The Rocket

And I thought this was going to be an acknowledgment that I was right about Newcastle and you were wrong. p.s. turned the Saint`s game off after 20 minutes, watched the replay of the Warriors game, much, much more enjoyable.

Said the actress to the vicar.

Peter Hatcher QRL boss interviewed in yesterday`s The Australian says definitely the next team should come out of Perth, then Ipswich, with Ipswich city itself being an eastern boundary and their catchment then being that western corridor that extends through to Toowoomba and beyond. There`s a lot of people in south-east Qld and sticking to roughly those areas leaves plenty of room for everyone. Say what you like about Hatcher but they run a good comp up there and introduced the P.N.G. Hunters when the Fijian Silktails were still a twinkle in the NSWRL`s eye. The QRL are making plans to have a Pacific Trieze side enter their competition in the next few years as well. Interesting though, no mention of Brisbane Easts Tigers, bid name FireHawks, who are both wealthy and strong in juniors.

2008 - 2010 says it all really.

I`ll pay that you ##!%$#@ !!

Meanwhile,,,,,, Over on the Australian Rugby League forum. " You XXxxx!#@$%%!!! %$^ " " up yours you *%$^##@#%!! " " go and get #@^&!!*&%#% you ##%#@^&!!"

Some people saying the Loins` corporates have taken a hit at tonight`s game as well. The Dolphins are back at Suncorp in three weeks time against Souths, that could be 40k + as well.

@gingerjon "The lights go out at The Gabba in the fourth quarter of an AFL game between Brisbane and Melbourne on FS2. Play is currently delayed." You might say (or even sing) " Lights go out, walls come tumbling down".

You would not even know the fumbleball game is on, the notoriously pro-fumbleball and anti-League National Broadcaster, the ABC ran an extended story on the game in last night`s news vox popping people on the streets of Brisbane, it was gold, even the usually snooty nosed ABC were calling it the Battle of Brisbane.

I don`t agree, they were in with a real chance last week and apart from Hastings going off and a couple blunders from Tyson Gamble at the death they could have won that game. The team is still playing with plenty of heart. Couple of things, Miller is still finding his way at fullback, but we saw last week how good he might become. As a runner with the ball, as a link player and as a general threat, his energy levels are off the chart. Last year I thought the Dolphins should have gone after him. He keeps playing like that and they get Ponga back, with Hastings at half-back will make a real difference. BTW. When are teams going to start to protect their halves, especially vulnerable blokes like Ponga. Certainly not having them make tackles from the kick-off. Bradmen Best seemed to be having a go at the weekend and it`s about time and Gagai is still a top draw player. I thought everyone was a bit tough on Young, he dropped a couple of balls but was still running very hard with the ball, he`ll be alright once he gets back in. He will not want to have a reputation of being a slacker waiting for next year. In the meantime they have Greg Marzhew, watch him go this weekend, he`s good. That Croker bloke is back from injury now and he`s a top shelf young forward, no coincidence that Bennett went after him hard for the Dolphins. Better times ahead for the Knights.

Those accounts of armies of 200 000 + basically fighting hand to hand during the Persian invasions of Greece used to blow my mind. Caesar`s siege of Alesia would have been incredibly dramatic as well. Some of those ancient sea battles with the triremes, like the battle of Salamis, would be hard to beat as well. Characters to meet: any of the great explorers would be fascinating, people who saw the world as it had existed for thousands and thousands of years before we spoilt it.

Where I live up here on the mid-north coast of N.S.W., our group (Group 3) was considered a leader in introducing League Tag for the women, ironically, they`re having a hard time getting numbers for some of the clubs this year, because now that they`ve introduced a tackle comp all the girls in the League Tag teams want to play tackle. The Group president was on the news recently calling out for girls for the League Tag, what it does show though, it does appear to be a pathway through to the tackle game and apart from the engagement with the sport as a whole angle, that`s what ultimately would be ideal.

She does and she is (for the gen z social media fans).

Yeah mate the sold-out sign went up a few hours ago.

