The reason Tapine ranks so high, is probably to do with the altitude in Canberra. The thinner air means he can run further more quickly/easily…. 😛

I will be interested to see what Eels team take the field tonight.
As currently constituted (with the squad cut to 19), they are not carrying a back up 9 on the bench. Lussick – who is fundamentally a back up to begin with – is either going to play 80 minutes in the heat/humidity, or there is going to be some sort of weird shuffle when Blaze Talagi comes on.
His other bench players are Luca Moretti – who always looks exhausted after he has been on the field for 4 minutes, Ofahengaue who has limited endurance, and Matterson – who interestingly played few minutes last week – possibly to keep him saved up for a big role this week.

If it were me, I would have Talagi in for Harper – forget talent, or potential – just purely for speed and fitness – as that is where the Dolphins have talent – the speed on the flanks – and Harper appears to be among the slowest and most unfit backline players in the NRL (next to Sivo).
And i would bring Hands in onto the bench to cover Lussick and at the end of the day, he could muscle up and play a middle role for a short period if need be.

I think if the Dolphins forwards hold their own, and they are pretty decent in the front row – maybe a bit lean on the edge, they can run around Parra and i give them a massive chance tonight.

Personally i could live with the Katoa try. I think if the rule is around the support player “lending weight”, as a neutral, i could live with the response that NAS doesn’t actually apply any weight – he seems to go to, and pull out. That said, if i was a Rooster, i would not be happy.
They have to own getting the Coates try wrong. Smith is trying to contest for the ball, but once he can’t get there and interferes with Manu, it should be end of the story.

Both teams benefited and were subsequently negatively impacted by rulings.
Personally, i think the bunker flat out got one call wrong (the last try). I think they got it wrong, not intervening with a high shot on Harry Grant that seemed to make impactful contact with Grant on the chin.
I think Klein and his touch judges were horrendous (which will surprise no one as i think Klein is well and truly done). There were wide shots which showed teams way off side. They missed the Jennings knock on before the Manu try. Somehow we went from games averaging 6-10 set restarts, to just one last night (and the one he gave was awful – Teddy flopping back to the ground, 5th tackle 10m out on the attack) in a game which had a whopping 17 penalties. Those two things don’t seem to correlate.
And i think the NRL still has a lot to answer for with the rule creations and the fact that we don’t sin bin for tripping anymore.

As for the result. The Roosters made exactly zero line breaks. You can’t complain about losing and all of the above officiating issues, if you can’t create a single line break.

But will you pay his airfare to go to Las Vegas next year as the Penrith Ambassador ahead of the NRL season openers?

Good get for the Warriors and about time they got someone coming there way on “compassionate grounds” when they lose so many.

I am surprised i didn’t hear James Hooper and co. predicting this move seeing as they know all and see all when it comes to player movements…. oh wait, no they don’t.

Brisbane vs Canberra at Suncorp Stadium: 7.35pm, Saturday April 20
Odds: Broncos $1.35 Raiders $3.20 – odds via PlayUp

I love that the 10th placed Broncos are basically listed as almost unbackable favourites against the 3rd place Raiders. You wouldn’t want to be the first person to walk into Ricky Stuart’s office after he read that…

I have to say. I reckon i would rather go play rugby in Japan, than play for the NSW Waratahs…

I guess Souths are hoping 2 good assistant coaches, with poor head coaching records, equals 1 good head coach.

I don’t subscribe to different teams get treated differently belief. I just think they are incompetently inconsistent and match officials and match review committees are on totally different pages – even though they are ultimately managed by the same person.

Whether you thought Aloai running into Johnson was a penalty or not, let this sink in.
Aloai got charged with a grade 2 offence and is suspended.
Klemmer with two forceful high shots in quick succession – at least one of which was arguably intentional, got 2 x grade 1 offences and is playing this weekend…

But concussion and protecting the head is a serious issue..

I’m not sure on the total yardage thing. A big chunk of total metres run against you is kick return metres and kick off return metres. Souths numbers would have gone up since Reynolds left as he was a master at finding touch and Souths scored a lot. The disparity in previous years also would have shifted because they got a lot of set restarts (from Reynolds) where they made lots of yards on the drop out return – which no longer happens with all the short drop outs.

Similar reason to why Parra’s numbers are high. They score alot, Moses and Brown are near the top of the league for set restarts (before the short drop out became a thing so the disparity between metres made and conceded is gone) and Moses can kick the ball to next week, meaning longer kick returns.

I will say on the age thing though – Alex Johnson through 5 games (missed the last 2 through injury) is being outscored by his direct opponent 6 tries to 1 so far this year.

So he should pick a team on form. i.e, players who are playing well when the game comes around.

But here are the players he should have a red pen through, and here is the team that should be picked on form…. with a bunch of players who are out injured and not even playing….. 7 weeks before they have to pick a team…. by which time form could have changed substantially… Got it.

I’d agree that Teddy is still th ebetter option at fullback. The bigger problem being MAnu is a bit wasted at Centre. Fullbacks chiming into the line with a good selective cut out pass is defintely an advantage and Manu has a good pass in his repertoire, he just doesn’t seem to use it or put players in position of advantage enough. But I am sure there are plenty of clubs who would love to have him as fullback.

