Highlight of Round 4: The Random Souths Guy at Wrestlemania 38, making a triumphant return at the same time as Stone Cold Steve Austin

By the way, unlike a couple of Random Souths Guys, he is not photoshopped – It is ridgey didge.

Second highlight of the week – The NRLW Preliminary Final between the Sydney Roosters and the Brisbane Broncos, in which the Roosters were 16-0 and a player down against the 3-time NRLW champions, who the Roosters had never defeated in the short history of the NRLW, with their closest result being 8 points…

And the Easts ladies came back to win 22-16 in a mind-boggling upset, ensuring we’ll see the first non-Broncos premiership in NRLW history (Either the Roosters or Dragons) this weekend, and in the context of the scoreboard and the history of the NRLW, that could very well the greatest win in NRLW history.

Other highlight of the week – Getting 7/8 in the Random Picks.

Turns out I put too much faith in the Broncos to not start fighting each other.

Gold Coast Titans 8 defeated Wests Tigers 6 – Correct

THIS IS WHAT THE TIGERS HAVE DONE TO MADGE.

YOU’VE OFFICIALLY BROKEN YOUR OWN COACH.

That is one of the stupidest, Tiger-est, ways possible to lose a game – A last tackle kick that comes off the post, Luke Brooks fields the ball and gets smashed straight away, no Tiger has the split second presence of mind to try and kill the ball, and the end result is the Titans score the ONLY try of the game in the last bloody minute of the game, denying Wests the chance to win the first tryless rugbaleeg game in a generation.

Still, that’s how tight the NRL is this year – A game with the lone try being scored in the 80th minute was one you couldn’t turn away from…

Mainly because the Bulldogs vs Swans game was just as painful to watch.

Cronulla Sharks 18 defeated Newcastle Knights 0 = Correct

A 6 day turnaround for the Knights after playing the reigning premiers with 12 men, in a howling wind, against a Sharks team who have suddenly learned how to defend, and it was Aiden Tolman’s big 300th game – No surprises that the end result was another Shark attack in The Shire.

Funnily enough, Friday night was also the Sharks’ first shutout win since Round 10, 2016.

That day they also played the Knights… The score was 62-0.

So in that sense, the Knights have improved in 6 years, and they’re now a perfectly mediocre football team.

2 wins, 2 defeats, 0 points differential.

Penrith Panthers 26 defeated South Sydney Rabbitohs 12 = Correct

So the Grand Final rematch ends just as the Grand Final did… With Penrith winning and Souths scoring 12 points.

Obviously the Panthers were too good in front of the mountain folk, but out of everything, I like how Latrell Mitchell gave that old grandmother his boots after he managed to (accidentally) deliver an almighty falcon on her late in the game, because as the folks in Penrith have known for a long time, if you can’t beat them, BEAT them.

“And here’s the boot that did it!”

New Zealand Warriors 20 defeated Brisbane Broncos 6 = Incorrect

With barely anyone bothering to resist them, the Warriors were more than happy to help add to the 2020 vibes developing about this Broncos team, which were also helped by the revelation of Payne Haas and Albert Kelly staging an unsuccessful late entry to Wrestlemania 38, and it seems the toxic air at Red Hill seeped into the Broncos’ NRLW team, which may explain how they inexplicably lost to the Roosters from 16-0 up.

Perhaps the moments that summed up the Broncos’ piss poor afternoon was Tommy Flegler getting placed on report after 7 minutes.

Then he got reported again.

Then he got reported for a third time and sent to the bin in the 20th minute.

Aaaand with just 10 minutes to go, Tommy reported for a fourth time, which means he tied Victor Radley’s record of being placed on report 4 times in the same game, although I think Victor The Inflictor has the tiebreaker, because he got sin-binned twice in that same game against the Broncos in Round 11 last year.

Plus, Victor copped about 6 games off from the 4 incidents, whereas the only suspension Tom got was 2 games for the fourth indiscretion, a hip-drop tackle on Warriors forward Ben Murdoch-Masila.

Actually, did the Warriors even win this game at all?

Manly Sea Eagles 25 defeated Canberra Raiders 6 = Correct

Ah, there’s nothing like kicking a field goal when the game’s done and dusted, just to give one last ‘FU’ to your opposition… I wouldn’t have been surprised if Sticky punched a hole in the wall, such is the mental anguish Des Hasler has inflicted on his teams since 2004.

Although, I don’t think Manly will be getting the chance to attempt FU Field Goals for a couple of weeks, based on the injury news from Brookvale on Monday evening….

“Manly Warringah Sea Eagles fullback Tom Trbojevic underwent scans today for a knee injury following Saturday’s match in Mudgee.

Scans have revealed that Trbojevic has suffered a medial tear and will now undergo surgery. He will be out for a period of four weeks.”

And on that note, let’s cross live to Des Hasler for his reaction:

Sydney Roosters 28 defeated North Queensland Cowboys 4 = Correct

Obviously the big news from the game is that Todd Payten blew up deluxe about the Cowboys having 3 players sent to the sin bin for at crucial moments in both halves, which pretty much ensured the Roosters were going to have an easy stay in Townsville without coach Trent Robinson.

To cut a long story short, Payten made comments after the game in regards to the sin bins that harked back to Titans’ coach Justin Holbrook after the Titans narrowly lost in Round 1 to the Eels, in a game that featured the Eels convincingly winning the penalty count and winning the game thanks to a late call.

Payten:

“There were some calls tonight, 50-50 calls that went against us.”

“The Titans’ head coach a couple of weeks ago made a comment, and I agree with him – Teams that have been up the pointy end of the competition for a while now, or have high-profile players, get the benefit of the doubt too often, that’s frustrating, and that’s my opinion over watching footy for a long time.”

It’s the classic case of ‘Unconscious bias’ from officials towards top teams and top players over little peasant teams and players, and it exists in pretty much every single sport in the universe – NBA basketball is probably the easiest example to use given there’s only 10 players on the court, and you could also look at least every European football league.

Still, based on my shallow experiences, if you’re talking about refereeing or umpiring decisions after a game, it probably means you didn’t play well enough to mitigate the influence of the whistle blowers, and in this case, the Cowboys were well beaten by the Roosters, a fact Payten himself acknowledged.

Melbourne Storm 44 defeated Canterbury Bulldogs 0 = Correct

I thought it was very thoughtful of Melbourne to deliver their annual thumping of Canterbury, but to deliver it in a way that the Bulldogs wouldn’t have the 50 point curse inflicted on them just yet.

See, Craig Bellamy isn’t a completely despotic genius mastermind who hates fun.

Parramatta Eels 48 defeated St George-Illawarra Dragons 14 = Correct

I legitimately saw Bryce Cartwright perform something fully sick on the field on Sunday night.

An all-time good Globetrotter no-look flick pass to set up a Mitchell Moses try that would’ve had Benji Marshall standing up and taking notes.

Fair dinkum, I thought Bryce Cartwright was a better chance of willingly taking a vaccine than pulling off a play like that.