As Bill Lawry Would Say: ‘It’s All Happening’

Ashton Agar after getting out for 98 in the First Test

So for once, instead of struggling to come up with a topic to write about, this week there has been so much going on that I couldn’t decide which topic to pick. Therefore, as the fence sitter than I am, I figured I’ll just touch on a bit of everything and then reward myself with a weekend away.

To start, let’s talk about the Origin decider. The Queensland streak remains alive after they hung on to win by two and NSW have to wait another year to try to end the drought. Those who follow me on Twitter or Facebook know that I, like many others, think the biggest issue for NSW was halfback Mitchell Pearce.

The only people I have seen defending Pearce have been Roosters fans and even Roosters fans have been divided on it. I am not questioning Pearce’s heart or effort levels. I think he desperately wants to be the best player he can and gave it his all yet again, but he quite simply isn’t good enough. He is a good defender for his position but NSW need a halfback that can create points and that is something Pearce has not done in five years playing for NSW.

His kicking game is below par and he doesn’t have the dynamic passing or running game. He also didn’t take control of the direction of the team, which lead to many plays that looked like they had no plan.

The argument that a halfback needs a forward pack going forward to be able to perform doesn’t hold water here either as the NSW pack won the arm wrestle. NSW had every opportunity to win game 3 as well as getting the better of the forward back for the last two years in general. Pearce may well be a great guy, but he has had more than enough chances and it’s time NSW make the move they should have made before this series. It’s certainly a popular opinion and I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said elsewhere over and over, but enough is enough and it’s time the Pearce experiment ends. He just isn’t that good.

Onto the Ashes, where Australia lost the First Test but there were certainly a number of positives to take out of it. From a neutral standpoint it was one of the most entertaining and gripping Tests I have ever watched and whilst Australia ended up on the losing end, it gave me belief that we can absolutely make this a competitive series.

Darren Lehmann’s decision to play Ashton Agar instantly paid off with one of the greatest moments in Test history, with a 19 year old Agar, batting 11 and with Australia in dire straits, getting to 98 (alongside a tremendous knock by Phil Hughes) before holing out trying to get his century.

There is clearly a concern with the top order, which hopefully will be rectified as the series moves forward, but I can’t remember a tail that so consistently wags. Our bowlers are honestly not that much worse at batting than our specialist batsmen are. Which isn’t really a compliment to our batsmen, but is still praise for our bowlers.

As I write this the team for the Second Test was announced and so I had to quickly rewrite this bit about selections for the match. Cowan was axed as expected and replaced by Usman Khawaja, who was the likely replacement. Mitchell Starc also makes way with Ryan Harris getting the nod over Jackson Bird as the replacement fast bowler. Cowan had to go and Starc has been a bit down on form so neither was unexpected. I wasn’t sure whether Harris, Bird or a second spinner would come in depending on the conditions and it’s hard to argue with Ryan Harris getting the nod.

But either way, I’m no longer feeling as down about our chances for the series as I was before the First Test, which is saying something considering we are now officially trailing in the series.

Also a quick point on the whole DRS and Stuart Broad saga. First of all, I think we need to be a bit careful to put all the blame on England, when we got a bit lucky ourselves in the first innings with Agar and the fact that Clarke continues to misuse the review system. That said, Broad should have walked and the fact that he didn’t absolutely makes him a dirty cheat.  Also, the on field umpires were atrocious for both sides and this wouldn’t be an issue if they actually did their job at a level even near competent. Aleem Dar is one of the worst umpires I can remember and it baffles me how he continues to get such big matches. He is like cricket’s Jason Robinson.

Onto Le Tour. Whilst some of the individual stages have been exciting, is it just me or is the fact that Chris Froome is so dominant making the race kind of boring. It’s hard to stay up at night knowing the result is already over barring injury. That’s not to take anything away from Froome himself. He was expected to do this and he is delivering in spades and proving that he probably would have won Le Tour last year as well if his team had let him.

