Magic Round is in the rear-view mirror and it’s onwards and upwards towards and Origin and the pointy end of the season as the NRL enters Round 10.
There’s eight games approaching and as always, you can find a pretty full complement of NRL Round 10 tips, with a little preview for each below.
I’m absolutely thrilled that Thursday night footy is in full force but at publish, we’ve still got a couple of league-less days to get through. Check out our league legends sharing their thoughts in Neds Legendary Opinions RIGHT HERE
Last week in my preview, on several radio stations and even somewhere on camera, I went out of my way to let everyone know that I thought the Melbourne Storm are a myth in 2019. That they have been made to look better than they are by a few ordinary sides and that they were found out by the injury-hit Sharks in Round 8. I went on to say that Parramatta were over the odds at $2.80 and looked a real chance of scoring the upset of the week. That probably should have been where I realised what I was saying and came to my senses.
64-10 was the final score between the Storm and Eels on Saturday night, everyone saw it.
The Tigers themselves were quite impressive, but good lord. Melbourne at the line.
A potentially intriguing, but almost certainly disappointing contest will play out between the Panthers and Warriors at the foot of the Blue Mountains on Friday evening.
The Panthers are so bad it hurts. What is going on here? They are one of the league’s best sides on paper and while sure, that doesn’t count for everything, pretty much this exact same team looked good last season and with scope to improve more. They simply could not have done a bigger backflip. The Tigers played well, but last week’s loss was just about as bad as its been for the Panthers and I’m at the point where I’m going to have to see them do it before I tip them again.
The Warriors have also been largely dreadful, but they do show glimpses of credibility in patches and for that reason alone, they do look a little bit of overs in head-to-head betting this week. In stark contrast to the Panthers, last week’s win over the Dragons was probably their best of the season and they’ll surely take confidence into this.
Broncos vs Roosters is probably about as close to State of Origin as you get at club level and in 2019, a similar result looks like materialising at both levels.
At the beginning of the season it would have looked like the match of the round and you would have been forgiven for tipping these two clubs to make the decider. From my perspective, one of them is still almost a certainty (barring bulk injuries). The other, who continue to make the most bizarre decisions on and off the field, can start planning the Caxton Street pub crawl for Mad Monday now.
To their credit, they muscled up in front of the away crowd at Suncorp Stadium last week and did a number on Manly, but this is a whole new kettle of fish for the Broncos and the result will perhaps give them a real bearing of how much work needs to be done.
The might and power of the Neds Gold Coast Titans will return to fortress Cbus on Saturday afternoon and the Canterbury Bulldogs are the next club on the chopping block.
Two weeks in a row now, the Titans have looked the winner but ultimately missed out on the chocolates and in particular, there was a lot to like about last week’s performance against the Sharks.
They face a more inconsistent side in the form of the Bulldogs here who, while also giving the occasional sight of a competitive team, are continually failing to convert.
The Coast have been keeping their best footy for Cbus Stadium this season and I think this is the perfect opportunity to notch their third win of the campaign.
An opportunity for last start losers the Cowboys and Eels will show itself in North Queensland on Saturday evening.
The Cowboys gave Souths a bit of a fight in the Magic Round, but the result that everyone anticipated became a reality and ultimately, that is all that counts. They’ve won only three of nine and enter this thirteenth on the ladder; really only saved by the even small fight offered up by those sitting below them.
I certainly wouldn’t be caught dead saying that Parramatta ‘look a real chance of causing the upset of the week’, but this is obviously a far better prospect for them. Who bloody knows after last week, this one isn’t for me.
Two formed sides will square off in the nation’s capital on Saturday night and certainly in my opinion, it’s the game of the round.
Souths probably haven’t been as good as we know that they can be, but they’ve still been head and shoulders above most other sides and that has delivered eight wins from nine starts. They did enough to weather a spirited Cows side and comfortably win in Brisbane and they’ll be confident of another drilled performance and result here.
The Raiders have been the real surprise packets of the first nine weeks of the comp. No one ever doubted their potential, but they’ve really started to realise it and were unlucky not to deliver the Roosters a defeat last week. They’re a genuine top four side.
I’m happy to take the value on offer for the Raiders this week. They’re always hard to beat with a Viking Clap echoing around the joint, but more importantly there is almost nowhere more difficult to travel to on a cold and dewy night.
Probably not a penultimate fixture to set your watch to, but there’s a winner to be found when the Dragons host the Knights at Glen Willow Oval in Mudgee – perhaps another field to add to the list of forty home grounds that they currently boast.
Turned out that the Warriors would actually pull off the upset of the round when they beat the Dragons at Suncorp Stadium last week, but I’m still of the opinion that when they finally put it all together, St George will be a genuine top four shot.
The Knights just cannot get there. It’s a rebuild, I get it, but just amazing to see the difference in some clubs and their ability to click in a rebuild, and the inability of others to. Unfortunately for their long-suffering fans, the Knights absolutely fall into the latter bucket and this looks another tough prospect for them, as most matches for the rest of the 2019 season will.
There’s still enough meat on the bone for me at $1.70 and I’ll be throwing the Dragons into a couple of multis this week for the value.
It’s a battle of the beaches at the less appealing of the two beaches when Manly travel to Cronulla on Sunday afternoon.
Cronulla scored what now looks like a massive win over the Storm last week, but there is absolutely no denying that they were lucky to get away with the win over the Titans last week. That is all biased and jokes to the side, they were not the better team overall. This looks another winnable game for them, but surely the injured list will begin to take its toll.
The Sea Eagles turned in a rare lacklustre performance in Brisbane last week. I find it incredible that I’m saying that ten weeks into the comp – I had them in my eight, but definitely a fringe eighth. Making or missing the eight by a single win. Facts are, they’re unlucky to have lost four and they’ve been without the league’s biggest weapon for all but a couple of games.
Happy to play the Sea Eagles as outsiders again; it seems to be the recipe for them winning.