By STEVE MASCORD
WARRINGTON coach Tony Smith has a tip for NRL teams trying to curtail the kicking game of Brisbane halfback Ben Hunt – bring back the charge-down.
While Smith wasn’t offering free advice after Saturday’s 27-18 win at Halliwell Jones Stadium, his comments about the strategy regarding Hunt should attract attention back in the football offices of Australiasia.
“Anyone think Ben Hunt had a good kicking game tonight? No,” said Smith.
“His first kick was charged down. It definitely affects the kicker. We do a lot of work on it because it can pay off – not always, but it’s worth it.”
Hunt played down the effectiveness of the tactic, which led to Warrington’s first try, saying: “It was not so much a shock but they don’t do that in the NRL.
“The second one was more of a shock, I think he was about five metres offside. You don’t see them too much in the NRL anymore but it’s part of their game plan over here.
“It was a little bit different in some ways. They were definitely working hard in the ruck and slowing us down. We couldn’t get a quck play-the-ball. It definitely hurt us. I think, early on, we couldn’t get us out of our own half. They were slowing us down. I guess that was their game plan.
“But apart from that, it was pretty similar to the NRL.”
Hunt has kept a low profile since it was announced he’ll be joining St George Illawarra in 2018.(continued below)
I”t was a bit of a crazy pre-season there for a bit but that’s out of the way now and we’re just concentrating on trying to have a good season with Brisbane,” he said.
Despite the loss, he said of the trip to the northern hemisphere: “It’s definitely a positive for us. We’d just be playing trials at home now. This is probably one of the best trials you can have now. It was a really tough hit out and it shows us where we are, I guess.
“It’s good to get out and play against different teams. You play against the same teams over and over again in Australia. You get this opportunity to come over and play in a different environment in from of a big crowd. They really get nice and loud over here.”
Asked what would need to change for the season opener against Cronulla in a week, Hunt commented: “Definitely discipline. We made a lot of errors, we gave away a lot of penalties. You can’t do that. It definitely hurt us. We need to simplify a few things. We were all over the shop.
“I guess that’s what you want to do in your trial games. You want to get that stuff out and start playing some good footy.”
This story originally appeared in Rugby League week on February 23, 2017
