They've been doing it all day sir!
Two Englishmen in Australia, talking sports and life in a new country
They've been doing it all day sir!
WHY SO NERVOUS? Big debuts, big collisions and BIG Predictions!
In this episode of 'They've Been Doing It All Day, Sir,' hosts Ben and Chris discuss their fall from grace with their over ambitious tipping in RD2 of the NRL! The duo kick off with insights into their pre-match nerves and quirky ways to try and overcome these! With a review or RD2 and some more ambitious tipping in round 3 Expect a mix of banter, serious analysis, and bold predictions as Ben and Chris gear up for another weekend of sports madness. Don't miss their quirky takes and spirited sports commentary!
Hello and welcome to another episode of They've Been Doing It All Day Sir. I'm Ben. And I'm Chris. And well, well, well, this week we have been humbled. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_02:I think it just shows our real lack of knowledge of the sport sometimes, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It certainly does, but how's your week been, mate?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, not too bad. It's nice of you to ask me for a change. Exactly, thought we'd switch it up. Nice little change in the order of the pod there. Yeah, not too bad. Quite a quiet weekend, quiet week, nothing too much on. What about yourself?
SPEAKER_01:Well, first, before we get into me, I was just going to say, feeling better this week than we were last week?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, mate, yeah. I'm a different human being. Not going to lie, it took me a couple of days to get over. You seem like a different person this week, which is good. Definitely, definitely am. Yeah, it's been a week of reflection, I suppose. But no, no, a hell of a lot better than I was last week. So that's good. Thanks for asking.
SPEAKER_01:That's good to hear. That's good to hear. My week... has been good, actually. It's been a busy one. It was a warm weekend in Sydney this weekend. We had a little mini heatwave, didn't we?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think it popped up to 40 degrees or something out west, which sweltering, which is, yeah, it was a warm one. But other than that, you know, just the usual plodding along. Watching sport, a lot of sport, a lot of NRL this weekend, a
SPEAKER_03:lot
SPEAKER_01:of upset, a lot of controversy in our predictions as well, in some of the tips that we made, but we're going to get stuck into that. But one of the things that I did want to kind of question about is Taylor Lasalu, the Roosters prop, was... concreting last week I believe his dad and him he runs he works for his dad's family business in concreting and he was only called up for the day before or knew that he was starting the day before the Panthers game before the Roosters played the Panthers how do you reckon one his nerves were before the game playing on such a big stage and then secondly on that How are your nerves before a game?
SPEAKER_02:It's not just an all-game to be called up to either. It's against the reigning premiers, the four-time champions, back-to-back. But I imagine we're playing a lot of... sort of with and against a lot of Islanders. They're very chilled the whole time. You see it all the time when I've played Union, when I'm playing American football, they're all always quite, not saying that he was, but I reckon he would have just taken it in his stride and would have been absolutely up for it and loving every minute of it. In comparison to myself, if it was me, I don't think I'd have left the toilet. My life would have probably been falling out of me. I would have been hoeing, chucking up. Don't do
SPEAKER_01:too well before
SPEAKER_02:games. No, even when we're playing in front of two blokes and a dog in the middle of a park, I'm absolutely stressing. It's got a lot worse since I've got a little older as well. Yeah. Yeah, it's like normally last time I was playing back in the UK, well, it could have been because I was slightly hungover from the night before. And yeah, I was normally fine. First couple of hits, I'd get through it. But now, yeah, I'm an absolute... wreck of a human it's it's quite embarrassing
SPEAKER_01:yeah you played a couple of years ago the first year that we were working together you played in a final didn't you over here what were the nerves like before that
SPEAKER_02:i don't they were bad but because i'd coached in the morning yeah and we'd won that game and i just had a load of waiting around for the rest of the day just for the final i think that got to me a little bit and um and stuff but i i was okay whereas Previously, even that last season, the season before when we were on the way to nothing, I was still, last game of the season, bricking it. It's just got a little worse as I've got older. I can't really put my finger on it, to be honest.
SPEAKER_01:I know we've spoken about it. You've tried a few tactics beforehand to see if even those work, like the shorts that you've given a go. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:it didn't work. I think that just heightened my anxiety, if I was being perfectly honest. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:fair enough.
SPEAKER_02:But like I said, when I was in the UK, I think it was a lot better because I used to go out with my... best mate Luke who was the DC at the time as well so if I got told off by the head coach he'd be like well I was out with the DC so you can defensive coordinator so you can blame him so I was fine then and then same with rugby I've turned up to some games in states being helped by my dad into the changing room before one rugby game which is which is fun but yeah what about yourself how were you
SPEAKER_01:pre-game? Early on in my when sporting I'm not going to call it a career but in my sporting ventures I was suffered pretty bad with nerves like when I first started playing gridiron American football because it was a sport that was like fairly new to me I'd always be bricking it before a game like I'd go out there always worry about what would happen like worry if I was going to make a mistake and then as my career kind of progressed I then played for the London Warriors who were one of the better teams in the UK and we had this mentality instilled in us like no matter who comes in front of you you're going to dominate them and it didn't take long before I was more not nervous but apprehensive about training about who I was coming up against in practice because I knew they were the best in the country that when it came to a game I was like oh, this is easy. Now, don't get me wrong, the first play before most games, the first play of most games, I'd be nervous, but as soon as that first bit of contact would happen, the nerves would dissipate and we'd get into it and we'd be like, right, first drive done. Sweet, but then when we got into big games, like when we played our London rivals, the nerves would be there, I'd be worried about making mistakes and kind of in that sense, but when we played on the bigger stages, I played in a couple of finals and I played in Europe, like I've never felt nerves like that before. We played in, unfortunately I was injured for the game that we played in Austria, so I didn't get to play much in that game. But when we went out to Frankfurt and played against the Frankfurt Galaxy, we played in front of like 14, 15,000 people and my heart was beating out of my chest. We scored on the first drive of the game, which helped and it calmed the nerves, but I was coming up against like ex-NFL Europe linebackers. There was a guy that's playing fullbacks Sorry, he played fullback in NFL Europe and he was playing linebacker. And I was like, if this guy runs through my gap, I've got to stop him somehow. And he was a unit. And then, do you know what? When I came over here and I decided to come back for that, for those couple of games last season, I was actually quite nervous before then because it had been four years since I'd played. And I hadn't really been in the condition to come back and play, like not been in the gym lifting and all that sort of stuff. And I didn't feel my body was ready for it. And I wasn't sure. And then we played down in Wollongong that first game, put a few hits in, felt all right. Maybe, maybe concussed myself. Maybe concussed myself. But then we played the Raiders and because they're the best team in New South Wales, like there were a bit of nerves there. But again, once I realized, oh, do you know what? I can still do this. I was all right. Then unfortunately got a bit of a devastating blindside hit, which was illegal and a torment. to all my meniscus but and that was that was the end of my sporting career but I don't know how he's gone from being a prop going back to yeah Taylor Lassalle I don't know how he's gone from being a prop sorry concrete into then turning it up and putting in a performance against the against the reigning premiers
SPEAKER_02:it's pretty awesome to be honest and he held his own as well, which is the pretty amazing thing.
SPEAKER_01:He did. 21 minutes and he was solid. He's taken the biggest hits of the game as well. The first hit ups, the most powerful ones. I think you
SPEAKER_02:have to. As a forward, I think if you get getting into the game like that and you're coming from sort of the lower levels one way to prove yourself and get yourself into the game is to put yourself in front of the biggest person and just do it just quickly going back I think just going back to nerves and the first hit is most nervous I've been recently was probably when I played for New South Wales and we played Queensland I wasn't a starter or anything I was very much second second string but I remember going on to the on the game on to the the field and the way the game progressed when I was on there was not how I thought it happened when I watched it back but I did put one big hit on the sideline which then switched me on and again I think we had about 300 people there 400 if that but because of how they were situated, it sounded so much louder than it actually was. But then going, sort of linking it back, like you have to put yourself in front of the biggest person just to try and get rid of those nerves. And if it works out in your favor, it's always the best way. But if you get your head on the wrong side and you get concussed, then it's probably not the best way to
SPEAKER_01:do it. Oh, well, talking of big collisions, let's get straight into kind of, the NRL fixtures from last week, the Knights and Dolphins were the first ones that kicked it off on Thursday night and they had the Saifidi brothers. And there were some serious collisions between those two. I think the first, the opening kickoff, I read something that they decided no matter who they're playing for or whether they come up against each other, they've always got to take the first kick off and run at each other as hard as they can. And I tell you what, there was one collision in the first half and one collision in the second half, which were big. So talk about blowing the nerves out. I
SPEAKER_02:reckon coming up against your brother... that would be even harder than someone random, if you know what I mean. That sort of competition, you've grown up playing, but there's also that little bit of competition element to it here. Like they know, right, I know he's going to absolutely take my head off here, so I need to be going at 100%. So that, I think that just intensifies it even more. And yeah, there was some, big, big, big hits in this game.
