BrisbaneRhino

Clearly in some cases the term "homesick" has been used/abused to cover other issues. We've seen Aussies in SL suddenly become "homesick" when they get an NRL offer. Some Brits in the NRL (I can't name dozens over the past 20 years because that's made up regardless of whether they stayed or left) have become "homesick" as soon as they look like being left in reserve grade. However, there are always going to be actual cases of guys finding it genuinely difficult to live in a different country. As an expat who's live in Bris Vegas for over 20 years I can assure you there's a whole range of

The ban seems about right to me. That's a pretty significant penalty in terms of his income this year. As an aside, comparisons to people in "normal' jobs are daft. If someone is sacked for using a racist term at work, most people are able to go and get a similar job elsewhere. While not always true, its not the same as having your name published everywhere (which surely is part of the "punishment" in this sort of case?). If Wigan did sack Clubb, there's no way any other club would touch him (at least in the short term).

Someone mentioned the role of mainstream media, and suggested they didn't know how to deal with the wild west of social media. I think this is an oversimplification. Given the need to constantly provide the latest news, most if not all mainstream media outlets have teams of people doing nothing else apart from trawling social media looking for something, anything to put into their own sites. These are often dumb but harmless "latest food trend divides the internet" but often include the "people demand [insert name] resign". The latter are highly dangerous to individuals because the mainst

Dunno about the Raiders, but it probably makes sense for the Broncos. Turpin is useless - even his defence, which was his strong point, is now terrible. Danny Levi looks far more dangerous and he's a reserve grade desperation signing.

You can coach defence as much as you want, but if a team doesn't have the right attitude it all falls to bits. One difference between good and bad sides (now also true in the NRL) is how they react to a score against them - good sides redouble efforts and try to get back on top, bad sides often let in groups of tries in short periods. It also helps if you are good in attack - you'll generally win field position and have the opposition starting deeper, which means more drives up the middle and less actual attacking play to defend against.

Leeds found it easier to cope with genuinely no halfbacks against Sts. If you have no halfbacks at all the gameplan becomes absolute simplicity - hard graft with and without the ball. That will be enough sometimes to keep you competitive, but likely to lose against most teams through lack of points and really hard to maintain over more than a few games. Then as soon as you start to play something a bit more expansive because you get one halfback back, you often lose the solidity of a graft-based game for very little benefit in terms of creativity delivering points. I'm not convinced

Leeds do have a fair few players out, but the players we did have were awful at some of the basics. I was thinking about the whole '10 players out thing' and while its numerically correct it also exaggerates things a bit. Of our first choice 17 we have Myler, Newman, Gale and Eastmond (maybe) in the backs and Tetevano out. In the backs we have 4 halfbacks out, but in reality only 2 of them would ever play. Walker should just be ignored for any of these discussions because we have to cope without him all year. Holroyd, McLelland and Alex Sutcliffe are injured, but none would be definite

Like Ryan Hall he also joined the wrong club when going to Aus. Brisbane were and are stacked for backrowers. When he joined Gillett and Glenn were first choice and they had a whole bunch ready for a crack, most of whom are now playing elsewhere.

From what we've heard about his time at Souths Maguire would have a limited shelf life anywhere - he works players to the bone. At Souths his approach paid off from the go, but even there it waned and they weren't very good at the back end of his time there. As you say the Tigers culture is awful, and there may just have been too many players happy to cruise along for a coach like Maguire to succeed without a lot of player turnover.

They'll pick him if he's willing to play centre. He obviously lost his cool for some reason during that game. While I think Mitchell can be a bit temperamental, the kick out IMO was entirely the fault of the guy blatantly continuing to hold onto his foot when he had no right to. I can fully understand him getting annoyed, and he just flicked his boot at him. Before anyone says that's dangerous, well if the guy hadn't been illegally holding on it wouldn't have happened at all.

Assuming contested scrums never come back, the scrum's only value is a chance to properly get the forwards out of the way for a play. Even if not 'contested' I'd like to see breaking early from a scrum a sin bin offence. That might sound a bit OTT, but the problem is that forwards just touch the scrum before haring off to interfere with the play. Keep them out, just for one play, and we might see decent scrum moves come back into vogue. Someone raised the 80s as being more enjoyable. I've rewatched a fair few games from the 80s, and some are very entertaining and some are awful to watch.

Good luck to him. My only problem with him going back to Aus was if he decamped mid-season. He'll need luck playing alongside Brooks. Of the players that the Tigers developed and were desperate to keep a few years back, he's the only one who stayed and he's by far the worst of the backs. Tedesco obviously but Moses at times looks far better.

I don't expect Eastmond will be a superstar. What he will do hopefully once he gets fit and back into the swing of RL is help take pressure off Gale and add a few more attacking options. If Leeds don't start getting some players back we're going to end up with too much to do to get to the play offs, regardless of how good a theoretical best 17 is when everyone's fit. We definitely need to not go into games with a mindset of aiming for plucky defeats and start aiming to get wins by any means necessary.

What's weird with Leeds' injury list is how its hit the backs really hard - notably full back, centre and halfback - whereas we're close to full strength in the forwards except for Holroyd and Tetevano. That and the fact quite a few of the injured players haven't even played a game makes it odd. As for sympathy? I'm not sure who's asking for any. As an explanation for a poor performance/result it makes sense for Leeds, but also does for any other team.

I don't have a problem with kickers getting protected more. They need to have some fear of being tackled, but there's too much allowance given for defenders clattering them. I have no problem with Tetevano's ban.