NRL Nines 2020

[Sproj]

How awesome is this Hamiso kid? Queenslander as well, you beauty.

There is a lot of JYY about him.

 

[porouian]

There is a lot of JYY about him.

I thought that a bit too, especially his try against the Bunnies where he kicked for himself. Beautifully balanced and controlled. Jeez the highlights we could have had over the last few years with JYY.

 

[theshed]

I said this yesterday but I'll say it again: Calm down. It's the Nines. It is far more likely than not that the players had instructions not to take it too seriously, glorified trial match and all that. This tournament likely won't even exist next year so why does it matter now?

Melbourne didn't win a single game, should they be hitting the panic button?

Devils advocate but Seibold repeatedly started that they took the 9s seriously, and unlike Melbourne we sent our best possible team. The team Melbourne sent were a joke.

 

[Alec]

Devils advocate but Seibold repeatedly started that they took the 9s seriously, and unlike Melbourne we sent our best possible team. The team Melbourne sent were a joke.

Yeah, if they didn't take it seriously, they wouldn't have sent a full strength side like that.

 

[Big Pete]

While it was far from the most convincing performance, the scoreboard didn't reflect the difference in Melbourne vs. Brisbane. While it effectively ended up being two tries all with Isaako's two clutch conversions being the difference, they came extremely close in that first half.

The effort by Farnworth to not only claim the cross-field kick but to throw a perfect flick pass back inside to Arthars was very impressive and Arthars was unfortunate to be stopped just before the line. What impressed me most about Farnworth's efforts is that it should have been a penalty to the Broncos since he was tackled in the air.

The other was the kick from Niu which led to a foot race between Paix and Eisenhuth. Paix was unlucky not to get the weight of the kick right as it could have easily been a 7 point try to the Broncos.

Instead they paid the price for coming up with a mistake off their own line. Boy, Melbourne really rubbed that in as well, running their entire set at Flegler before he eventually succumbed to the pressure and allowed Fa'asuamaleaui to take on Dearden one on one close to the line.

Finally Farnworth produced an in and away and looked to have put Vudogo away only for his pass to be intercepted. That's three opportunities and two of them eventually ended up biting them and turning into tries against them.

While they enjoyed some luck of their own in the second half with Niu getting away with a forward pass and some unforced errors by Melbourne, it was a positive sign to see Brisbane come back from a deficit. It may not have been enough to get them into the finals, but they were a victim of a shoddy format and the loss of Milford at a critical moment in the first game only hurt matters. In the end, they got beaten by the team that won the entire competition on the back of an 80m all or nothing play and a tournament high 6-1 penalty count.

It wasn't the tournament the Broncos would have wanted. With so many of their young stars in the team, seeing them complete this assignment and win the tournament would have been a nice confidence boost moving forward but it wasn't all doom and gloom. Tesi Niu gave a good account of himself and may have earned himself a promotion in light of Perese's transgressions. Farnworth didn't hurt his chances either and the likes of Dearden, Paix and Turpin had some real classy moments.