The NRL grand final will be decided by a mistake. The key is to avoid making one

“A man of genius makes no mistakes,” wrote James Joyce in Ulysses, a novel both unrivalled and unreadable – and based on the same Homeric legend as The Odyssey, one of the year’s most watched films.

The NRL grand final – always the most watched game of the NRL premiership season – has in common with Homer’s ancient Greek poem long journeys home to capture a prize.

The journeys of the Roosters and Knights have been marked by mistakes, suggesting that, although the accolade is sprinkled around the NRL like stardust, there are no geniuses in rugby league.

Mistakes in attack proved fatal in both preliminary finals, as demonstrated by the opening and closing tries in each match.

Mark Nawaqanitawase seized an intercept to score the Roosters’ first try in their 36-20 victory over the Dolphins, while Newcastle’s Sandon Smith snatched a panicked opposition pass to score his team’s 79th-minute clincher in the epic win over the Panthers on Sunday.

“Marky Mark”, heading back to rugby union, is widely labelled a genius – while Smith, an unheralded halfback rejected by the Roosters, typifies the working-class grit of his club and the northern England origins of the game itself.

Both players exploited mistakes in attack of the sort which are becoming increasingly consequential as a result of the lopsided balance to attack under rule changes ordered by executive chair Peter V’landys.

A teammate can cover a bad defensive read or a missed tackle, but a poor pass, such as the one thrown by the Roosters’ Hugo Savala that allowed Penrith’s Brian To’o to score the winning try in the first week of the finals, can’t be saved. A blunder in attack is often irrevocable.

A dazed Ryan Papenhuyzen stood too close in support of a right-field break by teammate Eli Katoa in the closing minutes of last year’s grand final.

Stephen Crichton snatched a 67th-minute long pass in Penrith’s 14-12 win over South Sydney in 2021, while, in 2015, Ben Hunt dropped the kick-off in golden point. Their teammates were helpless to correct those critical mistakes.

We have to scroll back to 2003 to find a defining defensive moment, when Scott Sattler’s cover defending tackle denied the Roosters’ Todd Byrne.

The shibboleth that defence wins grand finals is therefore threatened – although countering that in this year’s decider is that the Roosters’ tryline defence is the best in the NRL.

Scoring tries from 10 metres out is becoming increasingly difficult across the NRL because the two markers and fullback stand in a defensive line which rushes forward, often offside, calculating the referee will punish with a six-again rather than a penalty.

But the Knights don’t rely on short kicks to get through this defensive wall. They rely on attack from their own half.

Sam Walker is another Rooster widely considered a genius, despite the fact he and halves partner Daly Cherry-Evans can cancel each other out at critical opportunities by both wanting to grab the steering wheel at once.

Both are vulnerable to hard running edge back-rowers, such as the Knights’ Francis Manuleleua.

Yet who would want to tackle a 110-kilogram beast with a sidestep who runs at 33kmh?

Still, it’s up to Knights coach Justin Holbrook, who twice worked at an assistant to Roosters boss Trent Robinson, to isolate Walker and Cherry-Evans in defence.

More importantly, after playing just over half their preliminary final with 12 men and having two days fewer than the Roosters to prepare, the Knights may succumb – like so many unheralded, defiant teams before them– by having already played their grand final.

But they do have Kalyn Ponga, and an attack which can mystify defences.

Will Ponga be labelled a genius after Sunday’s decider? Last year, it was Brisbane’s Reece Walsh who earned that descriptor.

In 2023, it was Penrith’s Nathan Cleary, who made two critical defensive errors before engineering three tries in 14 minutes to turn a 24-8 deficit into an improbable 26-24 victory.

Cleary best understands Joyce’s definition of a genius – mistakes become opportunities for creative play.

But Cleary, too, will be absent, his left leg horribly broken against the Knights.

V’landys is considered a genius by many – certainly by the obsequious club and state chairs, who have installed him as all-powerful leader.

He has already stamped his authority on the finals insofar as none of last year’s top four made the eight-team finals series this year. His attacking revolution resulted in 11 tries in the Roosters-Dolphins preliminary final.

Yet he has already made a mistake by botching negotiations for a headline act as grand final entertainment.

“People come to watch rugby league,” he said, ignoring the many corporate and political types in the VIP area who are there to network and who know little of the Roosters and Knights players.

V’landys should delegate his media cop to submit his guests to surprise interrogations. Ask them the score and if they don’t know, hand them a plate of sushi and order them to leave, to be replaced by one of the coalminers who have travelled down from Newcastle.

Even footy-heads love their entertainment. I sat with Craig Bellamy at the John Farnham concert recently where he hummed and sang along with the lyrics.

As for geniuses in sport, consider the quote from former NFL quarterback turned commentator Joe Thiesmann: “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

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