Everyone in Australia seem to be talking about rugby league players at present. Some of them may even be aware that a competition is in place and we’ve just hit the halfway mark. It seems only yesterday that every player was talking about their hardest pre-season ever, so what has it counted for after 13 rounds.
1. Dragons: A+. The main rival has fallen by the wayside and the Dragons have looked in total control from the start of the season. Hard to find fault in their side except for the club’s recent history of stuffing it at the key moment. Dragons are the stand out and apparently they have some bloke from rugby union keen to join them for the run home.
2. Penrith: A-. Surprise packets of the season. Something has woken the Panthers: maybe the threat of the cashed up hoardes from Victoria muscling in on their territory. But the mountain men have a some genuine stars in their side. The mid-term exam results were that good I had to check the name on the top of the paper a few times.
3. South Sydney: B: It’s still probably too early to believe the hype, but the signings of Dave Taylor and Sam Burgess look shrewd and the development of Sandow and Sutton is going nicely. Issac Luke has gone to a new level, while Rhys Wesser seems to have found the fountain of youth. Could the darlings of the Sydney sports media actually become star pupils?
4. Manly: B-. If this were parent-teacher night, I’d be recommending Des get his kid tested for glasses or maybe ADHD because this team’s inability to find 80 great minutes deserves medical attention (and not just calves’ blood). They’ll need the brains trust of Jamie Lyon and Anthony Watmough firing if they want to do well at the business end.
5. Wests Tigers: B-. Have recovered well from the slump which threatened to end their season before it has begun. Their fans would be happy with fifth, but some of the performances to get there have not been what you would expect from a side looking to really hit its straps. That said, recent form has been good and they could be building. A promising student would should knuckle down to give himself the best shot at the end of year exams.
6. Gold Coast: C. The Titans are like winning a trip to the Gold Coast: it sounds and looks good, but it’s hard to get excited about it after you’ve been there for five minutes (who cares if Scott Prince did get a free house, he’d have to live in it). Need to find a few A+ performances to turn a few heads.
7. Brisbane: C+. Where the hell did these blokes come from? A third of the way through the year, the Broncos looked like an absolute rabble. Suddenly they look like world beaters. The young guns are firing and the old heads are in (or near) career best form. Can you imagine the media hype if Folau goes out with a premiership? A news editor’s head will explode (please don’t tell us which one you’d like it to be).
8. Parramatta: C-. If you look closely, you can just make out the side that blazed a trail into the Grand Final last year. The Eels can either look like a Mercedes Benz or Mercedes Corby. Jarryd Hayne has struggled to hit the heights of last year, and Daniel Mortimer and Jeff Robson, who worked so well, have been hard to notice on the field. Need to lift big time, but do have the cattle.
9. Roosters: C. Started the year turning up early for class and getting a seat at the front (Braith Anasta proclaimed “We can win the comp!”) but have started slipping and the wheels are looking wobbly. The young side may be running out of puff, or maybe Todd Carney needs to have a few beers to get his mojo back.
10. Canberra: C. Once heralded home form has let the Raiders down badly at the start of 2010. Even when the Raiders were crap, they could still churn out the wins at home. Now they are decent, they have struggled to put them together. They’ve had some good wins away this year, and if they can find that home form in the back half of the year, they could make a play for the finals.
11. New Zealand: C-. It’s hard to be super critical of a side that was meant to finish last and has actually put in some solid performances, despite a number of injury setbacks. James Maloney has been a good find, but the Warriors still lack a winning edge and seem soft despite their size.
12. Newcastle: D: Nowhere near the consistency needed to make an impact this year. They do pose some gamebreakers – Aquila “The Thriller” Uate has been one of the wingers of the year, so far, and they seem to have steadied the ship after the off-season from hell. But that ship now seems to have hit the doldrums and could quickly disappear over the horizon of the 2010 season.
13. Cronulla: D+. With two wins out of the last three, and a massive boost in effort, the Sharks have pulled themselves off the canvas, not to make the finals, but at least to avoid humiliation. They have some real workers in the team, and while some players aren’t up to first grade, fullback Nathan Gardner will be interesting to watch for the rest of the season.
14. Canterbury: F. Disgraceful. Two blue chip centres, but they may as well play in a dinner suit because they never see the ball. The inside ball to Michael Hodgson is about as far as it goes for the Bulldogs’ version of high octane attack this year. There is some level of irony to the fact that when the Bulldogs were playing some of their best football, they were handed the wooden spoon on salary cap breaches. Yet now they are playing some of their worst, they’ll avoid it because of another cap scandal.
15. North Queensland: F. Kidding themselves. Nine players who have played Origin and a few good enough to do so. The stories coming from FNQ are constantly about Thurston’s future and whether or not he is happy. Well, I wouldn’t be happy if I was told by everyone I was the world’s best player, yet I couldn’t get my team into the finals or within a bull’s roar of them. JT’s next contract is apparently massive, but it will need to be if there is a swear jar in Townsville because their captain knows how to give a bloke a spray like a prized pork chop.
16. Melbourne: F. Caught cheating on past exams, and still looking over the smart kid’s shoulder, so sent to detention for the rest of the season. I know they still play some really attractive footy, but I just wish they’d shut up about being the victim in all this. David Gallop didn’t rort the system for years on end; the NRL didn’t cheat the books. They did … so cop it. I’m so tired of hearing how hard it is on the Melbourne players. Has anyone even thought about how hard it is on the players who would have won the competition had it not been for a team so far over the cap they still haven’t put a final figure on it.
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