Here’s an amazing fact… this is the first time in Wayne Bennett’s First Grade coaching career that he’s missed the finals in consecutive seasons.

This was his 37th season coaching in what is now the NRL, given he sat out 2022.

All up, the last time Bennett missed the Finals in consecutive seasons in any of his years of club coaching was 1981 & 1982, when he coached Past Brothers in the old Brisbane Rugby League competition, and I would note the Brothers won the Wooden Spoon in 1981, which remains Bennett’s only spoon in any club competition.

So if you want a bigger number to make it look more impressive, Bennett coached approximately 938 First Grade games across 6 clubs (Canberra, Brisbane, St-George-Illawarra, Newcastle, South Sydney & Redcliffe), won 7 premierships and appeared in a total of 10 Grand Finals before missing consecutive finals series.

On a more important note, as the 9 clubs who were too crap to get into the Finals start cleaning out the deadwood, namely the Eels wiping out 11 players after their Spoon Bowl celebrations ended…

THE FINALS ARE HERE.

So, looking at the match-ups for Week One:

The Panthers and Roosters kick off the finals on Friday night, as Panthers Stadium makes one last John Farnham-esque comeback to rival a John Farnham comeback before the builders come in at midnight and knock it down, Isaah Yeo matches Steve Carter on a record 243 games for The Riff. and the Panthers, with Nathan Cleary back from a shoulder injury, stand just 3 wins away from completing the first fourpeat in First Grade rugby league since St George won 11 consecutive premierships from 1956 to 1966..

Which would also make the Panthers the first team to win four consecutive premierships since limited tackles were introduced in 1967 (Originally as 4 tackles before the current 6 tackle rule began in 1971), one of the most effective rule changes in sporting history as the Dragons were dethroned that year.

The Panthers also have a chance to win their 10th consecutive final, which would match the all-time record those Dragons teams set between 1958 and 1962.

And on the other hand, if that wasn’t enough to say that history is well and truly against the Roosters, they’ve lost their last 9 consecutive games against the Panthers since 2020, one of them being the 2020 Qualifying Final in Penrith, they haven’t won in Penrith since 2017, and James Tedesco has never played in a winning team at Panthers Stadium.

It’s not an impossible task for a Roosters team that was already smashed by injuries, but it’s close enough to it.

The major sporting event of the weekend in Melbourne sees the minor premiers the Melbourne Storm host Cronulla at AAMI Park in the Saturday twilight zone of 4pm, the Sharks still gunning for their first finals win under Craig Fitzgibbon while the Storm are in pole position for their 4th legal premiership under Craig Bellamy, and this is actually their first finals meeting since the 2018 Preliminary Final that the Storm won 22-6, which was Billy Slater’s last game in Melbourne, and could very well have been his last NRL game as he performed a textbook shoulder charge on Sosaia Feki, which was originally deemed worthy of a 1-match suspension to rub him out of the Grand Final against the Roosters…

But, The Kid had a good legal team and got off at the judiciary in an all-time great hearing, so we got to watch him go out a Grand Final loser against a functionless Cooper Cronk instead.

Of course, the Sharks did defeat the Storm 25-18 in Round 10 at AAMI Park, a Saturday night special as both teams were 7-1 going into the game, and it looked at that moment like the Sharks could be a serious contender as they grabbed top spot from the Storm, although their form dropped dramatically for a time while the Storm kept humming along.

The Saturday night Elimination Final sees North Queensland return to the finals for the first time since coughing up the 2022 Preliminary Final against Parramatta, and they’ll be hosting the Newcastle Knights, who won the win and you’re in game against Redcliffe last Sunday afternoon, although haven’t won in Townsville since 2015, a year that ironically saw the Cowboys win the Premiership while the Knights won the Wooden Spoon…

This game is also noteworthy because it was going to be held on Sunday afternoon in the baking heat of Townsville, but the Giants-Lions AFL Semi Final at the Showground forced the NRL to play the Bulldogs-Sea Eagles final on Sunday afternoon to avoid congestion at Olympic Park, which means the Cowboys will get the same amount of rest as the loser of the Storm-Sharks final, albeit they’ll have to travel south.

Looking through some other stuff, and for all of his faults, namely the complete over-reliance on Kalyn Ponga to do things, Adam O’Brien has now qualified the Knights for 4 finals series in his 5 seasons.

