After a month of the 2018 NRL season, the New Zealand Warriors and St George Illawarra Dragons are undefeated, Cameron Smith has been sin-binned and the rulebook is being enforced. Welcome to this alternate universe where I try to make sense of everything in this week’s talking points.

Here’s an idea – play to the rules
Another week and yet more criticism for the men in the middle of the park, but it’s time to focus on the players.

From certain sections of the media ripping the referees apart to fans being frustrated by the number of penalties, has anyone actually thought to tell the players to, you know, play within the rules of the game?

To be fair, I did take a shot at the referees last week for not being consistent, but at least they are cracking down on indiscretions which, for far too long, have been allowed to run rampant. Frankly, it had got to the point where it seemed there was a timer set and the referee would randomly blow a penalty after it went off.

Now, at least, everything is being penalised. If you’re offside, you’re going to get penalised. If you’re holding a player down for too long, that’ll be penalised as well. Don’t want to play the ball correctly? Your teammates mightn’t be happy when they have to defend again.

While the consistency is still a little bit up and down, the crackdown has begun and it’s down to players and coaches to adapt.

Why should we put up with the rules being broken and not penalised? It ruins the game. At the moment, it might be ruining the spectacle, but this is a classic case of short-term pain for long-term gain.

Wayne Bennett said it best before the Broncos’ clash against the Titans.

“We are in this state at the moment because in the last three or four years there were a lot of things let go that shouldn’t have been let go,” said Bennett

“And we’ll get it under control because we are not going to cop 33 penalties,”

“It is who blinks now. If the game blinks, the coaches will be back in control. If the game stays strong, we’ll have to make sure our players are adhering to the rules.

“That’s all [the referees] are doing. They are just enforcing the rules. They haven’t made any new ones.

Trust me, teams will work it out soon enough.

I give up on tipping. 2018 is crazy
Aside from the refereeing dramas to start the new season, how insane has the start of 2018 been?

You have premiership favourites losing, wooden spoon favourites winning and upsets more often than not. Round 4 alone saw the Panthers beat the Cowboys, the Warriors beat the Roosters, the Titans beat the Broncos and the Sharks beat the Storm.

On top of that, the Eels came into Round 4 without a win, the Warriors are undefeated.

It’s just crazy. But thankfully, that’s the way we rugby fans love it. What could be better than an unpredictable, competitive competition? After the drab nature of the 2017 regular season at times, this is a breath of fresh air.

The Warriors are the real deal
Two weeks ago, I asked if the Warriors were the real deal. While it’s an absolute risk to answer that question to the affirmative before they find enough consistency to finish in the top four and win the competition, I’m doing it anyway.

The Warriors have let fans down left, right and centre since they lost the 2011 grand final to Manly, bombing out of contention for the finals and generally not looking like a team with any coherent structure or plan.

2018 was supposed to be the year they won the wooden spoon, with a competition improving all around them

2018 though, is anything but a disaster. While trainer Alex Corvo gets a lot of the credit for the club’s miraculous turnaround, Blake Green is another key reason. His influence in the halves has settled the team into its rhythm early, while the play of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has also been outstanding.

The forwards are rolling and when you can beat the Sydney Roosters without Shaun Johnson, something is definitely going right.

Speaking of being the real deal…

2018 has a different feel for the Red V
Like the Warriors, the Dragons have had a stunning start to 2018. It’s a familiar script for the Red V, who were six of seven last year before they lost a golden point thriller on ANZAC Day.

Poor play, injuries and a lack of momentum and game plan then ruined the back half of the season before they lost to the Canterbury Bulldogs on the final day of the season to miss the finals.

Put simply, Paul McGregor’s men had their pants pulled down and it was embarrassing.

Now, with a functioning set of halves and even more improvements on an already motoring forward pack, the Dragons again look like they are headed for September.

Time will tell, but the combination of Ben Hunt and Gareth Widdop is a winner thus far. Hunt is managing things, Widdop is playing what’s in front of him and arguably, the Englishman is the form player in the competition right now.

Matt Dufty is growing into his role at fullback, Cameron McInnes doing his job at hooker and more impressively, forwards Jack de Belin and Tariq Sims, who has assumed a starting role this season are on fire. Sims aggression has been sensational to watch over the last fortnight, while the lock is pushing his way towards a Blues debut.

September is a long way off and the tag March premiers is out in force, but this has a different feel about it.

Is Greg Inglis back?
While the Rabbitohs’ Good Friday victory over the Bulldogs won’t go down as one of the best games of footy to ever be played, it will be remembered for Greg Inglis starting to look like his old self.

Inglis, ever since he began battling with knee problems has been something of a shadow of the player he used to be – the one which gave him a reputation as one of the best in the game.

His try was brutish on Friday and he had plenty of other strong carries throughout the game, also defending well.

While reports speculate ‘GI’ wants to play fullback, fitness is holding him back for the time being. A little like the Cronulla Sharks with Valentine Holmes though, his best position may not be at the back.

Alex Johnston has made a satisfactory start to the season at the back, and it’s hard to see the Rabbitohs messing with that combination for now, especially when Inglis can be as damaging as he is out wide.

The cracks are there for Melbourne
First up – Cameron Smith got put in the sin bin for backchat. I never thought I’d see the day, but hell has frozen over and we are in this strange new land.

It’s a strange new land which sees the Storm struggling. The cracks are appearing for the men in purple and while I fully expect Craig Bellamy to pull them out of it, they are not going to be the dominant force which has most pundits locking them in for the premiership at this time last year.

