Moves, Rumours,Judiciary, Injuries ...

[George Watt]

Jarryd Hayne.   Charges of sexual assault are quashed after second appeal upheld. Incident goes back to the night of the 2018 NRL Grand Final. He was given a 5 year prison sentence last May. Is released on bail to await whether another trial(No 4) will go ahead.

Probably not!

[Farmduck]

22 hours ago, George Watt said:

Jarryd Hayne.   Charges of sexual assault are quashed after second appeal upheld. Incident goes back to the night of the 2018 NRL Grand Final. He was given a 5 year prison sentence last May. Is released on bail to await whether another trial(No 4) will go ahead.

Probably not!

I have no idea whether he's guilty or not but a 4th trial seems a bit much. You can't keep trying someone over and over till one of them finally sticks. OTOH, in the appeal, the judges decided on the basis of procedural technical issues and only one considered that the facts hadn't been proved.

[Anita Bath]

Yes, the judge refused to allow deleted texts from the ‘victim’ to be admitted as evidence.

 

What gets me is when judges make these errors there doesnt seem to be any accountability. Just more business for lawyers and judges.

[Farmduck]

The Federal Govt has announced a $20 million grant to upgrade Leichhardt Oval. Anthony Albanese announced $20m of federal funding on Friday, with the Inner West council and the New South Wales government contributing another $10m each to modernise the stadium. 

New female change rooms will be built at the stadium, which has increasingly hosted more women’s football matches in recent years, including Sydney FC’s women’s team. 

The works will also increase seating capacity by 3,000 and build a new northern grandstand.

If you think of Leichhardt as just a Wests Tigers venue this seems excessive and way out of proportion but the ground will host 120 games this year across a few codes, including Women's RL and soccer, Junior Rep games, school comp finals and lower-grade fixtures.

[Anita Bath]

Dolphins giving out free tickets for next months game against Titans at Suncorp to any members who show up at Fridays game v Storm.

They seem to be concerned about attendance prospects for both games.

Given they are playing so well does it suggest things arent working out quite as well as they expected, from an attendance perspective?

Friday night is a challenge given the late kick off (8pm) and the long trek to Suncorp and back. Sundays is a nightmare when there is a closure on the train line, which seems to happen every other weekend.

[Farmduck]

A few interesting names in the Round 16 team lists.

Tevita Pangai Jr has been named on the bench for Dolphins. Ryan Papenhuyzen named at #1 for Storm. RTS returns for Warriors. Manly named Karl Lawton to replace DCE with NSW Cup #7 Jamie Humphries on the extended bench.  Adam Doueihi on the extended bench for Wests after he played in NSW Cup last week. The Raiders haven't named Corey Horseburger at all despite his return in NSW Cup last game.

Pangai played 2 games in Qld Cup this year, separated by a bye, and only played 20 minutes in his last game so he may not do a long shift.

[Spotty Herbert]

Struggling to see why TPJ is being picked when there must be more enthusiastic, promising youngsters in the Queensland Cup. It seems very short term, even for a team affected by Origin call ups. Fingers crossed that Papenhuysen can get to the end of thecseason without any further injuries.

Edited June 18, 2024 by Spotty Herbert

[Graham]

27 minutes ago, Spotty Herbert said:

Struggling to see why TPJ is being picked when there must be more enthusiastic, promising youngsters in the Queensland Cup. It seems very short term, even for a team affected by Origin call ups. Fingers crossed that Papenhuysen can get to the end of the season without any further injuries.

Hear hear!

Supercoach:

At $692,600 he's a bargain, if as you say, he doesn't pick up any more injuries. Bit of a risk though

[Farmduck]

I don't know what the broadcast situation in UK is but currently Fox is showing live the u19s Womens Origin. The Mens u19s SOO starts in about an hour. About 10:45am according to my calculations.

[Graham]

8 hours ago, Farmduck said:

I don't know what the broadcast situation in UK is but currently Fox is showing live the u19s Womens Origin. The Mens u19s SOO starts in about an hour. About 10:45am according to my calculations.

They are on WatchNRL. If you missed, then they are on playback.

