The Sydney Roosters’ reputation for a brickwall defence is crumbling but it’s a widespread problem that’s not just confined to young five-eighth Sam Walker’s missed tackles.
Walker is being targeted in the slightly built 19-year-old’s second season in the NRL and while the Roosters are far from reaching for the panic button, they are sitting well down in 13th place after a 1-2 start to what is expected to be a title-contending campaign.
They face a tricky assignment on Saturday night when they travel to Townsville to take on the second-placed Cowboys, who have been the competition’s early surprise packets after eye-catching victories over the Raiders and Broncos.
They arrived in Townsville midweek for a planned mini camp in the lead-up to the match but what wasn’t planned was the absence of coach Trent Robinson, who is in isolation after testing positive to COVID-19 on Tuesday, leaving assistants Jason Ryles, Matt King and Brett Morris in charge.
Defensive dramas unlike Roosters
Walker has missed 15 tackles in the Roosters’ three outings but it’s their much bigger, more experienced middle men who should be shouldering the blame for the defensive lapses in the 20-6 upset loss to Newcastle in Round 1 and the 28-16 defeat at the hands of arch rivals South Sydney last week.
Only Eels halfback Mitch Moses and Sharks veteran Matt Moylan had missed more in the first three weeks with 16 apiece.
Walkers’ left-edge partner Sitili Tupouniua and lock Victor Radley have each fallen off nine tackles while prop Siosiua Taukeiaho had missed 10.
Tupouniua needs to adopt the bodyguard role alongside Walker a la Tonie Carroll for many years at club and representative level when he covered up for Darren Lockyer’s frailties in defence. If he is not able to do that, then Robinson may look to replace him with a more defensive-minded edge forward in the starting side like Nat Butcher.
The Roosters have let in 11 tries in their three matches – four of them were down to bad luck, two of them were consolation tries by Manly late in the 26-12 cakewalk in Round 2 but the other five were very unlike a Robinson-coached team.
Of the five Souths scored last week, two of them were relatively unlucky from broken play but the Roosters’ defence was at exposed badly in the other three.
In the ninth minute, Rabbitohs captain Cameron Murray stepped past Taukeiaho and Radley for an embarrassingly soft try.
The second Souths try cam via a Murray intercept to set up Alex Johnston but the third one was a perfectly executed set play in which the skipper was in on the action again, accepting a long ball from Lachlan Ilias to turn Cody Walker in through a gap on the inside with Tupouniua falling off the tackle.
What was evident on each occasion was the Roosters’ third-in defender, Luke Keary in the first instance and Walker in the second, sprinted up out of the line to get a rush up on the Rabbitohs’ attack. Both are small players and they are bolting forward in the hope of limiting the time the attacker has to run at them or forcing them to turn the ball back inside.
On both occasions the Bunnies played direct on the edge of the ruck without running at the halves and found the inside defenders wanting.
South Sydney exploited the uneven defensive line between Tupouniua and Walker to score their fourth try when Keaon Koloamotangi broke through his opposing second-rower’s tackle close to the line.
The Bunnies sealed their win when Latrell Mitchell streaked away after the Roosters coughed up the pill.
The Roosters dominated Manly from start to finish with the only two tries conceded late in the game coming via a barge-over from dummy-half and from the Sea Eagles chancing their hand with some catch-up footy.
But in the opening round, Newcastle racked up six line breaks in their 20-6 upset – the first try came via a vicious bounce from a kick that James Tedesco could do nothing about but the next one, though it was scored on the wing, was the result of Kalyn Ponga splitting the Roosters down the middle using the old Billy Slater three-man weave past the markers.
Jake Clifford streaked away to score the next one from a Roosters fumble before the Tricolours conceded another when Keary and Paul Momirovski on the right edge couldn’t lay a hand on Adam Clune as he sprinted away to seal the biggest surprise in Round 1.
King for a day says change in mentality needed
Robinson has zoomed in to a few of the team meetings in Townsville and during the game, he will be on a speaker phone barking some instructions down the line but leaving the running of the side to King and Ryles.
“Robbo’s intellect around the game is second to none so his ability to see a moment or have an understanding of where the game is at is the best I’ve ever seen but in saying that he will still be at home watching it on TV so he will still have a feel for it,” King said on Friday.
Despite going down in two of their three matches, King said the Roosters aren’t feeling the heat.
“We feel disappointed with our performances but I wouldn’t say [under] pressure by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.
(Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)
“We just seem to be turning our performances on and off again.
“We’ve just got too many good players in our team not to play consistently well, that’s where the disappointment comes from.
“[The consistency] firstly needs to come from a mentality. You get the little things right and then the big things on the weekend take care of themselves so we just need to treat every game like it’s the same, buy into our principles every single week, stay connected as a group regardless of where we’re at, regardless of whether Robbo’s here or not, what last week looked like and then just get our job done.”
Fired-up Cowboys guns at the ready: Payten
Walker and Tupouniua will have their hands full on Saturday night against Cowboys rising star Jeremiah Nanai, who has been tearing it up on the right edge, notching the first hat-trick of his burgeoning career last weekend in the Broncos rout.
Nanai is off contract at season’s end and his management has wisely held off until Round 6 on committing to a new deal until he establishes himself in first grade.
He will be adding many more zeroes to his next value if he continues his recent purple patch and Payten said after the Brisbane win that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the local junior inking in his future with North Queensland.
The Cowboys have signed Wests Tigers second-rower Luciano Leilua for next year and also has rising star Heilum Luki on its books but losing a potential representative star in Nanai should be avoided at all costs for a club that has let several top-liners slip through their fingers in recent years such as Kalyn Ponga, Viliame Kikau, Braden Hamlin-Uele and Brandon Smith.
Payten has placed a lot of faith in Nanai, Luki, Griffin Neame, Reuben Cotter and Tom Gilbert over the past 12 months and those players are ushering in a new era for the club.
Neame is a name not many outside Townsville have heard too much but Payten said on Friday he was particularly impressive in the 38-12 thumping of Brisbane.
“He played 47 minutes in the middle of the park, he was on the field when momentum was against us just before half-time and made a lot of tackles, covered a lot of metres through the middle and he moved quick and was aggressive,” he said.
After finishing 15th last year, the Cowboys can show they are legitimate finals contenders against a competition heavyweight like the Roosters.
“I expect them to come through the front door with their physicality and the way that they run. I thought they were pretty expansive over the first three rounds – I reckon that’ll tighten up and they’ll go back to their power game. Last week was proof to our whole squad that we’ve got the capabilities to do it if we can hang in there tough, defend and work hard for each other under fatigue,” Payten said.
“When we get our opportunities we can score some points. It’s just proof to the rest of squad about what we’ve been talking about during this preseason; about playing the game the right way, it works. So, a little forward step in our growth as a squad.”
“We need to maintain the formula that’s worked over the past couple of weeks which has been being high on our completions, putting pressure on the opposition with field position and then work our butts off when it’s time to tackle.”