The defining shot of Magic Round 2021:

To paraphrase Hank Hill, it was Tragic Round, I tell you ‘hwhat’.

Anyway, it was another good weekend, picking 7 out of 8, and somehow I still lost 200 spots on FootyTips….

Goes to show it may have been a slightly easy Magic Round to pick, as evidenced by some of the brutal margins.

Wests Tigers 36 defeated Newcastle Knights 18 – Incorrect

The Tigers got the win, and four players saw the bin.

The only game I buggered up this weekend, which makes me think this Simpsons joke would’ve been better used to make my selection… which I think it was originally, before I went for Monty Python:

Manly Sea Eagles 50 defeated Brisbane Broncos 6 – Correct

“We’re in for an exciting 80 minutes”

If you were a Manly supporter, a Tommy Turbo fan, or a pathological Broncos hater, that statement applies to the feature Friday night game.

Canberra Raiders 20 defeated Canterbury Bulldogs 18 – Correct

Up by 4 points with a 2 player advantage for 10 minutes against a team who were on their knees, and they can’t even put any pressure on the opposition’s defensive line, and eventually give up 2 tries and lose.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2021 Bulldogs, the greatest comedic line-up since the Two Ronnies.

South Sydney Rabbitohs 32 defeated Cronulla Sharks 22 – Correct

“Oh, Souths are late into a set close to the Sharks line? Well, I’ll just let you get through two more tackles before I randomly stop the game to let the referee report and penalise Chad Townsend for a textbook tackle and completely crush Cronulla’s momentum as Cody Walker scores the winning try.”

Sydney Roosters 30 defeated North Queensland Cowboys 16 – Correct

The way the game is going, the likes of Craig Bellamy, Ivan Clearly and Trent Robinson may as well travel to New Zealand to recruit and field teams full of hobbits and dwarves, because that way, if the opposition are are all at least 5 foot 8 and belong to the human race, they’ll inevitably hit them in the head every time they try and tackle them, and the Gospel according to V’Landys says that’s a minimum 10 in the bin.

That said, I think the Cowboys only have themselves to blame for one thing that didn’t involve Lachie Burr’s binning.

Val Holmes had a penalty shot to tie it up at 18 apiece in the 2nd Half, that he ended up missing to the right – 6 minutes later, Tedesco makes that linebreak and ends up feeding in Angus Crichton to put the Chooks up 22-16.

It was very similar to Kyle Feldt slamming that kick into the posts against the Chooks last year that would’ve put them up 8-0 30 minutes into the game in Townsville…. Next thing you knew Matt Ikuvalu had run in 5 tries.

Parramatta Eels 34 defeated New Zealand Warriors 18 – Correct

These teams were too well disciplined…. we were promised sin bins and we didn’t get any!

Melbourne Storm 44 defeated St George-Illawarra 18 – Correct

I imagine Craig Bellamy would’ve torn shreds off a few Storm players, because they couldn’t even crack the half-ton and only scored a disappointing 9 tries, despite having the extra player for the final hour, and a 2-player advantage early on after Tyrell Fuimaono‘s botched beheading of Ryan Papenhuyzen and Josh McGuire’s loose tackle.

During the last Magic Round in 2019 they scored 11 tries against an Eels team that ended up playing finals… Sort it out, Craig.

Penrith Panthers 48 defeated Gold Coast Titans 12 – Correct

The bad news for the Titans = The Panthers beat the living crap out of them and barely had to lift a paw.

The good news for the Titans = They didn’t give up 50 points after the Panthers clocked off early, so they’re technically still in the premiership race!

Finally this week, the full list of Sin Binned and Sent Off players

THE SINFUL SEVENTEEN.

1. Tex Hoy
2. Joe Ofahengaue
3. Lachlan Fitzgibbon
4. Moses Mbye
5. Tyson Gamble
6. Jordan Riki
7. Josh Schuster
8. Lachlan Croker
9. Jack Wighton
10. Jaydn Su’A
11. Sitili Tupouniua
12. Lachlan Burr
13. Josh McGuire
14. Moses Leota

Sent Off:

1. Josh Papalii
2. Tyrell Fuimaono
3. Herman Ese’ese

Say, that’s enough players to form a 17th NRL team!