The best weekend of the season for Dragons fans, as they finally get 2 points in 2026 due to a bye:

Anyway, this week I did have a fair bit lined up about the Melbourne Storm losing 6 games in a row for the first time in 24 years and for the first time under Craig Bellamy, but after seeing that news on Thursday about Bellyache being diagnosed with a form of neurodegenerative disorder, it really took the wind out of the sails because it just doesn’t seem as fun hanging crap on the Storm losing half a dozen straight games knowing that tough old bugger isn’t completely healthy…

It also might go a way to explaining why morale in a highly professional club like Melbourne has been a bit down since the middle of March.

Anway, here’s the Round 9 tips:

Round 8 Tips = 6/8

Round 8 progress score = 38/64 (59.3%)

And on another note, after seeing Jarome Luai accept that $2m per season offer to become the inaugural signing with the Papua New Guinea Chiefs, here’s an old classic from the Steve Miller Band!

Bloody hell, that Luai is going to have some legacy – 4 straight premierships at Penrith, leaves for a Wests Tigers team that had won 3 consecutive wooden spoons, becomes the captain and turns them into a team remotely competitive for a finals spot, everything the Tigers hadn’t been for 15 years, and now he’s going to get the greatest payday Australian rugby league has ever seen…

And appropriately he had to go to another country to achieve that.