I also think raising speculation of him cheating as the media have been doing is ridiculous. It’s an unfortunately side effect of the sport’s history, but Froome has done nothing to suggest he is cheating besides being really, really good. I’d like to think he isn’t cheating because neither are his competitors anymore. However, should he end up in a doping scandal at any stage, it would be tragic and would be another nail into the coffin of the sport for many people.

We also are currently being graced with the presence of English Premier League champions Manchester United, who are here to play an A-League All Stars team this weekend. Then next Wednesday, my beloved Liverpool will be taking on the Melbourne Victory and I am fortunate enough to be traveling to Melbourne to watch the game. I’ve never seen Liverpool play and I’ve never been to a sporting event at the MCG, so to say I’m excited would be an understatement.

I hope to write about the experience next week, so stay tuned for that and remember, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

Turning Blue

Greg Bird applauds the fans after Game 1

So Origin 1 is behind us and finally NSW will play the series from in front. It was a fascinating game, which had incidents, some brilliance and a potential sign of a change of fortunes.

Overall New South Wales were fantastic and it was exactly the sort of win they needed to allow them to play with confidence for the rest of the series to try and end the Queensland streak. Going into the game, most people seemed to believe that NSW held the edge in the forward pack whilst Queensland had a more dangerous backline and of course held the edge in the all-important spine of 1, 6, 7 and 9.

New South Wales built their foundation on that forward pack and overall they destroyed the Maroon’s forwards, forcing Thurston and Cronk to play on the back foot for most of the game. Guys like Gallen, Watmough and Greg Bird are built to play Origin and didn’t disappoint.

However the standout was clearly Luke Lewis, who had one of the great individual Origin performances. No he didn’t score a try or have that many highlight plays, but his hit ups, tackles and passes were extraordinary and he never stopped. He rightfully won the Man of the Match award and it was well deserved for a player who often doesn’t get the plaudits of some of his more flashy or exciting colleagues.

On the other hand, I thought Mitchell Pearce had a very mediocre game for a victorious NSW side. Before I get accused of Rooster hating, I thought James Maloney was superb on debut and Michael Jennings was brilliant too. Pearce however, was non-existent. The guy is playing halfback, which if you don’t know, is supposed to be a pretty important position in a football team and yet he seemed to barely touch the ball. When he did he mostly just dropped it off for a forward to take a hit up and my only memory of him throwing a longer ball was when he underthrew a pass to Lewis, which Lewis unfortunately couldn’t reel in.

Pearce is a solid defender and he wasn’t poor there, but he certainly was no halfback either. In such a great team performance his individual effort won’t cop much criticism and I know he won’t be dropped, but it still should be pointed out that we won in spite of him and not because of him. Oh, I also thought Ryan Hoffman had a surprisingly poor game with some bad drops and not much impact.

The standouts for NSW in my eyes were the aforementioned Lewis, the always awesome at Origin level despite his club form Jarryd Hayne, Maloney on debut, the ever reliable Robbie Farah and the “Bash Brothers” Bird and Gallen.

This brings me to the Paul Gallen punching Nate Myles incident. Yes, I understand that Origin has a different atmosphere and level of leniency, but in my eyes Gallen was very lucky to stay on the field. It doesn’t matter if Nate Myles is a dirty player or if he plays for Queensland, Gallen put a deliberate high shot on him and then when Myles got up unhappy about it, Gallen rocked him with two punches.

Would Myles have punched Gal if Gal didn’t do it first? Maybe. But that incident was all Gallen and regardless of what game it happened in, in my eyes it is not on. Had a Queenslander done it to a Blue, all of NSW would be crying foul and especially if it happened to a player from the individual club you support. So the idea of “that’s Origin” is bullshit in my eyes. Rugby league is a contact sport but it is not a combat sport, even at Origin. That wasn’t a fight; it was one player deciding to punch another.

