The Tackle: Why Ezra Mam is key to longevity of Adam Reynolds at Broncos

Ezra Mam might never have imagined being relegated to a depth player, but it could be the move that ultimately extends Adam Reynolds’ time on the park in Broncos colours. FATIMA KDOUH has that and more in The Tackle.

Fatima Kdouh reveals her likes and dislikes from Round 5, highlighting an Immortal’s interesting take on Nathan Cleary’s game in 2025.

ROUND 5 LIKES

EZRA KEY MAM IN REYNOLDS’ LONGEVITY

Maligned Broncos five-eighth Ezra Mam has gone from a key cog in the Brisbane spine to the depth player that will help coach Michael Maguire manage the ageing body of Adam Reynolds.

Mam has four games to serve on a nine-game suspension for a car accident while driving unlicensed and under the influence of illicit drugs. But already there is debate on how to best use the 22-year-old on his return to the field.

There has been a suggestion that Mam slot into the halves alongside Reynolds with Hunt switching to hooker.

But Maguire will be especially reluctant to change his current halves combination or take the No.9 jumper from Cory Paix if the wins keep rolling in.

What Mam’s return will allow Maguire to do though is to manage Reynolds’ body during the season.

Ezra Mam can extend Reynolds’ playing career. Picture: Adam Head

The veteran halfback insists he will be fit to take on the Roosters on Friday night at Suncorp Stadium after pulling up lame with a hamstring complaint against the Tigers and will go for scans on Monday.

But given how sensitive, and unpredictable, soft tissue injuries can be Maguire could easily opt not to risk Reynolds.

Those decisions will be made even easier once Mam returns, giving Maguire the luxury to simply rest Reynolds, who turns 35 in July, to help ensure the half-back’s body will continue to hold up to the rigours of a long season and finals series.

While Hunt is a worthy deputy in the No.7 jumper, Brisbane need Reynolds on the field to be a genuine title threat.

While Mam might have never imagined he’d be relegated to a depth player in the spine, it could be set in his future – at least until Reynolds decides his own.

NRL TRUE TO ITS WORD

Titans coach Des Hasler felt like the sin-bin crackdown spoiled the contest, while Tigers coach Benji Marshall was left confused.

But the NRL did what it vowed to and sin-binned direct, forceful contact to the head.

The key now is to enforce the rule with some consistency and for the NRL to hold its nerve against the coaches, commentators and former players who are death-riding the crackdown.

The NRL is at the top of the rugby league ecosystem and the tone it sets at the top filters through to grassroots level.

For the NRL to thrive in decades to come – and as we learn more about the impacts of concussion – the game needs to be seen by parents as safe. Growth at the junior level in the long run depends on it.

The NSWRL said on Sunday that its participation levels were up 10 per cent on 2024, when rugby league had more than 117,000 registered players.

Registrations surged in the Canterbury-Bankstown (30 per cent), St George (25 per cent) and Balmain (19 per cent) districts in the past 12 months.

The NRL is sending a message that it will protect its players and it’s an important one for parents to keep hearing.

BUNNIES HOPPING UNDER BENNETT

Rather than be demoralised by the loss of halves Jamie Humphreys and Cody Walker to hamstring injuries, the Rabbitohs dug deep and stayed in the fight against arch rivals the Roosters on Friday night.

Bennett’s ability to rally his side will be tested once more against a Cowboys outfit on Saturday night in Perth that has turned a corner after speculation coach Todd Pay­ten’s job was on the line.

It doesn’t get any easier in coming weeks with clashes against the Bulldogs and the Storm, maybe without Bennett’s first-choice halves.

Englishman Lewis Dodd is in line to earn a long-awaited NRL debut this week but Bennett has a winning formula built on hard work and belief, the reward of which is con­fidence.

That will be Bennett’s hardest decision.

Is Dodd riding the same wave of confidence as his NRL teammates at the moment?

Jayden Sullivan is likely to earn one halves spot against the Cowboys, while Latrell Mitchell and Jack Wighton are also options for the other.

Who Bennett decides to name on Tuesday could be telling for Dodd’s future at the club.

Dodd joined the Rabbitohs on a three-year deal worth $650,000 a season and no club can afford that kind of money locked into a reserve grade player.

ROUND 5 DISLIKES

THE CUB THAT GOT AWAY

When Nathan Cleary lines up against the Dolphins this week, his opposite will be Isaiya Katoa, the Panthers junior who would have been – and who many at Penrith say should have been – the next in line to partner Cleary in the halves.

Katoa was poached by Redcliffe in 2023 but there’s no doubt the Panthers, now staring down the barrel of five-straight losses, could have done with his talents this year.

After dominating the NRL for five seasons, the Panthers look like a team that has forgotten how to win.

