On the whole the quality of football has been rather dull this season, but there are some exceptions.
Some teams play one out attack, look for a quick play the ball, kick the ball long and search for a knock on to get attacking field position.
St George and Newcastle are two teams that rely almost solely on these tactics and they offer very little imagination in attack and therefore reasons to get excited about watching them. In last nights game the average set of six contained six or fewer passes for the whole set (if they kicked before the 5th). My god it was f**king dull. Unfortunately these two teams feature highly on Channel Nines rotation, so we get force fed a diet of dull football on free to air television.
Teams play this way because field position is all important. Forcing a knock on is an easier way of getting the ball in good field position than getting your way there by using your attack. Teams that pass the ball run the risk of dropping it, so they just don't bother with it.
However as Melbourne have shown this season, passing your way into space can be successful if your players can catch the ball and I wished that more teams would do it.
Other than the Storm v2012, the teams most likely to want to attack are the Tigers and Warriors and to a lesser extent the Roosters, Sharks and Cowboys. The Roosters really shouldn't try to do this as they can't bloody catch, but they have a go anyway so hopefully one day they'll get it right. The Warriors and Tigers are all over the shop at the moment and anything they do is merely a steaming pile of aardvark shit with pubes sticking out of it. If they actually get it together and click then there's half a chance we'll see some good football.
Another reason for the drop off in quality this season is the number of injuries to some of the most exciting and creative players in the competition. Burgess, Gidley, Parker, Tony Williams, Jennings, Glenn and Brett Stewart, Foran, Guerra, Kenny-Dowell, Ellis, Wallace, Yow Yeh, Hodkinson, Cooper, Loko, Michael Gordon, Nathan Merritt, Dugan, Fensom, De Gois, Tupou, Greg Bird, Kevin Locke etc the list goes on. All those players create opportunities either as play makers or off-loaders that create 2nd phases. I can't remember a time when we had so many injuries to so many key players across so many clubs.
When these key players come back from injury the quality of football should improve - and fingers crossed the Tigers and Warriors can sort their shit out and give us some additional reasons to tune in or turn up each week.