The Roar
The Roar

The Roar

Ryan O'Connell

Expert

Joined February 2011

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"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting." - George Orwell

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As I said, we all have our own tastes!

Who are we hiring - and firing - for the best rugby league TV coverage possible?

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League
 
Oct

Gang, I deliberately said at the end that I may have overlooked someone, and I most definitely did, and have been called on it. Billy Slater is great, and shocking admission from myself!

Poor form!

Who are we hiring - and firing - for the best rugby league TV coverage possible?

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League
 
Oct

That’s actually scarily apt.

Welcome competition in the rugby broadcast rights race - and a farewell, for now…

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Rugby
 
Oct

We did a podcast?

Welcome competition in the rugby broadcast rights race - and a farewell, for now…

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Rugby
 
Oct

Yep! You’re words, not mine:

My not so fearless picks:

Roosters three-peat
Tedesco to double down on the Dally M and Wally Lewis medals and add a Churchill
Manly top three and GF appearance
Souths to miss the eight
Sharks AND Broncos to make the eight

Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2020 NRL season

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League
 
Oct

What’s even better is that you admitted they weren’t even fearless!! (It’s a mug’s game, this prediction business.)

Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2020 NRL season

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League
 
Oct

Ah, but I said “the season”, not “his season”.

Checkmate!

Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2020 NRL season

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League
 
Oct

You’ve actually made me feel a bit better about mine, Duckie!

Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2020 NRL season

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League
 
Oct

NSW to win the series 4-0.

Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2020 NRL season

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League
 
Oct

I spoke to Gus, and he has Penrith winning Powerball. He say they’re right on top, despite not having picked any of the correct numbers.

Ask Buzz, he’ll let you know!

Revisiting my five fearless predictions for the 2020 NRL season

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League
 
Oct

Good riddance. On your bike.
????

Welcome competition in the rugby broadcast rights race - and a farewell, for now…

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Rugby
 
Oct

There’s a part of me that’s impressed by the bravado to write the following sentence:

‪“Does Tedesco hate the bright lights? I think so . . . yes, he scored the winning try in Origin last year and yes, he scored the winning try in the grand final last year, but . . . “‬

There’s a larger part of me that’s extremely unimpressed. But hey, I read the piece and commented, so well done! You win! Of course, the modern coverage of sports loses once again though . . .

Smith remains the game’s best player because Tedesco disappears in big moments

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League
 
2020

I certainly respect him coming back from a serious injury. Though it’s touch difficult for me to call him a “good team player” when he came back from the off-season overweight and lacking fitness. That was the beginning of the end of him in Canberra, apparently.

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Excuse my ignorance, but how is that “being a team player”?

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Touche!

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

But not the coach, apparently, who said he wasn’t good enough for the team.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/leilua-reveals-fallout-with-stuart-led-to-raiders-exit-not-scott-arrival-20200127-p53v6e.html

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Haha! Touché!

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

That’s not quite the way it was reported . . .

(Coach Rick Stone:) “Culturally, we have made a decision and made a bit of a stand for what we think is acceptable at our place. I know it’s a hard one to pull the trigger on and possibly, it mightn’t make our team any better but we think for the long run, it will be better for our club.”

The breakdown in the relationship between Leilua and the club can be traced back to Stone’s public criticism of the centre in The Daily Telegraph back in February after he returned to pre-season training from the Four Nations tournament a few weeks prior badly out of shape and weighing 111kg.

At the time, Stone fired a rocket at Leilua because of his poor attitude to training and suggested he was no certainty to start the season in the NRL.

Around the same time, Leilua also had a run-in at training with senior player Beau Scott, who accused him of not putting in.

Leilua’s reaction to the criticism was to seek an immediate release which was when his management first put feelers out with other clubs.”

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Yep, agreed that we’re all experts in hindsight, but I think that’s the issue: many people predicted this when Leilua was signed, rather than just mouthing off now.

If in 3-4 years Joey has matured and eradicated the mental errors in his game, I’ll happily eat humble pie. He won’t be the first player to grow up and change the narrative on his career. But at 28 years of age and ten seasons of experience, time is running out. At a certain point, some players are simply who they are.

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Aiden gets it! 👍

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

No, they weren’t! That’s what makes it a horrible signing! It’s like dating a girl that everyone tells you will break your heart, and then dating her and getting your heart broken anyway.

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

” . . . the people in charge of these Clubs are not silly”. Not sure I could disagree more with that statement! Plenty of clubs, including the Tigers, have made very silly decisions in recent times.

Agreed that many coaches/management back themselves to be the club that can harness a player’s ability and minimise their deficiencies. But like I said, with Leila that is a massive risk, because the evidence is stacked against you. All 3 of Leilua’s previous clubs showed him the door, and if you’ve watched a decent amount of his games, you’ll know what type of player he is.

It’s fine to roll the dice with a player like that, and believe he’ll be better when he’s playing for your club, but when it fails – and the evidence told you it would fail – you need to need to bare the brunt of criticism.

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Well, if you read past the headline, you’ll see it’s a little more nuanced than that, but I take your point, as I hate pieces that are purely based on tweets as well.

Two things though: as mentioned, it’s more about the Leilua signing than the tweet. And second, after Smith attacked fellow News Corp “journos” last year for being sensationalist and bashing refs, he has my respect as someone who isn’t just a headline chaser.

Joey Leilua the “worst signing by any club in the NRL era”? Hmm, he may well be

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League
 
2020

Cheers mate – now that there’s some actually footy, it’s (ironically!) a bit easier to find some time to write!

Forget an asterisk, the 2020 NRL premiers may be the most impressive winners ever

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League
 
2020

I don’t disagree that it’s (potentially) unfair; but the concept of unfairness during the course of a season is not uncommon.

We could rattle off a number of things that have happened to teams over the years that was “unfair”, but we don’t give the resulting premiers an asterisk because of it.

Forget an asterisk, the 2020 NRL premiers may be the most impressive winners ever

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League
 
2020
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