From The Couch: Round 5

Don’t Tell Me There Wasn’t a Rort: Anyone who doesn’t think there was something deeply suspicious about the final moments of the Raiders game on Saturday afternoon either doesn’t bet or believes in both fairies and the intelligence of Bunker officials. A quick recap of facts:

• Melbourne lead by 16, Canberra throw the ball wildly around, a Justin Olam tackle seemingly ended the match
• Despite the fact there was nothing to gain, the Raiders immediately challenged
• Upon winning the challenge, they made the ‘curious’ decision to take the two to reduce the margin from 16 to 14. 
• Betting on the match ended with the Storm favoured by 14.5 points

The argument will be made that the Raiders were simply trying to improve their for-and-against. What utter rubbish. In 35 years of watching Rugby League, i’ve never seen anything like it. Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one and the most obvious answer to this as to why the Raiders challenged with no time on the clock and then opted to kick two points is that they were interested in covering the line. That does not infer that they had backed themselves. It does not infer that anyone involved with the team was financially invested. It is clear though that for whatever reason the Raiders were prepared to do something almost unseen to take the margin from 16 to 14 and thus a betting loser to a betting winner. The NRL Integrity Unit should be all over this. 

Tales from The Clown Car: The Bunker has a more sordid and depraved history than both Fred West and Fatty Arbuckle combined and even they managed to sink to new depths on Saturday night when Chris Butler disallowed a Cameron Murray try. In all his wisdom, he declared that Talatau Amone was impeded from getting to Murray. The problem was that Amone had his back turned to Murray after launching into Tevita Tatola. That decision highlights just how little these clowns know about the game. And that is before we get to the completely ridiculous decision to send Junior Paulo to the sin bin or the inane inconsistency around decoy runners making contact with defenders. 

Leading from the Front: It was interesting to see Warriors leader Addin Fonua-Blake laying down the law at halftime after his obscenely casual effort cost the Warriors a try and almost the game. It was the most casual lackadaisical effort you could ever imagine. It is hard to believe any Warrior will take anything he says again seriously. 

Titans Play It Smart: People can bitch and complain all they like about the tactics the Titans implemented against the Eels on Saturday night. While teams have pushed the limit to win a challenge this year, no team did it with such obviousness and disregard for discretion than the Titans. They pulled it off twice and scored straight after twice. It  is allowed and they exploited the stupidity of a rule well. 

Champion Chooks: The Sydney Roosters won just two of their five regular season games and were lucky to even make the finals but made the most of it by overcoming a 16-0 deficit to end the Broncos run of premierships before coming from behind to beat St George Illawarra. John Strange, Corben Baxter and the Roosters team made history and it was well deserved. 

Dally M Debacles: Round 5 Dally M atrocities:

• Nelson Asofa-Solomona receiving votes over both Cameron Munster and Harry Grant was completely egregious, thanks Steve Roach
• I wonder what part of Nicho Hynes’ three-error, 3/6 conversion, zero try assist game Luke Lewis found compelling enough to give him two points for

2022 Field Goal Update – 7: Shaun Johnson kicked his 15th career field goal when slotting a golden point matchwinner against North Queensland on Friday night. 

Fun Fact #1: The last player alphabetically in premiership history is William Zubrycki, who played for Parramatta in 1973. 

Fun Fact #2: John Sutton, John Morris and Gavin Cooper are the only players to play more than 310 premiership games and not play international Rugby League. 

Fun Fact #3: Chris Heighington is the only 300-gamer to start more than 100 off the bench – starting 138 from the pine. 

GGOA 2022: If you want to get an edge betting on the NRL this year, subscribe to my GGOA set with different packages available. This is the old Punters Guide set. There are a heap of packages available. 

Betting Market of the Week: The best mullet in the NRL:
$3.50: Josh Papalii
$3.00: Junior Paulo
$2.20: Ryan Papenhuyzen

Rumour Mill: Kalyn Ponga is shortening by the day to be The Dolphins’ marquee signing. Canterbury have been linked to signing Cameron Munster but he must be 500-1 and drifting of joining the mess at Belmore. Shane Flanagan clearly sees an opportunity at the Tigers with his top PR man Phil Rothfield pushing his barrow. 

The Coaching Crosshairs: We are seemingly in the end game of Trent Barrett’s infamously horrific spell as Canterbury coach. It became clear that while Barrett runs training sessions and takes press conferences, he is no longer in charge of anything related to an important decision with Phil Gould deciding it was time to play Kyle Flanagan. Barrett has been castrated. If he hasn’t already, the dressing room will soon be gone and the Bulldogs will be moving on from one of the most dire decisions in the club’s history. 

Moronic Coaching Decision of the Week: It was an unfortunate situation for the Wests Tigers to lose Daine Laurie to a positive COVID test at the ground but the decision to play Starford To’a at fullback was completely moronic. David Nofoaluma has three games of NRL fullback experience and 140 more games than To’a. The former Newcastle winger was thrown to the wolves and had an awful game in the unfamiliar 

Watch It: Well before Daniel Vidot became a WWE wrestler, the Raiders winger was swinging them with Knights journeyman half Ben Rogers. Watch this great dustup from 2009 here.