It was effectively a deliberate elbow, he’s very lucky it is only 3 weeks. Wasn’t much of an elbow but it was still an elbow.

If Angus Crichton is healthy (which might be debatable) he’s good value for $800k per year, at least when compared to the winger they signed on double that.

It’s often not as well. He looks ordinary in State of Origin because the NSW packs don’t have the same dominance as the Penrith pack usually does.

Cleary is a much better player than Marshall was when he switched to Union. In addition he is a much more physical player than Benji ever was and that would make him a better fit into Union.

Realistically however why would he be interested in switching? He’s apparently on $1.1M and could probably get over $1.5M a year plus with another league club if he wanted to leave dad, his mates and a premiership winning team. In addition in 5 years he is under 30 and being talked about as an immortal in League.

This figure shows you how incompetent the ARU are to have apparently paid $1.6M for a largely untested winger.

It would take less than 2 years to learn the game but realistically no halfback looks good behind a pack going backwards and the Wallaby forwards rarely go in the correct direction anymore so he’s definitely not going to solve the ARU issues — neither will another review but that is what will happen.

In saying this he is a couple of classes above the current Wallabies options and would be a success if he got bored with League and wanted another challenge.

Personally Eddie Jones has done Australian Rugby a great service by picking an inexperienced squad and not having a game plan. Rugby Australia has been a fiasco for at least 20 years and has managed to get by due to the Wallabies achieving reasonable results. 20 years of incompetence has finally affected the headline act which means something might actually happen.

Will sacking Eddie achieve anything other than bankruptcy from being forced to pay out his contract, probably no despite the fact that he doesn’t deserve to be retained as I’m sure the ARU wasn’t smart enough to include a performance clause. Should McLennan be sacked, possibly but his job is not to get on field results and the ARU is looking profitable due to some off field successes he has had. His decision to employ Eddie is however making his job retention look less attractive.

The ARU needs to do a complete review and overhaul. My personal opinions, which aren’t worth anything, are:

– They need to realise not every Rugby player goes to an exclusive private school and it is highly possible that kids who see sport as their only way forward might actually be worth chasing. Keebra Park has been the best Rugby League school in QLD for probably more than 30 years and from their Wikipedia page they have 54 notable alumni for Rugby League and 2 for Rugby Union (Ben Te’o who played Union for England is listed under League). Some of these League players would have been better Union players than League players in my view. This doesn’t include those that didn’t make it to the NRL or Super League due to being the wrong body shape for League

– People keep saying the club competition is strong. I’m not an expert in Sydney geography but the Shute Shield appears to have 1 club in the true west of Sydney. League has Parramatta, Canterbury and Penrith (not sure if Wests Tigers are in the “true” west)

– Brisbane competition doesn’t have any clubs in the Ipswich region or the Sunshine Coast and their Gold Coast team is linked to Bond University which I don’t think really appeals to the young public school kids living in Coomera who work as tradies

– An issue is kids not getting picked up in the talent identification and going to League or overseas. Cutting the Super Rugby teams from 5 to 4 seems a more short term view than improving the talent identification systems.

– Junior Rugby gets the occasional visit from Reds and Wallaby players on the Gold Coast, AFL and Rugby League via the Titans and Suns are everywhere. AFL in particular has done a great job at identifying those taller kids that aren’t that common and getting them to play AFL over Rugby Union / Basketball.

– When you look for replacement coaches for Eddie there aren’t many options, which is shown by the Reds finally getting rid of Brad Thorn and replacing him with a Rugby League player in Les Kiss. Kiss had to move to London to get a head coaching job in addition to getting his first Union coaching gig with South Africa according to Wikipedia. Coaching development needs to be improved throughout the system so that those that want to become coaches get a system and structure to allow them to reach the top.

None of the above include paying way too much money for an NRL winger who isn’t that good now he is playing guys the same size as him and won’t be any good if the players inside him can’t get him the ball.

There’s two parts to his comments.
(1) South Africa shouldn’t be allowed to have 7 forwards on the bench — that is a decision that they make and could easily bite them in the butt so nothing for World Rugby to act on
(2) There should be 6 replacements rather than 8 — personally I agree with him on that given the fitness of the underlying professional players

The State government has been wanting to sell off the Broadbeach State School for years but they realise there is an exceptionally high concentration of millionaires in the 5 square kilometres around the school that would fund a court case. At least it wasn’t one of the usual bull…t articles from someone based in Sydney or Melbourne that doesn’t know anything about the Gold Coast.

I’ve watched the tackle and disagree with you, in my opinion he slid around as opposed to “dropped down”. As I said it will be charged and it has been which basically means that any tackle around the legs now has to be completely front one in my view. It also means the NRL agrees with you but where I was wrong is that he is only getting 1 week instead of 2.
The one with Moe was directly in front of me and he slid down to bring the Souths player to the ground without any real weight being applied. The only reason he was placed on report was that the tackler across the top pushed the Souths player backwards who then stayed down prior to a miracle recovery a few tackles later (I’m not 100% sure on the recovery but think he was running pretty well 2 plays later)
In relation to the penalties for tackling Tannah Boyd
(1) Were they late — yes
(2) Could the defender have pulled out — yes
Therefore they are penalties. Personally I don’t think they are penalties as there was nothing in them but if the NRL is to be consistent then they are penalties. I don’t listen to the Fox Sport commentators so them stating it was only a “touch late” doesn’t really change anything given they always support the larger clubs such as Souths against the smaller clubs such as Gold Coast.
Sorry about the formatting, I’m not sure what has happened

In relation to the Jai Arrow tackle it wasn’t a sin bin because it wasn’t a hip drop. Just because someone gets hurt doesn’t make a tackle illegal. I do however agree with your comment that the interpretation is exceptionally inconsistent which probably means that the Titan’s hooker and Moe for the later tackle (which definitely wasn’t a hip drop) will get two weeks for perfectly legal tackles.

