After five fruitless years, NRL rivals are finally exploiting Penrith’s Achilles heel
Ivan Cleary said it himself after last year’s grand final.
“We started with Josh Mansour and ‘Bizza’ [Bria To’o] and we just haven’t been able to find anyone taller than them.”
For the last five years, Penrith’s potential 180-centimetre weakness has been hiding in plain sight on their flanks. Few teams have managed to exploit the 15-20 centimetre height advantages their wingers boast.
Melbourne was the first team to do that in what felt like an age late last year, pinning To’o under high balls to take away his play two and three carries, that give the Panthers so much back-field momentum.
Cleary responded with a tactical shake-up that proved pivotal in last year’s 14-6 grand final triumph – turning Melbourne’s probing bombs back on them with Penrith’s trademark swarming defence and relentless kick chase.
With the Panthers gearing up for a fifth straight title tilt, it was a second-string Roosters outfit rated $11 outsiders who pulled the Panthers apart with a barrage of high balls in Friday night’s 38-32 upset for the ages – targeting an Achilles heel like few rivals have managed.
Of the 10 bombs Chad Townsend (eight) and Sandon Smith (two) launched at Commbank Stadium, three drew errors from teenager Casey McLean and star fullback Dylan Edwards.
The two McLean mistakes in the air led to Roosters tries in the next set and a recalibration of the usual bombing to a winger’s corner was noted by Immortal Andrew Johns on The Sunday Footy Show.
“From 40 [metres out], they kicked deliberately short to compete,” Johns said.
“I’ve never seen anyone exploit Brian To’o. Everyone talks about how tall he is, this was the first time I saw a team exploiting their wingers, and they got errors out of them.”
Roosters flyer Dom Young, all 200 centimetres of him, was the target more often than not of the mid-field bombs coming down around Penrith’s 20-metre line.
“It was a clear game plan to take off on those kicks… I thought Chad and Sandon did a great job,” Young said of the Roosters aerial raids.
Leave a Reply