an area the Roosters are performing fairly well but don’t have the results to back it up. With three losses in a row and a game against the best side in the competition to avoid it becoming four, we’re going to need to see the Roosters put it together in the middle if they’re to be any chance of an upset this week.
Passing Taumalolo
Rugby league evolves and so too do the best players and coaches.
Jason Taumalolo has spent a huge chunk of his career as the best forward in the game but has dropped below that status in recent years. However, as the game moves towards more ball-playing middle forwards and shifting the football, so does Taumalolo.
The hulking Tongan is still averaging 164 running metres per game in a down year for yardage. Joseph Tapine (having played an extra game) is the only forward in the NRL to have run for more total metres. Taumalolo is a freak and he’s now making it easier for teammates to get up the field too.
He’s never passed the ball more than he is in 2022. By carrying the ball deep into the line and attracting defenders before tipping the ball onto a teammate hanging off his shoulder, Taumalolo’s decrease in individual metres and increase in passes per game is contributing to the North Queensland Cowboys running for 1,717 metres per game – 2nd in the NRL.
Todd Payten caught a few barbs last season for his use of Taumalolo, but turning one of the biggest metre-eaters in the competition into a ball-playing middle takes more than a single season. It has clearly been a focus for Payten and Taumalolo over the last 18 months and is now paying dividends.
The Cowboys have surprised everybody to be part of the premiership conversation after 15 rounds. There is more to it than Taumalolo simply passing the ball more, but his change not only highlights how much a good coach can impact a team, but how long it takes to show on the footy field.
Latrell Returns
Latrell Mitchell is making his long-awaited return for the South Sydney Rabbitohs this week.
He hasn’t played since Round 5 and boy, the Rabbitohs have missed him.
This team has never got off the ground in his absence. They’ve shown the odd glimpse and threatened to kick start a mid-season push towards premiership contention but just as they put together back-to-back wins either side of the bye, they’re thrashed by the Dragons and hooked their halfback in the 29th minute.
Mitchell, however, is the sort of player that can turn things around on his own.
He’s one of the most influential players in the game and can be the one at the Rabbitohs to create something out of nothing. Left side or right, he will improve the attack across the field. Mitchell is left-side dominant and will make their already dangerous left-edge attack even better while his gravity on the right side will take some of the pressure off Lachlan Ilias. Currently 7th on the ladder with seven wins and seven losses, the Rabbitohs play only four bottom eight sides across the rest of the season and one of them is the 9th-placed Roosters who are expected to improve. They face a tough run home but Mitchell might be the spark that finally gets the Rabbitohs into a position to make a run at the top four before the end of Round 25.
Warriors Welcomed Home
The New Zealand Warriors will play their first game at Mt Smart Stadium since late in the 2019 NRL season this week. They’ve been welcomed home by family and staff and will have 25,000 in the stands on Sunday, but the homecoming is only truly complete if they can claim the two competition points.
Currently 15th on the ladder and at risk of ending up with the first wooden spoon in the club’s history, the Warriors need to make the most of the occasion this week to put some distance between themselves and the Titans and Tigers at the bottom. To do that, the Warriors need to dominate the middle of the field. It’s an area Nathan Brown grossly misused throughout his tenure at the club. He attempted to go around teams rather than through the tried and tested approach of up the guts. Dominance in the middle has only been highlighted further by the introduction of the six-again rule and its poor implementation last year, in particular. Brown missed that memo, though.
Stacey Jones, on the other hand, seems to have been paying attention. There is talk of collaboration, simplifying the attack and letting a talented bunch of footy players play footy. But first, those footy players in the middle need to do what they do best and get up the field.
Addin Fonua-Blake is an elite metre-eater with excellent footwork. He’s an ideal partner for the ball-playing Tohu Harris in the middle. The work ethic and line running of Josh Curran also shapes as a valuable weapon.
That is a trio that should be able to get the Warriors up the field. Add Jazz Tevaga’s work rate, Bunty Afoa’s one-way traffic off the bench alongside Eli Katoa and there is no excuse for this team to continue this season as the 14th-ranked yardage team in the NRL.
If the Warriors are to turn their season around and provide some optimism for 2023, it starts in the middle, and it starts on Sunday in their return to Mt Smart Stadium.
NRL Value Plays
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— Wicky (@wickyai) June 29, 2022