I’ve always been fascinated by the popularity and otherwise of South Sydney. I was born in November 1971, which is more than 51 years ago, and Souths have won one premiership in that period if I am correct. Their supporters carry on as if the NRL need them but in reality the competition carried on without them when they got booted after Super League. To me they are no different from North Sydney – a team that was basically irrelevant leading up to them being kicked out that has a solid supporter base that would miss them whilst everyone else continues without them.

A personal opinion is they have the 2nd most annoying supporters but at least the Bronco supporters have something from the past 35 years to back up their obnoxiousness.

As to the salary cap, all clubs can find room when they need to, the NRL doesn’t want a repeat of the Melbourne Storm fiasco and you simply screw players over to get the one you need. There is no such think as loyalty in the NRL anymore.

At you’re consistent in sticking the boot into the Titan’s. They completed badly but their defense has improved considerably since Round 2 which has been their problem for years. Realistically if you took the 2nd and 3rd best player’s out of any team, which Brimson and Foran probably are (Brimson definitely is but you could argue about Foran), they would struggle. A win is a win.

I can’t think of a League convert that did worse than Garrick Morgan or Tony D’Arcy when they moved to League. Both took the money and regretted it, which personally I think was the case with Hunt and Folau with the AFL money. Burgess moved over too soon before the World Cup and it showed, this is poor coaching and planning as much as anything else.

Even Brad Thorn could turn Payne Haas into a decent Rugby Union player. The majority of top level NRL players could walk into one of the Australian Rugby Union teams with six months of decent training, which means it won’t ever happen since one of the many issues Rugby has in Australia is poor coaching.

The kid changing codes is immaterial because Australian Rugby will do what they have done in the past and waste the coming influx of money and ignore the grass roots. He’ll either end up in France or back at Sydney City in a few years.

MMA fighter, would be much more recognisable than any Rugby Union on a world wide scale and definitely more recognisable than any Australian Rugby player. The article seemed pretty pointless but my interpretation was that Rugby isn’t as important as Soccer (or Football as they preferred it to be called).

I’m a touch confused about the headline since Bi Polar is a medical condition. Would you say that he had a medically diagnosed broken leg? One positive from the post is that the majority of the comments, excluding the first part of the post by ImperialWizard, have been reasonable. I hope he sticks with the treatment process and it goes well for him.

and you were replaced by someone who has stayed, settled in and is adding to the Gold Coast community. The 6th largest city in Australia and growing quicker than most, even allowing for the people from Sydney and Melbourne who leave within 18 months because they couldn’t cope. Now they have better relationships with Keebra and Palm Beach the kids are coming through and being locals they will be better than the blow ins – just like when you’re looking for employees.

The Charger’s already refused a merger with the Hunter Mariner’s. Probably wasn’t the smartest decision but now the Titan’s have owners with money that ship has passed. We’ll just target the Penrith kids who won’t make their A Grade team. The only person who has ever decided Penrith was better than the Gold Coast is Tyrone Peachey.

Meninga is close to Hayne as the worst signing the Titans have ever made. Slightly below Jamal Idris and Dave Taylor.

Bit harsh in relation to Chris Close. His fitness didn’t help but most centres would be behind Mal Meninga and Gene Miles

Phil Gould will end up being the saviour, Barrett in June is probably a fair bet.
Max King is a good solid signing, I hope he goes well.

Holbrook will be at the club for longer than Fifita. One has changed the culture of the place and the other is being paid more than he should be for 60 minutes of football.

Whilst he does a lot of good things in attack Fifita doesn’t really add much in the Titan’s own half or defense with Holbrook deliberately keeping him on the bench for the initial period and then playing him through. The other approach was splitting his time and realistically it would still be 60 minutes as he wasn’t fit enough for 80 minutes last year.

He apparently looks fitter this year which hopefully means he will play for 80 minutes. If he can run the ball in his own half he might be worth over $1M pa. Luckily he doesn’t need a good halfback to create a gap because the Titan’s can’t afford one due to what he is being paid.

I would agree Marzhew should be ahead of Sami on any day that ends in y. He can make a huge difference but there is a spot in the centres for whichever of Sami or Herbert can learn to pass. The last play was not the first time similar events had happened during the year.

I’m just hoping that Fifita or Tino can play in the halves as it is a lot of pressure to put on a player with next to no experience at the top level (Sexton) and someone who has previously been tried at 5/8 who did that well he went to fullback (Brimson). Preston’s kid looked ok but at 78 kg’s I’m concerned about 2nd year syndrome.
I’m impressed that Holbrook seems ok to move on player’s who he doesn’t think are good enough to win a premiership in Fogarty and Taylor but it would be nice to have a replacement lined up.

How do you think the next family get together would have been like? Personally he threw Trevor under the bus more than anything else with that decision.

and the South African board members