Yeah. A friend of mine, another Manly tragic, said that when we played the Dragons, Brooks and DCE played the worst halves pairing in the NRL…and then turned out to actually be the worst halves pairing. 😂
As for Brooks, in all fairness, I don’t think Brooks’ performances are going to invoke any breach clauses at the ACCC. We knew exactly what we were buying. In an environment where Halves are as rare as a forward pass pulled up, Brooks was signed for $600K a year after being on over a million at the Tigers. He tries his heart out, but the natural ability is just not there, nor does he, with the exception of Olakau’atu, have a forward pack that remotely knows what it’s doing. It has the go forward of a Dutton elections campaign. They keep doing what doesn’t work, so maybe they should be nicknamed the Coalition. Just not the Coalition of the Willing. The Unwilling sits better right now. As for DCE, I think TB is being kind. This isn’t his first year of crabbing across the field and offloading to a ball-runner that doesn’t know the pass is coming. You would think after ten years he would become good at offloading. He offloaded the Titans, he offloads on NRL360 and Ch9 to let everyone know he’s going next year so this year can be all about him. Never a team player. If he was, he and Manly might have had a few more premierships.

Put Manly at 17. We were awful. As you say, star-studded team and sitting in 8th only excuse is that our 7 has checked out weeks ago and he, his ego and bank account are already at the tri-colours. He’ll hopefully have a nothing year there, and after missing the finals in 2025, he’ll miss them in 2026, and retire a has-been

Yeah, fair enough. Maybe an over-reactiom. It’s just that the Dragons have so many players that drift in and out of games, or sho just commit the most ridiculous errors. They have not been close to a premiership threat since they lost that Final to the Bronco’s as defending premiers in 2011.

I think what made it even worse was that not only did he lose it without any pressure at all being applied to him, he had two unmarked players outside him. Accidents happen but the nature of that screwup at that stage of the game means he should be sat down for next couple weeks.

I agree. I love watching SL. I will say that it is top heavy on clubs like St Helens and Wigan dominating, however nothing different to NRL. Since 2015, either one, or two of three teams has featured in every single GF; Roosters, the Storm and Panthers. Since 2019, only Panthers and the Storm have won the premiership, including twice where they made up both teams in the GF. Yes, a four-peat is a great achievement, however in dishing out the superlatives to the Panthers, it is quite damning upon the ‘best of the rest’. The way the NRL is now adjudicated, the Panthers, Storm and Roosters, through their wrestle and controlling in the ruck, have profited more than any other team. The brand of rugby league is not that attractive here, either. I dare to comment that Keary, in saying that there is very little coverage in France, secretly would like to be accosted for an autograph while on the way for his morning croissant and cafe o’lait, rather than just be treated like an ordinary person. He is away from home, and unrecognised in the same way he would be here. I think that features more in his summation than the actual state of the quality of the SL, and negative comparison to the NRL.

Really? Brandon Smith didn’t translate to good value. Or Dom Young. Or were you being sarcastic?

Fifita is the Titans DCE. $1M+ a season for nothing. No premierships, no hint of a premiership, nothing. Des should axe him as soon as his contract is done. Better yet, see if he can shop him around. A loser board like the ones at the Tigers or at Manly will gladly pay over’s for him.

Course we would have. We should have kept Foz. He was the real Half at Manly. Without him, DCE has done nothing. Kicks a few 40/20’s and FG’s and everyone says what a talent he is.

Ok, but are you not being a tad too kind to DCE. He has never appeared as a team player. It’s all about him and what are Manly going to do for me? Well, what are you going to do for Manly?

It’s not entirely his fault. It must be hard to be mistaken for Napoleon Dynamite all the time! 😂 😂 😂

If the NRL want to achieve something of a massive step in the right direction of how to fix the game in general, they would get rid of the idiotic try/no try deferment to the Bunker (Flunker). Ref can’t see the ball, calls try. Bunker says, we can’t see the ball so insubstantial evidence to rule against ref’s decision. Except that ref’s decision wasn’t based on anything other than a guess. An incredibly flawed system. Send it up with no judgement. Logically, if the ref is sure it’s a try, then they are not going to the Bunker at all. They went from ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ try to try/no try and thought they were improving the system. It’s the same flawed system. Can’t see the ball? Not sure it’s been grounded? Not sure ballbis over the line? Then it’s not a try, plain and simple. As for the high tackle mandate, it’s simple, using the Sorenson shoulder tackle on Nathan Brown that earned him a ten minute sit-down. Did Sorenson charge at Brown? No. Did he make contact with the head? No. Was it dangerous? No. Was it malicious? No. Then it’s fine. Yes, it is good that they have eradicated the shoulder charge for the Sitili Tupounaia charging in cavalry charge type of hit, as that is not a tackle, is dangerous, and could cause a major injury. He should have been sent off on Thursday night. Same as Latrell. Dangerous force, force excessive in considering the situation and type of tackle required. The worst tackle, and correct me if I’m wrong, this was the one that caused the ban on the shoulder charge, was Greg Inglis hitting a standing Dean Young, who was facing the other way and had his back to Inglis. THAT was a shoulder charge. Sorenson’s was not. I was at the ground and when I saw the ten minute clock flash up, I thought Brown was going for charging in off a run-up and leading with the shoulder. Defenders need to be protected too.