So those fans who genuinely think it was awesome, or if you think it’s great because it happened to Nate Myles, I think you watch football for the wrong reasons and need to reconsider your values. I like a bit of Origin biffo as much as the next guy, but last night was not that. Anyway, NSW got a lucky break, but Queensland have had numerous breaks over the last few years so it was bound to even out and I don’t feel too bad.

Meanwhile, what about on the Maroon side of things? They finally looked old after a near decade of dominating the Origin arena. Their forwards were dominated, Thurston was completely out of sorts and even the Storm ‘Big Three’ struggled to impact the game.

Greg Inglis barely touched the ball and the one time he finally got decent possession he created Queensland’s only try. I doubt they will do it, but I think they need to switch Inglis and Slater in Game 2, at least at various points during the game to get Inglis involved. He is simply too important and valuable to them to not utilise more. Plus he is one of the few Queensland playmakers that can create without the forwards getting momentum first.

As a biased Souths and NSW fan however, I hope he stays at centre, barely touches the ball and simply gets through the game unscathed.

Another takeaway from the game last night is that we have all still played as much State of Origin as Josh Reynolds. I like Josh Reynolds and think he will play plenty of Origin in his career. It is not his fault he didn’t play, nor is it his fault he was selected at all. But this idea of selection a utility player for purely backup reasons and not even using him is insane to me. Origin is the hardest, fastest, most tiring form of footy and NSW are giving up one of their bench spots as a ‘break glass in case of injury’ backup plan.

It is no coincidence that as NSW forwards got tired in the second half; Queensland scored their try and came close to scoring more. Yes we won anyway, but it damn sure would have been a lot more comfortable if we had another player with fresh legs out there. I don’t care if it’s a prop like Tim Grant or a bigger utility that can cover halves like John Sutton, but all 17 positions should be utilised.

A win should never cloud over things that weren’t good just because the overall result was.

Finally, it is being reported that Robbie Farah may have a broken eye socket and is in doubt for Origin 2. That is a nightmare for NSW as Farah is probably the hardest player to replace in the entire team. Go on, name his direct replacement if he can’t play, I’ll wait….

…

Exactly.

Who are our options at 9 without Farah?

Michael Ennis? He’s a mediocre footballer and failed at Origin level already

Josh Reynolds? A good player and would have replaced Farah if Farah came off in Game 1, but he isn’t a hooker.

Mitch Rein and Nathan Peats? Like them both as youngsters but nowhere near Origin level right now and I don’t think either would argue that.

Ryan Hinchcliffe? To be honest I feel like I’d pick Hinchy out of these names even though he is mostly playing lock, but I wouldn’t be happy about it. At least I trust him as a player and feel like he’d handle the Origin cauldron, but the gap from Farah down to the other options is troubling to say the least.

If I’m forgetting anyone please let me know.

Anyway, NSW got a fantastic result in Game 1 and look like a great chance to finally reclaim the Origin crown. I’ll just spend the next three weeks praying to the great cockroach in the sky that Robbie Farah is back in time for the next instalment.

Is Anyone Else Underwhelmed?

The Panthers celebrating during their huge win over the Warriors

We are now 10 rounds into the 2013 NRL season and I think that is a fair enough length of time to reflect on what we have seen overall so far. Whilst from a biased perspective as a Rabbitohs fan the season has been great, as a general rugby league fan I feel like 2013 has been quite frankly, rubbish.

Taking all bias out of consideration depending on which team you support and which teams you hate, if you simply look at the games player this year, in my opinion the quality of matches has been poor. There have simply been more bad matches than good compared to previous years.

When you look at the NRL ladder there is certainly a logjam in the middle of the table, which is something the NRL is striving for, as only the few bottom teams have been truly uncompetitive and out of contention. However does the fact that excluding the top and bottom outliers, everyone else can seemingly beat each other on any given day make the league better overall?

Obviously the entire purpose of the salary cap is to prevent overwhelming dynasties and prevent teams from not being able to compete. But so far this year, just because the league is close has not meant the matches have been good.