Sure, he’s only won the 1 final in Extra Time last year, but they’ve been there, although you know who won’t be there?

Bradman Best, because the poor bloke is injured.

Another great fact is that this finals series marks 20 years since the Cowboys finally cracked it and made their NRL Finals debut in their 10th season, finishing 7th and playing the 2nd-placed Bulldogs…

In one of the great boilovers ever seen, the Cowboys won 30-22 as Matt Sing scored a hat-trick, all of them from aerial bombs, although the Bulldogs did recover and win the Premiership, while the Cowboys hosted their first final in Townsville the next week and finally defeated the Brisbane Broncos 10-0, then went on to lose 16-19 to the Sydney Roosters in a Preliminary Final.

That finals series was the one that finally gave the Cowboys some credibility, and the next thing you knew, Jonathan Thurston went there in 2005 and they made the Grand Final.

The lucky last game for Week One sees the Canterbury Bulldogs, the feelgood team under Cameron Ciraldo, back in the Finals for the first time since 2016, hosting Manly at Accor Stadium on Sunday afternoon in the Sea Eagles’ first final under Anthony Seibold, and of course these two teams played each other only a fortnight ago, when Manly won 34-22 in a willing sort of game that saw Tom Trbojevic have his night finished early due to injury to go with a bloodied nose, but he’ll be back this week, at least until he tears his hamstring when a freak gust blows him over, while Matt Burton and Bronson Xerri come back for the Berries.

In a normal world this game would’ve been the Saturday night game, but the aforementioned AFL Final at the Showground forced the NRL to move the game to Sunday for logistical reasons, which does put both teams at a huge disadvantage for the rest of the finals, because they’ll have to play either the Panthers or Roosters next Saturday night, with the Top 4 loser getting an extra day’s rest on top of home field advantage, then if either the Berries or Silvertails pull off that upset, they’ll have to back up on 6 days rest again and play the Storm in Melbourne on a Friday night to get into the Grand Final.

Of course, the bigger story for the week was Josh Addo-Carr getting pulled over and given a roadside drug test by the NSW Police, with Addo-Carr withdrawing himself on the advice of Phil Gould to protect his teammates from any further distractions, as we have to wait days, week or possibly months to find out of his secondary test for cocaine.

There’s every chance he’ll come back clean, but who knows what the long term effects could be… if it’s a positive he may never play a game for Canterbury again, he may never play rugby league again, and he’ll have to listen to every news story playing J.J. Cale’s version of Cocaine.

Much like the substance itself, it’s a highly addictive song.

The Bulldogs lead the finals head-to-head 4-1 against the Sea Eagles, with the Sea Eagles’ only win being the 15-12 win in the 1976 Preliminary Final, while the Dogs’ most notable win was the upset in the 1995 Grand Final, as they came from 6th to upend a Manly team who had lost 2 games all year, and there was also the 2014 Semi Final when the Bulldogs won in Golden Point thanks to Trent Hodkinson…

Another funny fact for this game is that until Sunday, Des Hasler will have been the most recent coach for both Canterbury and Manly’s last Finals win… Canterbury’s last win was the 2015 Elimination Final against the Dragons, and Manly’s was the 2021 Semi Final against the Roosters in Mackay.

In fact, the last Manly coach other than Des Hasler to coach the Sea Eagles to a Finals win was none other than the Immortal ‘Bozo’ Bob Fulton in the 1997 ARL Preliminary Final against the Roosters, with Craig Field kicking the winning field goal with 3 minutes to go in a 17-16 win played in dreadful conditions.

And for the Tips for Week One of the Finals, here we go…

Round 27 Score = 5/8

Running score after Round 27 = 128/204 (62.7%)

Somehow, I finished the home & away season in the Top 10% on FootyTips, despite being fairly average.

Lock of the Week

What a great use of the Lock last week, as the Storm dropped 50 points on a Broncos team who gave up after 20 minutes.

And now, this week’s Lock…

BUGGER IT, IT’S THE LAST GAME AT PANTHERS STADIUM (again), SO HERE’S A SCENE FROM TEAM AMERICA THAT WILL ACCURATELY DEPICT FRIDAY NIGHT’S OUTCOME FOR THE ROOSTERS: