The Synopsis - NRL Round 16

Sea Eagles v Tigers
As the only match for the night all eyes were on Brookvale Oval with last placed Manly hosting 13th placed Wests. With lasts weeks huge win over the Premiers the Tigers were thought by many to have found their offensive mojo. On the other hand, the Sea Eagles were fielding their strongest team available, with captain Jamie Lyon sitting out the match with injury.

Despite their last place position, Manly had obviously used the bye to rejuvenate their team and rejig their match plan. The Manly forwards were awesome from the first set and, despite the Tigers leading 10 - 6 for around eight minutes in the first half, the Sea Eagles never looked like losing. Their halves were superb, especially Kieran Foran, whose kicking and passing was a delight. Daly Cherry-Evans backing up from Wednesday night was able to manage his team through each set and together they outshone the youngsters from Leichardt, Luke Brooks and Mitchell Moses.

In the match against South Sydney, the Tigers forwards were led by Martin Taupau and Keith Galloway, but they were put off their game tonight by the Sea Eagles 80 minute specialists, Tom Symonds and Feleti Meteo. The ball work (especially) from Meteo created regular opportunities and the try scored by Kieran Foran in the 40th minute was all class from the big forward, who probably should have dropped the pass sent his way. No one would have challenged him if he'd taken the safe path of holding the ball and getting tackled, instead he passed to Foran on his inside and the speedy 5/8 scored under the posts, untouched. Manly had scored at the 35th minute and with the Foran try went into half-time leading 18 - 10, instead of being behind 6 - 10.

Brett Stewart scored his second try for the night in the 42nd minute, giving Manly a 14 point lead. Despite trying hard the Tigers were never in a position to snatch a late win. Fortress Brookvale, as it is badged by home fans, had turned away the Wests Tigers, and the final score of 30-20 flattered the visitors.

Raiders v Cowboys
The Cowboys travelled to Canberra unbeaten in 11 matches. Captain Jonathan Thurston and forwards Mathew Scott and James Tamou were backing up after the State match on Wednesday night, while Michael Morgan was unavailable through injury. Canberra have developed into an attacking force, registering the highest score in one match (56 points against the Gold Coast) and having scored the most tries in the NRL. Despite the expected flair and capacity for high scores both teams scored just one try each in the first half, Antonio Winterstein for the Cowboys and Edrick Lee for the Raiders. A penalty goal by Thurston gave his team the lead 8 - 6 at the break.

The second half was a see sawing affair with both teams coring, only to have the opposition hit back. Raiders buy of the year, Blake Austin, scored in the 44th minute, but Matthew Wright scored 8 minutes later. Jack Wighton (59th Minute) scored for the home team, only to have Gavin Cooper (67th Minute) cross for the visitors, giving them a two point lead with 12 minutes left.

Jarrod Croker kicked a penalty goal in the 78th minute to make the score 20 - 20. As the clock ticked down, Queensland champion Jonathan Thurston, had one then a second attempt at a field goal only to have both charged down by the Raiders defence. In the 80th minute, as extra time loomed, Thurston tried again and succeeded in leading his team to its 12th straight win, 21-20. Raiders Coach Ricky Stuart, while obviously disappointed claimed in the post-match press conference that his young team didn't know it then, but they would learn and gain much from the match. Cowboys Coach Paul Green was just happy to get the two points, from the usually very difficult road trip to the National capital.

Titans v Warriors
Having gained 8th place on the ladder, tonight's match was a test for the Titans with 8 first grade players out injured. Amazingly, all three hookers were unavailable to play and management were forced to recruit Chad Redman from Newcastle to fill the gap and (over the next 10 weeks) play for a 2016 contract. Rooster Nene Macdonald also joined the club on Wednesday and ran out tonight as a centre for his new club.

The Titans started quickly, with tries to Josh Hoffman and young forward Lachlan Burr in the first 18 minutes, to lead 10 - 0. Ex-Titans hooker Nathan Friend hit back against his old club four minutes later and with some simple errors from both teams limiting opportunities, the half time score remained unchanged at 10 - 6.

Going into this match the Warriors were equal with the Titans on points (14) but were 3 places behind them on the ladder. Whichever team performed better in the 2nd half would grab a spot in the top 8 and the other could fall as far as 13th. In the 52nd minute the Warriors bench player Raymond Faitala-Mariner scored the first points of the half and with the conversion, the visitors took the lead for the first time. Sadly for the home fans they were never headed. In fact, the visitors scored four more tries, in the 57th, 64th, 77th and 78th minutes. Half back Shaun Johnson grabbed two of those tries, and with his goal kicking bagged 20 points in the match. There were times when it seemed he had spiders on him, as Titans defenders seemed unable or unwilling to go near him. Final score Warriors 36 - Titans 14. The Titans play the Roosters (in Sydney) next week before their second bye and (depending on other results) could find themselves 4 or 6 points out of the top 8, after working so hard to grab 8th. Meanwhile, the Warriors welcome the Raiders to NZ.

Bulldogs v Panthers
If you prefer your Rugby League with a little niggle and spite, matches between these two will always give you a little of what you want. However if you want your team to show some consistency and to keep themselves in the match for long periods, Penrith in 2015 is not your team, while Canterbury most certainly is.

The statistics show that the Panthers offload the ball more times in each match than any other team. While most teams average 9 or 10 offloads per match Penrith average 16. Despite this they remain near the bottom of the NRL for try scoring. Penrith also miss an average of 30 tackles and make eleven errors per match. What these stats suggest is that although Penrith are keen to play enterprising football, they invariably hurt their own chances of success and give opposition teams assistance they don't deserve.

