It was a terrible decision… not talking from my pocket

Also, the crushers moment I remember most is their first hit up of their first game. Garrick Morgan had been signed from the Wallabies on big coin and even bigger hype

They received the ball in the first game, Morgan pushed off the back fence, sent his huge frame hurtling at the defence at 100mph… then stopped as he got to them and got smashed

Yeah, that’s the hard part with these teams

At their all time best, guys like Mario and Gilly were top players but they were well past it by the time they got to the crushers

I think it has to be how they played at the club, otherwise you get situations like Thurston picked in an all time Bulldogs team despite his best footy being played elsewhere

I’d love to see Staggs play a full season in the centres before moving to 6 if that’s what’s happening. Just don’t think we’ve seen his best there yet

Reynolds is a great addition for the Broncs. Having someone guiding the team around the park, telling the young forwards where to run, setting up two or three plays ahead is just what they’ve needed. I think Reynolds is at his peak now

I think JT13 has been mishandled for years but at times this season he looked downright disinterested. Playing him wide later in the game to get him running at smaller men is fine but he should be winning the middle first and get him offloading!!!

It’s criminal a bloke who’s 120 kegs, fast and agile is an easy target, but he is because he tucks the ball every time and four lesser men slowly drag him down. It’s like watching a bear get baited…

He’s a million buck man so if he’s not at his optimum the cows will struggle…

Mate, I sound like a w.hinger because my team is struggling but there were plenty of games where the game was just officiated differently between top and bottom sides… and not just involving the Dogs…

Cheers

That’s a pretty good explanation… waaay better than I was expecting. It’s a really cool little animal fact but still not a great name for a sporting team…

Yeah, me too jimmmy

I’m definitely not anti expansion but how anyone can look at this season and say “more clubs is the answer” is beyond me

Rellum will probably spit out his cornflakes when he reads this from me but the answer really is rationalising Sydney. Expand geographically but keep the same number of clubs

The problem is there’s no smart or easy way to do that without giving up big tracts of Sydney to other codes. Sydney still generates most of the coin and alienating and losing fans isn’t a great idea

Personally, I’d rather see the Bulldogs based in Perth or Wellington than merge or playing second division… I’m just not sure most fans see it that way…

Yeah – that’s my thinking too

With HIAs, injury rates going through the roof, a bye may not be the bad news it once was

Interesting to see how they work the draw to fairly distribute the byes. Games against teams coming off a bye becomes an interesting stat like the five day turnaround or travel stats…

I back the Dolphins bid over the Firehawks if for no other reason than the blinking ridiculous name… Firehwaks… what deluded marketing team came up with that… 🤢

😢

Completely agree… it’s so messed up…

I don’t know about that. Lamb and Lyons still had a pretty big overlap in their careers

Lamb played 80-96, Lyons played 85-99. So for 12 of Lamb’s 17 year career Lyons was active and for 12 of Lyons’ 15 year career, Lamb was active. Lamb won premierships in 84, 88 and 95. Lyons in 87 and 96

For Lyons’ clear run in the 90s he was Dally M 5/8 of the year in 90 and 94. Lamb was 5/8 of the year in 91, 92 and 93 and players’ player in 95

Not using this to suggest Lamb was better than Lyons, just that at Cliffy’s peak, Baa was still playing great footy and show they’re very much of the same era

Seriously, if someone said Cliffy was a better player I’d disagree but wouldn’t try too hard to change their mind. They were both unlucky not to run into guys like Lewis, Kenny, Daley and Fittler and not play more rep footy…

Neither of them was on close to 500k for the past two years

Brett was on 500k about 3-4 seasons ago. You hang onto that because it suits your narrative

The idea that the Roosters would pay market value for 35 year old outside backs is far more realistic than paying them both massive overs with paper bag deals in parking lots…

The sticking point is the contract with the NSW government. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge of the NRL they’ve always put money ahead of fans and engagement

If we started with a clean slate, I’d say maybe once every five years or so in Queensland would be great for the game. Maybe once every ten years somewhere else

We did it through necessity this year and the sky didn’t fall in

Haha… 35 year old Josh Morris on 500k…????

No wonder you think they’re over the cap when you double every player’s contract

Lamb was in line before Lyons…

You can probably claim a tick and a half for Saab. I didn’t see that coming at all. He’s still a bit rocks and diamonds, doesn’t like any sort of contact or taking hard yards but when he’s on and given space – wow!!! I guess you don’t use a Ferrari to carry hay bales 😛

I think he might be the fastest player I’ve seen – but also don’t think we’ve seen him at full flight over a long distance because he scorches opponents in the first 20 and then glides…

Sorry, I’ve only had time this morning to read the Bulldogs section…I’ll get to the rest later

Very fair. I’d be stoked with a top eight finish but that’s not necessarily the measure of success for Season 1

