Graham

WELCOME to your NRL Tipping Competition 2021 This is our first tipping competition the new season. Hope you had an enjoyable off season! Everyone reading this is welcome to enter the competition and the ones that follow each week throughout the season culminating in the Grand Final. Whether you've taken part before or you fancy having a go this season for the first time you're guaranteed a warm welcome. Entries are allowed each week up until the kick off of the first game in the round. You can enter every week (hopefully) or occasionally N.B. The first game of the season

The NRL have announced that the Adelaide Oval will host a State of Origin match in 2023, ensuring the series will see one game held on neutral turf for the next three years. In an announcement with the South Australian Government, the NRL confirmed the league would head back to Adelaide following the success of the 2020 series opener. A reduced crowd of 25,218 saw Queensland upset the Blues 18-14 to take a 1-0 series lead in November last year, after a delayed start due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I paid for Big League last season.... and got little or no info from them. I’m supportive of the journalists but thought the company would be professional enough to at least let us know what was happening, even if it was bad news.

NRL head of football Graham Annesley has flagged the league will consider altering the new rules introduced into the game should they show little or negative impacts on the game. The ARL Commission introduced eight new rules for the 2021 season in hope of making the game more exciting and free flowing, while many have hit back with criticism on several of the new rules. Scrums are set to be replaced with a play-the-ball when players in possession go into touch, with some criticism stating the change could end up causing more stoppages than before. Annesley revealed to NRL.com th

Penrith will now turn their attention to star prop James Fisher-Harris after confirming the re-signings of star duo Stephen Crichton and Jarome Luai this week. Crichton penned a new deal until the end of the 2023 season on Wednesday before the club confirmed the extension of promising five-eighth Luai until 2024 later in the week. The duo of signings on top of newly-appointed co-captain Isaah Yeo’s new four-year deal has lifted plenty of pressure off of the Panthers’ shoulders ahead of this season’s open market.

Canberra are set to announce the re-signing of promising back-rower Hudson Young, with the 22-year-old extending his tenure with the Green Machine until the end of the 2023 season.

Parramatta has stopped paying Michael Jennings’ $8000 a week salary while he is banned for alleged drug cheating. Jennings was suspended by the NRL last October for returning a positive sample for banned substances Ligandrol and Ibutamoren and three of their metabolites. The former Australian international currently works for a building company while he awaits a verdict. It is said the Eels will continue to provide welfare support but have suspended the 32-year-old’s contract which expires at the end of the year.

The NRL is aiming to introduce a trade window by 2023. The idea is to stop player agents from using phantom offers to drive up their clients value. According to what I've read there would likely be two trade windows: one after the Grand Final one in January, The idea is that this would aim to stop players and clubs from breaking contracts before they expire.

They are highly placed in the betting, but I guess that’s because they have a lot of fans who have placed the bets and shortened their odds to a position they will be lucky to match in reality.

Storm’s away kit not officially announced yet. They wore this in their trial game v Knights today: Grant was injured in the game and could be out for a month...

Matty Johns Show - sadly now in the mould of The Footy Show. Puerile humour that swamps any analysis of our great game.

Two films I’ve seen this week that were good in different ways. Disney Pixar animation Coco - DVD A Day of the Dead sort of setting, featuring a boy who visits his ancestors. Despite its fun and skeletal characters, or maybe because of them, this was an above average animation well worth a look. Family fun. Paul Greengrass directed film News of the World We like almost all films with Tom Hanks in. This one is a western filmed in New Mexico which in the film is Texas. It’s a dangerous journey film which touches on a range of important themes reflects on life in those times a

St George Illawarra are fed up with NRL player managers using their club’s name as “contract bait” to increase interest in out-of-contract players, per The Daily Telegraph. Parramatta lock Nathan Brown is the latest player to be falsely linked to the Dragons, with the club going directly to the Eels in revealing they hold no interest in their star. Apparently two other clubs have also said to be interested, but no actual suitors have been identified.

I found this blurb for last season (2020) I don’t remember having access to all those entertainment shows, apart from Marty John’s things, maybe I just didn’t look in the right place, or maybe I had enough just watching all/most of the games.

Who in their right mind would bet against Storm?