Many games have been blowouts, culminating in Round 10 when an overwhelming majority of games were complete massacres. Funnily enough, it ended up being the round that ended with a draw after Golden Point, but that was played between two of the premier teams of not just this season, but the decade as a whole.

After watching the Rabbitohs destroy the Tigers, in expected fashion mind you, 54-10 on Friday night, the odds you could have gotten that it would be the biggest margin or winning score of the weekend would have been very short. However Penrith then went on to beat the NZ Warriors 62-6 the following night. Adding to that, the Broncos beat the Titans 32-6, the Dragons beat the Eels 32-12 and the Knights beat the Bulldogs 44-8. All of those blowout winners were the home team.

Interestingly enough, those last three matches I tipped the losing team to win the game and I was proven to be extremely wrong. So the league is close enough and competitive enough for it to be possible to have no idea who is going to win (or least I clearly didn’t), but the individual matches have so often been uncompetitive. Why is it that teams seem to either turn up and play great or not to turn at all?

For the couple of weeks prior to their Newcastle loss, the Bulldogs started to build some ominous form, with their players returning and some impressive performances. But then the simply don’t turn up for the Newcastle game.

The Warriors have had a terrible season, but have been competitive in numerous matches before blowing late leads. But when they travel away from home, they leave all their talent in Auckland.

There have even been numerous matches this season that were close on the scoreboard but poorly played on the field. The high flying Roosters beat the Broncos earlier in the season 8-0 in one of the worst games I’ve ever watched and even my Rabbitohs have won a couple of games I’d rather forget about.

Overall, I seem to walk away after each footy weekend thinking that more than half the matches were simply bad and I know I’m not alone as numerous friends have said the same.

But why is this happening? We have a lot of great young talent coming through and there is clearly quite a lot of parity through most of the competition. The only answer I can come to is that there is a lack of age and experience shining through right now.

In an age where teams are trained to exploit any weakness in a defence, young players or defensively frail players have nowhere to hide and are being exploited over and over again.

The Holden Cup competition has given us many good young players, but the defensive side of that competition leaves a lot to be desired and the gap to the NRL has widened. This is why many clubs are now finding it smarter to have their young players play in the NSW or QLD Cup competitions where they compete against men as opposed to other boys.

Teams like Parramatta and the Warriors have brought up numerous young and talented players and on paper it seems like they should be competitive. But when they actually take the field, there are simply too many players who haven’t been conditioned to defend against quality attacks and they are being torn apart. Additionally, the pace of the game at NRL level is so much more physically demanding and it gets faster every year, so players are getting tired quicker and are being exploited for it.

I love watching the Under 20’s competition and following the young talented players, but the process of bringing them along in first grade is complex and requires patience and timing, which is something many teams either haven’t shown or are unable to show due to injuries or lack of depth.

When you compare it to the NBA, every year teams talk about the young, talented, up and coming teams full of great athletes and how they are taking the NBA by storm. Then the playoffs roll around and they get manhandled by the old pros and sent packing.

Teams need to find a way to better prepare their younger players for the NRL before they are thrown to the wolves, or else these sorts of inconsistent performances will continue.

Long term I think the NRL should change the Holden Cup from U20s to U22s or even U23s so players are given more time to develop in the NYC competition as opposed to the State competition. For right now though, I think we are simply going to have to get used to these lacklustre performances while we wait for the talented players to actually turn into good ones.

Eggs in One Basket

Jamie Soward won't be wearing the Red V from 2014

Building a sports team in a league with a salary cap is complex. It’s about educated risks and trying to keep good players at a price that is equal to or perhaps even better than their on-field value.

When clubs sign players, the signing has to be judged not only on the ability of the player, but also on whether the club is getting value for money for that player. You might think that as long as the player is good, it doesn’t matter if he is overpaid because he is still contributing, but that would be incorrect.

We live in a world where clubs are all very even and need every little edge they can get. If you are paying a B player the money of an A player, you are losing the ability to pay that money to an actual A player.