Over here people who follow ticket sales at the different games reckons it could go close to a club game record crowd at Suncorp. "This is how quickly tickets are shifting for Dolphins v Broncos. All the sections with a yellow line have sold this evening. Just restricted view to be listed soon. I wonder how corporates are going - I actually think we are a chance of beating the regular season record at Suncorp (50,612 - Broncos v Cowboys 2008)."

Me.

Now there`s a contradiction in terms, `talent` and Australian soccer. I don`t know if you`ve watched Oz soccer but it is awful, they honestly can`t string three passes together, it is almost laughable it`s so bad. Unfortunately, it always suffers by comparison with the highlights shown on our nightly news everynight of the EPL. BTW crowds this year are at an 18 year low, definitely no World Cup bump.

George you`ve got your years mixed up, the NRL didn`t have a float in this year`s Mardi Gras because they weren`t given an invite after the Manly Pride Round Jersey fiasco, or whatever it was called. My first instincts were ` xxxx `em` because I felt like the whole NRL were being targeted (you might say cancelled) by the Mardi Gras organisers because of what had happened at Manly. Almost as if they were looking for an excuse to target someone to make a statement. The more rational side of me acknowledges that this was a black eye for the game. At a game at Parramatta last year an obviously gay couple were seated near us, I witnessed what was fairly obvious low hostility towards them yet on the other hand I saw people being openly friendly and welcoming. The former definitely wasn`t nice, the latter was quite touching. At the end of the day if a Pride or Inclusivity Round `educates` the former about live and let live then it`s not a bad thing.

" my glasses fall off "

Let`s face it these things go through ebbs and flows, we`ve been through a purple patch over the last decade with world-class halfbacks : Cherry-Evans, Hunt, Reynolds, Hughes, Moses, Cleary, Keary, Cronk, Thurston, Hynes, am I missing any, these are all world class players and will be replaced. We are already seeing a few bright young stars appearing, that bloke Trindall at the Sharks, their second-string half-back, has first grader written all over him, and Souths have a couple of other young blokes behind IlIas for starters. As far as two quality halves, there`s plenty of teams that manage without two star halves, always has been.

I recall exactly the same report, it was the sort of thing that stuck in my mind because it was so significant.

Not only that but I watched every trial match this year where teams regularly field their second and third string teams. I was struck by the amount of players I`d never heard of who looked right at home in the top-grade. Another point, sometimes I think that what we lack is more coaches who are better at developing players, rather than the players themselves. Take Melbourne, converted Cooper Cronk from a utility player to a very good half-back. He leaves they flipflop around between Croft/Hughes et.al. not really not knowing where to play Hughes, now he`s an outstanding first-grade halfback. I put that down to the Melbourne system and their ability to develop players.

Article in today`s paper and appearing on ABC radio where N.S. Bears spokesperson Billy Moore says the Bears are open to a Pasifika Bears hook-up. The name says it all. I can see the grizzly bear logo appearing through the palm trees now. The whole thing is quite tragic. Maybe they could change it to Pasifika Bares in a nod to the traditional habit of some Pacific Island cultures originally getting around in the nuddy.

The reason the Sky deal jumped so much was because of competition from the streaming service Flick, which has since folded, this takes us back to the situation of a Sky sports monopoly. Hence it is far from guaranteed that a similar deal could be done next time. The other thing that bothers me is that the N.Z. economy is 1/5th of Australia`s and its` population centres are quite dispersed so that no one other city (apart from Auckland) jumps out as being able support an NRL side yet. Adelaide is a good sized city of 1.3m in a State of 1.9m, that had a Rugby League team that was well supported until it was sacrificed in the Super League war settlement. Like Storm based in a fumbleball state, I could envisage that state getting behind its` League team even if they still follow the predominate code. Once again develop the pathways coming out of N.Z. with an eye to the future and getting the Warriors performing first. Like what we are starting to see now finally .Plans afoot for One New Zealand Warriors to field five teams in 2024 | Warriors

Perth for the national spread, Ipswich Jets to lock up that Western corridor and the western part of Brisbane and then I`d be thinking about getting Adelaide in if the game can afford it. The Queensland and NSW Cup competitions are perfectly serviceable for PNG or P.I. teams presently, but definitely accelerating the investment in pathways from these regions.