SPEAKER_01:There were. It was a good game from a Knights perspective. So the Knights beat the Dolphins 26-12. We both tipped that one correctly. It was
SPEAKER_02:about... One of a few.
SPEAKER_01:It was about... Yeah, I think we got 50% and we'll go through them. But there was a lot of upsets this week. But that first game, Knights-Dolphins, Knights turned it around from last week. Yeah, massively. They were 20 points, 22 points up at one point and they were clinical. And I think... Caelan Ponga had a day. He had a day and Bradman Best, like we mentioned last week, needed to cut out the mistakes and doing stuff silly. Next thing you know, he's run for over 200 metres. He's carried the ball for over 200 metres and he scored and the Knights looked good. Solid.
SPEAKER_02:You never want to overcomplicate sport and you always want to just stick to the basics and stick to what you're good at.
SPEAKER_01:Especially in the early rounds.
SPEAKER_02:Especially in the early rounds. And I saw a lot of that from the Knights. As you said, Ponga was their... creating he was he was sort of first receiver sometimes and and and handing off to the halves and and just creating that extra bit of space and Bradman best as as we said last week just to settle down and and get into the game and get into what he does best and just truck people and use his his weight and his frame to to score tries um and they look like a different team than they were the the week previous
SPEAKER_01:they did and Ponga definitely carried them he also got over 200 meters running the ball and his body movement, the control of his body, the way he, I think there was one try out to the right hand side in the first half where he caught the ball on the move. manipulated his body in a way that shook the defender but then also pass the ball like two steps later to free up whoever it was I don't know if it was Marjorie in the corner or not but to go over it and score an easy try and he was the difference maker when he's on he's I think he's Queensland's number one fullback I don't think if Reece Walsh puts in performances like he's been doing I don't think anyone can touch Caelan Ponga but a little bit of worry for the Dolphins in the post Wayne Bennett era they're 0-2 they haven't they've lost two games Alright, how much has this impacted them, the cyclone, the constant travelling?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I said that last week and I thought there would be a bit of an impact. You've got to come down from a home game, come down to the con bank, then possibly have travelled back to see family, make sure everyone's okay. And then come down to Newcastle, which I don't think is a direct flight. I may be incorrect there. Newcastle may have an airport, but my geography of airports is not the best. But then if they didn't fly into Newcastle, then got a flight into Sydney, then travelled two hours. Nah, they definitely would have flown into Newcastle. I'm pretty sure there's an airport
SPEAKER_01:in
SPEAKER_02:Newcastle. But still a lot of Ks in a very short period of time. And... When you look at the comparison in run meters compared to the Knights and the Dolphins, not one player touched 200 for the Dolphins, which is a big, big thing. You want at least one of your backs, either one of your wingers or your fullback hitting 200 meters to show that you've sort of put in a dent in there. Yeah. put a dent into the opposition
SPEAKER_01:you're making meters basically that's what you want to try exactly
SPEAKER_02:exactly and the hammer he only hit 121 meters which for a fullback if you go missing like you're you tend to be that first first one on the ball and trying to run it back and trying to get those hard yards yeah it's It's not looking good for the Dolphins at the moment. It's not. They need to create something. They need a bit more creativity because it just looks so one-dimensional at the moment and teams are just reading it. And when they sped up a little bit... and scored I think early late into the in the first
SPEAKER_01:half I think they took it they took it back to basics like they just went straight up the middle power game up the middle off loads and that worked and it seems to me that they need to go I don't know whether Wolford's Christian Wolford's tried to bring in something new that is still a bit of transition bit of change from from Bennett but it seems like they need to keep things simple and use the weapons that they've got
SPEAKER_02:exactly and this is what we've talked about previously when we when we've delved into football and and things like that managers always have coming to a team with a system in mind that system won't always work you need to assess i've said it previously you need to assess what you have in a playing group and adapt to that um there is no point trying to come in with a system that is not not whether it be complicated because you'd expect at this level that they're able to adapt to anything but It's a system that's not playing to the strengths that you play. Why are you hiding Hammer? Why is Hammer not there breaking it? Why is he not hitting holes time and time again? You know how dangerous he is.
SPEAKER_01:But
SPEAKER_02:yeah, we'll see how they go. They've got the
SPEAKER_01:Tigers at home up next, which we'll talk about the Tigers later on. But they're going home. They've got a home fixture. It's at KO Stadium up in Redcliffe. Having a home crowd might give them a bit of... A bit of emphasis on, right, let's put a performance on and spur them on to do a bit better. But at the moment, as it stands, they're not in a good place. Whereas the Knights, yeah, they were shaky round one against the Dragons, but they managed to get the win there. And now they've won two in a row and they've got the Titans next, who... they looked alright against the Bulldogs and we'll go on to that later but I think the Knights have an opportunity to get a few early wins on the board
SPEAKER_02:yeah definitely definitely and I think no better place than playing against the Titans again like you said we'll touch on them but to get that another win they could be three on the bounce where after week one you'd have said they may be sort of hit and miss and going into round four three and oh is is a hell of a lot different than going in sort of one and two or two and one so and
SPEAKER_01:then they'll be thinking dylan brown who why have we just forked out 30 million when we've got we got the weapons here but talking of weapons um the warriors against the seagulls on friday it was the six o'clock fixture and after two minutes I thought we were going to run away of it. And then we were well and truly humbled.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, massively. And you go into the intricacies of the game, like the amount of... like six agains in the first half I think they reached seven in the first half which is which is crazy and they were all within sort of the red zone area as well so you've got a team who are just constantly defending defending having to get up make another tackle up again make another tackle actually you've just made four tackles but someone's offside or there's been a rucker for injury do it again
SPEAKER_01:yeah it's it takes it out of you they were on their feet mainly were on their feet towards the end of the first half and you could tell that with I can't remember who it was number two I've forgotten his name but he cut back inside and just went through Tavanga and Jake Trubojevic and there was no one near him and I think the score was only six all at that point as well and it's moments like that that just killed us it's frustrating because the start we made was electric
SPEAKER_02:yeah and It's brilliant. It was the exact same start against the Cowboys. Some fantastic interchangeable play between Travojevic and the dissenters.
SPEAKER_01:Dummy run from Ola Kuwaiti that just drew people in.
SPEAKER_02:Which is fantastic and you've got to give it to the Knights, not the Knights, the Warriors. They've gone and done their homework. They came up with a scheme which slowed all that down and they were blitz defending so... They were flying up as soon as anyone was getting a touch. They weren't giving Manly any time at all, which then led to the errors, which then slowed the game down for Manly, which is a little bit worrying in the fact that they couldn't deviate from plan B, from plan A to another tacking.
SPEAKER_01:It's almost like we went away from... that against the Cowboys it felt like we used the forwards very effectively so we thought right let's power through the middle engage them in the middle and then get it out wide when we can but because we had so well it felt like because we had so much success against the Cowboys out wide we tried to get the ball out wide as quick as we could but then you say we didn't have any plan B after that it's like well if that doesn't work what are we going to go to and if it wasn't for some miracle kicking from Jason well it wasn't really miracle kicking I think it was he over kicked it and it was just in a Absolute incredible effort from Ruben Garrick. I think there was green grass between his boot and the white line, and so did the referees. But if it wasn't for, we could have been well and truly beaten.
SPEAKER_02:In a lot of trouble. And the issue is, as I said, it's one way to look at it. And you are two catches away, I reckon, from this situation. This being 36-20 odd. You've got Jason Saab's dropped interception. If he'd have caught that, he was gone. No one was catching him. So that's pretty much a try written there. And there were so many times on the outside which a pass just went the right way, caught. There was the
SPEAKER_01:Falalo try that got called back because it was a knock-on. And it was. It was the correct call. But if that goes backwards, like it did last week when Turbo knocked it on to Saab in the corner... You never know. Manly could have been three tries up. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And do you start panicking as a Manly fan? Not at all. Not at all. Are there some cracks within the team? And they showed 100%. But it's round two. There's plenty more games to play. One
SPEAKER_01:thing it has taught me is that... A lot can change in a week, especially this early on in the season. There's a lot of big upsets this week that have kind of reset expectations.
