Round 9 of the NRL is ‘Magic Round’. The full complement of matches will begin on Thursday evening and all will be played at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium. Queensland is after all the heartland of Rugby League – just ask everyone north of the border. Don’t ask anyone literally anywhere else in the world, though.
There looks to be a few fizzers on the eight-game slate and the real magic will be the Suncorp Stadium pitch still resembling a first-grade footy field on Sunday evening.
NRL Round 9 tips in full force below.
It was a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful performance from the Neds Gold Coast Titans in Round 8 but if one thing’s for sure, it’s that they have been a completely different side in front of the Cbus Super faithful this season and I cannot wait for Thursday night’s hit-out with the Sharks on the.. shores of the Brisbane river. Yeah, not really a home game by maybe it will be mentally..?
The boys were well and truly in the contest at the break and a 58th minute to for Anthony Don looked to have the comeback well and truly on target, but there were clearly a lot of tired legs on the paddock in the last ten and that was that.
They do strike a Sharks side that returned their best performance of the season to sink the Storm in the Shire last week, but history of recent seasons suggest they have the wood over Cam Smith and co. and it’ll take another real effort to do that away from home.
Betting suggests it’s going to be one of the better contests of the week, but I think that any club that start as outsiders opposite Penrith currently are over the odds. The Tigers, also proudly sponsored by Neds, have been a thorn in the side of several clubs so far in 2019 and they’ll be another real handful for the out of form Panthers.
They are simply outclassed by the Roosters in Round 8 but realistically most, if not all will be this season and the Tigers are offered a real opportunity to secure their fifth win of the season on Friday evening. Their performance against the Titans two weeks ago was all class, particularly given what had happened the week prior and a win this week would be enough to see them climb back into the eight (at least, for a little while).
What is going on at the foot of the mountains? Unfortunately, the Panthers’ continued woes are only going to play into Gus Gould’s ego despite the fact his presence there never really amounted to any success whatsoever. This most recent stint, I mean.
Until they prove me wrong, I’m happy to continue betting against the Panthers.
For the first time this season, the Sea Eagles saluted as favourites in Round 8. On all other occasions, they started as outsiders and won. Say what you want – ‘it was only against the lowly Bulldogs’, but they did it without two of their three genuine stars and showed plenty of legitimate fight.
This is a Manly home game, in Brisbane, but the Sea Eagles haven’t been terrible at Suncorp Stadium and they strike a god-awful Broncos’ outfit who don’t seem capable of winning. They are led by the league’s most underwhelming, un-inspirational captain who surely needs to be the first person on the chopping block. Realistically, a five-year rebuild is on the cards for Anthony Siebold and the faster everyone at Red Hill realises that, the better it will be for the clubs and the legions of one-eyed fans.
It should be a contest but happy to take the enormous overs for the Sea Eagles.
The inconsistent Dogs meet the untrustworthy Knights in the grossest game of the round the round on Saturday evening. There doesn’t look to be a lot in this one for the neutrals and given the general lack of support away from home for both clubs, probably not a great one to have scheduled on this magic round.
So has been the open nature of the first eight weeks of the NRL, the Knights remain on the edge of the eight despite only winning three games. With other results going their way, they could somehow find themselves within the finals spots at the end of the weekend. Surely not, though.
The Dogs are anchored to the bottom of the table after another loss in Round 8 and while it’s extremely difficult to line up the form of both of these clubs heading into this one, I feel like their best has probably been better than the Knights’ best so far.
In yet another display of spirit, spine and a true indication of the depth of talent on their books, the Warriors failed to offer anything against the out of form Knights in New Zealand last week, and face the Dragons off the back of another loss.
You’ll honestly go mad trying to figure out what the problem is over the ditch and I am personally happy to just chalk it up to Rugby League’s obvious Napoleon complex in New Zealand. It’s never going to be religion like Union is. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is never going to be considered an athlete of Dan Carter’s prowess. Get on with it.
In my opinion, the Dragons loom as one of the better bets of Round 9 but they certainly haven’t been missed in the market. After they failed to go on with the job against the Eels last week and the bookies’ apparent love of the Warriors despite them always failing, I was expecting we’d get a little below even money for St George. Unfortunately, we’re faced with $1.65 at publish. The line’s only 3.5 points though and that’s a little more like it.
The Storm suffered their second defeat of the season to the injury-ravaged Sharks and will be eager to respond when they face the Eels on Saturday night. I personally think that the Storm are a myth this season though and I don’t think this will be as one-sided as betting suggests.
I couldn’t have potted the Eels more at the beginning of the season but to the shock of everyone, perhaps even their playing roster, they have not been awful. I thought that there was a lot to like about their performance against the Dragons last week, particularly their ability to ice the game in the late stages and they are over the odds to beat a Storm side who were probably finally found out in Round 8.
I give Parra a real chance of winning this one, but they can certainly cover a line set at 7.5 points.
Pray for a fine day in Brisbane on Sunday afternoon because the match of the round looks like materialising when the league-leading Roosters host the tough-as-nails Raiders.
I’ve blown so much smoke up their asses this season there really isn’t a lot left to be said, but it has all been justified and I remain confident that there are worse bets to make than the Roosters taking out the whole thing again.
The Raiders bounced back into the winner’s stall with a pleasing and easy win over the Panthers in Canberra. The simply choked Ivan Cleary’s men out of the contest and a repeat of that performance would see them troubling the Roosters for the full 80 minutes.
The round draw to a close on what I can only assume will resemble a pig pen on Sunday afternoon, when Souths ‘host’ the Cowboys.
The Bunnies are the shortest-priced favourites of the week and it’s not hard to understand why. They have returned to the competition in similarly impressive form that saw a semi-final berth in 2018 and looks like delivering a similar, if not better result this time around. They enter this match off the back of a monstrous win over the Broncos and face a similarly disappointing side in the form of the Cowboys.
To their credit, the Cows did win last week, but it is extremely difficult imagining them backing up that result here.