I’ve read that opening line a handful of times and still can’t work out how much sarcasm (if any) is in it)
The problem being that if the Titans are the golden standard, then that standard probably suggests, mid season sacking aren’t great. lets look at that timeline:

2014: 14th – Cartwright sacked mid season for Neil Henry
2015: 14th
2016: 8th!
2017: 15th – Sack Henry mid season and have interim coach Matterson.
2018: 14th – Brennan First season
2019: 16th – Brennan sacked and Luke Burt is interim coach
2020: 9th – Holbrook starts
2021: 8th
2022: 13th
2023: 14th – Holbrook sacked. Hasler named for 2024, but Lenihan is interim
2024: Headed for last

Yes they do plenty of mid season sacking, they just never do much for the club. So not sure they are the example for why clubs should get on with sacking coaches early in the year.

I agree 100% with your first paragraph, except for “Mahoney was never staying no matter how much we offered.”. The offer from the Dogs didn’t appear to be that much more than what the Eels were offering, and couldn’t be with the overs they were spending on every player that was on the market. It came back to Gould doing a better job than O’Neill and O’neill not valuing the hooking role appropriately. Even signing Hodgson – Apart from his skill set being several years in the past, the chances of him being physically capable of playing for one year, much less three, if the plan was to buy time to bring on Arthur, was wildly flawed.

As you say, O’Neill should have already gone – nay he should never have been in the role – and having a CEO who was previously on the Board – so is unlikely to be held accountable by the friends who put him there, are the key issues, not that BA shouldn’t be held accountable for second halves like Darwin – but he at least takes ownership of his under performance.

Fair play to Chevy Stewart for getting up every time he got knocked down. He gets the Cumbawumba award.
But if we are wrapping inexperienced fullbacks for their Rd 7 play, then I would take the performance of Trai Fuller of the Dolphins as the performance of the week.

Ethan Sanders may well have to play this weekend for the Eels due to injuries, and while i will acknowledge i didn’t see their loss to the Roosters on the weekend (Eels NSW Cup side is now 1-6), he has literally had 1 good game all year. He now has 4 try assists on the year and 3 came in one game against the Bears where he seemed to go pretty well.

100% on ANZAC jerseys.

The thing about coaches who whinge. If Robbo goes in the NRLHQ whinging about an unfair call, and the NRL say, “well you did get this other one that went in your favour”, it is basically them saying they stuff up twice as much as Robbo says they are and reinforces his position on their incompetence impacting results.

20 point average winning margin for the round – far from ideal.

The Dogs are fun again.

Dragons – are not always pretty, but in all their wins they have legitimately and clearly been the better side. What’s the cooling off period like on NRl player deals…? Lomax might be changing his mind..

Cowboys defence looks pretty average. Old middle forwards with a lot of km’s in the legs is not helping – and, not that it is an excuse; Flying home to Townsville from Sydney on a Sunday and having to fly back the following Saturday, is not ideal – though consistent with the lucky breaks the Sharks seem to get..

Parra… The fans are whinging about taking games to Darwin, but they have been going for 10 years, with the same coaches, and they still haven’t worked out how to prepare for the unique conditions.

While Canberra and the Eels may jag a win or two without Fogarty and Moses respectively, its hard to see the Knights breaking 12 points in a game without Ponga. They could free fall.

Ricky is about to go a couple of months without the key to the Raiders success – his halfback’s kicking game. Give it time, there will be some monumental blow ups when his team lose a few games in a row.

He’s in the cross hairs because someone has to be and Parra with a big supporter base will get a media type more clicks if they right about the club.
The people who should be in the cross hairs are Mark O’Neil and Jim Sarantinos. I bet most Eels fans and readers on this site, wouldn’t have been able to name who the Eels CEO is, and Sarantinos has been in the job for about 5 years! While BA is on the recruitment committee, ultimately it is MON’s job, and he has been a disaster.
It sounds like you think the Hodgson signing was a good one? The 31 year old had basically missed 2 of the last 3 seasons before joining the Eels, and the season he did play was pretty ordinary. It was a horrible signing with a strong chance of failing with Hodgson either not being up to it, or getting injured…. and what a surprise, he lasted 12 starts – was poor in all of them, and ultimately couldn’t go on because his body failed him. The combination of losing Mahoney and signing Hodgson when your squad was built to win now, was close to a fireable offence. I’m sure losing Mahoney wasn’t what BA wanted and signing a washed up, injury prone player – I would like to think BA learnt his lesson early on with Watmough on that front. He was let down by MON and his mismanagement and Sarantinos, being too busy doing nothing..

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..