SPEAKER_02:And you can look at that and you mentioned it, I think, a few weeks ago when the fixtures came out and we were talking about the fixtures. Warriors pretty much had two weeks off from Vegas. Manly had a four or five day turnaround, which in this sport is... And flying to New Zealand as well. Exactly. If you want to talk about a bit of travel.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's... That's a difficult turnaround because you've got Monday in at recovery, Tuesday you're out training, Tuesday, Wednesday you're probably traveling over to New Zealand to get sort of settled in and acclimatized. Then you're playing on the Friday. That's such a quick turnaround to what New Zealand were. We were able to fly over to New Zealand, have a chill. So when you look at it in that way, again, because they're top-level athletes, you'd expect them to be able to make the– the harder decisions and make these the basic skills constantly but it does it does play a factor it
SPEAKER_01:certainly does and I mean look Mandy were poor
SPEAKER_02:and Warriors were strong
SPEAKER_01:Warriors just kept to the basics I think that Wade Egan was just doing everything that he needed to getting the ball out quick he was all over the place. Luke Metcalfe, I think I saw someone holding up a sign saying Luke Metcalfe, he was just carving Manly up, which is true. He was very, and he slotted all his kicks as well. Very efficient. And I mean, look, it's round two.
SPEAKER_02:They played to their strengths.
SPEAKER_01:And they kept it simple and they wore Manly down. They were getting the ball out quick. which was causing Manly not to get back onside or back outside 10. Penalty was six again, six again, and it just wore them down. But Manly made errors at key times. There were two times we were 10 points behind. Simple mistake. Jake gets binned, and you never know. It's one of those ones that you'll never
SPEAKER_02:know. Hopper Whitey drops a catch within 10 metres, which... nine times out of ten he's he's taking and running back like it's it's those little things that killed us yeah manly started to gain a little bit of momentum kick goes up right okay get to build some momentum drop catch scrum to warriors now we have to defend again yeah it's it's one those and and you talk about the attack up the middle they've got one of the best props in the game at the moment in james fisher harris there and
SPEAKER_01:His first game at home. His first game in front of a New Zealand crowd,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. It was never going to be easy to run it straight against that pack.
SPEAKER_01:Especially, I think, with Takiyaho was physical against the Cowboys. He was very impressive, I thought, last week in terms of his... just g and everyone up and leading by an example and i think we may have missed that this week i don't think deseka came out firing simply wasn't as aggressive as he was in round one and don't get me wrong brookvale probably has an impact on that but it's being able to do it consistently and that's been manly's problem
SPEAKER_02:yeah for for many years like last year we it killed manly with consistency in that have amazing performances they'll go to brookie fantastic and then go away and it would then drop. Or they're not able to maintain it for the full 80.
SPEAKER_01:It was exactly the same venue last year, round seven. We drew 22 all. And Manly were leading as well. Yeah, and it was in that stretch, you know, the first few games that we won and we were like, get the premiership tattoos again. And then we went out to Parramatta Lost and then this happened and we draw this. And it's just that inconsistency kills us. But... Two talking points from the game are the two injuries in DCE and Turbo. Now they've both been cleared and they've been named to play on Sunday against the Raiders. Nine-day turnaround, which is really helpful. But do you think the team list will change before Sunday? The only one
SPEAKER_02:that I would change is probably Turbo at the back. DCE was spasms, so not that I'm... very clued into medical science.
SPEAKER_01:I thought he'd done his back in proper. Yeah, he
SPEAKER_02:looked in a lot of pain, but I think a bit of needling and a few few um hopefully he'll be okay in that side of things um but then this links back to something that i've mentioned to you before it is sort of match fitness with some of these players because they missed all the trials yeah that's two of them that didn't play in the trials very good point and this and when you talk about match fitness it's not necessarily their cardiovascular fitness are they able to run for 80 minutes is it's is their body used to being hit again and you know from playing a contact sport the first couple of games especially when I played and still do play American football first couple of games of the season I can't get up from the toilet if I've gone you know my legs are just cramping up. I mean, a lot of pain massively because I'm not a professional athlete as well. And I haven't exactly looked perfectly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm sure their diet and diet is a bit better than yours. Just slightly.
SPEAKER_02:What's wrong with cheese on toast for breakfast? And when later on in the season, you're fine because your body is conditioned to taking the hits. So that's one of the worries that I do have about not playing them in the preseason season. running is they're a week or two weeks essentially behind some of the other players but yeah it was a scary time to see Turbo just disappeared and I'd messaged you and I was like I wonder if this is a tactical replacement to keep the pack at up to full strength and just drop her back just for the Simbin but then it came up that he'd gone straight
SPEAKER_01:down and when you hear tightness we mentioned it in in the preview for round one we we were like a gasp of breath every time that turbo touched the ball and got into contact well when he disappears with hamstring tightness or tightness in general that also the gasps happen there but look round two we're at back at brookie this weekend we'll preview that game in a bit we've got the raiders who look good at home um and the warriors have got the roosters at home which takes us nicely into so I went, after Manny lost, I was like, do you know what? Not interested in this Roosters-Panthers game. It's going to be an absolute blowout.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think the Panthers were, the Roosters, sorry, were at$11 before the start of the game. And I was like... I think
SPEAKER_02:they got to$17.
SPEAKER_01:I think it went further than that. After the Panthers scored their first try, they went out to$25. And it would take a brave person to back the Roosters to come back 25-1 to get a result. But I went for a walk. I was like... I can't. I can't.
SPEAKER_02:Honestly. You enjoy a bit of soul searching after a loss,
SPEAKER_01:don't you? I do, yeah. So after England lost the Euros final, I took myself to DY Beach and sat and reflected for a few minutes and then went and got some breakfast and nearly cried over my egg on toast. But anyway, so it was the, yeah, I took myself for a walk and you text me and said, Is there another upset on the cards? And the Roosters were 12-6 up and I was like, I'll get back. The Panthers will be 20 points ahead and we'll fly from there. Well, what a game this was. This was a huge upset. And thankfully for Manly, I think this overshadowed the Manly performance. The day before the game as well, the Roosters lose Lindsay Collins through illness. And you're just like, how are they going to get through this game? Against
SPEAKER_02:arguably the best pack in the league. The most creative pack for sure. They just turned it on. They turned into the roosters of last year and were just relentless in everything
SPEAKER_01:they did. The boys coming off, the new guys, the debutants, the young guns that came off. Someone must have just told them what this was about and they needed to put on a show because they came out firing. They forced so many mistakes. Yeah. From the Panthers. I've never seen... So Brian Toto had two play-of-the-ball errors, which is basic things that you would never expect from the Panthers.
SPEAKER_02:Even from him. He's the best winger, if not finishing...
SPEAKER_01:His finish for their second try was ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02:He's up there. And for him just to have... human errors like it's it's crazy
SPEAKER_01:is it the Vegas effect is it coming back from Vegas
SPEAKER_02:yeah he missed week one as well so it's again playing catch up a little bit of getting back into the game but getting back up into speed it's just it was just really weird to watch a Penrith team that just lost their basics
SPEAKER_01:and then when you saw Dylan Edwards chasing after Tedesco and he just eases up and you see him limping you're like Here we go. Is this the unravelling of the Panthers? And look, it's round two. We're not going to jump to conclusions, but it will keep us more cautious about tipping the Roosters for one because all of a sudden their stock has risen massively, but with this victory.
SPEAKER_02:Completely changed, but then you think back to the week before against the Broncos and they just didn't turn up and it's like, well, which Roosters is going to turn up next week? And then it does question the tipping, but from this game... compared to others during the weekend. I reckon Connor Watson has got that number nine jersey for New South Wales this year. You reckon? Yeah, 100%. You just look at him, he scored two tries, 102 metres. He was incredible to be fair to him. Six tackle breaks, one line break. And then you compare that to Reece Robson, who was playing for North Queensland. 28 metres and one. And he only had one tackle break. Yeah, and the Cowboys are not looking good at the moment. No, and they're looking dreadful. And the Cowboys played against, albeit a very strong Sharks team, but he did that against Penrith. He was everywhere. He was creating so much chances. And I reckon he's... When he came on last year as well, he brought something completely different at hockey. The balls started to speed up and he was creating a lot of chances. He was one of the main reasons why New South Wales ended up winning game three. He came in and changed it. So yeah, I reckon if he has a couple more performances like this, it'd be scandalous to not put him in that jersey.
SPEAKER_01:Especially with the way the Cowboys are going, actually. I thought... The fullback debate for Origin, I think, will start brewing as well because Tedesco had, I thought, a very good outing. He ran some good lines, carved up their defensive line, managed to make a few breaks. Turbo injuries, Dylan Edwards injuries. I think that's going to be a real interesting come Origin game one to see who's going to get selected. But who else I thought was... both of them both of the centers were very good for roosters was robert toyah and mark no one going to say i hope hopefully i pronounced that correctly but both of them i thought moved the ball well they rang they were powerful runners they were good in defense and it feels like they've they've got two two good players that are kind of replacing who they've lost I don't know. Watching Mark, I'm not even going to try and pronounce his second
SPEAKER_02:name right. That is incredible. I think. He looks like he's played the game for years. He does. Which is mad considering this was his second NRL game. I
SPEAKER_01:think he played a couple last year, but this is his second start, I believe. Yes,
SPEAKER_02:he did. He did trans over quite late, didn't he? He had a couple of the last late rounds. But even last week in the thumping against the Broncos, he had a standout performance. Yeah, he was one of the better ones. I wish we'd had touched on that a bit more last week. Yeah. But he looks solid in that center spot. It's going to be interesting because if he can maintain his performances throughout the year, he adds that dynamic on the left edge for the Roosters. So yeah, it'd be interesting to see how he goes and if he gets some sort of call up to origin.