At the end of the day, you can’t lose an Australian half and hope to have two youngsters steer the team around exactly the same way.

Melbourne will be there and abouts, no doubt about it, but there are problems to fix moving forward for the men from the Victorian capital, who are yet to play anywhere near what would be considered their best this season.

Memo to Newcastle: Hold onto the Steeden
The Knights were somewhat a little lucky to be two and zero to start the season, but things are starting to catch up with Nathan Brown’s side now.

Plenty of their problems could be fixed with more simplicity though. It’s not often you say a team can improve by dumbing things down, but that’s the exact position the Newcastle-based club find themselves in.

They made 13 errors against the Dragons in an awful performance. Enough of their errors were simple and unforced, and it makes you wonder exactly where the minds are.

11 errors in their Round 3 loss to the Roosters didn’t help either and while they don’t have the most per team in the competition, it’s the position and impact of them which hurts. Many seem to be coming out of their own end, placing the defence under undue pressure which has often ended in points.

They have now conceded 68 of them in two weeks and need to fix things up in a hurry.

How will Manly recover from injuries?
The Sea Eagles might have beaten the Raiders by 16 to continue their strong start to the season, but it didn’t come without a huge cost which could shape the rest of their season.

Trent Barrett will be thanking his lucky stars for second row depth with Curtis Sironen ruled out for the rest of the season. Sironen and fellow second rower Frank Winterstein who were two players who shaped Manly’s 2017 run when no one rated them a chance before the start of the season.

The work they put in on the edges was first class, and the loss of Sironen is a big one. This year, with Joel Thompson in the frame, he and Winterstein can continue on, but any more injuries are going to hurt.

Interchange forward Kelepi Tanginoa has also been ruled out for the season. He has made a barnstorming start to 2018 and the impact he has provided from the pine will be difficult, yet not impossible to replace.

The real problem for Manly will be going without fullback Tom Trbojevic. He seems to be a candidate for injury, with his long limbs and awkward running style often putting him in difficult positions.

While Trbojevic is only set to be out for two weeks, he has started the season strongly and Manly may struggle to have the same level of offensive output for the next fortnight without stand up performances from in-form halves combination Lachlan Croker and Daly Cherry-Evans.

Why were Penrith better without Nathan Cleary?
It makes very little sense, but with Nathan Cleary ruled out for ten weeks, the Panthers turned up to Townsville and played their best game of the season so far.

It beggars belief that a side’s best player can sit out and have his remaining team look ten times better with his absence, but that’s exactly what happened.

Beating the Cowboys wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. The Panthers played an excellent game of footy in the face of adversity, with their halves combination standing up alongside fullback Dylan Edwards.

Their forwards held their own and the biggest challenge for Penrith, who have started slow every game this season, but turned that trend around in Townsville, will now be consistency.

If they can find that, then the sky is the limit for a team who are clearly fit and understand their role within the side.

Ricky blasts the Raiders
“What they dished up tonight, they should be embarrassed to put a Raiders jumper on,” said Raiders coach Ricky Stuart after their abysmal loss at Brookvale.

Not only that, but he also uttered the word ‘soft’ ten – well, by my count anyway – ten times in about three minutes.

The words will sting Stuart’s troops, who still appear to have no plan in attack and very little commitment in the way of defence to start the season. No Blake Austin didn’t help, but rather, only served to confuse matters as they went down to the Sea Eagles.

The side urgently need English rake Josh Hodgson back on the park, but even that may not be enough to fix the green machine’s issues at this point.

Benji showing experience as he winds the clock back
The Tigers half who wasn’t supposed to be in the best 13 four weeks ago has been superb to start the season, but he put in his best performance yet as the Tigers ran away from the Eels on Easter Monday.

How anyone could make a case for dropping Marshall when Josh Reynolds comes back is beyond me. Marshall is one of the form players in the competition, playing with the control and composure of a veteran, but the flare of a youngster fresh on the block – or in other words, showing shades of what he did in 2005.

He was involved in everything that worked for the Tigers on Monday and with the whole Tigers outfit on fire, it’s hard to say they aren’t going to make the top eight right now. The re-integration of Reynolds into the squad could have a lot to do with where they end up.

Positives exist for Canterbury despite loss
Despite losing at the death to the Rabbitohs, Canterbury dominated most of their Good Friday clash. The standard of refereeing will be talked about all week, but the Bulldogs attack, for the most part looked good.

The Morris brothers appear to be in form which we haven’t seen for a number of years for starters. The veteran twins are key to Canterbury, with a number of their attacking raids flowing down the left-hand side.

Kieran Foran’s work is, for the most part, positive (let’s not mention the goalkicking) while his new halves partner Jeremy Marshall-King is taking to first grade like a duck to water.

The work of young winger Marcelo Montoya has also been classy in both defence and attack. He came up with some huge plays against Souths and continues to grow as one of the best youngsters in the competition.

There is a deficiency in being able to close out games, with the side looking fatigued at the end of their Good Friday duel, but the Bulldogs are a side who should challenge for the eight this season after a very tough start to the season draw-wise.

Phillip Sami shows his class
To say Sami didn’t have the greatest start to 2018 with the Gold Coast would be an understatement, but playing outside Ashley Taylor, things were always going to start clicking for the talented winger, and didn’t they ever against Brisbane?

He ended up with three tries and many damaging runs, helping the Titans to a shock upset victory over their south-east Queensland rivals.

Consistency is still to come for Sami, but the signs are positive.

Roarers, what did you make of Round 4? Drop a comment below and let us know.