This match saw the Bulldogs jump out to a 12 point lead after 14 minutes and they held that lead until gifted Panther forward Bryce Cartwright chipped the ball over the opposition and chased. Despite 4 or 5 defenders being within 10 metres of the ball, he easily regathered the ball and scored. With the conversion, it was 12 - 6 and stayed that way until half time. In the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half, Sam Perret (46th) and then Josh Reynolds(50th) scored tries that, with conversions by Moss Mbye, gave the Bulldogs a 24 - 6 lead.

In the last half hour the Panthers created 4 try scoring opportunities, (57th, 68th, 75th and 78th minutes) but could only score once. (Bryce Cartwright, 75th). In the same period they conceded possession to the Bulldogs 7 times, with 3 penalties, 2 dropped balls and 2 kicks crossing the dead ball line. The final score Bulldogs 24 - Panthers 12 might leave some readers thinking that Penrith got close to Canterbury, but they never did.

Knights v Sharks
This match was decided in an 8 minute burst of amazing football by the Sharks. The half time score was Knights 16 - Sharks 12. Newcastle were inside the Sharks red zone, and on the last tackle young fullback Jake Mamo chased a grubber kick toward the dead ball line, sprung into the air, and raked the ball back into play for team mate Carlos Tuimavave to touch down for a converted try. The try, just 5 minutes into the 2nd half took the score to 22 - 12 and the Knights were well on top.

At the 48th minute, Sharks Coach Shane Flanagan, replaced Sosaia Feki with Ben Barba and it turned the match on its head. Two minutes later he was involved with Gerard Beale and Luke Lewis and they put on a 60 metre try. Then at the 54th minute he backed up in the middle of the field and scored beside the posts. Rookie 5/8 Jack Bird took a pass from his dummy half (six metres from the line) and seeing an opportunity grubbered the ball into the Knights in-goal and won the race to the ball. The home team's 10 point lead had become an 8 point deficit in the space of eight minutes.

Newcastle tried hard over the last 20 minutes and ex-shark Kade Snowden scored in the 79th minute. It narrowed the gap to 2 points but it was too late. Final Score Sharks 30 - Knights 28

Storm v Broncos
Anyone who can remember back to the Grand Final won 4 - 2 by John Monie coached Parramatta over the Canterbury Bulldogs, coached by Warren Ryan, will know that a well-planned and well implemented defence can and often does win a premiership for a club.

The change in fortunes for the 2015 Dragons (compared to 2014) is built on great defence and the performance by the Brisbane Broncos in Melbourne against the Storm, is by some margin the best defensive effort by any team this year.

According to NRL statistics the Broncos attempted 459 tackles and missed just 14 in Sunday's match. The home team attempted 341 and missing 18. Depending on who is counting (I wasn't, I was glued to the TV and gobsmacked by the Broncos efforts) Brisbane were forced to drop out from under their posts, giving Melbourne another set of tackles, 11 times. Melbourne had the ball for 41 sets of tackles to Brisbane's 31.

With Brisbane ahead 14 - 12 after 52 minutes, Melbourne came at them in wave after wave, only to be turned back time after time. Brisbane had scored 3 tries to Melbourne's 2, but missed conversions meant that there was just that 2 point gap. Melbourne Captain and hooker, Cameron Smith was clearly a frustrated man as he tried to direct his team (minus champion Fullback Billy Slater and representative Halfback Cooper Cronk) across the Brisbane goal line, but failed. His coach, Craig Bellamy, who hails from Portland a small town 20km west of Lithgow (NSW) was seen throwing his paperwork around his box and (as lip reader friends assure me) utilising a range of common Australian adjectives to describe his thoughts and feelings about the progress (or lack of it) from his team.

Meanwhile supercoach Wayne Bennett kept his usual cool and in his post-match press conference congratulated both teams for putting on a great Sunday afternoon league match, "this time we won, it doesn't always work out that way".

Bennett credited his hooker Andrew McCullough with 70 tackles, the NRL stats say 64 but in my 30 years watching rugby league and as a number cruncher, I cannot recall a player ever registering 65 tackles in 80 minutes of rugby league. Final Score 14 - 12.

Dragons v Roosters
These two teams had, before this match, the best defensive reputations and stats in the NRL. Clearly it was to be opportunities to score that would decide the match.

The Roosters led 14 - 8 at half-time and Coach Trent Robinson, could have probably been a little worried. His team (according to NRL stats) had 53% of the ball with four sets more (21 - 17) than the Dragons. More importantly the Roosters had over 30 tackles inside their opponents red zone but came up with just two tries. The first to Shaun Kenny-Dowall saw him draw level with Roosters legend Bill Mullins in career tries scored.

Shaun Kenny-Dowall scored again 18 minutes into the 2nd half and by any measure he was man-of-the match. In fact the back three for the Roosters, Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Daniel Tupou, made contributions that their Coach would have been proud of. Collectively, they ran the ball 48 times for a combined 450 metres. They were especially good when running the ball out from their own area, relieving their forwards of some of the hard work.

The 2nd try by Kenny Dowall gave the Roosters a 10 point lead but the match was not over yet. With 10 minutes left, the Dragons started to use their attacking skills, resulting in an 80 metre try, started and scored by Gareth Widdop. He converted the try and during the last 6 minutes, every effort was made to bridge the four point gap. Roosters' hooker Jake Friend kicked a field goal from 5 metres out, with the last play of the match. Final score Roosters 19 - Dragons 14.