SPEAKER_01:wonder what the eligibility is around that
SPEAKER_02:i've got it up in here he was born in new south wales so well there we go then
SPEAKER_01:born in
SPEAKER_02:sydney
SPEAKER_01:um so what was he he was playing i don't know what edgy was does he bradman best is that he's he's competing with there's a i think i feel we've got a fairly good center but he's putting his name in the hat with the performances that he's putting out there now and i tell you what i think the roosters the roosters are going to the consistency again they feel similar to Manly in the consistency they've got a lot of players coming back this week which we'll talk about later on but they've got the Warriors away they've got to travel to New Zealand it'll be interesting to see how they go and the Panthers have a huge huge fixture against a storm down in Melbourne so we'll preview that one in a bit but onto the Saturday's fixtures now Dragons against the Rabbitohs him Jamie Humphries what a man what an absolute boy not only is he a unit not only does he have the best legs in the NRL but he's also just hoofing the ball miles
SPEAKER_02:I I'm in awe of the man, honestly. He's doing
SPEAKER_01:so well. Should we get Jamie Humphrey's jersey and just hang it up here? We don't need
SPEAKER_02:to get Jamie Humphrey's jersey. We get Jamie Humphrey's full-size face and just hang it in the middle.
SPEAKER_01:I agree, like cardboard
SPEAKER_02:cutout. Absolute Jamie Humphrey's fan club right here. And he plays for the Rabbitohs. And we were just discussing before we started this how he sort of looked and how he performed when he played for Manly last year. And the boy looks like a second rower. Yeah. Or a back rower in that sense. He's put some size on. And yeah, he's just...
SPEAKER_01:Apparently he's the best trainer. Obviously that makes no... Wouldn't argue that. Obviously makes sense, but he's the best trainer. And you can tell by... He must look after himself. But to go to the Rabbitohs and do what he's doing, I mean, it's going to give... Bennett a headache when Latrell Mitchell comes back because Cody Walker, I'll actually shout out on that, Cody Walker scored his 100th try in the NRL in this game, fair play to him, that's a serious achievement, but there's some shuffling that might need to happen, but I think he's cementing himself in that seven jersey for the Rabbitohs. Very well in there. In this game though, I think the Rabbitohs well got away with one massively the dragons were 24 12 up after 50 minutes and we've spoken about it before in the importance of conversions yeah and val holmes missed two conversions which is four points both of them were on the sideline but even still a player of his caliber last year i I swear he was slotting them from the sideline regularly.
SPEAKER_02:He was. And it's crazy to see the comparison. And I know you just mentioned it there, the importance of going up by six. It really does show, especially when you're scoring more tries than the opposition, but you're not converting. And it's like, well, you're the one that's left points out there by not converting. And... I don't know what's going on with his kicking. Is it because it's a little bit more of an open stadium right by the seaside?
SPEAKER_01:Humidity not the same as in Townsville? Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:you don't know. I've never kicked on a professional. Actually, I tell a lie. I have scored a conversion on Bath. Baths Rugby Field back home. The wreck. Yeah, the wreck. So, you know, talking from my vast experience of kicking in high pressure situations on professional grounds. Fair play. Yeah, it just seems to be a different Val Holmes when it comes to place kicking. And we've had this discussion every year.
SPEAKER_01:What, Ruben Garrett being the best kicker in the NRL? Not just that, but how Paul... The kick-in in general. In general, it can be. Compared to Union. So let's preface that with compared to Union kick-in. Like, don't get me wrong, there are some... The standard of kick-in is improving, but compared to Union, where the accuracy levels are very, very high, it feels like...
SPEAKER_02:And I can't put my finger on why, because one of them said that it's the shape of the ball, the ball's a little bit bigger, and it's not as oval. And I'm like, well, no, that's just... Practice, practice, practice. Yeah, it's how many place kicks are. the place kickers doing in training, are they having just a kicking session?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You see Johnny Wilkinson when he's worked with the England team, the amount of reps he puts through Marcus Smith, Finn Smith, George Ford, whoever is the fly off at the time, whoever's going to be the kicker, is it the same at league? Is this what they're doing? Well, we'll find out when we go to our little captain's run on Saturday. Oh, yeah, we're going to watch that and see what practice they're doing. On Saturday. But yeah, I think that's something, whereas Jamie Humphries, I don't know whether he's come from a union background, I don't know much history about that.
SPEAKER_01:I heard something random that he did actually play, he was living in London in his youth and was playing rugby union apparently. I can't remember where I heard that, can't confirm that, but that would explain the kick in. And he looks
SPEAKER_02:like a union kicker, which again, it's one of those things that you observe and you can't really explain. But even when from his drop goal as well, which, again, we were discussing beforehand, how calm he was.
SPEAKER_01:Terrible set-up, and he's just slotted it.
SPEAKER_02:And it looked like he would have been able to slot it from the 40. I can see the Rabbitohs looking at it and going, right, we could score some two-point field goals here this season. For sure. But enough
SPEAKER_01:about Jamie Humphries. Going back to the kicking, though, an interesting thing that I heard earlier on the Byron podcast, which was James Graham and Nathan Hindmarsh were... talking and they were talking about the effort of the Rabbitohs defenders to stop the wingers bringing scoring closer to the posts and it's efforts like that that lead to Val Holmes missing the kicks because he's kicking from the sidelines and that's the sort of mentality that you want to instill in young players that you don't give up just because they've crossed the goal line because you want to make it more difficult for them and that's ended up winning them the game so it seems like It's a matter of intricacies that have kind of led to Val Holmes missing those, but I do think he could improve or just improve his kicking compared to last year. But you can't take anything away from the Dragons. They are in an unfortunate position where they've lost two games, yet I feel the Bulldogs game, they probably could have been closer and they probably could have challenged a bit more in that one. And this one, they had some serious meters from their wingers. Tyrell Sloan, so yeah, Tyrell Sloan, Was it a fullback, actually? But he got 223 metres, two tries. And then Christian Turpolotto, who was actually an ex-Manly player, got 239 metres in one try. He's a beast. He is a beast. But the standout performance, again, is the little pocket rocket at the back, Jai Gray. 311 metres, running metres. I
SPEAKER_02:feel like I should just retire from commenting on players because I think this is a hill I can definitely die on. Pre-season, you said he looked good and well. Again, a headache for when... Mitchell's fit. Does Latrell Mitchell come in and get you 311 metres? From full-back
SPEAKER_01:or do you stick him in the centres or does he have to go in it? It's a difficult one and it's Wayne Bennett's problem, not ours. But the two games that the Rabbitohs have won, I feel... the impact of Wayne Bennett being able to scrape victories because the Dolphins did it when under his tenure as well and like we've only known the sport for three or four years so we don't know too much about his history you know he's a super coach you know he's got a lot of skin in the game in terms of winning a lot but it seems like he's got the He knows what to do in order to win tight games. And on the contrary to that, the Dragons will feel like they've lost two points. And Shane Flanagan was very vocal in his press conference after because they've got a bye week this week. And he said, I wouldn't like to be one of my players for the next 12 days. He did call out pretty explicitly, Lockie Ilias, I think. And then I heard today that he's apologized to him for that. That was a bit too harsh. But when you lose a game that you should have won, You can understand the frustration.
SPEAKER_02:And this all goes into knowing your team and knowing your players as well. Because I imagine there are some players that you can call out publicly. Yeah. And they'll be like, right, I need to prove it. Who's this talking about me sort of thing. Whereas I reckon some players it can send them into their shell. Agreed. And it'll be the other way. And when you look at the great coaches... I
SPEAKER_01:think Josh Shuster, for example, he got called out last year for Manly, or it was last year. And he disappeared. Disappeared. And, I mean, he's meant to be coming back from a calf, but I haven't heard... No.
SPEAKER_02:But you look at, arguably, sorry, one of the best coaches in football in Sir Alex Ferguson. I don't think you can ever name an interview where he's called out players. He always gave the head... Don't get me wrong. When you listen to players' interviews, he absolutely ruined them in the changing room sometimes with verbal onslaughts. But he never did it in the media. He never called out players. It was
SPEAKER_01:all behind closed doors. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:exactly. When he had the fights with Beckham, with Keane, it always came out in the papers.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it was never on camera. So that's one thing you've got to learn as a great coach is knowing when to do it. But just quickly going back to Joe Gray, sorry, he's nearly got 600 metres. In two games.
