1975 Roosters: Won in Round 1, Lost Round 2-3, won 19 straight, lost going for the 20th consecutive win.

2021 Storm: Won in Round 1, Lost Round 2-3, won 19 straight, lost going for the 20th consecutive win.

1975 Roosters: Won twice against the Eels.

2021 Storm: Lost twice against the Eels.

Newcastle Knights 15 defeated Gold Coast Titans 14 – Incorrect

When the Titans miss the finals this coming weekend, they should look no further than this game.

Converseley, well done to the Knights – Their first consecutive finals appearances since 2003!

Canberra Raiders 28 defeated New Zealand Warriors 16 – Correct

Half an hour into the game, the Raiders looked absolutely toast.

With 20 minutes to go, the Raiders looked slightly toasted.

With 3 minutes to go, it looked like Golden Point.

When the final siren went, it was a double digit win.

That’s Jordan Rapana for you.

South Sydney Rabbitohs 54 defeated Sydney Roosters 12 – Correct

I’ll completely ignore the scoreline and do what everyone else seems to be doing, and that’s waffling on about how much of a grub Latrell Mitchell is for that reckless hit on his old teammate Joey Manu, which was like fuelling the fire between the Rabbits and Roosters with napalm:

It seems to be nothing new from the Souths fullback ever since he got to Redfern, because he plays so close to the edge that he’s flown off it, Thelma & Louise style, quite a few times:

What shitted me the most out it wasn’t Mitchell’s act and his nonexistent duty of care, it was that it took Manu marching up to remonstrate with Mitchell and showing his facial injuries to the touch judge for Klein to actually send it up to the Bunker, having completely crapped himself by not sending Mitchell off in the first place, then Henry Perenara made it even worse by having access to several replays of Mitchell’s shoulder making high speed contact and sending Manu’s cheekbone flying out of his head, AND HE STILL ONLY GOT BINNED, a move that rightfully led to Perenara getting the axe when Trent Robinson effectively spent $40,000 in a press conference shitting on the officials.

Uncle Nick will just pick that up from the back of his couch, while Latrell will miss the rest of the season thanks to that 6-game ball tearing from the judiciary, which means he still hasn’t played a final since joining the Rabbitohs at the start of 2020, because he missed the end of last season due to that massive hamstring injury.

When you think about it, if Mitchell wanted to avoid the finals and get paid big money to play at fullback, he could’ve just joined the Tigers.

On another note, I find it hilarious that the clowns at the league office spent 3 weeks trying to clean up the game by binning players for pissy little incidents just before Origin time, mainly during Magic Round, then Mitchell commits one of the worst offences of the entire season, and all he gets is 10 in the bin, the same offence that players get for lying on top of the ruck to slow the game, the Roosters have all their momentum shattered by losing Manu, and that led to the Rabbits racking up another half century just to rub crap in Easts’ faces.

It’s good to see that Magic Round crackdown on high contact in the supposed name of player safety is now being shown up for what is was – An absolute farce that got the game absolutely nowhere.

So that’s 2 points for Souths, a grand total of 10 weeks missed through suspension this season for Mitchell, and a ratings record the next time Souths and Easts play in 2022, when the NRL conveniently schedule Mitchell’s comeback game between the teams.

You know it’ll happen.

North Queensland Cowboys 38 defeated St George-Illawarra Dragons 26 – Incorrect

After losing 15 consecutive games dating back to Round 4 with the Broncos, the Tom Dearden Football Club has finally won a game in Cowboys colours, and fittingly enough, the Cowboys’ first win since Josh McGuire left them is against the team he went to.

This calls for a celebration!

Cronulla Sharks 24 defeated Brisbane Broncos 16 – Correct

Good news Cronulla, you’re now in 8th place!

Bad news, you have to play the Melbourne Storm this coming weekend.

Parramatta Eels 22 defeated Melbourne Storm 10 – Incorrect

August 21: Pack it up now the Storm are going back to back, 19 wins in a row!

August 28: The Storm are cooked

Manly Sea Eagles 36 defeated Canterbury Bulldogs 18 – Correct

The Bulldogs made this game more entertaining than it had any right to be, given it brought us moments like Jason Saab bombing a certain try in the corner, Reuben Garrick having the ball kicked out of his hands during a scoring attempt and being called for a knock on, Jack Hetherington being Jack Hetherington and getting put on report for a high hit, jack Hetherington almost pulling off the try saver of the year on Tom Trbojevic, who may or may not have lost the ball in the process (Although Turbo’s hand never came off the pill, which worked in his favour), the hair pulling penalty on the Bulldogs that led to Brandy sounding like a possibly racist grandparent talking about Martin Taupau’s long hair, the Dogs scoring off their own kickoff, and the DCE intercept that led to a Saab try on full-time.

All in all, the Sea Eagles did what they had to do, and they notched up a few records in the process, because Reuben Garrick becomes the first player in history to score 20 tries and kick 100 goals in the same season, which leaves him needing 14 points against the Cowboys to become the first player in NRL history to score 300 points in the Home & Away season, and Manly become the first team in history to have 3 players score 20+ tries (Turbo, Garrick and Jason Saab) in the same season.

I wonder what Tom Trbojevic would’ve been able to do if he’d been able to play 22 games, and I say 22 because he’d miss at least 2 due to State of Origin duties, because after 14 games this year, he’s now on 22 tries and 25 try assists.

Using simple division and multiplication, if he’d kept that pace through 22 games, it’d equate to around 34-35 tries in a season, and 39 try assists.

For context, the record for tries in a season is Dave Brown’s nigh-on unbeatable 38 in 14 games during 1935, with Newtown great Ray Preston the only other player to ever score 30+ tries in a season with his 34 back in 1954, and the record for try assists in a season is a rookie Tim Smith’s 40 for Parramatta in his superb 2005 season.

Tim Smith…. an example of how alcohol abuse can ruin the most promising of us.

Penrith Pink Panthers 30 defeated Wests Tigers 16 – Correct

Spread the word, the Pink Panthers are back:

Actually, I don’t even know why I posted that mini-match, because there wasn’t that much to talk about from this game, other than the Panthers making some 17 errors but still getting away with the points, moving them level with the Storm on 20 wins, albeit a mere 131 points behind them on the differential, with the JJ Giltinan Shield fight still well and truly on ahead of Round 25.

The other highlight for the Panthers was that Nathan Cleary ticked past 1,000 points for his career at only 23 years of age, making him the second-youngest player to reach four figures behind Manly legend Graham Eadie in 1977 (Funnily enough Eadie and Cleary were both born in November), and you can only think that were it not for that Tik Tok video, and the small matter of a pandemic, Cleary may have broken the record, although he can also thank the sudden arrival of V’landysball turning the Panthers into a juggernaut for even getting into 2nd place.