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Ring-ins and train-and-trialists at one end of the spectrum. Superstars and seven-figure salaries at the other.
Week two of the finals presents one heavyweight in Melbourne picking themselves up off the canvas, while the Roosters are still swinging – striking as often as they miss and must-watch as a result.
And across the ditch? Two of the game’s more enigmatic men in Shaun Johnson and Kalyn Ponga are hitting heights only they can.
Sudden-death semi-finals are upon us, and it’s time to break down where each will be won and lost this weekend.
Storm v Roosters
7.50pm Friday, AAMI Park
The recent history: Melbourne have had the wood in this one of late, with two convincing wins this season – 28-8 in April and 30-16 in July – prompting serious navel-gazing inside Roosters HQ and scathing critiques from beyond the Bondi Wall. A tense win in Melbourne last year is the Roosters’ only triumph in their last eight clashes with the Storm.
The main man: Nelson Asofa-Solomona. The biggest man in rugby league looked like Melbourne’s only hope as they fell away badly against Brisbane. The Storm’s pack is workmanlike in 2023, but Asofa-Solomona is their point of difference, and at his best adds a couple of tries to their bottom line. Jahrome Hughes will look to isolate Luke Keary against a man with 40 kilos on him as Paul Momirovski – who hasn’t played since round nine – slots into a rejigged Roosters left edge.
The stat: One. Victor Radley’s pass-to-run ratio against Cronulla, one of his best games in recent memory. Like plenty in the Roosters topsy-turvy season, Radley has struggled to release the handbrake and shuffled between back-row, lock and the sideline until recently. Now he’s back in the middle but no longer as a linkman 13. The run-first mentality brings his ball-playing back to the fore.
The breakdown: Like Radley, Brandon Smith’s ability to straighten the Roosters attack by ploughing through the middle – be it by himself or bringing runners in behind the ruck – is the fix Trent Robinson’s side has needed.
Brandon Smith has come into his own around the Roosters ruck in the past month.Credit: Getty
When players were dropping left and right against the Sharks, the yardage reprieves kept them in it. Now with strike centres Joey Manu and Billy Smith sidelined, the onus falls even more to the Roosters forwards to keep them from falling into side-to-side play. If Smith and Radley are moving forward, Sam Walker, Keary and James Tedesco come into their own, especially down a short side.
Melbourne would do best to wipe last week’s performance entirely.
Everything rarely associated with the Storm – penalties, missed tackles and fundamental errors – came in bucketloads, and from their best too. Cameron Munster and Harry Grant produced a pair of their worst NRL performances, and have conceded as much. Justin Olam returning outside Munster – with a rocket from Craig Bellamy ringing in his ears – is ominous. The loss of Xavier Coates as an aerial threat can’t be overstated either, though.
Warriors v Knights
4.05pm Saturday, Go Media Stadium
The recent history: It was one apiece when these two teams clashed twice in the space of six weeks at the start of the year, an issue the NRL will ideally sort out in its draw next year. Otherwise Newcastle have had the Warriors measure of late, winning five of their last seven against the Kiwi side.
The main man: Addin Fonua-Blake. For all the brilliance of Shaun Johnson and Kalyn Ponga, Fonua-Blake has the ability – more than any other one player in either forward pack – to dictate which star playmaker gets the better platform. His weekly average of 175 running metres, with 65 of those after contact, has him behind only Payne Haas for front-row work-rate. Fonua-Blake’s hole-running inside the opposition’s 20 has also made him a prime option for Johnson and Wayde Egan – to the tune of eight tries this season, the most of any prop.
Johnson to Fonua-Blake has been a familiar theme this season.Credit: Getty
The stat: 52. Newcastle defended almost nine sets of six from Canberra in their own 20m last Sunday, and made 74 more tackles than the Raiders. The physical toll of hanging by the skin of their teeth for 90 minutes, mostly through their own doing, is significant.
But the mental washing machine that was one sellout crowd going absolutely bananas for them, into another sellout crowd going absolutely bananas against them, also looms large.
The breakdown: The secret to the two most impressive revivals of 2023? There is no secret. Just old-fashioned, high-percentage footy.
Both sides have thrived off the back of wingers coming out of yardage, which on the face of it makes Johnson’s kicking game a potential game-breaking edge.
Incoming Knights No.7 Adam Clune can certainly manage a game of possession and territory, though whether he blinks on the biggest stage of his career is the question.
Kalyn Ponga tore the Raiders to shreds on the right in the second half on Sunday.Credit: NRL Photos
Like Melbourne, the week one Warriors should be stricken from the record. Sans Johnson and against one of the best dynasties in history, Andrew Webster’s side simply went to water with and without the ball.
Ponga’s ability to swing a contest is unmatched, even by Johnson. How else do you explain Newcastle recovering a 10-point deficit against Canberra with only 43 per cent of possession.
Tyson Gamble’s ability to open one side of the ruck up and give Ponga time and space – and he needs only a fraction – is the key to Newcastle’s sizzling attack. Red-alert areas for the Warriors edges if Gamble can get them backpedalling.
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