ghost crayfish

Spot on. The single biggest factor is kayo. Along with being more affordable and portable, it's the times we live in. Having multiple apps on your phone that stream content for a subscription fee is totally normal now. Weekends are full of footy, no games overlap. It's almost impossible not to watch any!

Axe to grind mate? He inherited a wooden spoon team getting smashed by 50 every week, looking dispirited and unfit, holding gender reveal parties in the field after being belted. A shambles. He spent last year clearing out the deadwood, changing the culture and turning them around. By year end, they were competing every week and winning the odd game. Now they're in the top 6, beating top sides. Clear upward trajectory from almost the day Walters came in.

Lomax

You'd be absolutely mad to pick both against NZ or Tonga though, your pack would be too small. And there's no way I would pick Farrell ahead of Bateman for a test match.

Ireland should be able to beat Lebanon if they put a full strength team out, including people like Luke Keary.

Cricket does it now. No big deal.

I thought Burgess had some decent runs last week, but he was great today. Aside from the stats, the last couple of years he's really grown into a leader. He makes yards when they need it, and when he's going well so much of their momentum comes off the back of his work.

Farnworth was great tonight and is emerging as a genuine star more with each game. Brisbane are on the up and he's a big reason why. Maybe, just maybe, Wane's little wake up call to him has worked? Brisbane is a club that had obvious attitude problems amongst its players over the last couple of years. So who knows? Maybe he did need a clip over the ears. It's no big deal. Young players slip up and get disciplined all the time. He's clearly responded well and looks like a certainty for the world cup.

I think there might have been a bit of 'standard setting' with squad announcements over the last few years, given there haven't been any games and the squads have been pretty meaningless. Now there's actually a world cup to play, it's getting a bit more serious...

Be interesting to see if super league clubs release their Tongan (or Kiwi) players for the game. You'd hope Kristian Woolf should be OK with getting Konrad Hurrell a release, but it'll be interesting to see if Tui Lolohea and Manu Ma'u get a run. They're both very important players for Tonga so hopefully it's all good! Are there any kiwis in super league who could realistically get a call up? Dean Whare, if fit, would be one option. Not sure about any others? Shaun Kenny Dowell perhaps? Aside from Joey Manu, the kiwis are a bit short in the centres.

The raiders have a rookie half now to go with their ball runners at 6 and 1, so it makes sense to me they'd want to have a ball playing 13 now.

He's been our best two weeks in a row I think. Really developing into a gun centre now.

Farnworth was outstanding in both attack and defence. He's becoming a top line centre now. In the earlier game, Dom Young was good again. Andrew Johns, a knights assistant coach, gave him high praise for being a gifted future with a lot of potential.

Great news. He's a promising athlete and I think he'll kill it outside Gagai.

With the two Burgess boys at their best, added to Walmsley and Thompson, England could have a very strong prop rotation. Add the other good young emerging SL props to the mix, and its looking good.

I think it's shaping up to be a really good year. St Helens look likely no. 1 again, but Catalans, Warrington, Leeds and Hull should all narrow the gap. Wigan are a bit of an unknown, but have some good young talent and could click. Hull KR will be interesting and could potentially compete with the top teams, and I think on paper, Huddersfield, Castleford and Salford all have strong performances in them and can beat anyone. Wakefield and Toulouse will be 11th and 12th.

I think the Tigers are set for another 9th-10th place finish. They'll be OK and get some good wins here and there. I'm interested to see how Gildart goes and hope he gives a good account of himself.

Throw Gildart into the convo and you're on safe ground I reckon.

The eels really are making some terrible decisions. Hodgson is already looking past his best. In another 12 months he could be looking very old.

Garbage.

I think it's a bit of both. Vlandys very clearly has the news corp press in his pocket. They're like his own PR firm, and they are in control of much of the agenda setting in the coverage. Then we also have club-affiliated media figures at channel 9, like Phil Gould and Darren Lockyer. They all have vested interests in burying it. Beyond that though, the media treatment of the issue also probably is an extension of the unfortunate general apathy for test football here.

As long as players are willing to do it, the tournament needs to go ahead without Australia and NZ. This is a big moment for international RL. The players have the chance to expose the administration for what they are by playing, sacrificing two weeks of leave to turn up to training earlier and making the tournament a success. Tonga beat Australia last start and beat NZ at the last world cup. Fiji knocked NZ out of the last world cup. Samoa has a potentially world class side. The tournament can still be a good one and it can show arrogant Sydney administrators that the game is bigger than them.

Luke Thompson's first stint last night was really high quality. Strong defence, quick play the balls and good work rate.

I think Young looks very promising. Still pretty raw, but there's plenty of size, speed, athleticism and skill there.

Yeah Young looked good. Some solid yardage runs and a good finish where he showed great acceleration. A couple of his defensive reads to knock down the pass saved tries as well.