I thought I would mention a few things that I find quite ridiculous in the NRL.
Firstly, crusher tackles and high tackles that are put on report.
I agree that officials need to protect players’ heads and necks for sure, but as usual coaches and players have found a way to exploit it, a bit like thieves just finding a devious way around the law.
If you have any doubt I refer you to last Saturday’s Eels versus Panthers clash, when Blake Ferguson went down with a neck injury.
He looked to be in enormous pain until a Penrith player sledged him.
Blake proved miracles do happen, as he jumped up and wanted to fight old mate, and his neck looked fine.
More ridiculous than that is the NRL bubble rules set by the Apollo Committee.
Again, I am all for protecting everyone from this rotten bloody thing but I struggle to see some of the Apollo committee’s reasoning.
Players and staff in the bubble cannot go to a pub or club for dinner or lunch or for anything, even if they have exclusive use.
But they can go to a café, restaurant or takeaway, which seems strange to me.
Even stranger is they can all swim in the pool where they are staying, use the pool toilets where other guests are and even go to the beach and use a public toilet.
How does that make any sense at all?
Even stranger is wearing masks, entering and leaving the field of play.
Roosters stars make kids’ day
Heard a great story about some kids who spotted a high-profile Roosters player in the burbs so one followed him to a house.
The kid then went and got his footy mad mates and they went and knocked on the door of the house pretending they had lost their dog?
They hit the jackpot as the house was full of Roosters players so the kids got their photos taken with all of them.
Talk about enterprising – those boys will get on in life.
Champion efforts
Well done to the Kawana Dolphins on their tough win over the Maroochydore Swans in the Sunshine Coast Rugby League A-grade grand-final.
Well done to coach Andrew Hinson, who has done the hard yards at the club and been through some tough years. An A-grade premiership is well deserved.
Another master coach is the USC Barbarians’ Brad Tronc, who oversaw an awesome season in the Sunshine Coast Rugby Union A-grade competition.
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He masterminded a premiership, beating the powerful Noosa Dolphins, which is always hard to do.
Well done to Josh Shuttlewood, who masterminded an awesome win for Caloundra Sharks over Caboolture in the Sunshine Coast Rugby League Women’s grand-final.
The Maroochy Roos were unlucky in their loss in the Queensland AFL grand-final, to Broadbeach, but they had an awesome season.
Meanwhile, the Sunshine Coast Falcons were knocked out by Redcliffe in the semi-finals of the Queensland rugby league competition but they had a pretty good season, considering there were no Storm feeder players available because of COVID, with a bubble for more than half the season.
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In fact, the Falcons proved that – unlike the early years with no feeder club – they are now a competitive club with or without NRL players, which is a massive improvement.
Well done to the Falcons’ James Ackerman Medallist Patrice Siolo who worked hard every week in the middle of field leading a small but willing pack of forwards.
The Falcons Colts’ prop Caleb Sutton won the Player of the Year and Players’ Player awards and he looks to have a big future in the game.
A season which everyone hoped could have continued deeper in the finals did have some highlights, none better than Todd Murphy being the leading points scorer in the competition and Luke Polselli and Nat McGavin being tied for leading try scorer. Not bad for a team that finished eighth.
Ashley Robinson is a columnist for Sunshine Coast News and My Weekly Preview. His views are his own.