The loss of Jarome Luai, James Fisher-Harris and Sunia Turuva has led coach Ivan Cleary to inject, or rely on, youth and inexperience to defend the title.

Therein lies the problem for halfback Cleary, according to the game’s best No.7 Andrew Johns.

Nathan Cleary with former Panthers player Isaiya Katoa. Picture: Jason McCawley/Getty Images

Johns said, rather than Cleary trying to drag his young teammates to his level, he has to try a different approach.

“The challenge for Nathan is the younger players don’t see the game like him,’’ Johns said on Channel 9. “He’s still seeing the game like when he’s had all the superstars in those key positions.

“He has to come back (to their level) for a while until these younger players get used to the speed of the game, handling pressure, playing under fatigue, because they’re not up to his fitness level or his mental strength ... they don’t see the game like him. So he’s got to pull it back.”

BUNKER’S FORWARD THINKING

If the NRL’s bunker can rule on whether a fingertip applied enough pressure to ground a football, then the video official should be ruling on forward passes in try-scoring opportunities too.

The issue came to a head this weekend after a number of questionable passes involving try-scoring opportunities.

Latrell Mitchell’s bullet cut-out pass for Isaiah Tass in the 70th minute, which was ultimately the match winning try in Friday night’s clash against the Roosters, looked sublime in real time.

But on closer inspection there is a genuine argument to make that the ball left the hands on the South Sydney star with forward momentum.

It also sparked a fierce debate among fans and raised the question, once again, as to why the bunker is not ruling on forward passes in try scoring plays.

It wasn’t the only incident out of Round 6 that left fans and commentators wondering if there was a better way.

Latrell Mitchell's pass to Isaiah Tass.

Selwyn Cobbo's pass to Billy Walters

Replays showed the last pass from Brisbane’s Selwyn Cobbo to Billy Walters, in the 60th minute of Saturday’s game against the Wests Tigers, clearly also went forward.

It was missed by referee Liam Kennedy and the touch judge but with the bunker unable to rule, the try was awarded.

Only Tyrell Sloan’s foot going into touch saved the NRL from another furore in the Parramatta and Dragons clash, after replays showed the ball was tipped on by Moses Suli to the winger was also forward.

The NRL has been reluctant to allow the bunker to rule on forward passes because it is deemed too subjective and prone to misinterpretation.

But the bunker already makes calls on a number of rules that are subjective in nature like obstruction, force in illegal tackles and penalty tries.

The Tackle doesn’t want every pass adjusted on by the bunker, just the last passes in try-scoring opportunities and whether the ball left the hands of the attacking player in a backwards or flat direction.

The game has the video technology, so why not use it? Or expand video technology to give the bunker access to angles that help rule on a forward pass.

The NRL has trialled forward pass technology – like a microchip in the footy that can measure the spin of the ball as well as speed and changes of direction – but has abandoned those plans.

Until that chip technology is perfected, the NRL’s most viable course of action would be to allow the bunker to rule on forward passes – which hasn’t been done since 2001.

The NRL looked at allowing the bunker to rule on forward passes in an end of season review back in 2023, it’s an issue that again should be on the agenda.

ROBBO’S TOUGH CALL

If a battered Rabbitohs had no right to win on Friday night, there are few excuses for the Roosters not icing the game.

The spotlight will again be on coach Trent Robinson’s halves, in particular Chad Townsend.

Townsend had an unhappy night with the boot, kicking out on the full and shanking a line dropout.

There are growing calls for Robinson to hand a halves start this week to rookie Hugo Savala, who has played three games from the bench, against Brisbane on Friday night.

It would undoubtedly be a baptism of fire for Savala but Robinson has said he would not shy away from playing the club’s next-generation stars.

Savala’s addition would give the Roosters a running threat in the middle of the field and help straighten the attack, something the Tricolours missed on Friday night at Accor Stadium.

Trent Robinson is facing some season-defining calls. Picture: NRL PHOTOS

SEA EAGLES CLIPPED

If Manly’s poor win record without superstar fullback Tom Trbojevic wasn’t bad enough, coach Anthony Seibold is now sweating on the fitness of Jason Saab ahead of Saturday’s clash against Cronulla.

The flyer hobbled off the field late in Sunday’s thrashing at the hands of Melbourne.

Manly’s win rate plummets to just 36 per cent without Trbojevic, who isn’t expected back from a knee injury until Round 9.

Now Seibold is facing the loss of Saab but the coach has options on the wing in rookie Navren Willett and Raymond Tuaimalo Vaega, who scored a hat-trick in the NSW Cup on Sunday.

Tommy Talau has missed the early parts of the season with an ankle injury and is edging closer to a return.