Sports Prophet

I agree with much of your sentiment, but not with this. The best athletes are not playing the most popular sport, the best athletes are playing all sports, RL included. Replace “athletes” with “talent” and I would still argue the same point. A 22 round season with 4 or 5 Challenge Cup weekends including SL teams and 3-4 week finals system gives us 29-31 weeks of footy. The season needs reducing to allow for more representative opportunities to be added.

I think a reverse Middle 8s knockout would be fascinating. No full round of playing each other once, just a simple knockout where a win will secure your place in SL, while a loss means you go on to play next week before only two teams are left, playing the MPG. Like a reverse of the NRL top 8. #everygamecounts

Nothing personal taken, but the way Gould has been publicly praising Barrett the last 6 weeks, demonstrates the affection. *edit I see Panthers have already publicly said Barrett is not in their plans. Is that a sign that he will be or won’t be 🤔

Their collapses seem to be happening later and later in the season year on year. they will secure finals footy this year. That’s an improvement. I think he is safe for the time being.

Or edit your laughable emoji at my suggestion that he will be at Penrith next year.

Yep, that game was epic. Northies was full and noisy for almost the entire match.

It’s hotting up. Battle for the spoon is intriguing as well.

I didn’t notice them, but then again, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. 😆

I disagree wholeheartedly. Teams play their best football at the end of the season. The regular season allows opportunity to work combinations and build structures to nullify the various structures of your opponents. You take all you have learned and if you did well enough to beat the cut, then you get to put your best against their best, to decide the rightful champion. Of course, that’s just my opinion.

Except for the round robin stage which is home and away league structure, where you can still go on to win the Champions League or World Cup even though you didn’t finish top of your group. Same can be said for the qualifiers prior to the World Cup finals...

I saw this yesterday as well. A categorical “no” from Flannigan will likely result in Barba being announced as a Shark within the next three weeks, knowing the NRL 😂 I see Holmes turning down the Sharks 5 year offer and expect the they will release him a year early to take up a FB role at Cowboys and bring in Barba for three years.

Barrett

He’s only got a year left, he is the Cowboys fullback solution after releasing Ponga

Yep, but it can only be classed as spin if it is semi legitimate right? He went from gaining back a little of my respect when he appeared on Full Credit To The Boys (RL podcast you should listen to), but the moment he has a camera in front of him, he has an obvious agenda to push.

that last pass went behind him because he absolutely belted it at him. Didn’t need to be that hard.