St George Illawarra ended a 25-year drought south of the border, Cronulla eked out a win over a depleted South Sydney line-up and the value of elite coaching was on display when the Gold Coast thumped Brisbane.
The Dragons are now on track for the finals after their 18-16 triumph over the Storm at AAMI Park, the Broncos have a snowball’s chance in the Sunshine State following their 28-point caning, the Titans can dare to dream and the Bunnies can start planning their holidays in September with the Sharks sealing a 20-6 victory.
Here’s how Saturday’s triple header unfolded.
1. Dragons party like it’s 1999
Apologies, it was the obvious subheading and too appropriate to roll with.
For the youngsters out there, way back when there was this guy called Prince. He wasn’t actually a prince, more of a weirdo but a musical savant. Anyway he had this hit called 1999 when that year seemed so far away.
Now it’s so long ago.
And it was the last time St George Illawarra won a match in Melbourne.
Until Saturday night when they overcame the odds to sink one into the ribs of the Storm’s bid to win the minor premiership with an 18-16 boilover.
They have leapfrogged the Dolphins into eighth spot with a 10-9 record and despite a tough run in the final five rounds, why not them to make the playoffs?
Wayne Bennett’s boys are going backwards and the Raiders, Titans, Knights, Warriors and Broncos are doing little to show they belong in the finals bracket.
They broke their Victorian hoodoo on the back of nothing but grit.
The Dragons celebrate winning at AAMI Park. (Photo by Josh Chadwick/Getty Images)
The Storm edged them in run metres, post contact and line breaks but the Dragons showed steel in defence, missing only 23 tackles to Melbourne’s 34, and when the result was in jeopardy, they kept turning up in swarms in defence.
For the Storm, this loss could prove costly – if they go down to the Panthers in Penrith in a couple of weeks’ time, they will likely cough up the minor premiership.
Not that finishing first as opposed to second means too much but the Storm’s reputation as the close-match kings has slipped a bit with their two-point loss to the Dragons.
2. Sloan worth the long-term investment
Dragons fullback Tyrell Sloan was in NSW Cup last week.
Spot the difference between the Dragons’ previous coach and the current one.
Anthony Griffin banished Sloan to the reggies and wrote him off, intimating that he wasn’t ready for the NRL level.
Shane Flanagan dropped him as a wake-up call, brought him back the following week and the young fullback repaid the faith and responded to the rev-up with a five-star display.
St George Illawarra are keen to get Valentine Holmes to the club next year and even though he had a Dally M Fullback of the Year season in the No.1 jersey at Cronulla under Flanagan, the coach is adamant that he would only be coming to Wollongong to play centre and that Sloan is their long-term fullback.
Getting dropped is not an issue – how you respond is what matters. Plenty of great fullbacks have been sent to seconds to work on their game. It happened to David Peachey, who Sloan has many a similar trait, early in his career and the No.1 No.1 in the game Dylan Edwards suffered a similar fate a few years ago before he became the NRL’s top custodian.
Sloan was magnificent in Melbourne, scoring a try on the way to making a couple of line breaks and causing havoc on the fringes for the fired-up underdogs as they converted a 12-10 half-time lead into their best win of the season.
3. Not-so-savage Sharks nibble away at Rabbitohs
Cronulla have kept their proverbial noses ahead of the Cowboys with their narrow win over South Sydney at Shark Park but does anyone think they are building towards anything other than an early finals exit?
They still have Nicho Hynes to return from his ankle injury later this month so it’s far from doom and gloom but even if they hang onto fourth spot ahead of the surging Cowboys, Sea Eagles and Bulldogs, it’s hard to see the Sharks suddenly finding sufficient bite in the playoffs to worry the Panthers, Storm or Roosters.
Teams take on the character of their coaches and like Craig Fitzgibbon in his playing days, Cronulla are a team of workers who never let anyone down and can out-work any opponent.
But where is the X-factor? They lack the Ben Barba style (on the field, that is) attacking spark plug that electrified their surge to their historic premiership in 2024.
They trailed 6-4 at half-time against Souths and despite rookie winger Sam Stonestreet botching one try and having another disallowed for an obstruction, he scored in the second stanza to give them the lead and Braydon Trindall finished off the next one with 20 minutes left to establish a 14-6 lead which was always going to be too much to run down for a visiting line-up missing injured trio Cody Walker, Latrell Mitchell and Alex Johnston.
Kayal Iro pounced on a Trindall grubber to ice the win as Cronulla maintained their two-point lead over the Cowboys on the ladder heading into the final five-round stretch of the regular season.
4. Rabbitohs run out of puff
South Sydney have restored pride in the famous cardinal and myrtle jersey but their heavy injury toll quashed any chance they had of rising from last to the playoffs under interim coach Ben Hornby.
They are six points off eighth spot – their record is as bad as Brisbane’s – and virtually no chance of salvaging an unlikely finals berth after their horrific start to the year which led to Jason Demetriou receiving his marching orders.
They have already shut down Jai Arrow, Campbell Graham and Tevita Tatola for the rest of the season rather than getting them to soldier on with their injuries and there’s little point in Latrell Mitchell returning from his foot injury.
They took the fight to the Sharks on Saturday night and are not dying wondering in 2024 but they are heading for the ranks of the also-rans.
The Kick: Kevvie on slippery slope
Kevin Walters is a genial fellow who looks like he’s cut out to be an assistant coach or a colour commentator for TV broadcasters.
But not a head coach.
Brisbane are hurtling towards a third season of missing the finals in the fourth year under his watch.
The first year was expected, the second was disappointing and when they made the GF last year it looked like he had them on course for premiership glory.
But this year has been nothing short of atrocious with the nadir arriving at the not so hallowed turf of Cbus Super Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The 46-18 flogging at the hands of the Gold Coast is the kind of humiliation which prompts CEOs and board members to think we’d better get rid of the coach before the blowtorch turns on us.
Six points out of the eight with five rounds to go, it would be monumental if the Broncos even scraped into the finals.
But even if they did they would be cannon fodder.
And that’s not good enough for this club, particularly when the roster contains names like Patrick Carrigan, Reece Walsh, Payne Haas, Adam Reynolds and Selwyn Cobbo.
Anything shy of the top four is unacceptable. Missing the playoffs is grounds for dismissal.