NRL teams NOT good enough

Is defence just what you do until you get the ball back?

Have you as a viewer of footy fallen into the trap of thinking your team just can’t get the ball, that it is unlucky or the referee’s fault?

Most often that is loser’s thinking.

There is much that can be done by the defending team to ensure that they get their ‘fair’ share of possession.  In modern day footy you still have to earn possession.

The early attacking onslaught by the Maroons in SOO II set up a commanding victory.  The in-game commentary and post-game Blues used the “fair share” as a reason rather than the quality of Qld’s attack.  In other games where the possession rate is far from even, commentators and supporters don’t regard the loser’s performance as poor.  Rather it’s that “fair share” thing again. “They kept getting repeat sets on us”. Should we accept the fact they didn’t have the ball through some natural disaster?

What about the other half of the game! Defence is not just what you do until you get the ball back.  It is widely accepted that defence wins games.*

So if defence is an important aspect of the game, why isn’t it considered as a means of getting the ball back, rather than just trying to resist the opposition from scoring?

Defence can be used to intimidate and reduce the opposition physically.  You can score points directly from forced errors on the opposition. The ball hitting the ground on a turnover is the best time to attack the opposition – the attackers are now defenders and their D line is non-existent! Aggressive is exciting – “how can we force an error”!  Sometimes the best form of attack can be your defence. Teams that defend well get points from their defence and they force errors that cause loose balls and intercepts. They pressure kickers that cause them to kick it dead or out on the full. Great defence gets you the ball back in better field position. If coaches were to give players a bit more license to pressure or take calculated risks this would force more errors. That gets the ball back.

Current NRL defenses are largely based around frustrating or containing teams by not conceding points (and some NFL defenses are containing as well – they get found out at times too).  Not many of them are actually putting a lot of pressure on the opposition. They are playing safe and conserving energy. Against well skilled and tactically smart teams, containing can result in you not seeing the ball for a while. Pressuring might result in a defensive error which could cost a try, but it may get you the ball back!

These are the decisions your head coaches are making in game preparation every week. Or in some cases when they arrive at your club and take it with them when they leave!

Most teams elect to kick off if they win the toss. So they kick off. The opposition runs hard to win a penalty. A tap set start follows; the attacking team forces a drop out from a little grubber into the in goal; from the drop out set the attacking team scores.  Off for another kick off.  A penalty again results. A try is scored from the tap set.  These kinds of sequences occur often in today’s NRL. Commentators tend to influence our audience that this is just unfortunate, that your team hasn’t had the ball; they haven’t had their chance to “play”. I heard one suggest that rookie Blue Aaron Woods was on the field early “when Qld had all the ball so he didn’t really get a chance to play!” I would suggest that was a perfect opportunity to PLAY – DEFENCE. Nathan Hindmarsh and many others thrived in that situation.

There have always been two ways to beat your opposition – beat them with your attack and with your defence. In Origin II the Maroons were running with such vigor and purpose that they were leaving Blues tacklers on the ground often. This led to momentum which built pressure on the defending team to try to slow the play the ball down but in doing so they invite the referee to penalise them.

Good attack is often rewarded with a penalty. QLD put points on the board early and apparently it was just unlucky for NSW that they didn’t have the ball. I heard ‘at one stage QLD had 90% of possession so that took so much energy out of us. It was hard to chase points on an empty tank’.  This statement is 100% true.  But the question that needs to be asked is why QLD had 90% of possession in that period? Was it bad luck, referee, bounce of the ball, one of those nights?

Or just poor defence?

The early game defence of NSW was poor, that’s why QLD had 90% of the ball. The first penalty was a result of poor tackle technique by Maloney and Jennings. The first try scoring play was terrible positional play by the Blues left side again and Maloney was simply not good enough in dealing with the much bigger, stronger and more aggressive Thaiday. With no defensive assistance from his near team mates the score board was kicked into operation way too early. Weight of possession? Please!

Bad attack and bad defence both contribute to having possession counts against you. It’s not just your handling errors or turnovers of possession that result in uneven possession. Your defence controls how much possession you have.

What is good defence? Well it can be containing or aggressive. In fact, your team can’t be great without the capability of changing it up through the many requirements and opportunities NRL matches present in the many fast paced situations for defenses to recognise. Ultimately it is not only keeping the opposition to fewer points than your teams (as some smart arse once said) but it’s getting the ball back from them regularly THE WAY YOU WANT not the way they want.

So if you ever start thinking that the opposition has been attacking your team’s line for a long time, there is a reason for this – your defence hasn’t been smart or strong enough to get the ball back any way at

* hard to accept for me in itself… if you score more points than the opposition you win, be it 12-10 or 42-38, they are both wins! Attack wins games too.