Let the TRY JULY festivities begin

The last of the State of Origin rounds marks the beginning of TRY JULY, in which Sportsbet will donate $5,000 to the Australian Skin Cancer Foundation (ASCF) and the Player Hardship Fund for every try celebration across the 53 NRL/NRLW/State of Origin games of the month, making this one of Sportsbet’s greater contributions to Australian society.

And it’s also the weekend to mark the beginning of the NRLW season, with the former 10-team competition now up to 12 with Canterbury-Bankstown joining the fold, and foundation club the New Zealand Warriors return for the first time since 2020, which leaves the Dolphins, Storm, Panthers, Sea Eagles and Rabbitohs as the only clubs without a women’s team, although the current number of 12 is quite good with the existing talent pool (50,000 female players in the country), and in the future they’ll push towards a full field of 19 once the Bears and PNG enter the competition.

Of course, there’s also the small of matter of the State of Origin deciding Game III on Wednesday night, and in looking through the facts and figures there’s history against both teams, because New South Wales have only won one deciding Game III in Sydney in the last 20 years (2019), while Queensland, in the 24 series they’ve won outright, have only ever won 2 series without winning a game in Brisbane, they being 1998, in which they won Games I and III in Sydney, and 2009, when they won Game I in Melbourne and Game II in Sydney, ultimately losing the dead rubber Game III in Brisbane, a game that featured one of the last great Origin fights, in which Brett White knocked out Steve Price with a brutal right jab despite a barrage from Price, followed by Trent Waterhouse blindsiding Price on the way down, resulting in Waterhouse being sent off.

Yeah funny that, the guy that actually threw the punch that got the KO stayed on the field.. it later turned out the referees had thought it was Waterhouse who knocked out Price when he hit the ground, not White’s jab.

Still, if the Maroons did win, it’d mark the second year in a row that the winning team didn’t win a game at home.

Another historic fact from last week – The Dolphins became the fourth team in the history of First Grade to score 50+ points 3 times in a month, joining the 1935 Eastern Suburbs (August 1935), the 2001 Parramatta Eels (July 2001), and the 2003 Canterbury Bulldogs (August 2003)

That is rather hilarious that the Dolphins have a F/A of +162, and yet they’re only clinging into the Top 8 with an 8-8 record.

Now for Round 18, with just the 5 games as per usual due to Game III next Wednesday night.

– The Bulldogs get the Broncos on Friday night on Channel Nine, with the Bulldogs missing 4 players due to Origin (Jacob Kiraz, Kurt Mann, Max King and Stephen Crichton), although Matt Burton couldn’t even get his 18th man position for the Blues, which has instead gone to Kiraz, while there’s 4 Broncos out on Origin duty (Gehamat Shibasaki on debut, Payne Haas, Pat Carrigan, and Reece Walsh got the 18th man gig for the Maroons).

– The Raiders host the Dragons in Canberra, and you can just SMELL the Raiders lining up the try celebrations, after they pulled off the funniest one of all a few years ago when they did the Jonny Bairstow/Alex Carey stumping celebration, which was perfectly played because Elliott Whitehead was playing the role of the Englishman.

– Having recorded a rare victory, the North Queensland Cowboys host the Melbourne Storm in Townsville, with both teams missing some key players through Origin duty, and it has appeared that the newer North Queensland Stadium is a struggle street for the Storm, given they haven’t won at the ground since 2021, losing the last 3 and conceding somewhere in the region of 39 points per game in those defeats, although one of them was last year when they’d already won the minor premiership and effectively sent a QLD Cup team.

– The Roosters host the Wests Tigers at the SFS, with the Roosters losing Robert Toia, Angus Crichton, Connor Watson, Lindsay Collins and Spencer Leniu to Origin selection, and in the time you read this another player will have left the Wests Tigers as their season plunges down the toilet and into the sewers towards a potential fourth consecutive wooden spoon, and a potential drought breaking win became even harder with Jarome Luai also playing for NSW and Api Koroisau concussed

– Manly host Souths at Brookvale Oval in the Channel Nine game, which will mark the first time Manly and Souths have played at Brookvale since 2021 (A game that was played in heavy rain), as Souths’ pursuit of Alex Johnston breaking Ken Irvine’s 212 tries produced a duck egg last week as they gave up a half century to the Dolphins and The Hammer was the player to bag 4 tries, and here’s an interesting little fact, Souths have the most wins of any visiting team to Brookvale (24 wins from 58 attempts)…. second is Parramatta with 23 wins and a draw, while the Cowboys have best winning percentage of any visiting team (56.67%, 8 wins and a draw from 15 games)

And now for the 5 games to tip in Round 18:

Round 17 score = 7/8

Progressive Score = 74/128 (57.8%)

And in honour of Try July, here’s one from yesteryear… the hand grenade celebration by Bryan Fletcher from State of Origin Game III in 2000, which pissed off Choppy Close and the entire Queensland team so badly claimed it kickstarted the dynasty

According to Fletch, the inspiration came from a touchdown celebration from Any Given Sunday, which he forgot all about due to a bender on an Origin bonding night at the Bourbon & Beefsteak in King’s Cross, only for his teammates to practice the entire routine, then execute it to the dismay of the Queenslanders, who lost the game 56-16 to complete the whitewash.

If you want to know, this is the scene from the film:

So yes, Al Pacino kickstarted Queensland’s dynasty.