The Cowboys have Scott Drinkwater, the Broncos have Reece Toiletwater

Finally, Spring is here and we have reached the last round of the home & away season, and what an eventful week we had:

The Warriors piss away a Top 4 spot by losing to the ever-improving Eels, after the Bunker ruled out Adam Pompey’s game-winning try due to spotting an apparent knock-on by Demetric Vaimauga, despite an apparent lack of clear evidence that the ball was knocked forward by the Warriors…. but, it’s their own damn fault.

When it looked like the Storm would get a regulation win at AAMI Park with a 10-0 lead at the Half, the Roosters’ attack came to life again in the 2nd Half and did something no team had ever done in the NRL – Put 40 points on the Melbourne Storm IN A HALF.

That gave the Raiders a straight up win against the Wests Tigers to seal the J.J. Giltinan Shield for the first time since 1990, and they duly delivered, also handing Ricky Stuart his first coaching minor premiership since 2004 with the Sydney Roosters…

So there you go, Sticky FINALLY won something at club level without Brad Fittler.

Manly pumped the Dragons to stay in the Top 8 race, the Broncos won a highly entertaining Queensland Derby in Townsville to jump into 4th spot, before Reece Walsh drank his own toilet water, because that’s what they call XXXX these days, the Sharks won on Sunday to keep their Top 4 chances intact, and the Dolphins are still in the Top 8 hunt, leaving the Titans in pole position for the wooden spoon.

IN summation, top spot may be done but there’s still plenty to play for:

2nd spot is technically still up for grabs, but the Melbourne Storm are a win and +90 points differential ahead of Canterbury, so it’s a mere formality that the teams will be playing in Melbourne next week.

With the Warriors losing last Friday night, 4th spot is now a three-horse race between the Broncos, Sharks and the Warriors, although they’ve all got brutal games against teams in the Top 9, the Broncos hosting a Storm team who copped a roasting from Craig Bellamy, the Sharks go to Accor Stadium to play Canterbury who could still be in contention for 2nd place, and the Warriors play Manly at Brookvale, with Manly potentially still playing for a finals spot.

Then we have the three-horse race for the last spot in the Top 8 between the Sydney Roosters, the Dolphins and Manly, which looked extremely shaky for old Easts at half time last Friday night, but that 2nd Half roasting of the Storm in Melbourne has them in good shape, the Dolphins get a Raiders team who have locked up top spot and rested half the starting team (On paper, the easiest of the 3 games), while Manly have that aforementioned tough game against the Warriors, and not only do they need to win they need to win by 40+ points, which is extremely unlikely given the Wahs are playing for a Top 4 spot.

And lucky last is the wooden spoon duel between Newcastle and the Gold Coast Titans, who will both part company with their respective coaches after this weekend, with the Titans hosting the Wests Tigers at Cbus on Saturday afternoon, which means Newcastle will find out that evening if the lucky last game of the Home & Away season against Parramatta on Sunday afternoon will mean anything.

The Titans could end up with their 3rd wooden spoon, while the Knights could end up with their 5th wooden spoon in 20 years, which would make them the first team to achieve 5 wooden spoons in the 21st century, having been the first to 4 last-placed finishes.

Now, the Round 27 slate:

– For the third year in a row, the Brisbane Broncos host the Melbourne Storm on a Thursday night at Suncorp in the last round of the season, and the Broncos have it hard enough against the Storm, and now they’re going to get the Storm fresh off a belting with several major players back and Craig Bellamy having killed 3 members of the forward pack… still, if Madge’s team is good enough, they’ll be up for the fight.

– In what is Daly Cherry-Evans’ farewell to Brookvale, Manly host the New Zealand Warriors in the Northern Beaches with both teams having it all to play for – Manly needing to win by 40+ points to keep the heat on the Roosters in the race for a Top 8 spot (Unbloodylikely), and the Warriors needing to win and hope the Broncos have lost the night previous… and then they’ve got to wait and see what happens when Cronulla play the Bulldogs.

