Well friends, as we still deal with the fact that we’ve seen the first Fourpeat in living memory, the National Rugby League season is back after 5 months in hibernation, as we return with another edition of the epic jaunt of RUGBALEEG in LAS VEGAS, a town known for gambling, mob connections, questionable entertainment, and being riddled with slot machines and dodgy casinos, all while playing First Grade Rugby League….

To come to think of it, they may as well have stayed in Sydney.

And what a great line-up on offer this year, with the international matches between the USA and Greece, the Las Vegas 9s, the Fan Fest in Fremont Street going gangbuster, and the feature event being the four games on Super Saturday/Sunday, commencing with the Super League showdown between heavy hitters Wigan and Warrington for the British contingent, plus the Jillaroos vs England, and the NRL line-up having the Canberra Raiders and New Zealand Warriors going at it in the unofficial Ruben Wiki Cup, followed by the 4-time defending premiers Penrith kickstarting the quest for the next impossible dream of the Fivepeat against the Cronulla Sharks, who do have a tendency to wilt at the first sign of decent opposition.

Still, surely the highlight of this trip to the United States was this moment from the WWE, when, in an effort to pump up the tyres of the Vegas game, the NRL sent their best possible man for the job…

Aaron Woods.

I’d reckon that would be Woodsy’s second-best career highlight, behind turning that missed high five in Origin III of 2016 into a Superman celebration:

However the point remains, Australian-United States relations hit a new high when Aaron Woods made an appearance on Monday Night RAW in Charlotte just over a fortnight back, although, despite him being a damn good player, calling him an NRL legend is a bit of a stretch… when the Americans find out he was just a top notch front rower with Origin and Australian representation that barely got to play in a finals game, they’ll be more disappointed than when they found out The Undertaker and Kane weren’t really brothers.

Anyway, here’s the kickstarter for the Succinct NRL Tips for 2025… the Vegas games!

Lock of the Week

Funnily enough, I think I scored 0/2 for the Vegas games last year.

Anyway, this week’s attempt at a Lock, forgetting the Panthers because I’ve barely mentioned them, in fact I barely mentioned any of the 4 clubs playing on Sunday…

The Warriors to belt the Raiders with toy blow-up baseball bats after getting on the grog, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, please enjoy this story from the SMH:

Like the fact that they had just returned from a night out on the town – which almost every player across all three teams in Las Vegas has done at some point over the first three days – and began to argue because (Morgan) Smithies didn’t have a room due to a hotel system malfunction that had left some guests waiting up to seven hours to check in.

Smithies wanted to spend the night sharing a bed with his teammate and best friend. That was met with resistance from (Hudson) Young and what began as a wrestle for the room turned into a brawl with punches being thrown.

The inflatable baseball bat they had bought as a memento on Las Vegas Boulevard just a few hours later was then mistaken for a weapon by hotel security when they confronted the pair about the punch-up in the elevator.”

Security only became aware of the incident because one of the players bumped the emergency button in the lift, alerting the security crew watching footage from 5000 cameras in the precinct.

They were evicted from the hotel and left to explain why they didn’t have a room. Eventually, they were ushered back into the hotel, with one player escorted to his new room. However, it was already being used by an unidentified Penrith player.

Only in Vegas.