SPEAKER_01:I think both weeks he was... In fact, both weeks
SPEAKER_02:he's been... 280, he was round one. 311 this week. He's, what, nine metres away from 600 in two games. Mental. That is incredible
SPEAKER_01:work. Well, next week they've got the Sharks away, which will be a good test of where they're at. So we'll see how he does after that. But great segue again. It seems like they're flowing in nicely to... the Cowboys against the Sharks. Now, I wasn't really interested in this game. It's one of those ones that you love watching sport, but there's sometimes you just can't get up for watching games. And this one, I didn't watch much of, but it didn't surprise me when I turned on and saw that the Cowboys got turned over 36-12 by the Sharks. And I've looked at the stats, and it looked pretty dominant.
SPEAKER_02:You go back to the point that you made in... preseason that I can't judge a team on their preseason that are the Cowboys look really good and I said nah like you look at these last two games they've been terrible and they have been dreadful and they've scored tries in the latter yeah I mean it's a halves and it makes it makes the scoreline flatters them a little bit
SPEAKER_01:In both games, they probably could have been held to zero. Had both teams not taken their foot off the pedal, they could have been beaten 36-0 in both games. And
SPEAKER_02:then you look at the Sharks again. They're just...
SPEAKER_01:They had over 500 more metres in attack. That is crazy. 12 more sets, and then both of their wingers carved it up with 229 metres of Stone Street and Molotalo.
SPEAKER_02:Fionnua Blake is going to be an absolute cannibal
SPEAKER_01:this year as well. He's a difference maker. He just draws people to him, which allows players to get free off the edge, allows the bigger boys to... run off the edge, then set the wing. And that's why these wingers are getting huge meters because
SPEAKER_02:it starts from the middle. You've got four or five players tackling for Noah Blake. Yeah. Because that's what you need. And then you can win. That's what I said about week one at Manly was run it straight and let the fast boys do what they need to do. Exactly. So, yeah, get signed up in the NRL. We've solved how to play in the NRL. I would not be running it straight at any of them. No, no. I mean coaching. Oh, no.
SPEAKER_01:Supercoach, the two Brits that know hardly anything about the game. We'll give it a go. We'll give
SPEAKER_02:it a go. Just tactics of running straight and then pass it out to the fast boys.
SPEAKER_01:But the Cowboys, it doesn't come any easier for the Cowboys. They've got the Broncos. Now, the Broncos... What Broncos team are you going to get? What Broncos team are you going to get? But I think the Broncos will have too much. We'll focus on that in a bit. And then, yeah, Sharks, Rabbit is at home. I think that would be a good one. Good test for both. But... Into the next game then, on the Saturday, we have the Raiders against the Broncos. Now, I didn't see this coming one bit. So the Raiders defeat the Broncos 32-22. So this is the thing. Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one, right? And everyone's entitled to their opinion. My opinion, because the Raiders went under the radar... You hadn't heard anything about them. I didn't think they were going to be that good. I predicted them to get the wooden spoon. I'm happy to admit I am wrong. They are not going to get the wooden spoon. Sticky Ricky has done something magical down in Canberra because the boys are on. It shows what happens when you can go under the radar and you just focus on what you need to do. I said last week that Corey Horsburgh can do whatever he wants, but he's not going to be able to do it against Payne Haas. And I said he can try those offloads, but it's not going to happen when Payne Haas is filling you in. Well, two offloads, one led to a try, was a try assist. He got 132 metres and he put in an absolute shift. He played the full first half. He played 51 minutes in total. Didn't make one error with the ball, missed one tackle, but made 24 tackles. Now, I salute you, sir. My fellow... ranger I can't I'm going to stand in solidarity of Hawesborough I hope you don't cause Manly trouble this
SPEAKER_02:weekend 100% he will he will he definitely will it's what killed Manly last year was offloads offloads the Raiders offloads if Seaball hasn't got Manly in the squad going right first person if you're tackling around the legs second needs to shut off the ball as quickly as possible hit
SPEAKER_01:them hard
SPEAKER_02:secure the ball yeah just worry about that ball don't worry about getting like if they gain a couple of extra meters, so be it. But you just stopped that top half from doing anything other than falling to the ground. Which then just links into how well they did on the other side of it. They kept Walsh and Cabo so quiet throughout the whole game.
SPEAKER_01:I still think Walsh is trying to peel his head off of the Accor turf. He has not recovered since Suolihi... He must have nightmares about that because one, it was probably one of the biggest hits I've ever seen in my life. It was illegal. Yes, it was a red card, but how you mentally, yeah, but he hasn't been the same player since. And I think he's definitely one that's underperforming this year. He showed glimpse of it last week
SPEAKER_02:against Roosters, but Roosters, he had so much time, so much space. Everyone did really well. He had 104 run meters last year. last week, which from a fullback, again, we talked about it previously, but from a player like Walsh, where you think he's going to be line breaking, he's going to be tackle breaking, he's going to be first receiver, he's going to be the first pass off a break.
SPEAKER_01:He's also probably going to be catching most of the kicks downfield, but fair play to the Raiders, sorry. They were down there and shutting him down.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. and you had Cabo who was reduced to 139 metres which again you look at from a winger you might not be too angry at
SPEAKER_01:I thought he had an alright game Cabo I thought he sat a few people down in those runs
SPEAKER_02:does what he does but when you've only got one a year again backs hitting 200 metres It's like you need to be getting more. You need it in an attacking attempt. But one of the big things that shocked me when I looked at it and looked back at it was that neither of them got a line break. No. Which, again, which is what I talked about. They are two massive players. If you keep them quiet, you're hoping that everything else just falls in. Mariner had a good game. He was a lot more destructive. But if you then have Cabo and Walsh adding on top of that, that's when Broncos can...
SPEAKER_01:Patty Kerrigan had a good game as well. He's just solid. He's just reliable. Payne Haas also had a good game. It's just the fact that the Raiders were better. Similar again, different Broncos turned up. We mentioned if the Broncos turned up with the same attitude they did against the Roosters, they will cause problems. They didn't. I don't know again if there's some... expectation that they're just going to turn up and do it but the Raiders came out of a performance and shout out to Matty Nicholson from Warrington late call up because of having to replace Tarpon A two tries both of them required some after tackle effort in getting through I think he ran over Ben Hunt for the second one three people around him and managed to get the ball down so I'm hoping he doesn't have another positive outing this weekend against
SPEAKER_02:Manly
SPEAKER_01:but it's good to see someone from the Super League coming out and making bits
SPEAKER_02:and it's good to see that the NRL is starting to not be ring fenced by players from this side of the world as well like there are people from the Super League who are starting to creep in which just does a lot more wonders for the game because you'll have people back in Warrington wanting to know how he does. I reckon the Raiders have somehow hit a number of hits and their socials are flying up in the northwest of England now.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that game was Saturday night, right? So that would have been the game on Sky Sports on Saturday morning, which will bring in massive viewership from those people up in Warrington. So fair play. And it's not... The Broncos have the Cowboys next, which is...
SPEAKER_02:At home, at the Suncorp, you'd expect Bronco... We'll touch on it in a minute, but you'd expect the Broncos of week one to rock up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because they are a different animal. We've been there. Do you know what? The Suncorp
SPEAKER_01:is a really nice stadium. I'm a big fan of it. I'm a big fan. This is why I think Origin should be played at the end. Yeah. But maybe we'll talk about that another time, because on to Sunday, and... Spoon Bowl. Spoon Bowl. Spoon Bowl. I don't think we'll be Spoon Bowl again this year, even though I said it might be.
SPEAKER_02:Paddy Power paying out and Eels to finish last.
