NRL: Take a trip back to Round 6, 2016, when Dylan Napa terrorised the Burgess brothers in a career night
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves wasn’t playing the night he saw perhaps the greatest front-row demolition job ever in Roosters v Rabbitohs. No, JWH wasn’t suspended. He was sitting injured in the stands with 18,161 fans on a Friday night, Round 6 of 2016 out at Olympic Park, when Dylan Napa transformed into a one-man wrecking crew .
Watch every game of every round of the NRL Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo?WHAT'S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.“It’s gotta be up there with one of the best front-row performances I’ve ever seen,” Waerea-Hargreaves, an expert analyst this season with Fox League, told foxsports.com.au 10 years on. “He went out and single-handedly manhandled everyone. He scored, he played 80 minutes in the middle. That performance was up there with the biggest and best front-row performances I’ve seen against the Bunnies, for sure. It was incredible.”Why rival coaches can learn from ‘brave’ Cleary call; big surprise that blew me away — McKinnonSource: FOX SPORTS Napa whacked George Burgess on the opening kickoff with a borderline shoulder charge, three years after they were outlawed. Sam’s first treatment came seven minutes later.“Sam Burgess is the biggest, strongest ball-runner in the game. You watch Dylan Napa here take him one-on-one … BANG! And then drove him sideways,” Gould said in commentary. “That is a massive hit. Burgess doesn’t just get tackled one-on-one, but young Dylan Napa lined him up, shouldered him up and drove him sideways. That’s a great hit.”“There’ll be a few NSW players thankful that Dylan Napa won’t be in the Queensland Origin series this year,” Sterlo said.“He’s lined him up all night,” Gould said, right as Napa tried to clean up Jason Clark on the next tackle. He missed, which he took as a personal affront and brutally clocked Clark shortly after.Poor little Luke Keary wore on in the same set. It was some mismatch. Gus named Napa man of the match before the half-time siren sounded. And just six minutes after the break, he pounced on a deft Jackson Hastings kick to score. The great Greg Inglis could only watch in horror.Roosters 17, Rabbitohs 10. Napa’s try why his only one all season, in the game that mattered most, while he racked up 152 run metres and 44 tackles.Why he wasn’t playing in 2016? He was one of eight players banned from representing that year after breaking curfew during boozy night out in an Emerging Maroons camp, for which he branded himself an “idiot” and vowed to make amends.His dominance of Burgess was extraordinary, and intentional. Napa had the audacity to target him. “I respect Sam Burgess and the way he plays so much,” Napa said in the Roosters dressing room, with Burgess back in the NRL after a one-year detour into English rugby for the 2015 World Cup. “I was so disappointed when he left for rugby union. I think he left as one of the best forwards in the game, so I thought it was a bit of respect to go at him tonight.Roosters coach Trent Robinson said: “Not many players can do what he did tonight. It was just a credit to him. “He decided that he was going to have a game tonight and he did. A lot of people decide but can’t always follow through. He decided and he delivered.”Waerea-Hargreaves butted heads with Burgess many times and had immense respect for him. Napa claimed an elite scalp when he took down the mighty Pom. “Absolute competitor. The will to win – he just kept turning up in the toughest times,” JWH said of the man who won the 2014 Clive Churchill Medal with a busted face. “He obviously had the skill, but he also had that competitive nature that he didn’t want to lose. We had a few good battles over the years and you knew when you were playing against the Bunnies, it was going to be a good day when he was in there. Every time you went up against them it was always going to be a big contest.”The Rabbitohs smashed the Roosters 42-10 at Allianz Stadium in Round 1 of that season and the Tricolours were winless by Round 6 despite having won three consecutive minor premierships. There were injuries ... and a certain video-related eight-game ban for halfback Mitchell Pearce before the season even began.Roosters coach Trent Robinson celebrates with Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Dylan Napa after winning the 2018 NRL grand final over Melbourne Storm.Waerea-Hargreaves will be in the stands on Friday night, jersey on and family in tow, as the latest edition of Roosters-Rabbitohs unfolds at Allianz Stadium. He played 15 years of the century-long rivalry, every game massive, and scored a famous try in an all-time Round 1 thriller back in 2012, where he carried four Bunnies across the line to score with two minutes remaining. Anthony Minichiello scored the match-winner on the last play of the game to end it 24-20. When JWH first came to the club, Roosters supremo Nick Politis addressed the group and personally explained why playing South Sydney meant more. It was deep, rich and fiery. “With what type of man he is and the influence he has on the club, when a guy like Nick speaks about how much pride he has in the club and what it means to play on a day like that, it does mean a lot,” Waerea-Hargreaves said. “I still clearly remember going down to a café in Coogee before one game and there was a few Bunnies players at the café that we were going to – and we ended up going to another café because the rivalry was so real. ‘Nah, that’s not for us’, and we went down the road. “It was intense, and that’s what we loved about it. You knew every single time you were playing that it was gonna be on, and you could physically get it on back in those days. “The rivalry now is still there and you can definitely feel it. Round 2, it’s still early in the season, and to get that game at Allianz on Friday night … it’s gonna be a cracker.”
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