Of course there is an increase in high tackle charges! No one knows what one is, so no one knows what action to take, or not take, to avoid making one! I imagine if the RMS told no one except the Highway Patrol what the speed limit is in a school zone, there would be a lot of motorists getting fined for exceeding the speed limit in a school zone.

No no no! 4 top 8 finishes. Don’t forget that piddly bottom 8 finish in 2017 where we were bundled out by the Panthers in Week 1 under DCE and coach Trent ‘plastic chairs’ Barrett 😂

No I didn’t. You said that it’s a team game and that the Panthers have won premierships with Cleary but are now last with Cleary. I said tgat we have had the same 7 on this ridiculous contract since 2015 and not won a thing. While that’s not totally on him, I would argue that a 7 on more than $1.25M a year that can’t drliver a single premiership is not worth half that. If I missed your point, then I can’t see what your point was.

Umm…? Peter King…Penrith have won four premierships in a row and a runners-up. Even if they win the Spoon this year, which they won’t, they’ll make the 8, but even of they did finish last, Cleary has more than delivered on his contract. What has DCE done? Destabilised the team in 2011 straight after the club won him a premiership by agitating for more money, threatened to leave in 2015, signs for Titans in 2015, backflips on Titans in 2015 for a $10M deal because he wanted to be a one club player, announces he is leaving after Round 3 2025, thereby ensuring he will not retire a one club player. Oh yeah…and zero premierships during those years of his $10M deal and zero GF appearances and zero Minor Premierships with a single Top 4 finish. But yeah, he delivered on his megabucks.

I thought she did a good job. She looked confused and reactionary because of the confused and reactionary directions she received from the powers that be.

How do you figure that? $1.25M a year for ten years for zero premierships

We definitely won’t miss his drama.

9-3. 6-2 penalties and 3-1 Six Agains. Game wasn’t gone, but funny you mention that as maybe Sharpe had that feeling too. 5-0 penalties and 2-0 Six Agains to start the 2nd Half, coupled with a 40/20 that wasn’t and Panthers are back to 14-10. You say to not focus on the 2nd Half only, however in order to make the point of the ‘even-up’ penalties/Six Agains, it forces one to focus on the 2nd Half. You said, the game was gone. I think one more converted try and it was. At 14-0, I know I wasn’t confident the game was over. Siebold wouldn’t replace an injured Trbo at 26-10 with ten on the clock. That’s the reputation and respect the Panthers have built. They are never ‘gone’, GF 2023 case in point and even GF 2020. They lost the latter, but scored the last twenty points. Sharpe and the Bunker would have had your opinion; the game is disappearing. Are we officiating too harshly against one team? Not picking up enough against the team threatening to run away with it? Let’s assume Manly deserved those 9 penalties in the first stanza and Panthers only the 3. If, a big if, but entirely possible. Now, assuming Manly were almost perfect in the first 40, how does the team in front become so ill-disciplined, while the team needing to be more desperate to make up lost ground, is much more composed than in the first period where they conceded two tries, scored none and didn’t even register a point? There are two issues with the NRL that I identify as being problematic. Firstly, why do we assume that a lopsided penalty count means one team was hard-done by while the other team were given a serious advantage? It is possible that one team, or a series of teams, are regularly ill-disciplined, unfit and generally lacking cohesion, that they are frequently on the wrong side of the rulebook. The reason many tend not to subscribe to this theory is because of the human error element. Referees award penalties correctly for one team, however miss a few on both teams. Many would assume, like Saturday night, if the count is 6-2 to Manly, then the referee missed 3-4 on the Panther’s side. Probably, but what gets lost in translation (great movie) is that he/she missed awarding Manly at least another couple. Unfortunately, simple maths comes into it and we suddenly see the boot on the other foot in the next period, where there is almost an involuntary subconscious action to try and correct the indiscretions in officiating committed in the first half. This is the sevond issue, and it feeds out of the first one. Referees, as humans, attempt to project themselves as fair officials to the public, players, the game itself. They also, for themselves, have a burning desire to be seen as the best in their field, or at least competent, keep themselves out of the papers, and never be seen to have cost a team a game. Ben Cummins took months to get over the 2019 GF famous Six Again call that was corrected to final tackle and Jack Wighton caught with the ball ten put from the Roosters line at 8-8. This desire to correct a perceived wrong because the fans, general public, coaches, players and jouno’s are obsessed with examining the penalty counts purely on face value, without properly examining the game. As a result, referees constantly have the count on their mind, with an itching desire, not to turn the tide of the game, but to stem the bleeding for one team by looking hard for indiscretions that are there against the team leading the penalty count and the match, while not looking so hard to penalise the team with a lopsided count against them when the teams came back from oranges. Gambling profits as a result of this psychological desire to have an opportunity to make good a bad decision or experience. I lost $10? Let’s double the bet to $20 and make up that money. Let’s bet another $10 but at much longer odds, kissing that money goodbye as well…or you might win. All is square with the house again.

