What a great day it was last Saturday – Walked up to Brisbane Street in the pouring rain and made it to the Bear Walk right as it started, and finished up marching in the Bear Walk a few metres behind Mal Meninga leading the way… basically it was like when Forrest Gump wound up in that peace march while he was sightseeing around Washington DC.

It was the closest I’ll get to rugby league Immortal status.

Sadly I didn’t get to see one of the great Bears reps ever in Billy Moore.

There was also a 10-minute period in the rain where Mal took photos and shook hands with Bears fans, as if he were a politician… hahaha, Mal Meninga in politics, imagine that.

They were also taking the chance to sell the 2027 Bears jersey which was unveiled on Friday, which I found out was a rather dear $170… estimates are they sold at least 10,000 on the weekend, and they sold out of scarves and hats.

Other than that, it was a good crowd of 15,169 in terrible weather, and would’ve been even higher had the weather not fluctuated between pissing rain on the coldest day of the year and lovely sunshine every 5 minutes, I will say it was a very pro-Melbourne crowd, which is rare for a Perth sporting event, as there were a fair few genuine Storm fans who hate Manly, a crapload of expat Kiwis who front up to just about every rugby league/union game in Perth, plus an arse-load of Bears fans who haven’t forgotten the history with Manly… unsurprisingly, the two most popular players on the ground were future Bears players Nick Meaney and Tyran Wishart, and Meaney delivered in spades with 9/9 off the boot.

It did turn out to be an entertaining game for the crowd, especially those of us at the southern end of the ground as we got the bulk of the scoring as Manly started off with a 14-0 lead as they got the bulk of the play, then the 14-0 curse struck again as the once rudderless Storm, who committed more errors in the opening half hour than they did the rest of the game, proceeded to score 42 unanswered points in a performance that used to be par for the course with Craig Bellamy’s team, but alas the 2026 Storm saved it for their Perth fans rather than their Melbourne fans, as they are still doomed to their worst season in 24 years.

Don Bradman got stuck on 99.94, and right now the Sea Eagles are stuck on 999…. wins that is.

And it wasn’t even the craziest game of the weekend, because there were some deadset superb games, like the Warriors roasting the Panthers to set up this Thursday night thriller between the 1st placed Panthers and the 2nd-placed Roosters with the winner to claim top spot, the Chooks themselves coming from 8-18 down to score twice in 4 minutes and win 20-18, the Dolphins coming back from 24-0 in a crazy Battle of Brisbane, Souths leading 28-0 against Parramatta and hanging on to win, the Raiders-Knights game which saw Corey Horsburgh marked for death by Ricky Stuart after he turned a Raiders penalty into a sin bin, resulting in the Knights coming back to win and all but secure a spot in the finals, while the 2025 minor premiers are doomed to miss the Top 8…

And then with the wooden spoon on the line, St George-Illawarra produced their best performance in years and upended Cronulla, who had rip roared their way back into premiership contention, only to now be fighting to retain 4th spot while the Dragons celebrated their 3rd win of the year, and with 4 games to go they’re now only 3 games behind the Broncos and Titans.

And now, because I ran out of time, here’s the Succinct NRL Tips for Round 24, the second leg of Indigenous Round:

Round 23 Tips = 5/8

Round 23 progress score = 114/172 (66.27%)

Currently in the Top 4.3% on FootyTips, which is immeasurably better than my AFL tipping.

And for the only reason that tomorrow is Paul Gallen’s birthday, here’s a highlight of him kicking a field goal in 2019 to rub salt into the wounds of the Wests Tigers who wanted to end his career on that Sunday afternoon…

It was subsequently ended the next week by Manly.