Two or three players in the tackle, which is better?

Two or three players in the tackle, which is better? Both defence systems have their pluses and minuses and on Saturday night at Suncorp Stadium, both styles were on show before a crowd of 41021. The Wayne Bennett coached NRL All Stars used the two man system for most of the game whereas the Indigenous side used the three man ruck defence for the majority of the game.  The Indigenous team was in control of the game for all four stanzas. Although the defence advantage may have seemed slight in general play, it showed up in several crucial rucks and that advantage allowed the Indigenous team to dominate and take the advantage. Laurie Daley said in his opening statement at the post match press conference, “I was not expecting a performance as dominant as that but to win by as far as they did was just that.” The game was a great spectacle for the first game of the season but there were too many penalties and too much dropped ball by the NRL All Stars to really get enthused at the skills on show. Wayne Bennett commented after the game, “Their skills were pretty good but our skills didn’t match theirs. They were very good and they executed very well. They were all good. I don’t think they had a bad player.” Benji Marshall said, “We just did not execute as well as they did. If you give a team with players like Thurston, Ben Barba and Scott Prince that much ball, they will punish you.” Nothing can be taken away from the Indigenous team. They out played their opposition on the night. They controlled the NRL All Stars go forward with a three man defence in the majority of rucks which had the NRL All Stars frustrated and created problems which led to many errors. Johnathan Thurston, when questioned on if Ben Barba could challenge Billy Slater for the Origin fullback position said, “Billy is the best fullback I have seen. Benny brings you a different style of fullback but Billy has the [Origin] fullback jersey sown up for a while yet.” Barba’s comment after the game was simply, “No one expected that. We didn’t but everything came off for us.”