Watching an illustrative game during the 2023 streak to try to ascertain what the difference is. I picked the 29-10 win over Souths - notably, our first game without Hastings, so no ball-dominant 7 out there. Here are some thoughts:
1. The same issues are still there...
In the first few sets of the game, Souths are easily winning the yardage battle. Their first few sets go for about 65 metres, Gamble's first few kicks are pretty meh and Souths starts their sets between their 30-40 every time (even with a strong kick chase). We just happily go set for set with no risk one-out runs. The momentum turns when Lachlan Ilias puts in a horrible kick, giving us a seven tackle set. You can see the team instantly "flip a switch" - everyone gets onside and Bradman sprints to the 20m line. Strong carries from J Saf and Dom Young follow this up and instantly we're rolling forward... so essentially, we waited for the other team to make a mistake, then counter-attacked, rather than attacked proactively from the jump. We were losing the field position battle badly until that happened.
2. ... and broad swathes of the system are the same...
My much derided "second tackle winger hit ups from the kick off" are happening constantly. Our play two front rowers are Greg Marzhew and Dom Young. The play three run is Leo, except when he's doing the kick-off return, which I would say he does maybe 1/4 times, they clearly want that carry to be a Saifiti whenever possible. However, it is striking how much more effective the Dom carry is than Schiller/Gagai play two carries. If you're a "Dom was one of our most important players" person, there's your first data point in support of that.
In principle though this team is a punch it up the guts "earn the right" mob, just as much then as now. But the punching is punchier, especially when you see them sense opportunity.
3. ... but they're clicking into gear way quicker...
As a general rule after a quick play the ball there will be *one more carry* to really get the runner through the line and defenders on the ground behind the ball carrier, and then the ball will move. There is a lot of variety in how they do this, but the most consistent principle is a quick interchange of short passes with only, honestly, one or two lead lines, with Elliott commonly getting into first receiver through the middle third. The principle is speed, not complexity. If you drew a heat map of Gamble and Clune they would occupy a side each of the field, and their role in the attack is picking between their lead runner, Kalyn behind the lead runner, and cutting out both to play directly to the centre. We are doing this over and over again. If there's an aspect of what we're doing in attack now which maybe teams have cottoned onto and can shut down too easily, it's this - it just never feels like there's any chance of a variation where we change angles and play back through the middle third, and honestly the halves aren't even really trying to cut back and attack with their running game. So unless we're doing it too fast for the other team to stop, it does seem like something opposing teams could learn to contain by watching film on us.
Biggest differences are twofold: One is that I feel like hitting Fitz/Friz is happening way less commonly than just getting it to Ponga or directly to the centre - *especially* to Gagai, who plays quickly to the wing - and then Dom charges into a sliding defender or tries to go around one who's been too slow to get across. The second is that we have a key variation in how the ball is spread, where Phoenix is throwing *very* long passes behind multiple lead runners which directly hit Gamble, Clune or even sometimes Ponga. Doing this successfully relies on everyone being in sync and picking the right moment for it - the point of closer, interchange of quick passes is to compress the defence, the variation is a surprise tactic to take advantage of the defence expecting the attacking team to try to compress them.
We're also attacking like this from anywhere. 30 metres out from our line, halfway, 30 out from theirs - if we get on the front foot, we are hitting that go button.
4. ... and the key decision makers are different.
In this game, Tyson Gamble is the dominant half, despite wearing #6, and playing primarily on the right side. Ponga gets his hands on the ball a lot - more than Clune, who's playing a very simple role - mainly because he does a fair bit of kicking. But unless he's pitching in for yardage work, or getting into position after a break to just zip the ball to the other side of the field to attack space, I don't think he's playing as a middle third distributor or "hybrid half" at all. He's a sweeping fullback. We're trying to leverage his ability to beat guys on their outside. It's "Pongaball" in a sense, but there is a lot of good work being done by other guys to get him going.
Adam Elliott is clearly a massively important player to this team. However anyone may feel about him. He generates ruck speed with his passing around the middle. He's a key link man to our halves, who are usually playing wide positions. He's running decoy lines a lot on top of that. He looks way fitter in 2023 than in 2025, I don't know if that's age or injury.
5. Kalyn is in ridiculous form...
Yeah so Kalyn Ponga (and also Dom, drink, and Greg) just randomly making breaks on kick returns is a very handy thing to have when your game plan is to just go back and forth and wait for opportunity to present itself. Play a conservative game style where you get more easy scoring opportunities because you're not giving them away works really well if you have players who are generating them out of nothing, it turns out.
6. ... and we're not dropping the ball much.
Yeah. Obvious one. This does, in fact, help. A lot.
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If I go back and look I can kind of see what AOB is on about. Lack of patience & fundamental errors are clear differences this year. This 2023 team is unrecognisable and playing startlingly intelligent footy, everyone is on the same page. I do believe AOB wants to get back there. That's why so much of the system is really similar. He hasn't lost belief in it working again.
The other differences? Key personnel are absent or out of form/unfit, or their role has changed. AOB wanted Kalyn to fill in a lot for Elliott's role I reckon, as well as Tyson Frizell doing that role, and it hasn't worked - Tyson is a much less effective ball player, and Kalyn has seemed to shy away from doing that role consistently. Bad form, injury or cowardice, or a mix of all three, you decide what you think. I'd imagine the idea of Kalyn's new role is partly as a "counter" to other teams shutting down our systems, having done more video on us - (that's AOB's solution to a lot of stuff, "Kalyn will fix it"). Our other "counter" is our halves testing our line with the run more - Fletcher has had a lot of joy with this and Cogger has had a lot of "being a victim of horrific assault" with it (along with, let's be clear, just constantly making worse decisions within structure than Gamble/Clune). It's maybe here where the logic of signing Dylan Brown is the clearest - possibly the most physically rugged, run-dominant and direct half in the NRL besides Munster. Rather than change the system, which they still believe in, they recruited a player who they think suits it down to the ground...
... so I suspect AOB isn't getting fired till they see what that looks like.
On Kalyn, I think they maybe just have to accept he is what he is. Play to him. Let him attack his spots. Keep Elliott and find a way to replace him from within. Kalyn is - in that middle third first receiver role - just not good, in my opinion. The Dolphins made him look good with awful defence. He has terrible instincts for it, obsession with "home run" plays, doesn't consistently create space at all. Accept him for what he is - a cheat code down the wide channels - and try to maximise that.
Dylan Brown + improvement from Fletcher Sharpe will be essential in making it work. I fundamentally don't believe in Kalyn's ability to be the guy who makes it easier for his halves. It's up to your halves to get him into good positions, and then he maximises those positions...
