Three talking points from Round 2 of the NRL season

After the second week of football there are some great and controversial events to talk about, so here are the most important talking points.

The NRL needs to crack down on foul play
On Thursday night, Storm second-rower Felise Kaufusi appeared to have struck Eels star Ryan Matterson with his right elbow. This blew up the NRL world as Kaufusi was only punished with two weeks on the sideline.

One of the many rugby league fans who did not take this situation lightly was Paul Kent, as he described on NRL 360, calling it a “disgusting act”. The most controversial thing that came out of this was that Kaufusi was only sentenced to two weeks of non-playing time.

It was the NRL that looked worse after the charges as Felise should have definitely been charged at least five weeks for his act.

All you have to do is look at an example on Friday night, as Jamayne Tauno-Brown was charged three weeks for a crusher tackle where it was accidental as it was in an awkward motion, and that somehow got one more week than what Kaufusi was charged.

It was clearly a purposeful action, as the right elbow of Kaufusi was accelerated when falling to the ground. You could argue that is what slow-motion makes you think, however you can see on live footage that he extended the elbow to make a hard impact onto Ryan Matterson’s face.

Overall, it just comes down to the NRL judiciary, as they want to get this sort of stuff out of the game, however they go charging players only two weeks for a disgraceful act.

The only way that the NRL will get this nonsense out of the league is if they are harsh on players who commit stupid plays like this.

Broncos Old Boys race day cancelled
On Sunday, Queensland legend Gordan Tallis spoke out on Fox Sports News, stating that the Brisbane Broncos had an Old Boys race day cancelled after their loss on Friday night to the Titans.

The Raging Bull has been critical of the Broncos organisation for some time now (Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Tallis did not agree with the decision of Kevin Walters to scrap the day as he spoke about how it is an opportunity for the retired players to have a chat and socialise with the new-look, young Broncos side.

Another Broncos legend, Corey Parker lashed back at the Raging Bull by quoting “it’s in the interest of the team, not what the old-boys think”, then going on to say, “If the old boys are fair dinkum and they want to turn up to support the team, go to training.”

As a Broncos fan, I will have to be on Parker’s side of the argument because I am 100 per cent sure that Brisbane fans like me would not want to see their team on the drink at the races after starting the season 0-2.

Walters made the right decision to scrap the day, knowing that this team has not started the season how they like and need to already be in preparation for the upcoming game against the Bulldogs on Saturday.

Sharks’ goal-kicking stops them from reaching 2-0 start
To round out the week, the Cronulla Sharks took on the Canberra Raiders in arguably the best game of the round. With not much anticipation coming into the match-up, the Sharks were up for the fight as they were two penalty goals away from winning the match.

They were prevented from the win as Chad Townsend missed two penalty goals in the final ten minutes of the game. If he made both of these shots, they would have secured their second win, or if he made at least one of them, the game would have been sent to golden point.

If you are a team’s main goal-kicker, you have got to make at least one of them.

Overall, the Cronulla Sharks might have to re-evaluate their pick for first-choice goal-kicker, as by no means is Chad Townsend a bad goal kicker, but he just could not handle the pressure, which is one of a great goal-kicker’s characteristics.