NRL 2021: Round 1 Talking Points; Jason Taumalolo, Cowboys, Eels halves switch, Mitchell Moses, Roosters goal-kicking, news, updates

The biggest story in the NRL after the first round of the 2021 season revolved around the biggest and most devastating forward in the game, Jason Taumalolo.

The Tongan international is the highest-paid forward in the NRL and he’s more than backed it up over the years.

At times he’s carried the North Queensland Cowboys on his back and marched them to victory with his bullocking runs terrorising defenders.

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Round 2

He averages north of 60 minutes every game and delivers with an average of 184m per game.

But on Saturday he was hooked for a big spell either side of the halftime break against Penrith, with new Cowboys coach Todd Payten explaining why he used his star lock so sparingly that he returned just 55m across seven runs in the 24-0 loss.

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Pointing to a poor attempt to apply kick pressure on Nathan Cleary, Payten said: “The last try that I was talking about was from Jason (Taumalolo) not putting pressure on from marker.

“They are the efforts I am talking about him improving to be the best forward in the game.

“Look that is just not on him. There are some other players in the middle of the park that need to move better.

“He got 55 metres because we didn’t hold the ball.

“It’s got nothing to do with his minutes. He could have played five games in a row and he would have got 100 metres.

“I don’t care the type of flak I’m going to cop about that, but I’ve said it several times that Jason is contracted here for seven years.

“If we cook him 65 to 75 minutes a game in three to four years what good are we going to get out of him?”

Taumalolo missed just one tackle and was starved of the ball against the Panthers.

Fox League pundit Braith Anasta understood the reasoning behind Payten’s bold move, but said the new Cowboys coach might have gone a bit too far in attempting to make a point.

“I was quite critical of it throughout the game,” Anasta said on The Sunday Ticket.

“Todd Payten is not making the wrong call with this. I understand what his point is and he is trying to preserve Jason Taumalolo and he mentioned that he has seven years on his contract left.

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“But I still think he overdid it last night. Taumalolo had just seven runs 55 metres and he put him on in the second half when it was 14-0 and the game was over.

“It was just too late. He had to play more minutes and be in the contest when they were in the game.

“The most concerning thing was you could tell with his body language that he wasn’t happy.

“When he was on that field you could tell he was thinking what is going on here? I’m not used to this, I don’t like this.

“His runs were nowhere near the impact that he usually has. He normally runs for over 200 metres and he is their wrecking ball. He starts there sets with big powerful runs and a quick play-the-ball and footwork and it takes the pressure off the rest of his side.

“I get Todd’s idea, but I think he got the balance wrong last night.”

Broncos legend Corey Parker, however, said Payten’s resistance to bringing on Taumalolo ultimately cost his team when they trailed 8-0 at the break.

“I personally don’t get the idea at all,” Parker said.

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“Preserving him because he has seven years left on his contract. Like come on.

“This guy has been in the NRL for a long period of time. He understands his craft and he knows his role.

“They just got it wrong. Admittedly there was a lot of things that went wrong for the Cowboys, but you talk about Drinkwater and Morgan and Clifford and these guys want to play off the back of a foundation and forward pack that has really created some havoc.

“There is none better in the game than Taumalolo. If he is sitting on the bench for a long period of time watching the game he gets disinterested.

“He would have been on the sideline for 40 or 50 minutes including halftime and he sits there and the game just slips away.

“To say they are preserving him is a smokescreen for mine. They just got it wrong. They need to work out a better scenario for Jason Taumalolo because it is for the betterment of the team.

“You ask any player out there would you rather Taumalolo on the bench for 50 minutes or playing against you, I know what the answer is going to be.

“You can work out ways to hide him and preserve his energy on the field, but on the bench for mine is not the place for him.”

Read on for all the NRL Talking Points from Round 1.

BIG WIN CAN’T MASK BIG ROOSTERS PROBLEM

The Roosters looked slick in their opening game of the season, thumping lowly Manly 46-4 after a disappointing exit to last year’s finals series.

But there’s an issue the Chooks must seek to address quick if they plan on contesting for the premiership.

They don’t have a recognised goal kicker, having cut Kyle Flanagan loose at the end of last season.

Flanagan converted 91 of 113 attempts in 2020 for an elite 80.5 success percentage.

Only six attempted conversions were taken by other Roosters players last year.

With Flanagan gone, the duties fell to fullback James Tedesco against the Sea Eagles.

