Blog with James Hooper below from 1.30pm.
We’ve said it before and the last 24 hours is the classic case in point, rugby league never, ever sleeps.
In an action packed Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, the Dragons have finally found some intestinal fortitude and blocked the Ben Hunt immediate release request – for now.
The St George Illawarra play smacks more of incoming coach Shane Flanagan than the other key decision-makers who’ve been exposed as being hopelessly out of their depth over the past two months.
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‘How did the Knights lose?!’ | 00:17
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Manly has produced a Gold Coast Titans-style play from last week’s axing of coach Justin Holbrook and signed Luke Brooks from the Wests Tigers for next season.
This is a smart play from the Sea Eagles but the question now is what does it mean for Josh Schuster’s future after the club has clearly signalled an intention to play him in the backrow.
The flow-on effect is also what does it mean for Wests Tigers in terms of who’s going to play in the halves for the struggling club beyond this season?
Tigers assistant coach Benji Marshall has made it clear he doesn’t want to make a play for Schuster.
And as plenty of good judges have pointed out recently, good halves are like hen’s teeth at the moment – hard to find.
On the field the Brisbane Broncos and Queensland star Reece Walsh unleashes an expletive-laden tirade at referee Chris Butler and is referred straight to the NRL’s judiciary.
If Walsh gets more than a one-game suspension it then opens up the fullback spot for Queensland in State of Origin III on June 12.
Walsh has been super pro-active on social media on Monday to claim the tirade was in no way directed at referee Chris Butler.
For the record, we’ve watched the full vision multiple times and the NRL looks to have an extremely strong argument against the Broncos fullback.
Then the Sydney Roosters champion fullback James Tedesco’s tough season continues as the Canberra Raiders upset the Chooks and once-again underline the magnitude of the Tricolours woes in terms of their attack and out-of-form star players.
Joey Manu hardly touched the ball in the opening half before almost single-handedly steering the Roosters to victory with some big plays.
New angle: Walsh expletive-filled tirade | 00:35
The cold hard numbers are the Roosters have scored the least number of points this season (16.4 per game), the least number of tries (2.7 per game), sit 14th for running metres (1349 per game), 13th for post-contact metres (448 per game), 15th for line breaks (3.9 per game), 16th for completion rate (75.09 per cent) and 16th for errors (11.5 per game).
The competition ladder is also as tightly-compressed as an astronaut’s helmet with leaders Penrith, Brisbane and Storm on 24 points, Cronulla, the Warriors and Canberra Raiders on 22 points, Parramatta, South Sydney and Gold Coast on 20 points and then the Cowboys, Dolphins and Roosters on 18 points.
That’s 1st to 12th. It sets up for a thousand more twists and turns in the run home to September.
What were your likes or dislikes from round 17?
Blog with James Hooper from 1.30pm. If you can’t see the blog click HERE.