The Brooklyn Nets in the NBA have a solid team. They are built around several big names and clearly are a playoff team. Unfortunately, they also own some of the worst contracts in the NBA and therefore will never be able to go from playoff team to true contender, unless their good players turn into great ones. Not only that, but as these players regress with age, they will be paying mediocre players the money of great ones and will have to go many steps backwards before even being in a position to rebuild.

Several successful teams have had to break up their championship winning groups when their players all expect more money in their next contract and only so many can be re-signed. It’s done to prevent dynasties and to keep the competition even and fair.

In rugby league, because there is no draft system, spending money correctly on retaining the right players and signing the right players externally is the main way to build a successful roster. The Melbourne Storm have kept their core of stars, but they also very wisely bring in unwanted guys from other clubs on reasonable contracts and then get the most out of their investment. Sure the team is reliant on Smith, Cronk and Slater to win championships, but they wouldn’t get there without the contributions of unheralded players like Brian Norrie and Ryan Hinchcliffe who were signed from elsewhere without much fanfare.

That brings me to the reason I am writing this article in the first place. The Penrith Panthers have just announced they have signed Jamie Soward from the Dragons for 2014. Ok, the Panthers clearly need a playmaker and Soward needs a change of scenery. It’s not the worst signing in the world in that regard.

The problem is that the Panthers have signed Soward on a four year deal from 2014 through to the end of the 2017 season. This is a bad decision in my opinion for several reasons. First and foremost Jamie Soward has not been playing at a high level since 2011 at best and really since his lead the Dragons to the premiership in 2010. Yes he has the talent and has been there before, so clearly he isn’t as bad as some people like to say about him, but again it matters that we are talking about the past and not the present.

Secondly he is going to be 29 years old when his Panthers contract begins and has done nothing in the last year or two to suggest he should just be handed a long term deal. Unlike a situation where you give a speculative long term contract to a young player who has shown potential, such as Parramatta signing Corey Norman, Jamie Soward by all accounts should have reached his peak by now and the majority of his Panthers years should be the downside of his career.

When you add his age to the fact he has already seemed to slip as a player it obviously means that signing him is a big risk. But ok, let’s say the Panthers think he simply needs a fresh start and can be the Soward of 2010 again… it still doesn’t justify handing him a four year deal.

Was the competition to sign him so fierce that they had to give him such security to get him to sign? I understand he was linked with Japanese rugby, but are the Panthers so super confident in Soward being their missing link that they are going to put all their eggs in his basket?

Why not offer him a one year deal to re-find his mojo and if he refuses that maybe you give him a second year to sweeten the deal?

The Panthers and specifically Gus Gould had done a fantastic job starting the Panthers rebuild. They brought in good players like Josh Mansour, Sika Manu and James Segeyaro. They are also dominating in the lower grades and age groups, which gives them great hope for the future. On top of that they had cap room to bring in the star they needed. They tried and failed to sign Johnathan Thurston and then were linked with Jarryd Hayne and John Sutton. All three players stayed with their current clubs and I’m sure the Panthers don’t begrudge them of that.

But in their desperation to find this star playmaker it appears as though they have given that long term contract being offered to the above names to Jamie Soward, who many believed was on his way out of the NRL altogether.

Again, I have no issue with offering Soward a lifeline and perhaps if things work out perfectly he re-finds his form and fixes the Panthers. But why commit so long term to him when it’s just as likely that he isn’t the answer and they are stuck for four years with a player they don’t want anymore.

Obviously we don’t know the dollar figure Soward has signed for, but I think it’s fair to believe that it’s not a small figure, especially if he is turning down the lucrative Japanese rugby offers. The best case scenario for the Panthers is that Soward equals that contract and they get their money’s worth, however in my opinion the risk for it to fail is too great.

I would have offered him a short term contract with the chance to prove himself and then renegotiate and if he wouldn’t go for it I would have looked elsewhere.

The Panthers just went all in and many will say they could have done it on a better hand.