With Origin III looming, just five games will be contested in Round 19 of the NRL as seven clubs enjoy a week off.
Wests Tigers will be eager to bounce back from their worst-ever defeat when the action kicks off on Thursday night, but their work is well and truly cut out for them in the form of the Sharks.
The Dragons and Bulldogs also suffered hefty Round 18 defeats and line up opposite the Raiders and Rabbitohs respectively, but there looks to be plenty of value to be found in the markets for all five games.
Check out all of my NRL Round 19 Tips below!
Fresh off their worst performance of the season, perhaps ever, the Tigers go into battle again first-up on Thursday night, against the Sharks.
72-0 is how their trip to Townsville and meeting with the Cowboys ended, and there surely is no way that the Tigers can sink any lower than that.
The Sharks also haven’t been at their best recently, but they did destroy the Dragons last weekend, and their bottom line is still seemingly a lot higher than the Tigers’ best.
I can’t see this ending with any result other than a big Sharks victory.
Same Game Multi selections:
- Sharks 13+
- Siosifa Talakai Anytime Try
- Ronaldo Mulitalo Anytime Try
Another team that was delivered an absolute hiding in Round 18 was the Dragons, and they too face a similarly daunting task in overcome Top 6 side the Raiders on Friday night.
I still can’t get my head around the decision to block Ben Hunt’s move, and while he isn’t the sort of bloke to just stop trying, it would be extremely difficult to get up and about every week with your own club’s fans booing you.
They were at sea again in Round 18, ultimately ending their game with the Sharks on the wrong end of a 51-16 scoreline.
The Raiders, meanwhile, proved too tough for a credible Titans side, and locked themselves into fifth on the ladder in the process.
This looks to be another open and shut case.
The Eels’ recent form resurgence will need to go to a new level this week, when they take on a nearly full-strength Warriors outfit without the likes of Mitchell Moses, Gutho and Reagan Campbell-Gillard.
They were on the bye last week but prior to that, the Eels really did look an enormously improved side, and their last match resulted in a big win over the Dolphins on the road.
The Warriors were pretty flat against the Rabbitohs at home last weekend, but against an arguably worse opponent who is without key personnel, they really don’t have any excuses this week.
That being said, I can’t entirely trust the Warriors from a betting perspective, and I am going to stay away from match betting and the line.
Speaking of awful bloody sides, the Bulldogs will need to improve tenfold to even compete with an understrength South Sydney on Saturday night.
The Bunnies will be missing plenty of firepower, including Cody Walker, Keaon Koloamatangi, Cameron Murray and injured stars, but they meet a Bulldogs side that didn’t fire a single shot in a 66-0 losing effort against the Knights in Round 18.
The Tigers might have conceded 72-0, but given how mediocre the Knights have been in 2023, I personally think that the Bulldogs loss was worse.
All of that considered, I still think that Souths win this.
A South-East Queensland Derby concludes Round 19 on Sunday afternoon when the Titans takes on the Dolphins on the Gold Coast.
The Titans recent form has actually been quite good, and they were unlucky not to record another win in last week’s tight performance against a very credible Raiders outfit, in Canberra.
For that reason, I completely understand their $1.75 market favouritism (at publish), but they are without four extremely key players this week in Tino, Fifita, Fotuika and Brimmo, and I’m not confident they are the sort of team that copes well without players of that calibre.
The ‘Phins recent form has left plenty to the imagination, but with only The Hammer to miss through Origin, I think this is the perfect opportunity for them to record a win.