{"id":83121,"date":"2025-08-20T19:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/83121\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T19:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:09:08","slug":"nrl-coaching-schools-collide-when-canberra-raiders-play-penrith-panthers-and-melbourne-storm-do-battle-with-canterbury-bulldogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/83121\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL coaching schools collide when Canberra Raiders play Penrith Panthers and Melbourne Storm do battle with Canterbury Bulldogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penrith are so different with their conservative style of play, until they find attacking field position \u2013 but when they fall into that structure they\u2019re just relentless. You never see a \u201csettler\u201d carry from them, and Nathan Cleary controls everything so well.<\/p>\n

Hooker Mitch Kenny dictates their defensive line speed and his passing has improved out of sight. If Isaah Yeo returns from injury, they\u2019ll be a different team again.<\/p>\n

Canberra need to sort out their right-edge defence, given they\u2019ve leaked tries out there and Blaize Talagi and Casey McLean are in great form for the Panthers.<\/p>\n

But I think the Raiders have the edge on the bench, which is where Melbourne beat Penrith last week. Owen Pattie especially adds so much threat out of dummy half for Canberra with his pace. He\u2019s a future top-line No.9 and representative hooker.<\/p>\n

Loose screws on the loose<\/p>\n

Liam Martin versus Hudson Young is a quality match-up: they\u2019re both aggressive, tough, fast, agile and have a screw loose \u2013 exactly what you want in a back-rower. Martin is carrying a shoulder injury, but he has just soldiered on through the pain so many times you don\u2019t worry about him. We could have fireworks out there on Canberra\u2019s left edge.<\/p>\n

Especially considering it\u2019s where the Raiders will look to strike through Ethan Strange, who will look to test out Cleary\u2019s defence.<\/p>\n

There is no weakness in Cleary\u2019s game, and he\u2019s a great defensive half. But Strange is in great form, with that left-hand carry and big left-foot step that is terrorising opposition defenders. Watch for him to try to smash through the gap between Cleary and Martin out wide.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m tipping Canberra in an upset. A question mark hangs over their young players, but if they can get the balance right and their offloads stick, the Raiders could rattle up five or six tries very quickly.<\/p>\n

Joey\u2019s tip: Raiders by 10<\/p>\n

First try-scorer: Hudson Young<\/p>\n

Man of the match: Hudson Young<\/p>\n

Bad Dogs: the missing ingredient at Belmore<\/p>\n

From Mudgee we go to Melbourne, where the Storm host the Bulldogs. The home side is coming off an impressive golden-point victory, achieved without Jahrome Hughes, Ryan Papenhuyzen and Nelson Asofa-Solomona.<\/p>\n

Would you believe there\u2019s no rain down south this week? It\u2019s just bitterly cold. But rain or shine, Canterbury\u2019s up-and-down form of late<\/a> has been overall really poor.<\/p>\n

The Tigers beat them comfortably, 28-14, and the Roosters won by 20 last week. They suddenly look flat after playing at a high intensity all year.<\/p>\n

Across the season, the Bulldogs\u2019 record against the top four reads: three games, two losses and one win, over Canberra.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve played seven games against the other top-eight sides for three wins and four losses.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Melbourne, on the other hand, have played four games against the top four and won three of them. And against their top-eight rivals, they\u2019ve won six and lost two.<\/p>\n

As we near the finals, those records are like night and day. Canterbury play the Storm this week and Penrith next Thursday. So we\u2019ll know very soon if they\u2019re a genuine premiership threat.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see them making this year\u2019s grand final \u2013 I just don\u2019t think they have the big-game players in their spine<\/a>, such as Cam Munster, Hughes, Papenhuyzen, Cleary and Dylan Edwards. All of these guys have an extra gear or two that they can go up to for grand finals and Origins.<\/p>\n

The halves and have-nots<\/p>\n

At the other end of the scale, the two young halves have different form lines, too. Jonah Pezet organised the Storm well against Penrith last week.<\/p>\n

He kicked well, he held his own in defence, and while I would like to see more of a run threat from him, that was his first game starting in the halves this year after coming back from a knee reconstruction.<\/p>\n

\"Canterbury<\/p>\n

Canterbury No.7 Lachlan Galvin will be in the spotlight – again.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I think the pressure is getting to Lachlan Galvin.<\/p>\n

For a young man, he has had so much attention from the media all year. My advice to Lachie would be just focus on your defence, then think about your running game. The rest comes from there.<\/p>\n

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If Papenhuyzen returns as expected from his head knock at fullback, Galvin will come up against a champion five-eighth in Munster, who is getting towards the end of his career, while Galvin is just starting his. It\u2019s a big ask.<\/p>\n

Munster is flying, and I\u2019m tipping he\u2019s poised for the biggest finals series of his career. I think he\u2019ll have a big night with his running game and that left-foot step of his will give Canterbury grief all night.<\/p>\n

The Dogs attack has struggled of late and to beat Melbourne in Melbourne, I think they need to score 24 points, given Xavier Coates is pretty much unstoppable in the air when the officials won\u2019t let a defender lay a finger on him. I just can\u2019t see anything but a Storm win in this one.<\/p>\n

Joey\u2019s tip: Storm by 14<\/p>\n

First try-scorer: Xavier Coates<\/p>\n

Man of the match: Cameron Munster<\/p>\n

NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penrith are so different with their conservative style of play, until they find attacking field position \u2013 but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-83121","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\/83121","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=83121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}