THE KEVOLUTION HAS BEEN CRUSHED BY THE AUTHORITARIAN BRONCOS

Amazing, not even 12 months since only just losing a Grand Final to the greatest team since colour TV came to Australia, followed by never having a full team to work with at any stage of 2024, and Kevin Walters gets the arse from Red Hill.

Still, Kevvy, as the figurehead, got the Broncos out of the worst moment in their history (The spoon in 2020) and contending for a premiership in 3 years, and for that he deserves some credit, as does Ben Ikin, whose influence in those years is starting to tell, especially now that he’s running the QRL.

But, you know who’s going to be waiting in the wings?

TRENT BARRETT.

Well friends, there’s just 2 weeks to go in the 2024 NRL season, and at the moment, all we can talk about is the international games to come next month, more specifically the one player who won’t be featuring for Australia, because after training for 30 weeks on end, Kalyn Ponga has decided he doesn’t want to represent Australia against New Zealand next month…

And for that, Fox League’s talking heads (Hello Paul Crawley) have effectively treated him like a Vietnam War draft dodger, and not only should Ponga be suspended from representing Queensland in State of Origin next year, he should be suspended for several league games, which is actually entirely possible given the NRL is investigating some kind of breach of contract…

And on top of that, for no reason at all, they’ve also said that South Sydney should be kicked out of the comp again.

In all seriousness, I find it fair enough that Ponga should want to sit out the post-season Internationals, considering he’s had to be up for club and rep footy for damn near 11 months on end, in which time he’s suffered a major foot injury, on top of a history of concussions, with Ponga himself having said previously his No.1 goal in the game is to win a club premiership with the Knights…

Imagine if he played after being forcibly coerced by the NRL, and Lord forbid, was concussed or suffered an injury and missed playing time next season – The RLPA would organise a player’s strike in 5 minutes.

At the end of the day, the NRL have absolutely screwed themselves, having revealed themselves as enforcing conscription to the national team.

So, moving on to the actual club games:

– Cronulla blew North Queensland off the park in the 1st Half on Friday night, and did enough to withstand the Cowboys’ 2nd Half fightback, finally ending their finals win drought after 6 years and winning their first final under Craig Fitzgibbon after 5 attempts… I could be wrong, but that’s the first time Fitz has been involved in a finals win as a player or head coach since 2010, when he was playing at Hull KR in the Super League… prior to that, it was the 2004 Preliminary Final for the Roosters.

– It appeared Manly had lost a yard after that brutal final against Canterbury in Week One, and losing 2 players in the opening minute (Tolu Koula concussed on the opening tackle, although Jake Trbojevic came back) was a sign that it simply wasn’t going to be their night, as the Roosters got ahead early and dropped the hammer on the Sea Eagles, leading 20-4 by half-time and 34-4 midway through the 2nd Half, and they were already planning for the Storm by the time the siren sounded and they were well ahead 40-16, ensuring Jared Waerea-Hargeaves’ career wouldn’t end against the team that gave him his debut in 2009.

So, now we look ahead to the Grand Final qualifiers:

– On a sold out AFL Grand Final Eve in Melbourne, the Melbourne Storm host the Sydney Roosters at AAMI Park in Harry Grant’s 100th NRL game, and this is a bigger game for the Storm than most people realise, because this is their huge chance to prove to the simpletons that they can win a big game without Cameron Smith, given they haven’t made a Grand Final since Smith retired after the 2020 premiership, and their record in big finals since he retired is quite ordinary.

Think back to 2021, the first year without the great one – They win 21 games, match the all-time record for consecutive wins, win the minor premiership with the greatest points differential in league history (+499), easily win the Qualifying Final against Manly… then go to the Prelim a fortnight later and have their all-time great attack (Which scored 815 points, the second-most in a season) totally shut down by Penrith and lose 6-10, after which the Panthers left them in the dust until this year.

This’ll also be the sixth time the great rivals have met in a final – Easts won in ’98, the Storm won in 2015, the Roosters won the 2018 Grand Final, then the 2019 Preliminary Final, and the Storm won last year’s semi final with a try to Will Warbrick 2 minutes from full time.

Big stakes involved, but that doesn’t mean the Roosters are getting off lightly, because this could also be Joseph-Aukuso Sua’ali’i’s last game before he goes to rugby union, Joey Manu’s last game before he goes to Japanese rugby, and JWH will do his best to make sure this is his last game as he tries to elbow somebody in the throat during a hit-up.

The Saturday Preliminary Final has Penrith against Cronulla in the all-Sydney final at Accor Stadium, and to say Cronulla would be shitting themselves is an understatement, because the Panthers have used the Sharks as target practice the last two times they’ve played them; 28-0 at Panthers Stadium last year, then a 42-0 walloping at Shark Park in Round 12 of this year, when the Sharks were top of the ladder, and the Panthers didn’t have Nathan Cleary.

Of course, from the outside looking in the Panthers are priming themselves for a chance at one of the greatest achievements rugby league has ever seen, with this being their fifth consecutive Preliminary Final, going at a fifth consecutive Grand Final appearance, an achievement no team has pulled off since Clive Churchill’s Souths teams from 1967 to 1971 (Only the Balmain upset of 1969 stopped a Fivepeat), with a chance at the first Fourpeat since the St George machine won 11 consecutive premierships from 1956 to 1966, a run that pre-dates the introduction of colour TV to Australia.

In fact, I had to go back through the books to find the last time a major national Australian sporting league had a Fourpeat, and of course the AFL’s only Fourpeat was Collingwood from 1927-30 in the old VFL, the NBL has had Threepeats but never a Fourpeat, neither the A-League nor the NSL has had a Fourpeat, even Super Netball, the ANZ Championship and the old National Netball League never had one…

Which means you’d have to look at domestic cricket, and neither the women’s or men’s Big Bash League has had a Fourpeat, the men’s domestic One Day cup has never had a Fourpeat, but the last Fourpeat in the Sheffield Shield was New South Wales’ run of 9 straight Shields from 1953-54 to 1961-62… and New South Wales won the women’s WNCL title for something close to 10 consecutive years.

So yes, it’s hard enough to win one premiership, but Four consecutive premierships puts you in the immortal company, like Indiana Jones finding the Holy Grail.

It is also 2022 Dally M Medal winner Nicho Hynes’ 100th NRL game, a milestone some in the Fourth Estate thought he may not reach, considering his form in patches of this season.

All in all, to say it would be a monster upset if the Sharks won wouldn’t be doing the word ‘monster upset’ any sort of justice.

And now for the penultimate Succinct NRL Tips for 2024, here we go…

I had to go back and look, but the last Final I tipped incorrectly was the Cowboys-Eels Preliminary Final of 2022…

We are now up to 17 consecutive correct Finals tips.

Semi Finals score = 2/2

Running score after the Semi Finals = 134/210 (63.8%)

Lock of the Week

Stuff it, let’s bring back the DeLorean getting hit by lightning to represent the Storm vs Roosters game, because there’s a chance the Storm could strike so hard that Trent Robinson gets sent back to 2013: