There comes a time in every NRL final when, in the words of Kenny Rogers, you need to make a choice.
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em;
Know when to fold ’em;
Know when to walk away;
Know when to run.
We can assume Kenny might not have been a fan of the greatest game of all, but even he could have recognised Manly might have been pushing their luck thinking they could run when they did.
Buried deep in their own end, with the clock ticking and the Bulldogs defence swarming, off one of their worst yardage sets all season, who would have thought it would actually be a good idea to run the ball on the last tackle? Daly Cherry-Evans did. Tom Trbojevic did. Anthony Seibold did.
Sixteen seconds later, Manly speedster Tolu Koula - who once ran the 100 metres in 10.58 seconds as a schoolkid - had dived over to score a try shoeless. He was the seventh pair of hands to touch the ball on the play.
Turns out it was the right time to run.
Tolu Koula celebrates Manly’s match-winning try.Credit: Getty Images
“We always talk about playing every play and not dying on one,” Manly centre Reuben Garrick says. “That’s the perfect example.”
Here’s how the Sea Eagles produced one of the great finals tries of the NRL era at Accor Stadium on Sunday.
Going nowhere fast
Ask any NRL coach the key to bringing the ball out of your own end, and most will start and finish their answer with the back five. They want strong ball runners in their centres and wingers, particularly at the end of each half, to help the tiring forwards.
The only problem for Manly on Sunday was the set before their miracle try, they were going nowhere.
It started with featherweight teenage winger Lehi Hopoate fielding a kick and being smothered on his 10-metre line, and for the next four tackles, each of his fellow members in the back five - Trbojevic, Koula, Tommy Talau and Reuben Garrick - each tried to make metres. No Manly forward took a run. At the end of the set, the backs had only made 19 metres.
So, who in their right mind would think there’s a chance to risk it all on the last when you’re not even 30 metres out from your own line?
“It was definitely off the cuff footy,” Cherry-Evans says.
What prompted them to run?
Garrick’s final play-the-ball was the key. For the first time in the set, he left a couple of defenders in his wake with Reed Mahoney and Viliame Kikau both not able to recover to marker before Garrick gets up to trigger the ruck. That immediately makes two Bulldogs defenders vulnerable on the play.
Hooker Lachlan Croker shovels the ball to Cherry-Evans, but instead of punting it for territory, he looks back to his inside where, until that point, a largely ineffective Tom Trbojevic was lurking. Surprisingly, Cherry-Evans throws the pass to Trbojevic, who also opts against kicking and surges through the middle and past a diving Jaeman Salmon.
“At that moment in the game, I thought it was an opportunity we had to take,” Cherry-Evans says. “They were winning field position most of the game. We got a quick play-the-ball and they had one marker. They over-chased and I thought the space was going to be up the middle, but it closed pretty quickly.”
Trbojevic beating Salmon immediately compresses the Bulldogs’ defence as Mahoney and Sam Hughes scramble to get hold of him.
But maybe the key to the entire play is his offload, which is fielded by Garrick, the same man who played the ball and crucially kept alive in the play.
“I just saw ‘Turbo’ take off and usually good things happen around him,” Garrick says. “He’s a pretty smart footballer. Everyone knows that and when he sees an opportunity, we try to jump on the back of him. I just wanted to be some support there.”
Quick hands the key
It can take years and years of repetition for the most basic of skills to show up under pressure. In a couple of split seconds, Garrick and Luke Brooks - playing his first finals match more than 4000 days after his NRL career started - proved why.
Garrick, under pressure from the defence, quickly sends a pass out to Brooks who, likewise, has to catch and throw it swiftly out wider to evade Stephen Crichton, the best defensive centre in the game.
Tolu Koula celebrates the win with Lehi Hopoate and Luke Brooks.Credit: Getty Images
“I felt someone coming to me, and we had a bit of space out there,” Brooks says. “The [Canterbury] winger [Jeral Skelton] drops back so we knew there was a bit of room out there.”
Turbo starts it, Burbo keeps it going
The play might have started with one Trbojevic having a huge hand, but what happened next with the youngest Trbojevic might have been just as equally crucial.
Ben Trbojevic, who’d only been on the field for less than 10 minutes, catches the ball with ample space in front of him. Skelton and Bulldogs fullback Connor Tracey have dropped back anticipating the kick.
But instead of chewing up some ground himself, Trbojevic quickly decides the wise move is to get it to the faster Koula, running just five metres before passing the ball to his teammate inside the Bulldogs’ half. It takes the scrambling Canterbury halfback Toby Sexton out of the equation because he can’t get to Koula, but chances are he would have collared Ben Trbojevic.
“I think Benny trusted me to do my thing,” Koula says. “We built that trust playing alongside each other all year.”
King Koula finishes it off … without a shoe
Koula is exactly the type of person the NRL wants to line up in their fastest man in league contest on grand final day - if it ever gets off the ground.
But even by his standards, this was a special effort.
Having enough speed to ensure the desperate Sexton can’t get a shot on him, Koula switches the ball into both hands as he bears down on the retreating Skelton, who is fooled into thinking he’s readying himself to pass to winger Talau.
It means Skelton can’t attempt a tackle, and with neat footwork, he brushes past Tracey, who can do no more than rip one of Koula’s boots off as the Manly flyer races away with the prize of a berth in the second week of the finals.
“I was [thinking about passing], but I saw the opposite winger hesitating,” Koula says. “There were a few times [we thought about running it on the last], but we just didn’t pull the trigger on the play. The one play we did, we got the result. To score the try, I can’t describe the [feeling]. It’s probably the most important try I’ve ever scored.”
Said coach Seibold: “We see it from Tolu at training. He’s a very, very gifted athlete and very quick young guy. That’s a real special finals try, isn’t it? The guys ran it on the last, and we were identifying they were dropping back. The guys executed, and it was a pretty special play.”
If it wasn’t for Xavier Coates’ aerobatics or Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow’s length-of-the-field screamer, then Koula’s scintillating effort to beat the Bulldogs in an electric finals clash might have just won him try of the season.
Even Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo could do no less than praise Cherry-Evans and Trbojevic for having the stones to do what few others would.
“That’s why [Trbojevic] and Daly are champion players,” Ciraldo shrugs. “They come up with those moments, and they’ve been doing it for long periods of their career. That’s why experience counts.
“Tom was so brave. You can tell he’s carrying a couple of things. He didn’t look himself, but to come up with a play in that moment is why he’s such a champion player - and why he got his team over the line.”
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