He missed his two conversion attempts, including an embarrassing shank from a relatively easy angle.

Siosiua Taukeiaho took the tee and knocked over four of five attempts, while Adam Keighran had two kicks and converted one.

Taukeiaho looks their best kicker off the tee but he isn’t on the field for 80 minutes and without a class converter they are leaving points on the table.

While it didn’t hurt the result on Saturday, it could be costly when they come up against quality opposition in a tight contest.

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EXPERTS GIVE THUMBS DOWN TO EELS SWITCH

Parramatta trotted out a somewhat new-look team on Friday night against Brisbane.

It wasn’t new players, but rather where they stood that was the shake-up from 2020.

Five-eighth Dylan Brown played on the right, rather than the left, and halfback Mitchell Moses switched to the left.

They took with them their edge backrowers Shaun Lane – who lined up on the right – and Ryan Matterson.

The Eels were shocked by a 16-0 first half drubbing by the Broncos, but then came out after half time and put on 24 unanswered points to win the game.

Afterwards, Fox League expert Greg Alexander questioned the decision to switch sides, which was reportedly requested by the players themselves.

“The switching of sides, with the halves and the backrowers both switching… Shaun Lane dropped three balls in the first half,” Alexander said.

“It looked like the way he ran last year on that left side, he ran an outside-in line. Push him over to the right and it looks like he wants to go to the outside, he looked a little bit uncomfortable. I don’t know why that would happen or how that would happen, the players wanting to switch sides.

“It shouldn’t be as alien as it looked, it shouldn’t be that strange to them to be able to play on either side of the field.

“They were so good for them last year, the edges, the edges were great for them last year.”

Braith Anasta agreed the new line-up looked a little clunky and he questioned why the players would want to switch sides at all.

“They were a strong point, especially Lane on the left-hand side stepping off his left foot,” Anasta said.

“It is a strange one, he was running overs all night on the right-hand side, he threw a few poor passes.

“He’s got to get used to it… but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

TIGERS SHOW OLD STRIPES TO HAND RAIDERS THE WIN

The scores were delicately poised at half-time in Canberra’s clash with the Wests Tigers.

The Tigers withstood a mountain of Canberra attack in the first half to go in level 6-6 at the break.

But in the space of 10 minutes all their hard work unravelled.

Luke Garner gave away a lazy penalty for a late hit on Jack Wighton. Ryan James scored on the next set before a needless offload from Joey Leilua – knocked on by James Roberts – gifted Canberra another crack at the Tigers line. Roberts also gave away a penalty for attempting to steal the ball from Wighton. Luke Brooks also kicked one kick-off out on the full.

They were all dumb and unnecessary errors and ones which proved costly.

The Raiders didn’t score a try, but did notch a penalty and the onslaught from Canberra took the fuel out of the Tigers’ tank.

Hudson Young, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Jordan Rapana crossed for his second to put the game beyond reach.

It was a 10-minute spell of madness which brought Michael Maguire’s side undone.

“We definitely shot ourselves in the foot at times,” Maguire said.

“We didn’t help ourselves out in the second half at all. We definitely went away from a few things that we’ve been practising and spoken about

“If you spend that much time tackling, fatigue comes into the game.

“And that’s what we’re all trying to do to each other, the ebbs and flows of the game comes back on you and sure enough that the period hurt us.

“But still you got to dig through those, you’ve got to find ways.”

IS THERE A DIVIDE BETWEEN TOP AND BOTTOM TEAMS ALREADY?

Michael Ennis is concerned after just one round there’s already an obvious gap between the good teams and those who will struggle this year.

His concerns come off the back of Penrith’s 24-nil win over North Queensland on Saturday.

Panthers looked slick, while the Cowboys were clunky. It was a similar situation for the sublime Roosters and disappointing Sea Eagles in the game before. As it was with the Knights and Bulldogs on Friday.

“I know it’s only early but for me, I take Thursday night out of it because I thought that was two heavyweights going at it and South Sydney have a lot of improvement in them. But I feel in the last 24 hours we’ve seen a real gap in the competition already,” Ennis told Fox League’s Super Saturday.

“That’s my fear, that the top sides with the good coaches have gone away and they’ve got a real good read on the rule changes from last year.

“I know we’ve tinkered with a couple over the summer but I feel like we’re going to see a bit of this, this year where the good sides put the foot on the pedal and the bottom sides are going to really struggle to go with them.”

