Round 20: Wests Tigers vs Dragons

[Tamwelg]

	vs
Wests Tigers		Dragons

Sun 27 Jul, 3:00PM ANZ Stadium

Mitchell Moses Keith Lulia Tim Simona Chris Lawrence Pat Richards Blake Austin Luke Brooks Aaron Woods Robbie Farah Keith Galloway Curtis Sironen Bodene Thompson Adam Blair   Ava Seumanu***ai Martin Taupau Dene Halatau James Gavet Sauaso Sue   Mick Potter

Fullback Wing Centre Centre Wing Five-eighth Halfback Prop Hooker Prop Second Row Second Row Lock   Interchange Interchange Interchange Interchange Interchange Interchange Coach

Adam Quinlan Brett Morris Josh Dugan Gerard Beale Jason Nightingale Gareth Widdop Benji Marshall Ben Creagh Mitch Rein Mike Cooper Leeson Ah Mau Joel Thompson Jack de Belin   Bronson Harrison Shane Pumipi Will Matthews Jack Stockwell Nathan Green Charly Runciman Paul McGregor

[TITAN PETE]

Wests Tigers v Dragons preview
By Chris Kennedy, National Correspondent
NRL.com
12:30pm Wed 23rd July, 2014


Wests Tigers v Dragons
ANZ Stadium
Sunday, 3pm

All eyes will be on a certain premiership-winning ex-Tiger when these two clubs run out onto ANZ Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Benji Marshall famously once said he’d never face off against the club he won a competition with in 2005 but times have changed and the former Kiwi captain, who now proudly wears the Red V week to week, will be the centrepiece in a game that isn’t short on importance, nor on subplots.

The Tigers absolutely caught fire in the second half last week against the Bulldogs in running away 46-18 winners – the first time the ‘Dogs have conceded 40 points since a 44-8 loss at Newcastle in Round 10 last year.

Rookie Mitch Moses was sublime at fullback; new five-eighth Blake Austin just keeps getting better; second-generation Tiger Curtis Sironen played strongly as he makes up for a delayed start to the season; and the side overall showed they can’t yet be written off on terms of a finals charge.

In fact, the win has them level with the sixth-placed Broncos on 22 competition points, although their poor differential currently has them in ninth.

Coach Mick Potter has named the same starting side that ran out last week, with point-scoring winger Pat Richards seemingly past a groin strain suffered a week earlier against Manly. Dene Halatau has been named to return from a concussion, pushing Suauso Sue to 18th man.

The Dragons were determined against Manly on Monday night but just lacked the polish to crack open a resolute defensive line, despite plenty of opportunities in their opponents’ red zone. Marshall himself had good game, not overplaying his hand and steadying things for his team when they needed it, but like the rest of the side wasn’t able to provide the spark to crack the Sea Eagles.

Coach Paul McGregor has also named a virtually identical team to last week – Shane Pumipi and Charly Runciman have been added to an extended bench. Winger Brett Morris, a late inclusion last week coming back from a shoulder injury suffered in Origin I, has been named to start. Centre Dylan Farrell is still working his way back from a pec injury in NSW Cup.

The Dragons are just a win behind the Tigers on the ladder but with 20 competition points and an even worse differential are lagging in 12th, and really need to get a roll on if they’re to stay in touch with the finals zone.


Watch Out Wests Tigers: The Tigers will need to watch their discipline. They often find themselves on the wrong side of the referees – they are the second-most penalised side in the competition after Gold Coast, giving up 132 infringements at almost eight per game, while the Dragons are relative cleanskins having been penalised just 95 times at around 5.6 per game – the third best. The Tigers have also found themselves on report more than any other team – a massive 10 times – while again the Dragons are cleanskins, with just three players placed on report all season (second-best). With a few games this year having produced big momentum swings on the back of a wave of penalties, the Tigers can ill-afford to be giving their opponents a big leg-up.

Watch Out Dragons: No side loves to scoot the ball out from dummy-half more than the Tigers. The chief exponent, of course, is in-form hooker Robbie Farah, who leads all-comers in the NRL when it comes to dummy-half running. His 125 runs from dummy-half are ahead of second-placed James Segeyaro (118) despite having played six fewer games. He is also the only player so far to have racked up a full kilometre in dummy-half scoots (1,061 metres) with Segeyaro again second best (979) and Storm skipper Cam Smith third in both categories (809 metres from 116 runs). With big winger Pat Richards (227 metres from 29 runs) and centre Tim Simona (275 metres from 31 runs) among the outside backs who love to take a run early in the set, the Dragons markers will need to be on their game.

Plays To Watch: Moses halfback Luke Brooks have been playing together for a fair while now – watch for that partnership to develop at first grade level. Brooks finished off a try supporting Moses (which was started off by Austin) last week, and their communication already looks good – and is only likely to improve.

For the Dragons, Marshall showed a strong preference for rolling the ball into touch at the end of sets last week to allow his side to get settled ahead of Manly’s possessions. The Tigers are a far different proposition – keep an eye on what route he opts for when deciding how his old club will begin their sets on Sunday, and whether he chooses to deny the likes of Moses and Pat Richards free space the way he did with Brett Stewart and Jorge Taufua last week, or whether he decides to test out the rookie fullback with a few bombs.