SPEAKER_01:The Eels look terrible. So Eels 6, Tigers 32. Again, this is one of those games I had a prior arrangement on Sunday that I had to be out for. But from all reports, the first 35 minutes were awful. Horrendous. This was pitch temperature of 40 degrees. It was a really warm day. But one player that did shine in that first half, Terrell May, it leads you to the question of why did the Roosters let him go? There must have been something going on behind the scenes as to why they let him go because he's at the Tigers and he's shining. He is physical. He's taking hit-ups, offloads. He was the one that kind of stood out in that first half from all reports and the highlights I've seen. He was incredible. But the Tigers... Tigers pulled it together. Both got this one right in the tips as
SPEAKER_02:well. Very professional performance, I think, by the Tigers. Both sort of defensively and in attack. They sorted themselves out defensively from some... Like I said last week, they looked a lot better in defence, but there were still areas to sort of improve on. And they seem to have ironed that out a little bit. I think Jerome Luai and Teruva... showed their class as well this week. Truva got firing with a hat trick, which is what you expect of him. If you are a betting person, he's on your rack of try scorers
SPEAKER_01:any time. Especially against the Eels. Yeah. Having Jareem Buller and Api Korosal back as well, who are both missing round one, also helps. Their spine, so now... The Tiger's spine is fully together in Coruscant, Luai, Galvin and Buller. Although I think Buller might be up for this next fixture. But it's a case of now we see what they're about. It was the Eels that they were playing who are absolutely terrible. But they've got a good test in the Dolphins next. It'll be good to see where
SPEAKER_02:they're at in there. That would be the test. Just like Knights in round one. If they can... In elements, if they can replicate what they did in this game, I think they'll be able to beat the Dolphins. But we'll talk about that in a minute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So Tigers, like I said, didn't watch that one, too much of that one. But it's good to see the Tigers get a win on the board. Benji Marshall hopefully getting the boys off to a... a bit of a run. But again, it's only round two. We're not going to get too ahead of ourselves.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. I know. It's quite hard to sort of level yourself this early in the season because there is elements where it's really exciting. But you look at the Tigers' backs again, none of them hit 200, which... Yeah. But, you know, they're starting to get
SPEAKER_01:there. They turned it on when they needed to. In the second half, they started. And one of the things that I heard on the commentary was if the Eels didn't score that try at the end, In fact, no, sorry, if Zach Lomax didn't make the conversion, talking of good kickers, Zach Lomax is a good kicker. This was from the sideline. But if he didn't make that score, that conversion at the end, it would have been the biggest victory the Tigers have ever had over the Eels. But he slotted it, so it wasn't. But
SPEAKER_02:it should have been 32-0. There was another comment made by one of them. I can't remember which commentator said it. It was like, oh, only the Tigers could concede in a game like this. And I was just like, what do you mean? They scored in the 79th minute. Then switched off. Yeah, it's good to have a donut next to the opposition, but you're 32-0 up, last-minute try for the consolation try. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:as the buzz is going. You're not really fast.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not too bothered, to be honest. It's not like it was shipped in the 20th minute where they got ripped open. They were solid defensively all throughout. and they just conceded in the last minute. I just thought it was a bit of a poor comment by the commentators.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but the Eels look in all types of bother. They're at home, so they're out at Combank, and they've got the Dogs next. That would be difficult, but on to the Dogs. They managed to beat the Titans 40-24 now. A few concerns for the Dogs in the fact that Matty Burton has... Yeah, that's a big one. Got a grade one MCL so he's out for up to four weeks and then Billy Army kick out also got an MCL so he's out for up to six weeks. They looked when Burton was on the field the dogs looked in control and it didn't look like the Titans were going to cause him any problems but when he went off and don't get me wrong, it's an unexpected injury. So you've got to quickly shuffle around, but it didn't seem like they were the most effective going forward or defensively when he came off.
SPEAKER_02:With the dogs, it happened last week against the Dragons as well. The dogs turn it on for 20 minutes or so at a time and they are untouchable. I reckon what they do, they can score against any team in the NRL. Yeah. But then they switch off and they slow down, which is around... That's when the Titans started to get back into it. It was around that time Burton went off. But it was similar last week against the Dragons. That scoreline should never have been as close as it was. The Bulldogs should have pulled away against the Dragons last week. This week again, they had that period where they sort of sat back and weren't as effective as when they were attacking. But then after the halftime... They turn it back on again, another 20-minute period where they're untouchable and that's when they've ran away with the game.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. A concern from my perspective is last year the Dogs had the third-best defence in the league. Now, would they have conceded 24 points against the Titans last year? But not just that. Khan Pereira, the winger for the Titans, seemingly went in untouched twice on the Bulldogs' right, their left. And I think... And from that point, they moved Crichton out to... that edge in order to shore it up which then caused some issues around crying in the middle so i just think that the the dogs a better in attack in the fact that they're averaging more points already this season over two games than they did last year. It's just, are they going to be able to keep it up? Are injuries going to hamper them? They look good, don't get me wrong. I think they're definitely a top eight team and very early on. But it'd be interesting to see how they go over the next four to six weeks with these two injuries. But I know what you mean. Two times the Titans were within 10 points. And considering they were 20 points up at one point, to bring it back to 10, had the Titans have scored the next try, the Dogs did score just after halftime, which kind of of eased it again but then the Titans brought it back I thought Tino for his first hit out and this is this is the Titans first run out of the season they've been they've been chomping at the bit since they watched the Panthers in Vegas play those teams in Vegas play they've had to wait so long so you can tell they're going to be a bit rusty and it's just unfortunate they come up against a dogs team that are looking good I think ahead of they had a game underneath them prior to this may have been a different result they may have been able to Dust off a few of the cobwebs and bring it back, but I think they'll be alright this year, the Titans.
SPEAKER_02:I think this week will be their, sort of, we'll get a better understanding of where they are, I reckon. Can't
SPEAKER_01:judge anyone off a round one
SPEAKER_02:performance.
UNKNOWN:No.
SPEAKER_02:Because we've very much been humbled this week. We
SPEAKER_01:have. So to summarise those tips, I think we both got four. We got some of the big ones wrong. We got the Manny one wrong. And the Dragon's Rabbit was wrong. So average tip in this week. Average tip in. But let's get into next week. So round three. What a start. to the week end of fixtures we have the storm versus the panthers 8 p.m thursday night amy park
SPEAKER_02:thursday can't come quick enough
SPEAKER_01:i know um what's your thoughts on this one i've got some brash thoughts i think if
SPEAKER_02:if panthers even flirt with the idea of playing like they did this weekend and last week they're going to get cricket scored against against the storm um which for a panthers team for to say that is is incredible like melbourne turn it always turn it on in in melbourne as well yeah
SPEAKER_01:i don't quite think it'll be a cricket score but no but let's say that the roosters stuck some points on them and
SPEAKER_02:the storm are a lot better than the rooster this is what i mean like if they even flirt with the idea of playing against the roosters which i wouldn't expect them to but the storm have had a week off After a good week one win, they've had a week off. And they've been preparing for this for two weeks. That's all their mentality would have been is on Panthers. Right, how do we shut down Cleary? How do we shut down their pack? How do we shut down Azalea?
SPEAKER_01:They're going to want a statement win. They're going to want to send a message early.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I
SPEAKER_01:reckon I'm going for a
SPEAKER_02:storm win on
SPEAKER_01:this one. Do you know something that I think is interesting? Jerome Luai, we've mentioned him before. Would he have made a difference in this Panthers... squad against the roosters because it's seemingly i think it's a case of he's making a difference at the tigers what's the impact of what jerome luai go like all every year it's they've lost this player what impact is going to have and it didn't have an impact has jerome luai going as is that going to be the kind of final nail in the coffin for for a change i'm not sure this what's your space
SPEAKER_02:not to boast again but but no it but the thing is it's quite obvious when As I said, when you watched him in that New South Wales team, you could see the mentality he set. You could see the mentality him and Crichton set as a standard. And he's gone to the Tigers and done that, right? It's very early to say that. But if he was playing six, I doubt what would have happened. The
SPEAKER_01:mistakes, I don't think, would have been there.
SPEAKER_02:No, no.
SPEAKER_01:For me, I'm going to go Storm as well on this one. I think the Storm looked very good week one. They were coming up against a very poor Eels side, but what I think leans me towards the Storm is twofold. Panthers' performance against the Roosters and the Storm have had two weeks to prepare. So I'm going for a Storm victory in this one. The only out for the Panthers is Dylan Edwards is injured, so they bought in.
SPEAKER_02:That's another... Another big miss for him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. And they've brought in Dane Laurie, who is an adequate replacement. He's no Dylan Edwards, but he certainly can do a job back there. Other than that, they're at full strength. If I
SPEAKER_02:was Munster, I'd be putting some high balls up early to give him a bit of a test. For sure. The Amy Pike isn't going to be sold out by any stretch of the imagination, but you can tell already, first pitch, A couple of high kicks, Crowder going to be behind them. He even looks nervy under one. That's in his head straight off the bat. They're
SPEAKER_01:going to want early revenge for last year's grand final as well. So we're both going with the Storm for the 8pm Thursday night kick-off on Friday. The Warriors, 6pm against the Roosters in New Zealand. What's your thoughts on this one?
SPEAKER_02:Lindsay Collins is back, Spencer Lennon is back and Victor Radley is back.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know... I don't think Victor Radley should be
SPEAKER_02:back. No, no,
SPEAKER_01:no. They're the professionals.
SPEAKER_02:That boy should be just very much looked after. And you've got Spencer Lenny back at prop. Animal. Who did look sort of... A bit out of sorts when he started, as you mentioned.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, not used to starting, used to coming off the bench.
