NRL Easter Recap: Tigers’ fitness, Cowboys rising, Melbourne sliding

Kenty and Woz dissect a chaotic Easter round, using the Tigers’ win over Parramatta as a springboard to talk about fitness, ad‑lib attack, and the way the six‑again rules are reshaping the competition.

Tigers’ fitness and the new attacking game

Kent opened by highlighting how the Wests Tigers have climbed to equal first on the ladder and why he believes they’re the first club to fully grasp how the game is being interpreted under the new rules.

He pointed to their recent struggles as context. “Last four years they’ve had three wooden spoons and a 13,” he said. “Now Benji’s toughening them up. Jerome Luai has been solid gold for what he’s brought to that club.”

Even though Luai hasn’t played the past few weeks, Kent argued his influence is still shaping how they attack. “I think he’s his influence in how they play and in how they’re being coached,” he said. “I think Benji takes a lot of advice from him about how the game should be played and how they want to play it.”

Kent then zeroed in on the six‑again: “The six‑again rules and all the rest of it,” he said. “It’s just everywhere. You’re constantly getting that bell in your ears now telling you there’s six more tackles.” He said the Tigers have embraced an “ad‑lib style of footy, a lot of second‑phase play,” with “very little - it appears very little - structure in how they’re playing,” but that they’ve got clear bones of a game‑plan and the freedom to play what they see.

To illustrate that shift, he cited a standout moment. “We saw a gridiron pass yesterday for a try, okay?” he said. “That’s the mentality they’re bringing into the game. And the Tigers have really sort of latched onto that.”

Top four, Melbourne’s slide, and the new ladder

Kent then broadened out to the top four - Penrith, Wests Tigers, Warriors and North Queensland - and argued they’re all playing a similar attacking style built on speed, second‑phase footy and a willingness to “push the pass” rather than stick in rigid structure.

He pointed to the Warriors’ win over Melbourne as proof that the old defensive blueprints are breaking down. “The Warriors just took it to Melbourne,” he said. “Melbourne were unable to defend what they brought.” He said the stuff that’s been so successful for Melbourne for so long “you can’t do it. The six‑again has just obliterated that.”

Kent was blunt about Melbourne’s slide. “They’re 13th position now,” he said. “And the way they’re shaping up, they’re going to be flat out making the eight if this continues.” He rejected the idea that the club can hide behind player departures. “You can’t say, ‘Oh, yeah, but we lost all these players,’” he said. “The reality is what’s there now.”

He also highlighted how several pre‑season premiership contenders - Cronulla, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra - are now outside the top eight. “You look at the way the ladder’s shaping,” he said. “Top four, you could have easily, other than Penrith, you could have easily said that they would have might have been bottom four this year. And vice versa with those four teams you just mentioned that they aren’t in the eight. They’re all all four of them are legitimate top four teams.”

Panthers crash back to earth after Canterbury’s blitz

Kent framed the Panthers’ loss to the Bulldogs as a “back to earth” moment and outlined how Canterbury overran Penrith through aggression and pressure.

“They front‑loaded all their defense, their energy into that first 20 and they just really went after Penrith,” he said. “Nathan Cleary, I thought, got a little bit rattled by it all.”

He challenged the notion that Cleary is untouchable, zeroing in on a specific technical flaw. “Four times in that game he got tackled on tackle five,” he said. “That shouldn’t be him. He should be there, you’re telling the ball runner where to get tackled and where he’s going to be. So, that way he gets the best kick away that they need to do.”

Kent argued that once Cleary fell out of structure, the Panthers unravelled. “Once he falls out of structure, he struggles a little bit,” he said. “I don’t think it was ’cause Penrith had an off night. I think Penrith turned up to play, but Canterbury was so aggressive and so tough.”

Cowboys’ rise and the influence of Todd Payten

The Cowboys’ surge into the top four also drew praise, with Kent tying their improvement to the way they’ve adapted to the same attacking style.