Where It Will Be Won: Balance. The Dragons have been playing a fairly conservative style of footy under McGregor, with a moderate amount of success, but it wasn’t enough to get the job done last week because they just couldn’t challenge the Sea Eagles enough when they were on the attack. On the flip-side the youthful Tigers were full of exuberance last week and it paid off in spades but it’s a style of play that can also bring you undone when a team manages to grind you out of it – which most times you’d back the Bulldogs to have done. In the wash-up the Tigers have committed more errors (200 to 176) and conceded more penalties (132 to 95) than the Dragons, but have only a very slight advantage when it comes to tries scored (59 to 57) and line breaks (65 to 64). It will be interesting to see which approach wins out.

The History: Played 28; Dragons 15, Wests Tigers 13. These two merged sides, by default, have a fairly short history against each other but the Dragons have just a slight edge overall. Their Round 1 44-24 win over the Tigers kicked off an early-season push to the top of the ladder (albeit briefly) before the Tigers found their mojo. The last six meetings are split three apiece and when these clubs meet at Homebush the chocolates are divided up four each.

What Are The Odds: The Tigers ($1.72) have been well backed since beating the Bulldogs, with Sportsbet holding twice the money on them compared to the Dragons. Plenty of money for over 44.5 points to be scored in this game with both sides struggling with their defence in 2014. Latest odds at Sportsbet.com.au.

Match Officials: Referees – Matt Cecchin & Dave Munro; Touch Judges – Rickey MacFarlane & Michael Wise; Video Referees – Gavin Badger & Luke Patten.

Televised: Channel Nine, Delayed, 4pm.

The Way We See It: A very tough one to call and no real home ground advantage to speak of. Both sides are fairly settled – the biggest name missing from either line-up among those expected back any time soon is Dragons and NSW forward Trent Merrin – although the Tigers have at least had an extra day’s rest with the Dragons having played last Monday. Recent form favours the Tigers though – with that Bulldogs masterclass still fresh in our minds we’ll take the “home” side by 10 points.

[TITAN PETE]

Refs in the spotlight again after Dragons win
By Chris Kennedy, National Correspondent
NRL.com
8:09pm Sun 27th July, 2014


A pair of controversial calls – and one outright clanger – had the officials again under fire following St George Illawarra's 28-12 win over Wests Tigers at ANZ Stadium on Sunday.

Another contentious obstruction call and possible grounding led to a no-try for either side in the space of two minutes, but it was a kick-off deemed to have gone out on the full that drew criticism from the Tigers captain and coach post game.

A monster restart from winger Pat Richards following Gareth Widdop's opening try of the game looked to be floating dead on the full. But Dragons halfback Benji Marshall fielded the ball with his back leg in the air over the dead ball line, planting his foot dead a fraction of a second after catching the ball.

The referees immediately ruled a penalty from halfway, and even though the big screen revealed the error before the restart – which was slowed down further because the Dragons had passed the ball upfield denying them a quick tap – the penalty stood.

Wests Tigers coach Mick Potter described it as a 100 metre mistake, given his side should have had the ball at the Dragons line rather than been defending their own.

"You would've liked to go to the video for that kick-off, that really gives them a penalty on halfway which puts them right down your end of the field for a decision that could've been solved if you just have a look up there," he said.

"Just a quick look. Just have a quick look and it's done. Then we get a drop out and we get the ball on the try line."

Club captain Robbie Farah said it was disappointing the mistake had remained when there had been time to correct it.

"I think the disappointing thing is they had time to have a look. By the time we got back to halfway he'd seen a replay but still didn't want to have a look at it or change the decision," he said.

"It was the same in the Manly game [a contentious no-try ruling against David Nofoaluma]. I guess I can understand if they get things wrong in the run of play when you haven't got time to look at it, they're going to make mistakes.

"With the benefit of having a replay to have a look at it I don't understand why they can't come up with the right call or change their call."

Later in the half, Dragons fullback Adam Quinlan was denied when decoy runner Leeson Ah Mau came into contact with Tigers halfback Luke Brooks.

The call was sent up to the video referee as a no-try but the decision allowed to stand even though Brooks came in on the player, and still only made contact with his inside shoulder.

It was almost an action replay of a play that denied a try to Parramatta earlier in the year – with the Eels camp at the time suggesting Brooks had taken a dive.

Barely a minute after the Quinlan no-try, the video ref upheld another no-try ruling against Tigers centre Tim Simona, even though Simona looked to have grounded the ball cleanly just inside the dead ball line.

Dragons coach Paul McGregor said the lack of clarity on the rulings may be of concern but wasn't arguing with the decision.

"It's a tough one isn't it? They [obstruction calls] can go either way. He can't disappear that person [Ah Mau], the lead runner," McGregor said.

"Understand: we're trying to get to an inside shoulder so the bloke can bounce off but if the bloke wants to make a wrong decision, make it look like a wrong decision so he doesn't have to effectively make a tackle, when the two men had plenty of opportunity to stop Quinny, he went around his head, he bounced off that and still ran 30 metres to score – it was a tough call but they can go either way so I'm not complaining about it.

"If it happened in the finals and you lost a game it'd be a big concern but it's nothing we can control as coaches."

McGregor noted the Simona ruling, like the Quinlan ruling, had stayed with the on-field call.

"Both decisions went with the live decision so the six could've turned into a 12 point turnaround at one stage with us. The live decision was no try, so it's 50/50 calls and we got one each."