Madge Is Unhinged and Needs Help: It seemed a joke. It had to be.
When the NSW team leaked Sunday night, it looked like a joke on the level of Craig McLachlan’s standup.
The team that was leaked could not be real, it was so fantastically stupid that no sane human could believe it.
If there was a wrong lever to pull, he pulled it. If there was a bad call to make, he made it.
If there was a path full of sunshine, flowers and Paddle Pops, he would ignore it to take one with Peter Fitzsimons articles and Subway sandwiches.
By the end, it was actually surprising Damien Cook was not named to start in the centres.
From top to bottom, this is a horrific team and that is crediting him with only being able to choose healthy players.
Selecting Reece Robson over Api Koroisau should see Maguire jailed. Assuming Koroisau is healthy as he was not ruled out prior to Sunday night, it is one of the biggest hatchet jobs in Origin history. Comparing Koroisau with Robson is like comparing Goodfellas with the cast of the Dolmio ad performing ‘Shutupya Face’.
Picking just one prop is nothing short of the work of a sado-masochistic lunatic, everyone can talk all they want about middles but Payne Haas is the only real prop.
There is a team full of hard-working plodders, including the new captain and there is absolutely no size outside of Haas except for the enormous gamble taken on Spencer Leniu, who has spent most of the season feeling faux-sorry for being real racist than a prop.
He has played 153 minutes of NRL this year and is averaging 8.87 metres per touch.
The selection of Joseph Suaalii was both unnecessary and moronic, there is no way he is a better centre than Matt Burton, Latrell Mitchell or a host of others.
He has also betrayed the code and signed with union.
Cam McInnes starting over Isaah Yeo is really the act of a human who hates himself.
None of the above even factor in close calls such as Tedesco being edged out by Edwards, Luai being picked over Burton and a host of forward calls.
He has just utterly lost the plot. Heaven help the state if Maguire is forced to replace Liam Martin or Nicho Hynes.
Disgrace does not begin to describe how inept this team selection is.
God help Madge. God help New South Wales. We are all going to need it.
Eels Must Take Fresh Approach: While it will long be debated about whether the timing of the decision to sack Brad Arthur was correct or not – spoiler alert: it was not – the Eels have cleaned the deck and have now begun the search for their next coach.
Unsurprisingly given the Eels’ shambolic front office, there is no clear plan and never has been other than an all-too-late run at Wayne Bennett.
There is no clear idea if the club wants an experienced coach or a rookie, an attack-minded or defensive-oriented mentor, a coach with strong links to the club or one from completely outside the box.
Teams without a plan when it comes to a coaching search nearly always end up with some middle-of-the-road candidate and the Eels likely will.
While there is nothing this author would like more than to see the Eels hand Trent Barrett a long-term deal, the Eels really need to be looking for a coach outside of the traditional NRL way-of-thinking.
The club needs an experienced boss but more importantly it needs fresh ideas.
Bringing in some rookie with club ties like Nathan Cayless or Luke Burt would be idiotic, as would finding a recycled coach, Justin Holbrook being the exception.
The list of candidates should include and stop at Holbrook, Steve McNamara, Shaun Wane, Brian McDermott, Lee Briers, Willie Peters and Michael Cheika.
All bar Briers have run their own teams and usually successfully. It is unclear what Cheika does with most of his time but he did a very good job with the Lebanon team and Trent Robinson thinks highly of him. Most have achieved great success in Super League and McNamara and Wane are rightly regarded as innovators.
While Briers has not run his own team, he has done a remarkable job with the Broncos.
If the Eels go with someone like Barrett or Paul McGregor or some other recycled coach, they deserve what they get. They get an opportunity to reset and make quick strides now. They should take it.
Barrett Should Be The First Interim Coach Sacked: He had a stroke at the age of 24. It could have been a brilliant career. Selling lies to the boys with the old Dansettes. Pulling the wool, playing the fool, it’s no wonder that he is dribbling spit tonight. Trent Barrett is still dribbling spit. His press positional shuffling and press conference post being whipped by the last team should be the final nail in his coaching career – even noting that it is astonishing he is being given a third opportunity. Barrett was a man without a single idea on Saturday. Moving Shaun Lane to the middle was just mind-boggling. Declaring Kelma Tuilagi one of the best players from the Eels showed how little idea he has. Dribbling spit – that’s the state he is in.
Finally: Cameron Ciraldo finally bit the bullet and dropped Drew Hutchison and replaced him with an actual halfback in Toby Sexton.
The result was Canterbury scoring more than 40 points for the first time since Round 4, 2016.