Agreed, but this weekend of officiating has set the game back bigtime. The coaches, players and officials have no idea what a legal tackle is anymore
The Sorenson hit on Nathan Brown was a tough penalty unless he actually connected with Brown’s head. Yes, he didn’t wrap his arms, but Sorenson stood his ground. That’s not a shoulder charge. If Sorenson stuck out his arms, he would have dislocated a shoulder. If he attempts to go low and wrap, he runs the risk of his head getting in the wrong place and getting concussed, or breaking his neck. If a player is holding his ground and not making contact above the shoulder, then I think that tackle is both legal and safe. Brown made a conscious decision to charge it. In fact, when I first saw it, I thought Brown had been penalised for leading with the shoulder.

This is where commonsense is usually thrown out the window, but I’m actually ok with both of these calls. Trbo slipped, and had he not, Yeo would have hit his chest. That’s why Yeo was penalised, but not Binned. I think Sharpe felt she had to penalise that at least, only because he hit Trbo flush in the face. There still needs to be some responsibility on the part of the tackler to be aware of where the player is and where to position themselves. Maclean hitting his head on Trbo’s thigh was looked at and cleared. I’m ok with that too. This is a by-product of the Billy Slater feet-first directly into the player in the act of scoring, not to mention his shoulder charge on Feki in the Prelim Final 2018, where he was cited but then outrageously cleared to play in the GF against Roosters.

The refereeing is atypical of the problems the NRL has to face in 2025, because they didn’t address it in the last five years. Subjective, knee-jerk, spontaneous reactions and decisions. An idiotic obsession with attempting to appear fair and objective by evening up penalty counts.We won the count 6-2 in the first half in addition to 3-1 in 6-Agains. Second half, Penrith at one stage were 5-0 penalties and 2-0 6-Agains. From what I was watching, I was at the game, they were deserved, however a blind eye was turned to Penrith indiscretions. In one set, DCE was tackled by three separate players as in the same tackle, at different stages as he was trying to play the ball. Nothing. Every side does it, but Panthers, at 14-0, really started to push the envelope on offside in defence and on kick chases. I don’t blame them. They are professionals, and if they see an opportunity of weakness in the officiating, they are going to look to exploit it. I don’t Sharpe had that bad a game, however, it was obvious that the get square fix on the officiating was on. I’ve always said it; teams in front don’t push the envelope and get panicked into infringing; teams behind do. I think this is the human glitch in our game. A team is behind on the scoreboard, and usually on penalties/6-Agains, and there is a panic button even the best ref’s push almost involuntarily. There is no conspiracy towards any one team, or against any one team. It is an inferiority complex the officials suffer from, coupled with an inability to be everywhere at once. The penalties given, for the most part, are legit. It’s the ones they ignore that are affecting results.

No. I didn’t have a dog in that fight; I’m a Manly supporter. I’ve already given up on our season and fully expect Panthers to make it official by putting 50 on us tonight. Conspiracy is such a subjective word. Really, when does an act become, as you say, ‘conspiracy?’ Do referees intend to have even penalty counts before the event? Maybe, maybe not. I think the issue lies in the fault of the very game itself and that word again – subjective. It’s never about the penalties given, it’s about the ones ignored, and I think even, or close to even penalty counts, show that there are many penalties that are ignored. If you are looking, as a referee you can find a penalty in every play. Too slow to roll away? Not fully square? Hand on the ball? Holding on or holding down? Many times those penalties are given and other times they are not. The game is massaged, not managed, by the referee. The crowd plays its part, the players attempting to take off by fluttering their arms like chickens, wondering why they have wings but can’t fly, the comments players make between sets, and the reports every referee discusses with Maxwell and Annesley prior to each game. ‘This team pushes the envelope, that player like to do that and this player likes to do this. Watch as this player is guilty of the same infringement each week. Conspiracy isn’t the dirty word here, subjectivity is.

Yes, but how many weeks will it last? And will the crackdown mysteriously disappear when SOO starts? Will it be as if there was no crackdown come the finals in September? Even last night the refereeing was inconsistent. Why was Burton not sent? And knees to the head from Sitili. He has form here. Not his first offence in this category. Why was that only a Sin Bin?That carries the same onfield penalty as a tackle above the shoulders. Could have resulted in a serious head or neck or both injury. I never forget watching Mick Delroy get hit high for Parramatta in the ’86 GF. He was seen to, cleared, and then ran twenty metres before collapsing. The ARL pledged a crackdown on high tackles to protect the players, no matter the game. Forty years ago.

The last time I saw a game go so horrendously wrong for the Bulldogs from start to end was the 1994 GF. Mistake from Marty Bella from kick-off, down 6-0 soon after and then 18-0 in as many minutes. I think it finished 36-12 and the Dogs were actually first team into the GF by virtue of beating the Raiders by a point in Major Semi.