SPEAKER_02:He'll be coming up against James Fisher-Harris, who would be pumped after. This one's really difficult. If Roosters hadn't have played like they did against Penrith, I reckon it would have been a Warriors. But seeing the knit and grit of the Roosters and what they can churn out, I think it does swing to the Roosters for me just... tipping the roosters. Especially with who they've got coming back. I
SPEAKER_01:agree. Back fence Spence is a big addition to their forward pack. Obviously, bringing back Lindsay Collins. He's on the bench at the moment,
SPEAKER_02:Lindsay Collins, but I'd expect him to be brought in and that is a workhorse.
SPEAKER_01:Depends what illness he had. He lost illness last week. Depends how he comes back from that. But I think the Warriors are going to back up their performance against Manly and go back to basics. And I'm going to tip the Warriors. So this is the first one of the week that we've gone in opposites. I think it'll be a great fixture. I think the Warriors and Roosters will both want points to prove with different things. The Warriors will want to back up. their performance from last week and not have a repeat of what happened in Vegas. And the Roosters want to prove people wrong by saying we're not going to finish.
SPEAKER_02:I completely agree. You look at the betting at the moment, which is always a good indicator of where it's leaning. Warriors are 187 and Roosters are 197. It's
SPEAKER_01:a tight one. That's got closer. The Roosters were over$2 earlier. So the markets are certainly shortening up on that one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But it's just a stat. those names of who's coming back is quite big for the Roosters. But yeah, I think that's going to be a good game. I think that'll be a pretty good start to a Friday, actually.
SPEAKER_01:It is. And then following that, the Queensland Derby. Broncos versus the Cowboys, 8pm at the Suncorp. Now, from last week, I'm going to learn my lesson. I'm not going to say how many are the Broncos going to put on the Cowboys. I think we've got to show a bit more respect to the Cowboys fans out there. But... How many are the Broncos going
SPEAKER_02:to put on the Cowboys? If we end up saying this now and the Cowboys win it by 24-22, I'll be fuming because there is no way that week one team that came out for the Broncos is not going to put a cricket score against the Cowboys, especially the way the Cowboys have played. They've not looked in either game they've been in and now they've got to go up to the Suncorp. and play in front of... Down to the Suncorp. Down to the Suncorp, sorry. And they've got to play in front of 30,000, 40,000 Bronco fans.
SPEAKER_01:The Broncos can't back up their performance last week with another performance. No,
SPEAKER_02:not at home as well. It's the first home game of the season as well, isn't it? Because they played Roosters at... In Sydney, yeah. In Sydney, so that's going to be the first game at home for them. And I'd expect that to GM up as well.
SPEAKER_01:I want to keep my eyes on Reece Walsh. I want to see how he performs against the Cowboys. It'll be interesting to see how he goes in front of a home crowd. If
SPEAKER_02:he has another quiet game, then I think he could be in trouble all season.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I can see a Broncos win. I can see the Broncos turning up in this one. See them being as physical as they were in that first game and as dominant. I think this could be a 30 plus. Yeah. 30 plus. The Cowboys, I haven't seen enough from them to convince me that they're going
SPEAKER_02:to. They don't have enough attacking intent, unfortunately. And I reckon that they'll absolutely hammer Dearden as well. Try and keep him out of the game. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But on to Saturday then. Super Saturday.
SPEAKER_02:Always super on a
SPEAKER_01:Saturday. It is always super. The footy never stops. So, Sharks Rabbitohs at Shark Park.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's going to be a very professional Sharks win, I reckon. They're just going to go through the gears. Rabbitohs have been, I wouldn't want to say lucky, but have got wins. Especially last week, they won out of the jaws of
SPEAKER_01:losing. Snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's going to be a very professional Sharks win, if I'm being perfectly honest.
SPEAKER_01:I think they've got too much for them. I believe that the Sharks pack and their physicality has too much for the Rabbitohs. Yeah. Sean Keppy, to be honest, I give the Rabbitohs credit. I've been impressed with the physicalness of Sean Keppy. When he left Manly and went to the Rabbitohs last season, I didn't see much from him. But it seems like he's stepped up a bit this year. And... I agree. I think the Sharks are going to have too much for them. I see a very comfortable Sharks victory. I want to say 13 plus would be what I'd go with. The Rabbitohs will score. They will cause them problems. They will get meters. And I think the attack that they've got in Jaya Gray, Jamie Humphreys booting the ball miles to get them out of situations. And that's the
SPEAKER_02:thing is Jamie Humphreys can... clear it 60, 70 metres. It'd be really interesting to see what his average kicking distance is this season from sort of defensive kicks. And that changes it because if you can get hang time on that as well and let your wingers and your edges to get up to the fullback, up to the wingers, the attacking team, it creates so much more work for them.
SPEAKER_01:Just Adam Fenua-Blake though, again, running it straight. Absolute cannonball. He'll love it. We're both going sharks. Yeah. both going short I hope Nico Hines has a
SPEAKER_02:good
SPEAKER_01:game because again he's he's been under pressure a bit but I think he did well he did well
SPEAKER_02:yeah just last week was a professional well I say professional he just got on with his job against the Cowboys yeah but for your seven though you expect a bit of yeah every now and then like clearly nearly clutched it back for for the Panthers
SPEAKER_01:against one thing we didn't touch on against the Roosters Panthers was that try saver yeah Daniel Tupo put in on Brian Toto not many people stop Toto when he's one-on-one with the corner flag
SPEAKER_03:no
SPEAKER_01:Fair play for that. But Friday... Sorry, not Friday. Saturday. Getting my days mixed up. Saturday, 5.30. Dolphins against the Tigers. KO Stadium.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not sure about this one. This is another 50-51. I'm not sure about this one. It's going to be the Tigers' first real test. It's a way up at the Dolphins. Dolphins, again, first game up at home just because of everything that happened. You'd expect the... you'd want the Tigers to continue with where they've been. And sort of you look at week one being first gear, last week second gear, you'd expect them to take it up another gear. And I think they've got the players in that team to be able to do that. Because the players that you look at, you look at your Lewis, you look at your Terrell Mays to... bring it up to the next level and I think they can it's then just making sure everyone around them is at the same page whereas the sharks sorry not the sharks the dolphins are sort of slowly slowly getting there and it's still post Wayne Bennett era maybe they're just trying to find their identity a little bit
SPEAKER_01:They've got to get a hammer so tabby-eyed Fidel into it. They need to get the hammer involved more.
SPEAKER_02:He needs to be 220 plus years next week.
SPEAKER_01:Herbie Farnworth, I feel, is someone that's underperforming a little bit as well. He's a bit of a dog that I think can step it up. I feel the Dolphins need to step it up. Now, I said earlier that Jureen Buller might be out this week. I don't know where I got that nonsense from. They've got exactly the same... The Tigers have got exactly the same squad as they have had last week. The Tigers need to start better than they did... against the Eels. If they don't start in a positive way and they don't get points on the board early, I believe the Dolphins could take advantage of that because they have got the attacking threat of the Hammer, Jermaine Asako, and especially Katoa as well. He's one that's picked up his performance for the Dolphins late on in that game against the Knights. So this is a tight one. It all depends on the Tigers' start. I'm... Going to tip the Tigers. I'm going to back the Tigers.
SPEAKER_02:Back-to-back Tigers tips. I said last week that I'm probably going to back the Tigers all season and it may win me some, may lose me some, so I'm going to go Tigers again.
SPEAKER_01:Both going for the Tigers. And then the final game on Saturday night, we've got the Gold Coast Titans making their first appearance of the season at home against the Newcastle Knights. I'm interested to see this. Again, we'll think we'll have a tight one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Again, Seeing how Ponga played last week, Bradman Best, if they can sort of link up and just do what they do best, I think they'll have too much for the Titans.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I do like the Titans pack. I do like the physicalness of their pack. Campbell Gillard, they've got Big Tino. I'd love to be able to pronounce his surname, but I just don't want to butcher it and do it. But Mo Fodder-Waker as well. They've got some boys that will cause issues. David Fafita coming off the bench. If they can... Because who have the Knights lost? They've lost Kai-Pierce Paul, who got done for a high shot. I think he's got a two... He might be appealing it, but he's got a two-game... No, that's the Roosters guy that's appealing. So he's out. He's suspended. And Leo Thompson as well. They're two decent losses. It'd be interesting to see how the pack's going. I
SPEAKER_02:just didn't see enough from the Titans last week, unfortunately, attacking-wise.
