{"id":1910,"date":"2025-07-18T02:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T02:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/1910\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T02:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T02:01:10","slug":"this-is-chess-it-aint-checkers-inside-the-nrls-season-defining-tactical-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/1910\/","title":{"rendered":"This is chess, it ain\u2019t checkers. Inside the NRL\u2019s season-defining tactical calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first 39 minutes of the experiment, against the Tigers in round 17, it looked like it shouldn\u2019t last another second. The Sea Eagles couldn\u2019t get the ball wide to Trbojevic<\/a> at right centre. Hopoate could only drop it when the Tigers bombed Manly\u2019s new No.1.<\/p>\n

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Trbojevic reprised the roaming centre role that, on the all-too rare occasions he has played for NSW, has made him the most dangerous man in sky-blue.<\/p>\n

Increasingly throughout Manly\u2019s recent wins over the struggling Tigers and Rabbitohs, Trbojevic has slotted in as a left-edge ball-player just as he does when playing fullback.<\/p>\n

Left-edge back-rower and brother Ben rightly points out that \u201cTom\u2019s done that in the Origin arena many times\u201d. Five-eighth Luke Brooks echoes feedback from NSW camp whenever Trbojevic has popped up wherever he wants.<\/p>\n

The play is rarely practiced, Trbojevic instead left to his own devices and instincts \u201cbecause he\u2019s got such good game awareness, he just naturally does that. I feel like he just knows the right time to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only does Trbojevic\u2019s roaming keep one of the game\u2019s most devastating ball-runners – when his body lets him – in the game, but it balances up a Manly attack that has been exceptionally right-side centric.<\/p>\n

Understandably, Haumole Olakau\u2019atu\u2019s threat outside Daly Cherry-Evans on the right edge has played a significant part in 35 tries (second in the NRL) being generated on the injured back-rower\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

The issue when Manly\u2019s attack has stagnated this season has been listless shifting from side-to-side trying to use arguably the quickest backline in the competition.<\/p>\n

Especially if Jake Trbojevic is reduced to a non-running link man, where defences do not anticipate him taking on the line, and he doesn\u2019t, so they just slide and comfortably shut down the play.<\/p>\n

Manly\u2019s go-forward has been hampered by injuries to Olakau\u2019atu, Taniela Paskea and Nathan Brown, and upcoming top-eight clashes against the Storm, Bulldogs, Roosters and Raiders<\/a> will put that firmly under the microscope.<\/p>\n

So too Hopoate\u2019s hands under the high ball – a month-long aerial assault from Jahrome Hughes, Matt Burton, Sam Walker and Jamal Fogarty looms if Tom Trbojevic stays at centre.<\/p>\n

But if he is still swinging from edge to edge as a second fullback, the defence at least has food for thought, particularly if Brooks and Cherry-Evans make good on a conscious effort to play both sides of the ruck as playmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something we\u2019ve really wanted to bring to our game,\u201d Brooks says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting our hands on the ball a bit more and sort of linking up together because we feel like when we\u2019re linking up we\u2019re connected, and we\u2019re playing our best footy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galvinised: The glaring issue still confronting Canterbury<\/p>\n

With similar on-field context to Manly, and a significantly brighter spotlight because it\u2019s the Bulldogs, Lachlan Galvin, Phil Gould and all that entails<\/a>, Ciraldo has bitten the bullet on his star mid-season signing.<\/p>\n

Toby Sexton is playing the unfortunate role of Bambi\u2019s mother, shot down to NSW Cup with Canterbury still at the pointy end of the ladder as their attack begins to really stall.<\/p>\n

Much has been made of Sexton\u2019s own individual statistics – not a single try-assist in the past seven weeks, not one line-break all season.<\/a><\/p>\n

With a wider lens though, Canterbury\u2019s attack in the past month – albeit coloured by a brutal finals-worthy 8-6 loss to Penrith – has been statistically, the worst in the NRL.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been for lack of trying. The Bulldogs short passing, fast-moving attack went into overdrive trying to crack the Panthers with 297 passes and 17 offloads, bumping up their recent averages for both facets of the game.<\/p>\n

The clunkiness has been plain to see though and has translated to the scoreboard because such a playing style with so many ballplayers can easily be thrown out of sync.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last little period we\u2019ve been working really hard on our attack,\u201d Ciraldo said on SEN radio this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to evolve our attack gearing towards the back end of the year, understanding what\u2019s going to beat those top teams who have really good defensive systems. And we just felt like we weren\u2019t sort of getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Galvin\u2019s spark to surpass Sexton\u2019s steady hand<\/a>, less will be more from the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n

Galvin\u2019s strength is his running game and a right-foot step that straightens the attack on the right edge, but can see him drifting and cramping his outside men on the left.<\/p>\n

With Jacob Preston and Stephen Crichton making for a potent right-edge, Galvin doesn\u2019t need to force his hand as was the case against Brisbane two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Points will come. But the same question mark over Sexton, Matt Burton and Canterbury\u2019s mobile pack remains.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs were caught out at the end of last year by North Queensland and Manly\u2019s big forward packs, and when the whips were cracking against the Sea Eagles in a sudden death semi, a lack of game management.<\/p>\n

Sexton and Burton couldn\u2019t guide the Bulldogs home that day<\/a>, and expecting Galvin to take on the highest-pressure role in rugby league is fraught too. The finals are two months away, but Saturday\u2019s clash against the Dragons will be the first time he\u2019s worn the No.7 jumper in his career.<\/p>\n

Galvin\u2019s short kicking game has shown promise, but we\u2019ve barely seen a long kicking game from him. Burton\u2019s booming boot is a fine long-range option.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Yet without a fallback, Nathan Cleary pinched a critical charge down try last month<\/a> because he knew the Bulldogs No.6 was the only man for a clearing kick.<\/p>\n

How Ciraldo manoeuvres Galvin\u2019s development alongside Burton, as well as the duel playmaking roles of Reed Mahoney and Bailey Hayward, all while trying to add big-game polish to Canterbury\u2019s campaign will be fascinating.<\/p>\n

Because after all, this ain\u2019t checkers.<\/p>\n

NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first 39 minutes of the experiment, against the Tigers in round 17, it looked like it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-1910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}