Also, Manly have scored 58 and 40 points in their last 2 games, which is only the second time they’ve ever done that under Anthony Seibold (Rounds 26 and 27 of 2023)… the last time they scored 40+ points in 3 consecutive games was Rounds 14 to 16 of 2021, when they scored 50, 56 and 66 points.

– The latest chapter in the Book of Feuds has the Roosters playing South Sydney on Friday night prime time to decide their Top 8 spot for 2025, while Souths have Cameron Murray back for a cameo appearance after his ruptured Achilles in the pre-season, and on top of trying to destroy their ancient enemy’s finals chances, the Rabbits keep trying to push Alex Johnston closer to Ken Irvine’s 212 tries, needing only 2 to tie the record with one game to play, and of course this game will be held at Allianz Stadium, which is that place South Sydney are trying to play their home games in the future, after they sold their home games for a brown paper bag from Accor Stadium 20 years ago.

Also a couple of notes – This weekend marks a year since Mark Nawaqanitawase debuted for Easts, who has since proven himself one of the best Union to League converts of the 21st Century, and this is the last scheduled game at the SFS before the playing surface undergoes major repairs in mid-September due to poor drainage…. fair dinkum, only getting 3 years out of a playing surface, my last iPhone lasted 4 years before it decided to shit itself.

– St George-Illawarra host Penrith in Wollongong on Saturday afternoon, the Dragons ending yet another forgettable year to extend their finals drought to 7 years, while the Panthers have got their entire rested brigade back as they now know they effectively have to win this game and 4 more to complete the miracle Fivepeat… Of course, at this stage the Panthers would be finishing 7th and facing a trip to Auckland next weekend if the Broncos, Sharks and Wahs all win, but on the flip side they could also end up with a shorter trip to Brisbane or Shark Park if one of the three lose, but at the end of the day, does any team want to play the Panthers in the Finals.

– The Gold Coast Titans host the Wests Tigers at Cbus in Des Hasler’s farewell to the Titans, and what could well be his farewell to coaching in his 506th First Grade game, staring down the barrel of the first wooden spoon of his coaching career, while the Tigers have the chance to win 10 games in a season for the first time since 2019, in what has been a damn good year of improvement for Benji Marshall’s team, especially after the wooden spoon threepeat.

Also, we’ll see another former Wallaby in the NRL – Carter Gordon, with 8 caps for the Wallabies (All of them in 2023), makes his NRL debut for the Titans, alongside Cooper Bai, son of Melbourne Storm premiership hero Marcus Bai.

– Canterbury host Cronulla at the Olympic Stadium, and it’ll be interesting to see how the Bulldogs approach this game given they’re pretty much welded on to 3rd place, while the Sharks absolutely have to win, not only for their Top 4 chances but also the fact that they probably don’t want to face the Panthers in the Finals again if they finish 6th.

– The Dolphins host the minor premier Canberra Raiders at Suncorp, with the Raiders resting several key players as top spot is safe and sound, and the Dolphins do have some emotion riding on this game with forward Mark Nicholls announcing he’ll retire at the end of 2025, with this being his last Dolphins home game against the team he debuted for in 2012 and ironically the Dolphins need a bit of help from Wayne Bennett on Friday night to make the finals, although Wayne didn’t help them much in last year’s decisive final round, so they’re now calling for help from ‘Obi-Wayne Kenobi.’

– In the last game of the home & away season, Parramatta host Newcastle at Commbank, and depending on what happens on Saturday evening the Knights could be staring at another wooden spoon to finish off Adam O’Brien’s coaching tenure, while the Eels will end Jason Ryles’ first season as coach having shown great improvement in the back half of this year, given they’ve bettered their 2024 win tally (9 compared to 7) and were still a spoon contender in July, but they’ve had some damn good wins this year, namely the Broncos at Lang Park, the Roosters in Round 25, and the Warriors last week.

And now for the Succinct Round 27 tips:

Round 26 score = 5/8

Progressive Score = 117/196 (59.7%)

And now for a musical tribute to the last round of the season, here’s Europe!