I’ll change my mind about 100 times between now and SOO 1, but for now:

1 Edwards
2 To’o
3 Turbo
4 Crichton
5 JAC
6 Moses
7 Cleary
8 Haas
9 Api
10 Barnett
11 Martin
12 Olakau’atu
13 Yeo

14 Kenny
15 Leniu
16 Murray
17 Jurbo
18 Paps

A consequence of too many rule changes in too short a time frame. The NRL has introduced 20 rule changes in the past 5 years and Refs are clearly struggling to adjust to them, or understand the consequences of them.

Its easy to say he should have played more Origin, but instead of who? NSW has always had good backrow depth.

Fact is, Finucane, had to compete for spots against guys like Cordner, Frizell, Jurbo, and Crichton before then competing against Yeo, Murray and Martin. Is he better than those guys? I’m not so sure…

I guess you can argue he should have played more Origin vs selecting guys like Tariq Sims or Wade Graham, but, they both have 5-6 Origins, which is the same for Finucane…

At Penrith, he played outside Nathan Cleary and Jerome Luai. At the Dogs, he plays/ed outside Hutchison, Flanagan, Sexton and a guy playing his first seasons as a 5/8th.

Just a guess, but maybe this has something to do with it???

You don’t think by walking away after 27 seconds, he didn’t feed gossip and speculation?

JD is clearly gone, so I’m not sure there’s anything he could say to save himself, but walking away wont help media gossip.

Yep, as a Manly fan, trust me, you notice when he’s not there!

Jurbo’s value is not just that he basically tackles everything in the middle third of the field, but that many of his tackles stop the progress if the attacker and slow the opposition’s momentum. Statistically, his tackling numbers are bonkers – From NRL.com: “Trbojevic has a 3.1% missed tackle rate over 10 seasons. He also has made an average 38.1 tackles per game for just 1.2 missed tackles.”

In attack, he makes few mistakes, gives away few penalties, and does what’s asked of him – namely, hit ups and being a link man in the backline. The idea that he’s overrated is staggering to me…

Two of your most over-rated players are Tedesco – arguably one of the best FBs in the history of the game, and Jurbo – arguably the best defensive forward of the last 5-10years. Wow…

He’s been one of the chooks’ best all season

The Manu comp is an excellent one.

Well said BMC. The guy is 22yrs old, and dealt with a ridiculous amount of rubbish in his short career.

And as far his fitness is concerned, I’ve seen super-fit super-athletes play league and shown half the amount of ability or skill he has in his very short playing career. Good luck to him.

The fact that Cook is on the radio the day after being dumped, and saying stuff like “I know I have more to give. I felt like I was building into this season, and I am confident I will be back.”, is a prime example of JD’s faults as a coach.

I’m not a massive Adam O’Brien fan, but when he dumped Hastings, I thought he handled that incredibly well. He clearly and publicly explained his reasoning and reinforced how valuable Hastings was to the club, with Hastings by his side. When JD dumped Ilias, his quote was: “I won’t explain my reasoning,”…brilliant.

And now, he dump’s one his most experienced leaders and again, looks like its radio silence from JD, and Cook is left trying to explain things on his own. Surely someone at Souths can work out a better way to pre-empt the media reactions to certain situations and handle them more effectively? The leadership within this club looks to be a major issue…

I was all for expansion until seeing these teams!

If the best we can pull together in a hypothetical team are youngsters that current teams would never let go (ie. Faalogo, Wong), depth players who are injury cover (ie. Parker, Alamoti, Peachey etc) and players in their final years in the comp who can get up for a game or two, but struggle across a full season (ie. Tamou, Woods, Napa, Jennings, Milford etc), then expansion could be an issue.

The main worry for me, has always been depth in key positions. If two of the best available in NSW and Q Cup halves are Toby Sexton and Brandon Wakeham, that’s not good news for expansion.

What is more interesting to me is why some expansion teams succeed and others never seem to work out. There has to be some kind of blueprint for expansion success, but I cant see it solely rely on building a team of current NSW and Q Cup players…

The judge in the civil case against Jennings said this:

“It was submitted for Ms Wilden that the court would find that she was a careful and reliable historian. I accept that submission and make that finding. I accept that she gave her evidence with clarity, although at times was visibly upset.”

“I accept the submission that, despite the fact that Ms Wilden did not have access to Mr Jennings’ contemporaneous records, her evidence was remarkably consistent with them. That fact demonstrates the accuracy of recollection, reliability, honesty and her lack of embellishment. Further, it was submitted that Ms Wilden is supported by recent complaint evidence, contrary to any suggest of fabrication for the purposes of financial gain.”

“I find Ms Wilden’s accounts of what occurred to be entirely persuasive and reliable. In my opinion, they are neither ‘glaringly improbable’ [n]or ‘inherently unlikely’.”

How can the NRL know this, and feel comfortable with Jennings playing? How can the Roosters defend him? The whole things is awful…

Appreciate the post Brett. You make good points. I promise I am not trying to be a pest or anything…but I cant agree, and I don’t see how many of these points equate to NRL players having more power and leverage, than any other players in team sports.

On point 1, I don’t see how this equates to NRL players having massive amounts of leverage. If the Dragons don’t want Lomax to leave, they don’t have to release him and if they do want Lomax to leave, what they get in return, is cap space to sign someone else (I disagree that cap space is worthless). They can also drop Lomax to a lower grade, if they like. This gives the club plenty of power/leverage.
With the NBA, yes players can be traded anywhere/anytime, but if an NBA player really wants control over where they go, they can refuse to sign any new contracts and become a free agent. Yes, they take a pay cut to do this, but the player has control/power. eg. If Lebron wants to leave the Lakers at the end of this year, he can do so, as a free agent, and sign wherever he wants…he has all the power/leverage.