The big concern is the 7. Barrett seems convinced that he can turn Jake Averillo into a halfback, like Bellamy did with Hughes and Cronk before him. Maybe it’s the players around him to a degree but I don’t think he advanced terribly far. His kicking game is still inconsistent, his ball playing still pretty ordinary and game management almost non existent. His strength is running the ball

But so is Burton’s. It’s not impossible, but two running halves tend not to combine well. You need a game manager. My fear is trying to turn one of these blokes into that role will damage them longer term

As good as Burton’s been at centre this year. One part of his game we haven’t seen a lot of is his booming kicking game

Which leaves us with Kyle Flanagan. He needs to bulk up quickly and start taking the ball to the line more, otherwise I don’t see a huge future for him in the NRL

With a pack of Jackson, Thompson, TPJ, Vaughan, Asiata, Seumanufagai, RFM, Hetherington plus young guys like Doorey and Topine we shouldn’t lose the middle too often. With Dufty, JAC, Naden, Burton, Cotric, Schoupp, Burns we should have points if we get in position

The big, obvious query is, who creates for us…?

I did start to turn off in the latter part of the season. With lockdown I had a regular Friday night online poker game that I was more interested in, with the footy on in the background. NEVER done that before

The “if you’ve never played at the highest level you can’t understand” is infuriating. Again, I’ve watched footy for 40 years and have never heard commentators using this line to their audience. It’s a cover for the horrendous takes they come up with… “we know people are going to argue with this, so we’ll put them down now”

What THEY don’t seem to understand is that charging in with your shoulder cocked aiming at 5 cms below someone’s chin, doesn’t exonerate the player from high contact. The strange thing is, it never has. The excuse making “he was aiming above the ball and didn’t mean to hit him straight in the chin, ergo it’s an accident” is laughable

It was an ordinary year. Lop sided scorelines, one sided contests, predictable results, anywhere between three to six $1.10 – $1.20 favourites, record numbers of 30 and 40 point margins, 50 point scores, the laughable, predictable approach to head high tackles and rules changing on whims… and then being ignored

To paraphrase Verbal Kint from the Usual Suspects “the greatest trick V’landys ever pulled was convincing the world that six agains sped up the ruck and got rid of the wrestle”

It didn’t happen. Rugby league eye test did a study of this and play the ball speeds never changed. The wrestle never went anywhere. Play the ball speeds didn’t improve and then get worse. The way the six again sped up the game was to cram more ball in play time in a shorter period of time.

They didn’t tidy up onside or the ruck. If anything teams are MORE willing to give away cynical penalties because the penalty is now just one tackle instead of a tackle and 40 metres and refs are even LESS likely to sin bin a player for a deliberate foul when he’s 70 metres off his own line

Whatever. It’s not even the six again rules fault. Now we have offside and ruck penalties that are being policed and applied as sporadically and inconsistently under the six again law as they were when they were supposed to be penalised. The problem has just been pushed 60 metres up the field

The answer is simple. APPLY THE ACTUAL RULES OF THE GAME. Doesn’t matter if it’s a penalty or a 6 again. Refs ignoring all this rubbish in the ruck and allowing defenders to stand miles offside and breaking early has caused this. The teams best at it are the teams that win

Watch how differently the rules are applied to a bottom eight club v a top six club

Look at how we perceive the Panthers. Last year they were the carefree group of youngsters who grew up and were playing first grade together. Now there’s complaints of how cynical they are, how they’re bending rules to breaking point. The difference? They’ve gone from plucky runners up to hard bitten premiers. You have to in order to compete

Now it’s a tragedy… 😢 😂

Great story Tim… I was pretty sure I knew how it was going to end but I was completely absorbed anyway!!!

At least you scored once that weekend… 😛

Hahaha…

“The findings from the NRL integrity unit haven’t produced any evidence to suggest what was in the video,” 99% of people who’ve seen the video know exactly what it is…!!!

NRL integrity unit is one of the biggest misnomers I’ve ever heard

Good luck to Munster but this is an absolute charade. If the NRL decides they don’t want to punish this sort of stuff, fine. But going through this “well no one can prove what sort of white powder was in the little plastic bags that they were cutting into lines with a credit card on a mirror while hammered” sham is laughable

It’s also interesting how the media laughed along with Smith and Munster off their heads for weeks after last years grand final and how quickly they’ve turned on them this year for doing pretty much the same thing…

As long as he doesn’t know what it is, he’s fine…

Sorry to get serious here – but one thing struck me when reading about Melbourne’s “contact training run” against Manly

Remember after Week 1 of the semis and everyone was hailing Bellamy and Bennett for resting players and Cleary was a dope for trying to win the minor premiership and playing a full strength side in Round 25

Looking back at the Storm’s late season – they rested players in Round 23, played full strength but lost to the Eels in Round 24, rested players in Round 25, had the “contact training run” against Manly Week 1, then a week off. That’s a long time without your best team playing together and winning a tough contest

Did it cost them against the Panthers who didn’t rest anybody and had a bunch of players playing busted, but were battle hardened when they met in the GF qualifier…?