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Opinion
A shocking bye week for Canberra, audio issues, do we have enough interchange and what happened to all that payback for the Warriors?
Here’s your week nine NRL midweek talking points.
Canberra’s Dally M and Clive Churchill medallist Jack Wighton is to Souths for an olympiad, and good for him. Set aside all the hand wringing about the strong getting stronger and all that, this was a personal choice which very, very rarely comes around like this for a player of Wighton’s stature.
He’d earned the right to choose.
Wighton has shown in State of Origin and international games that he slots right in around the best of the best and right now, South Sydney is his shot at a premiership.
It’s a blow for the Raiders, but they’ll have some cash spare to lock away good young talent and maybe target a proven five eighth who can support Jamal Fogarty.
It’s great business for Souths, who intend to play Wighton in the centres where he can be a wrecking ball. It’s not really anything for the Dolphins, who had a crack but didn’t win the day.
The average NRL career is around 48 games. It’s an incredibly short time to make as much money as you can and win as much as you can if you’re lucky enough.
If you’re able to set yourself up for life while playing, all the better for you. I’ll never think badly of a player who makes a call like this for their career. None of us should.
Jack Wighton of the Raiders (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Remember all the patronising talk about New Zealand as they spent two years living away from home, with everyone hailing their ‘sacrifice’ and lauding what they did to keep the competition alive during COVID-19, ruining their pathway teams and losing their women’s team in the process?
It’s time the NRL put their money where their mouth is and gave something back for what they did, because it’s really starting to look like head office is happier to move on with a brief ‘thanks for that’.
Many ideas were thrown around abut how the game could repay the Warriors – a season of home games, State of Origin in New Zealand, better scheduling or home games, an extra club cash allocation, you name it.
But New Zealand got a Round 1 home game for the first time in 25 years, and that seems to be that. They once again had to travel to Melbourne for the ANZAC Day match where surely that was a no-brainer to host across the ditch.
So what’s next? Anything? Or are we going to pretend nothing happened?
Marata Niukore and Shaun Johnson celebrate. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Last week your talking points wanted to solve extra time rules because of something that happens very rarely, this week we turn to the bench and substitution rules after New Zealand were left with no fit players for the last 15 minutes of their Tuesday game in Melbourne.
The Warriors lost Tohu Harris, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Jazz Tevaga and Bayley Sironen and while they fought to the end, they were at an undeniable disadvantage.
Teams have four bench players and the substitute, who can’t be activated unless two players fail head injury assessments. An extended bench of five (including the sub) is announced before final selections are made.
Yes, what happened to the Warriors was incredibly rare, but teams are running shorthanded more and more with players going down. And yes, even if you extended the interchange bench, there’s always an outside chance you’ll run out of players.
But would it be a bad thing to just have a few more bench players? It couldn’t hurt…
Whether you liked him or not, one of the best things about watching a game called by a broadcaster like Ray Warren was his understanding of what was unfolding in front of him. The highlights, the key moments, all given the urgency and respect they deserved and run of the mill play was called straight down the line. It brought us along as viewers.
So it’s somewhat jarring to watch Mat Thompson go about it at full volume for 80 minutes, whether IT’S A PENALTY! in the eighth minute, or going ape about a team scoring to extend their lead to 18 with four minutes left.
Relax, Mat. I know you’re having a heap of fun, but if everything is worth shouting about, nothing is worth shouting about.
A lot of games with implications for finals jostling this weekend, starting tonight with Cronulla looking to put another nail in the Cowboys’ coffin. North Queensland are in real strife and need to claim a scalp.
Friday night has a couple of interesting games as Parramatta welcome the Knights in the early game, with the winner keeping touch with the top eight and the loser deep in the drama.
The primetime game is in Brisbane, unbelievably. The Broncos go head to head with the Bunnies, top against fourth in what promises to be a belter.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Saturday’s games are important for the plans of all involved as the Raiders and Dolphins play in Wagga Wagga, Manly and the Gold Coast play at Brookvale and Penrith host Wests Tigers in Bathurst. The Tigers are due a win, but it won’t be coming this week.
The week closes with the Warriors and Roosters which will be worth a watch then St George Illawarra and Canterbury, which with all respect to those involved probably will not be worth a watch.
Melbourne have the bye and the guaranteed two points, which will see them on the fringes of the top four or actually in the top four when the dancing is done.
– I spend quite a bit of time in the talking points reminding people not to overreact to premiership contenders who start seasons slowly, but goodness me the Roosters need to start getting themselves together…
– Big crowd in the hammering rain up in Darwin for Parramatta and the Broncos, with 11,864 packing TIO stadium, pushing capacity.
– A run of the mill win over the depleted Bulldogs has quietly put the Sharks back in contention for their top four spot.
– Good to see Kalyn Ponga return incident free for Newcastle against North Queensland. Played a good game too as the Knights fell agonisingly short of the win.
What’s got you talking ahead of this weekend, Roarers?