Well friends, starting off with the absolute carnage inflicted by Queensland at the MCG, their first win at the ground since the legendary performance of Fatty Vautin’s Maroons in Game II of 1995, and I did predict that the team that lost Game I, in this case Queensland, was going to win the penalty count in Origin II, and sure enough the Maroons won the count 5-2.

Like stealing wheat from blind chooks.

And I did mention as well:

“Still, if the penalty count doesn’t get Queensland over the line, then Laurie Daley’s New South Wales team selection will.”

And now let’s see some of those classic Lozball selections while Billy Slater stuck fat and reaped the rewards – Mitch Barnett only played 20 minutes, Cameron Murray starting on the bench, Ethan Strange played 16 minutes while Mitch Moses lacked match fitness, Addin Fonua-Blake played 9 minutes then got pulled again (for Ethan Strange), Victor Radley played 31 minutes and caused more harm to his own team than the Maroons, Api Koroisau rotting on the bench while the game was lost and Reece Robson was swept out to sea against Harry Grant, Payne Haas spent too long on the bench despite being the best front rower wearing Blue, and Hamuole Olakau’atu, who ran for 266 metres in his last game for Manly, got dropped for Dylan Lucas who played all 80 minutes… and ran for 53 metres.

But yep, on the whole I’d say that game a massive success for everyone except New South Wales – The Channel 9 ratings were an all-time record (4.29m nationwide) ahead of the TV rights negotiations reaching their endgame, the MCG crowd of 91,671 was an all-time Origin record, and the almighty Maroons in trademark backs to the wall style, absolutely shat on the Blues with one of the great halves of Origin football, and we’re 1 Kalyn Ponga shoulder charge away from this series being done to a dinner going to Lang Park.

Another interesting fact from the game – Laurie Daley has now lost 12 Origin games (out of 20) and passed Wayne Bennett (11) for the most Origin defeats by a coach, although if you include that Super League Origin series in 1997 Bennett has 13 defeats against 14 wins, and compared to Daley with that lonely win in 2014, Bennett has 5 series wins + 1 draw that had Queensland retain the Shield in 2002.

Still, the inevitable arse tearing in Game III at Lang Park, which is as inevitable as death and taxes, might end up working out for New South Wales, because if things pan out the way we think they’ll pan out the NSWRL will sack Daley again because he has conclusively proven he’s the Origin equivalent of Terry Lamb coaching the Wests Tigers, the Broncos will get the shits with Michael Maguire and sack him for losing the dressing room amidst their disasterclass of a season, ala Kevin Walters in 2024, and lo and behold, Madge will magically return to the Blues.

And now, we move on to Round 16 of the club season, and in an effort to save time here’s some interesting tidbits going into the weekend:

The Newcastle Knights have only won 6 out of 24 games in Newcastle against St George-Illawarra since 1999… I had to look that up but it really is true, and if the Dragons want to have any hope of keeping that record going they’ll have to lock Greg Marzhew in the dressing room sheds after he put 5 tries on them last month.

The Gold Coast Titans are reviving the Gold Coast Chargers jerseys against the Penrith Panthers, and

The Dolphins play the Wests Tigers at Campbelltown for the first time, and if the Tigers have their way it might be the only time the Dolphins play at Campbelltown after the Leichhardt Oval redevelopment is completed in 2028, at which point the Campbelltown stadium redevelopment would begin and put that stadium out of action

Canterbury are going dark mode with an alternate black & blue jersey against Manly, who themselves are now on 998 First Grade wins ahead of the game against Canterbury on Saturday night, almost appropriate because Canterbury themselves got to the 1,000 wins milestone last season… they’re actually only 9 wins ahead of the Sea Eagles despite having a 12-year headstart.

The New Zealand Warriors also have a special jersey for the game against North Queensland in Christchurch, designed by former Warrior Lewi Brown and entitled Kotahitanga, a Maori concept for unity and oneness, and in keeping with the theme the design itself is a nod to both Christchurch and the Canterbury region (Scarlet & Black), and the Warriors’ 2001 jersey, which was the first season the Warriors played as the New Zealand Warriors after the Auckland Warriors financially collapsed in late 2000, and becoming a team for all New Zealanders to support coincided with the Warriors appearing in their first final, followed by the 2002 minor premiership and Grand Final appearance.

And another one is that the Melbourne Storm are on 498 First Grade wins ahead of the Sunday afternoon game against Canberra… the game against the Newcastle Knights a fortnight ago was also their 750th game, and they are the only club in the history of the league to have double the amount of all-time wins compared to defeats…. it is a funny thing that the NRL don’t recognise the Storm’s premierships and minor premierships of the 2000s due to the salary cap cheating, but all of the wins in those home & away and finals games are recognised by multiple sources, among them the rugby league oracle himself David Middleton.

A couple of other major milestones in that game – If Cameron Munster backs up from Origin II it’ll be his 250th game, and Ricky Stuart is set for his 800th First Grade appearance as a player + coach, combining his 243 games as a player and his 557th game as an NRL coach.

If my maths are right he’s only the third person ever with 800 combined NRL appearances, with Wayne Bennett appearing on that list solely based on his 975 games as coach, Tim Sheens finished on 859 (166 played + 693 coached), while Des Hasler also appears on a technicality if you include his stint as a player at Hull, which gets him to 823.

And now, the actual Round 16 tips:

Round 15 tips = 3/5

Round 15 progress score = 73/113 (64.6%)

And for this week’s random musical number… on the anniversary of Errol Flynn’s birth, here’s Australian Crawl with that song..