Ennis believes it comes down to the pre-season preparation and pointed out how well-drilled the Panthers were in particular.

“Even in the early stages when fatigue hadn’t set in, (Penrith’s) ability to get to where they wanted to get to, knowing their job, knowing their role, everyone falling into place was like clockwork. But for the Cowboys it was a rabble.

Cooper Cronk agreed that a good pre-season is clear in the opening weeks of the season.

“It just goes to show the training intensity done over the summer. That’s the difference. You can have a trial game and have some ring rust but those who have trained and prepared for Round 1, it clearly shows,” he said.

PAPENHUYZEN AND LATRELL SET FOR MONSTER SEASONS

Rabbitohs No.1 Latrell Mitchell is hellbent on chasing down James Tedesco as the best fullback in the game, but he faces stiff competition from Storm star Ryan Papenhuyzen.

The two fullbacks put in dazzling debut performances in the Storm’s 26-18 win in the season opener at AAMI Park.

Papenhuyzen finished with 139 run metres, two tackle busts, a linebreak, two linebreak assists and a try assist to go with his two four pointers.

Mitchell had 128 metres, eight tackle busts, four offloads, two linebreaks, a linebreak assist, a try assist and a try to push the Storm star all the way.

“Papenhuyzen was the best player on the field, it was a better performance than his Clive Churchill Medal winning performance,” Matty Johns said.

“After we look at Papenhuyzen it’s fair to say Latrell Mitchell… given the fact Melbourne kept the ball in play, they went after him, they targeted him… it’s a great sign for him, he was mighty.”

Roosters supremo Tedesco is arguably the best player in the game, but on what they showed on the first night of the season, Papenhuyzen and Mitchell will be nipping at his heels in the coming years.

Throw in Manly fullback Tom Trbojevic when he is fit and firing and NSW coach Brad Fittler is spoiled for choice at the back.

TITANS FAIL TO LIVE UP TO THE HYPE

You heard the hype all off-season: this was the year the Titans were going to gatecrash the top eight and make the NRL sit up and take notice.

But on Saturday after talking the talk, the Titans were made to walk the walk. But when they came up against the Warriors they failed to fire.

Granted it was just the first game of the season and played in 30c heat on the Central Coast, the Titans attack failed to click.

While they’ve spent big on Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and David Fifita, they still have the same spine of fullback AJ Brimson, Ash Taylor and Jamal Fogarty in the halves and Mitch Rein at hooker and it was telling.

“They [the Titans] were ineffective in attack,” Cooper Cronk said on Fox League.

“I think they had opportunities to score points. The halves went to the line but then they dished it out to a middle forward to create. The halves need to engage the line, get one-on-ones for those sparks on the outside.”

Michael Ennis agreed with Cronk’s sentiments, saying that the Titans needed more from their playmakers if they truly were to make a dent on the finals.

“They’ve had some wonderful recruits. Tino was good today, David had some moments where he was a handful but the challenge for them will be to create positions for them.

“Mitch Rein from dummy-half didn’t really have any attacking impact in the game neither did Ash Taylor or Jamal Fogarty.

“AJ Brimson was threatening when he had chances but not enough for the Titans to be excited yet.”

ROOSTERS GO FROM LETHAL LEFT TO RUTHLESS RIGHT

The Tricolours won back-to-back premierships with the best left edge in the competition.

They had Luke Keary at No.6, Boyd Cordner, Latrell Mitchell and Daniel Tupou. The four of them had a combination second to none.

Then Mitchell joined the Rabbitohs in 2020 and despite replacing him with Josh Morris, the Roosters’ left edge wasn’t quite as formidable as it once was.

Now, going off Saturday’s thrashing of Manly, it’ll be the Roosters’ right edge that will cause serious headaches for opponents.

Seven of their nine tries were scored on the right and they completely terrorised Manly on that side of the field all night.

The points-fest on the right side is no coincidence though. It came off the back of Keary switching sides and officially taking the reigns of the team in the No.7 jersey.

The beauty of Keary’s role change is that he’s been given a licence to roam the entire field — and we saw it in action when he linked up with Angus Crichton on the left edge to threaten the line.

Robinson was pleased with Keary’s impact.

“He didn’t just park himself on the right and stay there, he moved across to the left and right which is one of his strengths,” he said.

“He’s a footy player. His ability to go wherever he wants, that’s up to him,” Robinson said.

“I think we’re moving out of the age of left and right halves more and more and having halves that can move all over the park is a strength needed going forward.”