On point 2, 3 and 4, I’m only arguing the NBA players are supported/backed by a significantly more powerful ‘union’ (yes, it is a union – apparently, the oldest trade union of the 4 professional US sports) vs NRL players who are not. Completely agree though that its not comparing apples with apples…obviously the RLPA has a very long way to go. But in terms of player empowerment, one works much harder for its players than the other.

And for “Do you think Zac Lomax would’ve done what he did if he thought the Dragons might trade him to the Dogs or the Titans?” If the Titans or Dogs will pay him more than a top 4 team, maybe he would do that. I’ve no clue of Zac Lomax’s motivations here. But Koroisau signed with the Tigers, so its not like this hasnt happened before…

And finally, on point 5…I agree! Woo hoo! I think NRL teams should be better compensated on a few fronts. Player ‘swaps’ would be great, if they were more easily implemented and all parties were happy, but I guess this would be rare.

But again, in terms of leverage and power, comparatively, I don’t think the NRL players have much…the best example, we’ll never see a situation where Nathan Cleary, Reece Walsh, Payne Haas and Kaylan Ponga get together, and work out how to buddy up and play together and get away with it!

Agreed. He wont get 800K elsewhere.
Tago, at 21yrs old, just signed for $750K a season. Bradman Best just signed for 700K. Both are future Origin players, and ahead of Lomax on the list of centres you’d want to invest in.
At this stage, ahead of Lomax, I’d have: Farnworth, Critter, Holmes, Graham, Manu, Wighton, Tago, Best, Staggs, Ramien, Talakai and Timoko and probably Koula.

Oh, come on….Comparatively speaking, NRL players are powerless and there’s no way they have more leverage than players in the NBA or MLB.

For starters, NBA players get 50% of the NBA’s revenue (ie. $10 BILLION a year), and their union is incredibly influential. The average NBA salary has gone from $1.5mil in 1995, to $8.75mil in 2022, largely due to the impact of the NBPA. Four times, the NBA has had lockouts where players have basically stopped the season from happening, until negotiations are satisfactory. Their union has its own marketing and licensing arm for goodness sake!

In comparison, the RLPA is not even a registered union and gets $3mil a year from the NRL. The most threatening action they could take, was stopping media interviews and covering sponsor logos for a couple of weeks.

Fact is, in the NRL, if a player wants to leave a club, they can ask or demand it, but there’s no mechanism for them to ‘get out’ of their contract unless the club is happy for them to leave. Eg. The Dragons wouldn’t let Ben Hunt leave when he asked, but will let Zac Lomax leave now. Why? They couldn’t replace Ben Hunt, so wouldn’t let him go back to Queensland for family reasons, but can replace Zac Lomax and probably don’t want an 800K player standing out on the wing. And with Zac, there’s no promise he’ll be paid more to play somewhere else either, once this contract expires.

In the NBA, superstar players can simply refuse to play until the teams has to let them leave. They are paid so highly, that they can afford to do nothing, knowing the team will eventually give in, and their next contract will be big enough to make it worthwhile. They can also sign one or two year deals, knowing the next contract will be bigger again, giving them flexibility and the team uncertainty.

Sorry, but I cant see how anyone could think NRL players have “more power than basically any other league in the world”

Wahs definitely 4th. They were still very good in their two losses…especially against the Storm in Melb. That team is well ahead of Eels, Manly and Sharks for mine…

He could easily have stopped running and waited for the kick. I’m 100% sure, if it was Hynes kicking from the side line, he would have waited.

Whether Fogarty missed or not, or whether he reacted or not, isn’t the issue. We cant have trainers running past kickers while they’re kicking for goal. It’ll cause too many headaches, and is a simple fix.

I’m not saying this trainer needs to be suspended or anything, but he should be warned and so too other trainers.

So you’d be fine with trainers from every club “jogging past” Hynes as he’s kicking for goal each week?

So I’m assuming you’re not on board with Galvin for the Blues 6 jersey? 😂

I think there is a common theme to what Kenny is doing and what Moretti did against Manly. Both are examples of players using the rules to their advantage…something that has been happening since day dot.

With Moretti, its more obvious…he grabbed Jurbo and threw his arms up the Ref straight after. He knew he couldn’t close the gap to Turbo, so milked the penalty. Clever stuff really. Kenny’s work out of dummy half is more subtle, but again, nothing he is doing is illegal. He’s running in a straight line and not looking at the defender, so cant be obstruction. Again, clever stuff that other 9s will be doing this weekend…

What was ROC saying about ‘throwing sensible people off kilter’?? 😂

Great stuff as always Mike…

Although the cynical side of me has to say…with a back 5 of Teddy, Young, Manu, Suaalii and Tupou, it’d be a bit of a problem if this team didn’t have a good attack!!

I think having more reserves is a good idea, but there is a downside….

There’s a good chance with this, that you’d end up with guys sitting on the extended bench, and rarely getting a run. We do this with the 18th man now, but with an extended bench, we’d have four guys potentially spending week after week sitting through games ‘in case’ they’re needed…Its not ideal.

I thought DCE’s comment after the game said it all:

“…the rule is black and white so I get it, but watching that one it’s at the other end of the spectrum isn’t it. I don’t think he’s going to get there so well played to him, he’s played to the rules. Consistency is the key in the NRL… as it stands that’s the way it goes so no problems with it as it stands.”

Moretti did a good job of flagging the obstruction. He even wrapped his arms around Jake at once stage! Doesnt look good, but thems the rules…

Now, if we can clarify contesting the ball from a kick, that would be good!