The Bulldogs for the first time in nearly a decade have the talent to play finals football, having an actual halfback should at least allow the talented outside men to play.
The Bulldogs are a long way from title contention but they are genuine Top 8 contenders.
Betting Close Calls: This week’s close betting calls…
- Plus bettors for the Tigers held on by the barest of margins thanks to a wayward Valentine Holmes conversion that allowed the closing line of +14.5 to salute.
- Unders punters were killed late in the Sharks-Panthers clash when a late penalty to extend the lead from 40-0 to 42-0 sent the total over the 41.5 on offer.
- Unders punters did survive a late scare in the Warriors-Dolphins clash when Jamayne Isaako had a conversion to send it over the 45.5 but he missed it and the clash ended on 44.
Hip Drop Bins a Joke: There is almost nobody in football who wants to see the hip drop, it is a scourge on the game.
What is more of a scourge is the inconsistent nature the imbeciles charged with penalising it are applying it.
The sin binning of some and not others – usually far more major ones – is utterly infuriating everyone in the game.
The refusal to sin bin David Klemmer or Joe Ofahengaue over the weekend – both in games where players who had done far less had been sin binned.
Chris Butler and Wyatt Raymond deciding that Ofahengaue did not need to go to the bin was borderline criminal.
Neither should be allowed near an NRL field ever again.
2024 Field Goal Update – 14: No field goals this week with all the tryscoring and floggings.
Fun Fact #1: Trent Barrett is one of just two coaches to have a win percentage of 32% or less and coach 100-plus games – with Ron Hilditch.
Fun Fact #2: Trent Barrett is the first coach since Parramatta appointed Cec Fifield coach in 1956 to get a job at a third club with a win percentage of less than 33% – it was Fifield’s fourth club.
Fun Fact #3: If the Eels lost seven more games, Barrett will have the lowest percentage of any coach in history to coach 100 games.
Willie M Team of the Week: This week’s team of bludgers, bums and big-heads:
1.Jordan Rapana (Can) 2.Zac Lomax (Dra) 3.Sebastian Kris (Can) 4.Declan Casey (Tig) 5.Xavier Savage (Can) 6.Ethan Strange (Can) 7.Isaiya Katoa (Dol)
8.Reagan Campbell-Gillard (Par) 9.Danny Levi (Can) 10.David Klemmer (Tig) 11.Tom Eisenhuth (Dra) 12.Kelma Tuilagi (Par) 13.Morgan Smithies (Can)
14.Siosifa Talakai (Cro) 15.Jack Williams (Cro) 16.Grant Anderson (Mel) 17.Luciano Leilua (Dra)
Coach: Trent Barrett (Par)
Betting Market of the Week: The chances Michael Maguire admits he is wrong after naming one of the most abhorrent NSW teams in history:
- $501: Maguire is humble and flexible and will always admit when he is wrong, $1.01: Maguire is pig-headed and will go to his grave on the back of his idiotic ideas
Rumour Mill: When Tom Trbojevic returns to fitness, Manly are set to play him in the centres in a misguided effort to keep him on the paddock. Angus Crichton has been linked with a move to the Bulldogs. Blaize Talagi looks set to take his talents to the Dragons, upset at the disorganisation at the Eels.
The Coaching Crosshairs: Anthony Seibold’s time at Manly may not be all that long with Seibold last week storming out of a meeting discussing a contract extension.
Seibold has done an adequate job since moving to Brookvale but his personality, as it so often does, is rubbing people the wrong way.
Manly like things done the Manly way and Seibold is a bigger idealogue than Mussolini after a bad night’s sleep.
To the surprise of nobody, it was always ending in acrimony and 18 months in, that is exactly where this is headed.
Moronic Coaching Decision of the Week: The decision to take the two when trailing by six in a fierce clash with Manly surely came from the Melbourne coaching staff in what was one of the dumbest pieces of maths the NRL has seen in many years.
The Storm managed to reduce the score to four, giving up all momentum, they never hit the front.
The call was fun but was completely idiotic and it played a pretty big role in costing the Storm any chance of victory.
Watch It: Rex Mossop has never been called the most diplomatic and French referees have never been called either fair or competent so when the two came together reflecting on the 1978 Kangaroo Tour of France, where Australia lost the series 2-0, it made for great viewing.
Of particular excitement in the first Test was France’s only try, one so egregious that even Kasey Badger or Chris Butler probably would have picked up on Michel Noudo’s entire body being over the deadball line.
Watch highlights from the First Test here.