Streaks ended and players thrived under the spotlight of the first split-round of the 2021 NRL season. Now we wait for the big one on Wednesday night.
Dominant Dufty
The St. George-Illawarra Dragons have said they had no intentions of extending Matthew Dufty’s contract beyond this season. Remarkably, after one of the best individual performances of the 2021 NRL season, they’re unwavering in their stance and are happy to let him walk into another club for 2022.
Dufty dominated the Brisbane Broncos as the Dragons ran riot for a 52-24 victory in Round 13.
The 25-year-old scored two tries – including the game-changing effort as the siren sounded for halftime – and handed out five try assists to his teammates in a superb 80 minutes of football. We saw his typical long-ball out to the winger that has caught out so many edge defences, but Dufty offered more in this one. He took the line on and played short and looked beyond what has, at times, been a one-dimensional go-to move with the cutout pass.
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The Dragons appear to be making a mistake here. With what we’ve seen out of Cody Ramsey at the back this season, he doesn’t come close to Dufty’s output in attack but carries all of the same size-related issues in defence and the yardage game. Dufty to Ramsey is a massive backwards step but seems to be one the Dragons are willing to take.
The Streak Is Over
State of Origin players out or not, the Penrith Panthers regular-season winning streak is over following their 26-6 loss to the Wests Tigers.
Playing without seven of your best is always going to hurt. Despite fielding one of the deeper squads with reliable backups, turning over such a large chunk of the 17 creates cohesion issues that were there for all to see on Friday night. The usually fluid and faultless attack looked like one of a new side meeting each other for the first time. Meanwhile, the Tigers have started to put a few nice moments together over the last two or three weeks and knew that this game, at Leichhardt Oval, was a massive opportunity to take a big scalp and climb the NRL ladder.
The Panthers faithful may have taken the loss hard but the playing group certainly won’t. This result will have absolutely no bearing on their premiership aspirations with Ivan Cleary’s side remaining at $2.75 to lift the Provan-Summons Trophy in October.
Another Streak Is Over
While they probably should have lost straight up, the Melbourne Storm managed to hold on and beat the Gold Coast Titans 20-14 at Sunshine Coast Stadium.
They did, however, end their streak of winning by 13+ at ten games – the longest in NRL history.
It wasn’t Melbourne’s finest performance. The Gold Coast had numerous opportunities to win but look allergic to victory at the moment. Brian Kelly and Phillip Sami will have both lost sleep on Saturday night as they counted the cost of poor possessions late in the piece, sending the Titans to their eighth defeat of the season and down to 12th on the ladder.
As is the case for the Panthers, this one, heavily Origin-impacted performance, won’t be considered when assessing Melbourne’s premiership chances. They’re still on the second line of betting in the premiership winner market at $3.50.
State of Origin
Game 1 of the State of Origin Series is just around the corner.
All of the usual games are already being played: Queensland has an illness and players racing against the clock while New South Wales make head-scratching selections and name players out of position.
Despite the game being moved to Townsville, where the Maroons will receive a big boost from the crowd, the Blues are hefty $1.54 and -4.5 favourites to win Game 1. From there, they’re $1.55 favourites to win the series and at $2.20 to win it 2-1. Interestingly, the Maroons are at $3 to win 2-1 ahead of a Blues sweep at $4.
