NRL great James Maloney believes there is a serious shortage of quality playmakers in rugby league as he detailed how coaches and modern-day halfbacks are not meeting the mark.
In the latest episode of news.com.au’s The Extended Bench, the dual-premiership winner pointed to the Dragons’ performance against the Eels as a perfect example of the linear thinking of modern halves, pinning the blame not on the players themselves but the coaching from grassroots all the way through to the NRL.
The Dragons struggled to break down the Eels in large parts of Sunday afternoon’s clash, and Maloney believes as a whole Shane Flanagan has got his tactics wrong as he is too focused on trying to go around teams rather than through them, which has contributed to their 0-3 start in 2026.
“You look at the Dragons side (against the Eels) when they played to their back rowers they went straight through,” Maloney said on The Extended Bench.
“If I’m playing with strong back rowers like that it is about knowing the current climate of the game and how momentum based it is.
You can watch Maloney break down the Dragons’ attacking deficiencies in the player above
“I’d be finding my back rowers, big man on small man, looking for momentum to then get my hands on the ball. You’ve got Damien Cook who’s a running hooker. Clint Gutherson who’s been an unbelievable supporter and sniffer out of ball around the run around the middle of the field for a long time. I don’t think they’re a side suited to playing around sides and that’s something they seem to do too often.
“They need to understand how to manipulate defenders in a line, how to open up guys and how to find one-on-one play the balls and get momentum.”
But while Maloney was critical of the Dragons’ attack, he believes the problem of sides not being able to run effective sets comes down to the lack of proper coaching of the modern-day halves, pointing to the seeming lack of top quality young No. 7’s in the game.
“I think for a long time now the game has not been a whole heap of halves coming through,” Maloney said.
“That’s because everyone’s over coached halves.
“The whole system is teaching them to have structured sets and I don’t think halves are coached to understand the game anymore.
“You get coaches at junior level that watch NRL and try to coach kids to go here and run these big plays. You say, ‘Why do you run this?’ and they go ‘Oh, because the coach tells us to’, so we’re not coaching kids to think about the game anymore.
“We’re not teaching them the intricacies of the game, how to manipulate defenders. There’s so many even at NRL level and I think why you see sides trying to play around sides and there’s so many people that think the only way they can score a try is to create an overlap around them.
“They don’t understand how to manipulate defenders in the line. How if I square one guy up and kick to him and turn him in, then that will isolate the guy outside. Then I can get some momentum and so on. It is all set up to run a sort of one shot mentality.
“So many years ago when you talked about halves it was that they’re two, three plays ahead of the game, you know, and that’s what it was. It was guys that understood we’re going to go to here and move here to get them back here.
“Now with the structured play it promotes a one shot mentality. We go to this part of the field and we have one shot to score.”
Maloney, who played 247 NRL games, believes Nathan Cleary is a perfect example of how a halfback should structure sets.
“You look at Penrith and how many times Nathan Cleary as a half gets his hands on the ball,” Maloney said.
“He drops it off to a player to get momentum. Then gets his hands on the ball again drops someone off then again.
“That’s where the game is at. It’s all based around momentum and it’s not going to a point on the field to run these structured plays. It’s about getting ands on the ball and getting some ruck speed then doing it again and again and that’s what he does.”
Maloney also spoke on the Broncos’ disrespect of club legend Gorden Tallis, Parramatta exploiting the escort rule and why the Sea Eagles fans should boo Daly Cherry-Evans.
You can watch all new episodes of news.com.au’s The Extended Bench every Tuesday on YouTube.
