Referee Grant Atkins saves certain Broncos try with blatant obstruction, Bunker doesn’t award penalty try

The best part about that whole sequence was Fox League showing the replay of the Broncos coaching box, and you can see Kevin Walters uttering something similar to “Get the **** out of the way!”

So this it, the numerically aligned Round, Round 23 of 2023, and we all saw the news that Wally Lewis is suffering from serious effects of CTE, with a rather graphic brain scan on 60 Minutes really illustrating how violent Wally’s playing career was, and that follows on from the story about Mario Fenech’s brain looking like Play-Doh, which was more than a bit sad to see.

Another event this week was the Melbourne Storm’s stripped premierships coming back into the mainstream, after the Storm decided to celebrate the stripped 2007 and 2009 premierships during their 25th anniversary celebrations last weekend, complete with replica trophies, prompting comments from Gorden Tallis, claiming every premiership team was gaming the salary cap, Cameron Smith and Billy Slater, who made a host of defenses from not being able to wipe players’ careers, and some random comment about not liking someone’s haircut when they’re walking down the street.

The whole thing should speak volumes about the Storm’s attitude to the whole thing – They aren’t sorry and they never will be.

Billy, you are right in the sense that we can’t wipe players careers, because those games happened, those tries were scored, the goals were scored, the games wins actually still count in the all-time record books for some reason, but here’s the ultimate truth that you can never deny.

You were stripped of those premierships because your club cheated to win them, you bunch of goddamn cheats, you disgraced the game, you robbed 2 legitimate teams of premierships, and you were goddamn lucky the NRL didn’t impose a Carthaginian peace on your club.

Now, looking at Round 23:

In a clash of the State of Origin captains, the Roosters host the Sea Eagles at the SCG with the Women’s World Cup still raving on, which means that Manly still haven’t played a game at the rebuilt SFS, and the other undercard is Matt Lodge playing for Manly after being moved on by the Roosters.

The schizophrenic Titans host the rested 3rd-placed Warriors on the Gold Coast, with the Titans looking to match their longest winning streak this year… 2 wins.

The highlight of the round is Penrith hosting the Melbourne Storm in the mountains in the Friday Channel 9 slot, just shy of 5 weeks since the Panthers walked into the southern capital and smashed the Storm 34-16 after being 0-14 behind in the opening half hour.

The old-fashioned Queensland Derby between the Cowboys and Broncos sees a historical first, as the game will be played in Townsville on a Saturday afternoon, historic in the sense that it’s the first time the Cowboys have hosted the Broncos in the afternoon, while the Broncos have hosted the Cowboys on Sunday afternoons a couple of times…. not that any of this matters to Valentine Holmes, who got rubbed out for 4 matches.

After that, club football returns to Perth for the first time since 2018, as Optus Stadium hosts a double-header:

First up, the Redcliffe Dolphins play the red hot Newcastle Knights, who are currently sharpening their knives in the boardroom for some unknown reason, and going to WA, I think this is a perfect opportunity for the Dolphins to stop off at Monkey Mia and visit the dolphins there to create some superb tourism for WA.

The second game that evening sees the Rabbitohs as the home team, as they have been in Perth many times in the last 20 years, against the struggling Sharks, as Alex Johnston continues his relentless pursuit of Ken Irvine’s sacred try scoring record (212) with his hat trick in Tamworth putting him on 184, just 6 behind Billy Slater in 2nd, which would give him the record for tries in the NRL era.

Sunday afternoon has the Eels hosting St George Illawarra in Parramatta, with the Eels having fallen back to 11th after losing consecutive games, which was no surprise since it was the Cowboys and Storm away, but Dylan Brown has served his punishment for his sexual touching misdemeanor, and the Dragons are just waiting for another month to start their 6 month break and Shane Flanagan to start spreading his tentacles.

The last game of the round has the Raiders hosting the Wests Tigers in Canberra, and the Raiders have no idea what to do with Jarrod Croker, for the simple fact that he’s a legend of the club, but playing him is turning into an active hindrance to their Finals run… so they’ve settled on saying he has an injury.

Fun fact about those Perth games – There was due to be at least one game in Perth in 2020, which just happened to be the Roosters playing the Raiders in a Grand Final rematch.

So now it’s time for the random tip generator to do its thing, here we go…

Round 22 score = 5/8, Progress Score = 102/164 (62.2%)

Round 23 =

Riveting.

Round 23 Lock of the Week

Because when you’re right 52% of the time, you’re wrong 48% of the time!

Another fish in the barrel has been shot by yours truly, Penrith easily defeating Cronulla in a result Helen Keller saw coming, so this week it’d be unfair to pick on the Sharks again, so instead let’s go…

Valentine Holmes has been rubbed out for 4 weeks, a huge blow for the Cowboys on Saturday afternoon, so I think we’ll be hearing the Broncos singing America, because they’re going in to Townsville on a Horse with No Name!

In the desert, you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain