Because this week was the 2nd anniversary of one of the great comedic moments of the decade, here’s the time St George-Illawarra wrote DARGONS on Jack Bird’s jersey.

Ploughing on into Mother’s Day weekend, and last year this was the Women In League Round but it’s obviously been moved in 2026, and what a wild old week last week was, from the continued implosion at Canterbury, the Storm losing 7 in a row, the Broncos coming from 0-30 down against the Roosters to close to within 24-30 with time to spare before Kotoni Staggs was sent to the bin, the 42-38 shootout in Newcastle as Souths set the record for the second-greatest losing score in First Grade history, the news of Jarome Luai signing for PNG obviously smashed any confidence the Wests Tigers had as Cronulla dumped 52 points on them and eliminated them from premiership contention, and the Penrith Panthers became the first team in history to defeat the might of Fozzball… only just, might I add.

Still, it does look a bit more entertaining than this week’s games:

– The Dolphins from Redcliffe return to Suncorp on a Thursday night to play Canterbury, as the Bulldogs season keeps sliding down the tubes without any light at the end, while the Dolphins attack was firing on all cylinders in the 2nd Half against the Storm, as that backline has speed to burn.. Farnworth, Cobbo, Tabuai-Fidow and Katoa will have the Queensland Police bringing out the tickets.

– The Sydney Roosters and the Gold Coast Titans venture off to the Central Coast for the early Friday game, with the Roosters losing Lindsay Collins to concussion protocols and Mark Nawaqanitawase looks like missing out on a State of Origin debut with New South Wales due to ankle surgery, and the Titans have gone balls to the wall and handed Zane Harrison an NRL debut at halfback and moved Jayden Campbell to five-eighth, because not much else was working before for Josh Hannay, and of course the Titans did win this fixture last year, albeit it was at the SFS, and on another note Daniel Tupou is level with Billy Slater on 190 tries… one more and he’ll be outright 3rd all-time.

– The feature Channel 9 Friday night game has North Queensland hosting Parramatta in Townsville, a matchup that doesn’t look like much on paper considering neither team was a finals team last year, the Cowboys are only just starting to string consistent results together and the Eels are still struggling massively, but there is a perfectly good occasion to have this game in prime time on national TV… Jason Taumalolo, the one-time Dally M Medalist and the last survivor of the 2015 premiership team, plays his 295th game and overtakes Johnathan Thurston for the Cowboys’ all-time games record, a record JT took from Matthew Bowen in April 2016, with Bowen getting the record from Paul Bowman in April 2011…

Interesting thought, the Cowboys have never had a 300-game player, the Titans have never had a 200-game player… and yet the New Zealand Warriors, despite their tyranny of distance, have had Simon Mannering play 300 games.

– St George-Illawarra come off the bye and host the Newcastle Knights in Wollongong, as the ‘Dargons’ now have 12 consecutive defeats to their name with Clint Gutherson back into the No.1 position, and with the Knights getting their own gun No.1 back into the team in the form of Kalyn Ponga, they showed that the best form of defence is a good strong offence as they leaked 38 points but still won the game, and now they go down south attempting their first win in Wollongong since 2011… albeit this’ll be only their third visit to the Illawarra in 15 years, the last of which was in 2022.

– Souths host Cronulla at Accor Stadium, as the official news from Souths confirmed that Alex Johnston will indeed move to PNG in 2028, giving him approximately no more than 38 games to reach 250 NRL tries with Souths before he goes, while the Sharks jumped straight back into the Top 8 after inflicting the 50-point curse on the Wests Tigers at Shark Park, a game in which the Tigers were actually favoured with the bookies, and they go into this game having won the last 5 games against Souths, as Campbell Graham plays his 150th NRL game (He did miss the entire 2024 season) and Nico Hynes is only 12 points short of bringing up 1,000 points, which would make him the 9th active player with at least 1,000 points after Nick Meaney got there in Round 7.

– Manly host the Brisbane Broncos at Brookvale on Saturday evening as Kieran Foran deals with the shock of actually losing a game as coach, while Michael Maguire is actually doing a superb job just getting a team on the field every week, and after playing the Broncos at Brooky last year for the first time since 2014 thanks mainly to Magic Round and the Silvertails selling the home game to Brisbane for many years, this game will mark the first time since 2006-07 that the teams have played at Brookvale in consecutive years… in fact, the last time the Broncos won at Brookvale was 2010, a Round 13 Sunday afternoon game played between Origin I and II.

– The Melbourne Storm host the Wests Tigers at AAMI Park on Sunday afternoon in unpredictable Melbourne, staring down the barrel of 8 consecutive defeats and the coach going through hell… I still can’t believe that sentence ISN’T about the Tigers.

– And the lucky last game has the Canberra Raiders, fresh off a well-earned win on the Gold Coast, host Penrith in the national capital as last year’s minor premiers host the current ladder leaders, and keeping up this statsitical notice, Nathan Cleary needs 1 goal to pass his old teammate James Maloney for 12th on the all-time scorers list… he needs 17 points to tie the one-time record holder Eric Simms in 11th.

And now the Round 10 Picks…

Round 9 Result = 6/8

Round 9 Progress Score = 44/72 (61.1%)

And as a tribute to Jason Taumalolo, the greatest Cowboy since Lee Van Cleef, here’s one of the most memorable moments involving a bunch of Cowboys…

The fart scene from Blazing Saddles.