“They’re in the top four now,” he said. “They lost their first two games and Todd Payton had lost the dressing room … and the first two games we lost was to West and Newcastle. So, you can understand everyone going, ‘Well geez, they’re not going that well.’”

He then pointed to the turnaround. “They’ve beaten the last two year’s two grand finalists, Melbourne and Brisbane,” he said. “So the Cowboys are going pretty good.” Kent added that Payton, who was part of the Tigers outfit in 2005, understands the era of rules‑driven attacking dominance. “Todd Payton was at the Tigers in ’05 as well,” he said. “So he’s certainly was there … he knows what it is and what it looks like.”

He said the Cowboys are now playing around speed and second‑phase footy, continually trying to keep the defensive line unsettled. “Teams giving away a tackle early on to try and give themselves time … if you can’t get that line set well, you’re just shot to bits,” he said.

Scores galore and the six‑again “bore‑out”

Kent was openly critical of the volume of points and the way the six‑again rule has turned some games into shootouts.

He cited the Perth double‑header as a case in point. “There’s what, 130 odd points scored in Perth on the weekend, two games of footy,” he said. “12 tries in one game, 10 tries in the other game.”

He went on to highlight how high‑scoring even losing teams were. “The lowest winning score was 28 points,” he said. “Every score on the weekend was 37–28. The highest losing score was 34. South Sydney scored 34 points and lost the game.”

“That’s a direct result of this six‑again rule,” he said, pointing to the 12‑try Raiders–Rabbitohs match and the 10‑try Roosters–Sharks game. He added that the Cowboys–Broncos game should have had more tries as well. “That was 35–31 or something like that,” he said.

He questioned whether fans actually enjoy games where you score 30 points and still lose. “Do you like watching a game where you score 30 points and still lose a game?” he asked. “I think it’s all about the broadcast … PVL’s made that decision that this is the way the game’s going to go.”

Time‑wasting, bunker, and the ad‑break business

Kent also attacked the combination of constant tries, bunker reviews and challenges, arguing they’re killing genuine ball‑in‑play time.

He said the NRL’s justification for wanting more ball in play is undermined by the stop‑start nature of modern games. “The NRL brought in this rule because they wanted more ball in play,” he said. “But it’s become counterintuitive, because every time there’s a try scored we break for three minutes.”

He described the sequence: the try being scored, the break for the referee or the bunker to check, then the wait for the goal‑kick. “While the referee … or the bunker has a look, we’ve got to wait for a try confirmed. Everyone stand around having a look … then the try’s scored, lines up, goal kick, wait back. That’s not measured in time ball in play,” he said.

He then turned to the challenge system. “You’ve got to get the challenges as well when they start, oh we’ll challenge that,” he said. “We’re seeing half a dozen challenges a game now, because the referee’s getting it wrong so often.”

He said the rules and the bunker’s watchful eye make it hard to police certain “disruptor” plays. “You can’t get rid of the rule because players were disrupting,” he said. “Players were getting into them, they weren’t going in to contest for the ball … they were brushing a hand over their like sort of just above their eyes as the ball was about to land.”

Incidental contact, the “disruptor” rule, and the NRL’s back‑pedal

Kent vented about how the “disruptor” rule has been interpreted, particularly after the NRL issued a memo clarifying that incidental contact shouldn’t be penalised.

He said the memo itself was admission‑by‑stealth. “The NRL sent out a memo … saying they were going to remind officials that the incidental contact does not warrant a penalty,” he said. “That’s saying you’re wrong without saying you’re right.”

He cited specific incidents the NRL later admitted were mistakes, including a controversial call against Robert Toia. “You can’t get rid of the rule,” he said, but argued the key is to get it right. “What do they do about it? Well, they just keep doing what they’re doing, but get it right … and eventually the players will adapt.”

He mocked the lengths players go to in order to avoid sanction. “You still see the escort players coming in,” he said, “but now they’re putting their eyes up and trying to catch the attacking player in their peripheral vision so they don’t ‘see’ them coming."

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