“When Hastings was in Cup, he brained it and forced a recall, with Gamble the man dropping out – but he’s clearly too good for that level as well.. “
It is a problem to me if we are in a place where Tyson Gamble is “clearly too good” for the second tier of the game. That suggests the trajectory of player depth in the NRL is not good.

Geez i felt bad for Metcalf. That kid has talent to burn and just needs some luck. If Martin is the replacement for the year, i struggle to see them being a threat. Martin always had rarified talent, but he was a a-grade clown off the field coming through. Maybe he has grown up, and if so, good luck to him and hopefully the patches where he showed his talent, he can sustain for a prolonged period.

Well Toovey would want his credit, but remember, Lyon is the guy who literally sooked about getting a free education at Parra Marist Brothers and a chance to play football, and refused to wear a tie to a school where every kid had to wear a tie back

I think we probably have enough tape on May to work out he may be a bit of a human colostomy bag, but agree, it would be an over reach to sanction this one.

A few years back, meteorologists and environmental scientists were perplexed by curious swell readings they would get at Dee Why beach which were not consistent with other weather readings. It turned out there was a correlation with Manly home games and the draft caused by the simultaneous 13 man arm flapping of the Manly football team captained by J Lyon…

I get the anti Gutho sentiment in that, he asks a lot of questions of referee’s. I personally don’t think he does it any more than any other captain, but it has been made into a narrative in the social media world, so the pile on effect is in full swing. Parramatta fans will tell you that they had a captain in Nathan Cayless who was a very good player, but in a decade as captain he never once spoke to a referee, much less questioned a call or planted a seed for a future call.

No one can question his effort, skill, commitment etc. Outsiders comment on him barking at his teammates. But i think you see plenty of him giving them pats on the back, and generally having their back. Generally people will cop criticism if there is balance and they get positive reinforcement as well. So he seems well supported by his team mates.

Here is my take on the disruptor disaster.

First the NRL decided they didn’t want kickers touched. They gradually built the rules from must be making a tackle, to can’t touch the legs. Now you can’t even push a guy kicking the ball and breathing on him is even risky. The net result is a kicker now knows he has all the time in the world to kick a ball and he won’t be hit. So they get a better grip, can slow down their momentum, get plenty of height on the ball and drop it on a 20c coin. Not just Cleary and Reynolds and Moses, all of them do (well, maybe not Aiden Seizer, but that’s another conversation 😛 ) . Throw in the seven tackle set if a ball is caught on the full in goal, and we have what we have now – bombs landing on top of the winger to be batted back.
So now this has created an in balance in the defender trying to catch the ball… so bring in the “disruptor” and the “drop zone” and all the calamity that comes with trying to work it out.
This NRL admin thinks they are so smart with all their rule changes…. Not so much.

He didn’t look like a man under pressure at all…..

If he has the same inability to hide the stress and pressure infront of his players as he does the media, Souths are in trouble..

True. He is the only one with two brothers who have played in the NRL?

…That’s what you meant right? 😛

I didn’t watch any pre game coverage, but it was interesting to note that as Jennings walked onto the field with his kids etc, that Voss and Ennis (on Fox coverage) basically ignored the images.

Roosters back 5 stats… Spot the odd man out.
Manu: 29 runs 307m
Tupou: 22 runs 232m
Suaalii: 19 runs 195m
Pauga: 13 runs 124m

oh, and
Jennings: 8 runs 57m

To be fair, across on Fox, If you were playing a drinking game and sculling every time Ennis talked about Ponga, you would have been more drunk than Joey was for the entirety of 2003-2004.

At one point he was in middle of giving Ponga a wrap for a run that was just made… as the ball was being passed to Ponga on the next play the ball (because he had the wrong player)

It is interesting though. Historically, how often as a match report included a line like – “the lobsided penalty count of 8-2”, and then a ref come under criticism for that or for evening it up late. But we very rarely see it being reported what the set restart counts were. You are right, the set restarts have a huge impact on the game, but, for whatever reason, the fact that it is not highly reported, kind of protects the officials a bit.

Take Ponga away from the Knights and they have nothing. Absolutely nothing. No speed, no sleight of hand, no one who can step through the line, no kicking game. Nothing.

Late in the game, Vossy was hyping up the Knights maybe going for a 2 point field goal, completely ignoring the fact Hastings first half attempt was 15m wide of the posts and 15m short, and that every other kick by Hastings was ordinary at best.

I thought after the Knights first 20minutes it was all Roosters and it was only that the Roosters were so committed to sticking to their up the middle game plan, and (to the Knights credit) their low turnover rate, that the Roosters didn’t bury them. I think had they not been making so many metres u the middle in the first half they would have been better kicking early and to space and making Ponga try get to the ball before a flying Suaalii, but down on troops, they seemed determined to stick to the original plan.

Manu is a beast – if only he passed a little more.
May was great. If there was a criticism, its that he fights so hard in the tackle that he ends up with a real slow play the ball.
Brandon Smith has now had a few pretty good games over the last month. Starting to get back to Storm form.
Still not convinced the Knights first try should have been allowed. But it wasn’t the most perplexing decision on the night.