Watching Manly crush the Knights at Brookvale, I saw that they crushed them in more ways than one. I have seen this, and now I believe that the sport of NRL is getting tougher each year.
It has all happened in the NRL this year, but one factor that stands out is the amount of injuries that have occurred in the space of three rounds.
Going back to the Manly-Newcastle match, with still a half-an-hour to play, the Knights’ bench was deserted. Beau Henry went off with a leg injury, and his replacement, Ben Rogers, an arm injury.
And more were all casualities in the match.
Richard Fa’aoso who was in Disneyland and had to struggle to keep in the match because there was no-one on the bench. Earlier, Shannon McDonnell was also knocked cold, but played on, and Matt Hilder was winded quite badly in a tackle, but bravely continued to play.
The night before, West Tigers’ stars Lote Tuqiri and Chris Lawrence suffered injuries in their 34-24 win against Canberra. This season, Sam Burgess, Manu Vatuvei and Kevin Gordon, all stars of our game, were also knocked out with injuries.
Besides the injuries, there has been more sin-binning, a send off, and a few reports. Last weekend, two players were sin-binned – Fui Fui Moi Moi and Matt Cooper – for silly reasons.
The NRL is heating up big time now. The players will literally put their body on the line in every match, causing entertaining encounters which pull in fans to every match.
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