Newcastle’s decision to splurge upwards of $14 million on Dylan Brown is hard to defend. But there is a method in their madness, brought about by the lack of halfbacks in the NRL.
More and more over the past couple of decades, most NRL players have become athletes who play football, rather than footballers who are athletic.
You often hear commentators describing a player as “just a footballer”, as a way to compliment their instinctive ability to play what is in front of them.
But they are becoming a rarer commodity, and an expensive one in a time when the vast majority of players have been cast from the same mould of muscle-bound athletes in the 90-110kg range.
It is often hard to tell the difference between wingers, centres and the forwards while the four members of the spine – hooker half, five-eighth and fullback – representing the other of two body types that play in the NRL.
Nowadays it seems everyone is either a spine player who plays with guile and above their weight, or a muscle-bound automaton who uses their power to get their physique wherever they need to be on the field.
Many an eyebrow was raised when it was announced the Knights had splashed so much cash on someone like Brown, who has been strong but has hardly set the world on fire in his six seasons in the NRL.
He’s not the first playmaker with potential to be given an exorbitant contract based on optimistic and perhaps unrealistic expectations.
The likes of Luke Brooks, Josh Schuster and Jayden Sullivan have also been the recipient of hefty salaries in recent years, even though they have never sniffed a representative jersey because coaches know a team is often only as good as its chief playmaker,
By signing Brown, the Knights are following a similar path to the Wests Tigers.
Dylan Brown. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
They plonked a massive deal on the table to Jarome Luai before last season had even kicked off with a view to him becoming their long-term No. 7.
Up until that point, he had failed to silence the critics who had claimed he was a very good secondary playmaker, but one who struggled when organisational duties rested on his shoulders.
He m managed to knock that narrative on the head last season when he stepped up as a playmaker for the Panthers, Blues and Samoa, and the early signs in his first two matches at the Wests Tigers alongside young gun pivot Lockie Galvin, are that he can do a similar job for his new team as they look to not only avoid a fourth straight wooden spoon, but challenge for the playoffs for the first time since 2011.
The problem for the Knights is that they have taken a gigantic risk in signing Brown because they had to wave a 10-year deal in his face to get him interested. Brown has admitted he did not necessarily want to leave Parramatta, but Newcastle’s Godfather offer was too good to refuse.
That’s hardly the kind of “Newcastle till I die” talk that will win over Knights fans and he is likely to keep getting booed by the peeved Parramatta fans in the coming weeks and probably for the rest of his final season at the club.
Adam O’Brien has had his fair share of knockers at the Knights in his first five years at the club, with the team only winning one playoff game in that time, despite scraping into the finals on four occasions. They have lacked flair and imagination in attack, but they gave a glimpse into what he hopes is their future last weekend when they had the Dolphins in sixes and sevens in defence at Mcdonald Jones Stadium.
Kalyn Ponga was again immense as he took on the role of an alternate playmaker, jumping in at first or second receiver on either edge, or playing a more traditional fullback role a pass or two wider. The opposition did not know where to look as he routinely drew in a second or third defender to create space for his outside men.
Kalyn Ponga. (Photo by Scott Gardiner/Getty Images)
With Fletcher Sharpe settling into a secondary role at five-eighth, the Knights’ vision is for Brown to follow in the footsteps of current halfback Jack Cogger by doing enough kicking, passing and organisational play that is required without being a dominant playmaker like a Nathan Cleary, Adam Reynolds or Daly Cherry-Evans.
The three-pronged playmaker ploy may be a game-changer for Newcastle, who were the worst attacking team in the NRL last year despite finishing eighth on the ladder.
It’s actually a similar strategy to Penrith, although they use their lock, Isaah Yeo, whose ball-playing skills are easily the best in the sport for a forward, as the alternate option to Cleary as the on-field chief with Jack Cole filling Luai’s old role of five-eighth for the moment, although they have a rising star in Blaize Talagi waiting in the wings for when he is up to speed fitness wise and with his new club’s systems.
Former top-notch playmakers like Matthew and Andrew Johns, and Cooper Cronk often speak about the nuances between playing half-back and five-eighth and how difficult it can be to switch from one role to the other.
If the Knights can make a halfback out of Brown it oils be the most stunning conversion since George Costanza switched to Latvian Orthodox.
Newcastle are trying to alleviate that change for Brown by having a trio of ball-players interchanging the first, second and third receiver roles.
Rugby league teams are not like NFL outfits where they must have one quarterback calling all the shots, and while it’s early days in trying to see if Knights’ strategy will pay off this season and beyond, the two impressive wins to start the season suggest that they could be on the right track at long last to make the finals and actually do some damage this year, rather than just making up the numbers as they’ve done so in recent times.
It still doesn’t mean that they’ve pulled the right rein by throwing such a gargantuan contract to Brown, but for a team that has traditionally struggled to attract marquee players, there is a world in which the $14 million mega-deal could not turn out to be a disaster.
It’s not quite Lloyd Christmas odds of a million to one, but after 24 years waiting for a premiership, long-suffering Knights fans will be happy if anyone’s saying there’s a chance.
