The way the injuries are piling up, the NSWRL will organise a Birthday Ballot for people from New South Wales to play State of Origin

Cleary out for the entire series, Tom Trbojevic hamstrung, Nico Hynes injured…

Which means they’ll get a halves pairing of Jarome Luai and a woefully out form Cody Walker.

On that note, it’s time for Round 11, which means it’s time for the annual edition of… MAGIC ROUND.

Last year was the best edition of Magic Round to date, with crowds exceeding 50,000 on Friday and Saturday, then another 46,000 strong crowd on Sunday to bring up a 3-day average of just over 49,000, and we should be on for another firebreathing weekend near Claxton Street.

Of course, the other major event, besides the news of a police investigation into an unnamed player from Queensland, was David Fifita reneging on his agreement with the Sydney Roosters and re-signing with the Gold Coast Titans for 2 years, in the greatest NRL contract backflip since Daly Cherry-Evans signed a 4-year contract with the Titans in 2015, then backflipped and stayed with Manly, a move that was arguably a success because he didn’t stay at the Titans, and he wound up becoming Queensland State of Origin captain.

So that’s happened and it’s up to the Titans to make it work, because they’ve finally had something go their way… and nobody really feels sorry about a player backing out on Easts.

Now to look at the fixtures for the 5th edition of Magic Round, and this year the poor bastards to miss out on the wonder of Magic Round are St George-Illawarra, although judging on last week it should’ve been Souths that got kicked out of Magic Round, because at least they’ve got experience getting kicked out of something:

– The kick-off sees the Raiders hosting the Bulldogs, ironically the two clubs Ricky Stuart played for, and this week the Raiders decided they’re all out of ideas, so Ricky’s contract was extended until 2029, which will make it 27 years since he last did anything without Brad Fittler on the field.

– The Channel 9 Friday night game has the annual Magic Round clash between Manly (without Turbo) and the Brisbane Broncos (minus Reece Walsh), with Manly as the home team, and after this season it’ll mark 10 years since the teams last played a game at Brookvale, and further to it, the last time Brisbane were the home team in this fixture was 2018.

– The Saturday afternoon game has the Titans hosting the Knights, and amazing to see both these teams actually coming into this game looking like respectable football teams, especially the Knights who looked all at sea after Kalyn Ponga went down.

– The Saturday twilight game has an Elimination Final rematch between Cronulla and the Sydney Roosters, the old apprentice in Craig Fitzgibbon taking on Trent Robinson, and it does look like Fitz is a master in the making after seeing the way Cronulla took down the Storm in Melbourne.

– The national Saturday night game has Souths hosting North Queensland, two teams who wouldn’t know what a win would look like if it was brought out and presented to them on a silver platter… it really is hard to believe that this time 366 days ago Souths were on top of the ladder… they are now 17th.

– The early Sunday afternoon game has the Warriors hosting Penrith, who should still be winning this game without Liam Henry and Nathan Cleary given how crap the Wahs have been in 2024, so very disappointing after the run to the Prelim Final at this very venue last year.

– The Channel 9 4pm Sunday game is the Melbourne Storm hosting Parramatta, which doesn’t look particularly appealing outside of the fact that at this very venue 2 years ago, the Eels of all teams managed to deny the Storm what would’ve been the all-time record 20th consecutive First Grade win… and in the first edition of Magic Round 5 years ago, the Storm won 64-10, which is still the all-time highest score + biggest win during any Magic Round.

– And the last game of the weekend has the Wests Tigers hosting the Redcliffe Dolphins, and it wasn’t even 6 bloody weeks ago that these two teams were playing at the exact same ground (April 6 to be exact), and now here we go again with the Tigers as the home team.

Alright, now for the Succinct Tips for Round 11, here we go…

Round 10 score = 6/8

Running score after Round 10 = 49/80 (61.25%)

Apparently I got a 5 when I thought I had 4 a few weeks ago, so my FootyTips record says 49… confused me as well.

Lock of the Week

The Little Red Roosters were all cock-a-hoop after saluting as the Lock last week, and that’s mainly because they did what so many teams have failed to do this season, even when my strike rate with the Lock is up past the devil’s near-favourite 66%.

So this week’s Lock…

The Broncos to trample Manly in the Friday night main event, in the week that marked 33 years since Daryl Braithwaite’s The Horses went to No.1 in Australia…

A telling sign that Australia was floating down Shit Creek without a canoe.