[Farmduck]

11 hours ago, Graham said:

They are on WatchNRL. If you missed, then they are on playback.

They were pretty good games. The standard was good, conditions were good so there was a lot of slick backline play and skill and speed. One slightly scary thought though. The Womens game showed how much talent the Jillaroos will have over the next 5-10 years and I'd hate to see OZ become too dominant at the international level. 

I remember the last Golden Age of OZ cricket - McGrath, Warne, Gilchrist, etc. For the first couple of years the crowds grew and grew but then they started to drop off because people just assumed OZ would win by a million. Of course cricket had the additional problem that there were often no Day 5 crowds and even Day 4 was often very poorly attended because it wouldn't go past lunch.

Hopefully a few of the Womens Origin players will choose Samoa or Tonga and level it out a bit.

[Graham]

Roosters backrower Sitili Tupouniua is set to leave the club with three years remaining on his contract and join the Bulldogs next season.

Foxsports.com.au has revealed Tupouniua met with Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo on Monday to discuss signing with the club from 2025.

The Roosters gave Tupouniua - who is currently contracted until 2027 - permission to talk to rival clubs after they thought they’d signed Titans backrower David Fifita (who backflipped them).

[DavidM]

Looks like Nick Cotric is Perpignan bound . Strange one , he was a boom winger but then he wasn’t . 

[Graham]

1 hour ago, DavidM said:

Looks like Nick Cotric is Perpignan bound . Strange one , he was a boom winger but then he wasn’t . 

I learnt something new today, 

I always assumed Nick was short for Nicholas but in his case it certainly isn’t.

Quote

Serbian: Никола Чотрић, romanized: Nikola Čotrić

It is short for Nikola.

[Graham]

I seem to think a past player’s name was an anagram of ACCIDENT, or have I just made that up?

[Graham]

On 24/06/2024 at 19:31, Graham said:

I seem to think a past player’s name was an anagram of ACCIDENT, or have I just made that up?

I’ve given it some thought… it was Ned Catic

[DavidM]

360 making a story out of nothing because they asked Flanno about Lomax backflipping and he didn’t explicitly deny it , or say anything really 

[Graham]

Siosiua Taukeiaho and Jayden Nikorima have been sacked by Super League club Catalans Dragons over a “highly unacceptable” incident.

[Barley Mow]

2 hours ago, Graham said:

Siosiua Taukeiaho and Jayden Nikorima have been sacked by Super League club Catalans Dragons over a “highly unacceptable” incident.

They told the club they were ill, missed training and flew to England to go to a concert apparently.

[Farmduck]

There are reports that John Bateman is heading back to SL for the rest of this year before returning to Wests for next season. Strange move. If Benji keeps bringing all the youngsters in to give them a taste of NRL maybe he should keep the older heads there to help them out. 

Apparently reported in Murdoch press but they all have paywalls now.

[Farmduck]

1 minute ago, Farmduck said:

There are reports that John Bateman is heading back to SL for the rest of this year before returning to Wests for next season. Strange move. If Benji keeps bringing all the youngsters in to give them a taste of NRL maybe he should keep the older heads there to help them out. 

Apparently reported in Murdoch press but they all have paywalls now.

... and immediately I notice it has been posted on the TRL site.

[Graham]

 

R21
Broncos captain Adam Reynolds insists Origin star Payne Haas will be cleared to face the Bulldogs after sitting out training on Wednesday.

[Graham]

Reimis Smith has been released by Storm straight away to take up an offer in SL.

It’s thought he’s going to Catalan Dragons.

 

[Farmduck]

48 minutes ago, Graham said:

Reimis Smith has been released by Storm straight away to take up an offer in SL.

It’s thought he’s going to Catalan Dragons.

 

I don't understand this. Who knows what injuries they might get in the next 6 weeks? They would only save a tiny amount off their salary cap so why not keep him till the end of the year?

[Farmduck]

Stefano Utoikamanu will join the Melbourne Storm next season having signed a three-year deal with the club. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-02/stefano-utoikamanu-melbourne-storm-wests-tigers/104177124