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Opinion
Finishing off a promising NRL season and managing a run to the grand final depends on a few different factors.
Good health is a team’s best friend at this time of year, capturing the big moments and opportunities is also required, yet momentum as the final weeks unfold is probably the most determinate factor.
Across the last three NRL seasons, the Panthers have achieved momentum early on, rarely lost it and even after a scare or two, regained it when required to roll through the finals successfully. But Penrith are a rare and historical team.
On the opposite side of the ball have been teams riding waves of snowball like momentum, only to fall at the last hurdle. Brisbane roared into the 2023 decider off the back of 12 wins from 14 matches, scared the heck out of the Panthers for more than half the game and in the end, felt disappointed that in many ways, they had let the title slip.
A year earlier, it was the Eels who won nine of its last 12 games before the grand final, with one of the three losses coming against the Panthers themselves, who they had actually defeated earlier in the year by 22-20. Back in 2021, South Sydney won 14 of its last 15 entering the big dance, falling to the greatest modern team by two points, just as the Broncos would do two years later.
If that sort of form line reads well for any team coming from outside the top two heading into this season’s finals, it is North Queensland. With nine wins from their last eleven, the Cowboys are humming along nicely, with only a shock loss to the Broncos in Round 23 and a slip-up against the Sea Eagles a month earlier blotting the late season copy book.
During that period, the Cows have beaten five teams who qualified for the top eight; Penrith, Cronulla, Melbourne, Newcastle and Canterbury on two separate occasions.
While some have been looking elsewhere or sideways over the last three months, that form simply cannot be denied and Todd Payten finally has his squad back playing the kind of football we expected in 2023.
Plenty doubted Todd Payten’s Cowboys after a sloppy 2023 season, now they have loomed into serious contention.(Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
After a preliminary final and third place finish on the ladder in 2022, the natural progression expected suggested they would go deep the following year. Yet 12 losses saw them miss the finals and fail to meet the expectation of fans keen to see the club back in a grand final for the first time since 2017.
Curiously, the Cowboys charged from eighth that season, found momentum during the final month, before being hammered by the Storm in embarrassing fashion.
It is not too extreme to see the fifth-placed North Queensland doing something similar this season, especially considering their solid win against the gutsy Knights in the first week of finals and the fact that Cronulla, their opponent this Friday night, were shellacked by Melbourne on the same day.
How the Sharks sit firm favourites just a day out from the clash is beyond me and despite usually missing little, the bookmakers might need to have a rethink and closer analysis of the North Queensland run of form mentioned above.
The Sharks simply don’t win finals these days, Tom Dearden, Scott Drinkwater, Valentine Holmes and the reborn Jake Clifford are flowing nicely as an attacking group and Payten enjoys the continuity of selecting the 17 that did the job last weekend.
Sam McIntyre is tackled. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
Under pressure half Nicho Hynes will need to overcome immense media scrutiny and despite the powerful dangers of Siosifa Talakai and Ronaldo Mulitalo out wide, as well as Will Kennedy at the back, the Cowboys look to have the attacking weapons in the backline to win.
What the visitors will need to overcome is a gutsy and consistent Cronulla forward pack led by Cameron McInness, who despite possessing lesser big names, play above their weight most weeks. The teams sit near level in terms of attacking output for the season yet two key difference elsewhere could decide the match.
The Sharks have conceded 137 fewer points than the Cows thus far in 2024. In fact, North Queensland were miles off the pace defensively when it came to the majority of the teams qualifying for the top eight.
However, momentum and form is likely to be far more valuable this time around. The Sharks are simply fighting to prove they can indeed win a final after yet another poor performance against Melbourne.
They certainly can on ability, yet the Cowboys are on an upward trajectory and that counts for a little more.