About as popular as Gorden Tallis at a Broncos training session

Just seems to me that the Raging Bull still doesn’t like the Broncos moving on Kevvy for Michael Maguire in 2024, which was proven to be the correct decision in October 2025…

Still, even Ben Te’o got sick of Michael Maguire and resigned this week… even more legs to that crap about Madge being good in short doses.

Moving on, and here’s an interesting little stat from the great site known as Rugby League Project, regarding the Warriors and Panthers:

Those other 10 teams, with one of them being a technicality:

1) 1910 Newtown (3-0, 94-13 +81), 2) 1935 Balmain (3-0, 108-14 +94), 3) 1960 St George (2-1, 108-29 +79), 4) 1963 St George (3-0, 110-23 +87), 5) 1974 Eastern Suburbs (3-0 118-25 +93), 6) 1983 Parramatta (3-0 146-38 +108), 7) 2002 Newcastle (3-0, 120-44 +76), 8) 2006 Newcastle (3-0, 141-60 +84), 9) 2008 Brisbane (3-0, 104-28 +76)… The technicality is 1996 Brisbane, whose opening game was a forfeit against the Auckland Warriors, but the first 3 games they played were 3 wins with a For/Against of +92 (118/26).

Also interesting – Out of those teams, the last team to win the minor premiership in the same year was the 1974 Easts team who went on to win the premiership, and the last to actually win the premiership in the same year was the 1983 Eels, who won it from 2nd on the ladder.

Another random stat:

The Broncos winning the Grand Final by 4 points against the Storm then winning the rematch on Friday night by 4 points is the first time since 1956-57 that the Grand Final and the Grand Final rematch have been decided by the same margin… back then, St George defeated Balmain 18-12 in the ’56 decider, then defeated the Tigers 19-13 in Round 1 of 1957.

Anyway, on to Round 2, and surely the highlight is THE GRUDGE MATCH… DCE vs Manly at Brookvale tonight.

Followed by the Panthers and the Eels in the latest Battle of the West on Saturday afternoon, and apparently the Panthers’ set restart tactics have been exposed – They’ve given away a league high 21 set restarts in 3 games, with 18 of them coming on the 1st or 2nd tackle…

Of course, it also looks like Eels also brought the legendary WALL against St George-Illawarra, which caught the attention of the NRL… must be the 40th anniversary of the 1986 premiership!

Now, the Tips for Round 2:

Round 6 Score = 6/8

Round 3 Progress Score = 16/24 (66.67%)