SPEAKER_01:They've got some good wingers, though. I reckon the Titans might be slept on in this one. Do you know what? I'm going to go with the Titans. I'm going to tip the Titans in this one. I mean, the Knights could well and truly turn up and Caelan Ponga could put on a clinic. But first home show out. I'm going to go Knights. So we've got a split one there. I'm going Titans, you're going Knights. We've got two that are split, but that'll be an interesting one to see. Again, it's so close. We're going off of one Titans performance as well. So we'll see how that one goes. But what a Saturday, good Saturday. And then on to Sunday.
SPEAKER_02:Any point talking through this one?
SPEAKER_01:Eels versus Bulldogs. It's at the con bank. It's at home. Can the Eels turn things around in a week? They've been very poor. What will be interesting, though, is how... They do without Burton. How they do without Burton, how they do without kick-out. If I looked at the odds earlier, and it was actually a lot tighter than I thought it was going to be, and I believe that's due to those two injuries. The Dogs have got enough. I think Stephen Crichton is such a leader. He won't let the standards slip down to the Eels level, and the Eels have got a lot of soul-searching to do. They're in a desperate place right now. They need to produce something and pull something out of their backside to put performance in just to instill some confidence in the team and the fans. I can only see a Bulldogs victory in this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm the exact same. The dogs look so good. in, like I said, in those 20-minute spells where I think they could end up putting three or four tries past the eels quite quickly.
SPEAKER_01:If they blow them away in the opening 20 minutes, it's done. There's no point in tuning in.
SPEAKER_02:If it's 22-0 within that first 20, I can't see any way back for the eels, unfortunately. I completely agree. And with Dylan Brown, he's... He's already thinking about his life elsewhere.
SPEAKER_01:There's already talks as well. People are saying in the media about if they carry on like this, are they going to find a way to ship him out, get him up to Newcastle early? Rebuild the project earlier. Is his mind really going to be... putting it all out for the Eels. And the news as well that Mitch Moses' injury isn't healing as quickly as they thought. Apparently poor blood supply at the area that needs it. So they are in a sorry state of affairs. Dylan Brown's win percentage without Mitch Moses is something ridiculous, like 20%.
SPEAKER_02:Mitch Moses is so good and he's so influential on that Eels team, which if he was in there... I reckon we could be having different conversations, but he's not there, and it's been a real struggle for him. So I'm going to go the dogs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it has to be the dogs. And then on to the big one, the Sunday finisher, the Four Pines Park, the Fortress Brookvale, Brookie Oval, Manly Seagulls against the Canberra Raiders.
SPEAKER_02:I'm going to go Manly just because I don't believe in– tipping against your team
SPEAKER_01:I'm a little different I will tip against Manly not in this fixture but when it comes to points in the season where I feel they aren't going to win I will actually
SPEAKER_02:care more about your tip than you do support for your team I'm going to tip Manly but I'll explain why I'm nervous Raiders are relentless in what they do which as we saw against the Warriors. Yeah, and they are very quick at the breakdown, at the rook, and they've got a lot of speed, as you said, out there to open up. That's what I'm worried about. And it's the offloads. If we can't stop the offloads, I'm leaving at halftime and I don't think we're going to win the game.
SPEAKER_01:Every time we've gone to watch Manly against a team that offloads, so Parramatta away last year, Raiders at home, the offloads just kill Manly. And it's something that I hope they're planning for. I hope that they're foreseeing because you just know that Horsborough is going to be running in, trying to spin his back, trying to offload it, whip it out wide, and then they've got pace on the outside. Yeah. Kerry Weeks could come back to haunt his old side again and score. Then they've got his Savage back. Xavier Savage is back on the outside. But Sebastian Chris as well was very impressive last week again. He's another one that can cause issues.
SPEAKER_02:But on the flip side to all that, Manly are so good when it clicks. Manly are incredible when it clicks.
SPEAKER_01:And that's usually at home. Yeah. in front of a packed brookie on a Sunday evening. I think the weather's meant to be nice as well, which will get everyone out. Because when it's raining on that hill, I wouldn't like to be on it.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no, definitely not. But you look at the attack that Manly have got. You've got Kalua coming back, who was a miss. Yeah, he was a bigger miss than I thought. He had so much more pace. Tommy Talao's starting to come back as well. So when he's fully fit, it'll be interesting to see how the back line shakes up. You've got Jason Saab, who's... who's not shining away from anything, which is a new... That first
SPEAKER_01:try that he scored against the Warriors as well, it looked like he was jogging, and he was just eating up meters down the sideline.
SPEAKER_02:And he looks stacked, and he's not afraid to get the hard yards. So yeah, I reckon Manly may just have enough. I think it's going to be a close game, so I reckon it could be like a 30-26, because I think this will be... a lot of tries in this game and I reckon it will go down to conversions and who can move up by six because that's how Raiders won last year on that cold Friday night was Ruben Garrick was missing conversions left right and centre and ended up was it 30-32 or something like that ended up losing by a conversion when Manly missed about two or three so I think yeah I'm going to go Manly What's your thoughts?
SPEAKER_01:I agree. I'm going to go manly. And I'm glad that Tarpanay is out still for the Raiders because he is solid. Tom Starling was hitting everything that moved, though. He was very impressive. Josh Papali was back to his old best against the Broncos. I hope he doesn't turn up like that this weekend. But I think Manly have got enough to get it done. The fact that Takiyah is back, I'm hoping he brings that aggressiveness from the opening kickoff, whether it's running down or taking the first hit up. Sipley has actually been dropped out. Alawai is back in, which I thought Alawai had a really physical game against the Warriors. He didn't have any errors, which is unlike him. He usually drops the ball every now and then. What this will boil down to is, one, if Tom Trubojevic is fit, But then I'm not too worried about that because you do have Hoppawattie that can go back there. The bigger concern is that Cherry Evans is fully fit. Now, hopefully he is, but you never know with a back spasm, muscle relaxants, hopefully we'll get him through it. Will he be able to move like he does and be creative? We'll see, but manly for the win. Yeah. Also,
SPEAKER_02:bit of a rogue one to end it on, but talking about hookers for New South Wales, I reckon Tom Starling's not... not too far away from having a conversation as well
SPEAKER_01:performances so far he's quick moving the ball and he hits everything that moves he is a dog at the moment he's showing DAWG Liam Martin and Angus Crichton but then there's even talks of Angus Crichton potentially in trouble depending on how they do against the Roosters this year so we will see we've been chatting a long time about the NRL so let's move on quickly to the Six Nations just have a quick round up about that so finished over the weekend France Unfortunately, ran out winners. I thought Scotland might give them a bit of a test, but it never materialised. England finished very strong though. This is very promising. One for Lions picks in the fact that England's back row were on. The Curry brothers and Ben
SPEAKER_02:Earl. This is a conversation to be had. I reckon as a unit, they're arguably the best back row unit. As individuals, players, I don't think, I think there's players better than them to go.
SPEAKER_01:Here's a stat for you that I saw earlier. Breakdown steals over the whole tournament. Tom Curry, five. So equal all rank number two. Tom Curry, five steals. Ben Curry, five steals. Ben Earl, five steals.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:as a unit as a unit yeah
SPEAKER_02:but as i said as a unit they're incredible and it showed just the speed around the breakdown there they're not like we earl isn't a big lumpy number eight he is a number eight that can shift and he's got a lot of pace and they're the i haven't said it this week but they as a three they're also interchangeable yes which which really helps in that sort of things um it's so funny what happens when you attack and you stop box kicking from everywhere and it's quite amazing to see
SPEAKER_01:turned whales over in their
SPEAKER_02:backyard which I think the majority of pundits were very much getting saying it was a it was going to be a bit of banana skin but Ireland Again, they've got Triple Crown on the verge of Grand Slam. Changing of the guard. Ended up third. So it'd be interesting to see how they progress through Autumn Internationals and things like that. They are starting to have players age out, but they're starting to get some good players coming through as well. Pentegrast, I think he's... I haven't seen enough from other fly halves for him not to be... in conversation for the number
SPEAKER_01:10. Even though England beat them, I think that performance that they put in against Ireland was enough to kind of... And their relentlessness against Italy, which England didn't put their foot on the throat enough against Italy. Then we blow out Wales too little too late. But it was an impressive England's comeback. And due to that, I would actually put Mario Otojo within a shout of becoming the Lions captain. 100%. I think
SPEAKER_02:it's etched in there. I think he's very much a leader. He's been... sort of, I know it's not a great word to use, but he's been groomed to be the England captain from a very young age. That was written in the stars. Next step for him would be Lions captain. 3-0
SPEAKER_01:Whitewash over in Australia, Lions captain.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's going to be the thing. See how they all... They all gelled together.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, we'll preview the Lions coming up in coming weeks. Six Nations was a massive audition for that. I think there's certainly some people that stood out. But another jam-packed episode this week. A lot to talk about. A lot of fixtures over the weekend that we're going to review next week. But thank you for listening and we'll catch you in the next one.
SPEAKER_02:Good night as always.