The races for the finals

You can find these charts and plenty more in The Almanac.

NRLM

The top eight teams seem more or less locked in. The team at risk is Souths but none of the teams outside the top eight deserve a place at the expense of the Bunnies. The best team outside the eight (Bulldogs) has 9 wins and the worst non-Souths team inside the eight has 11. This means that 12 wins might be sufficient to punch a ticket, given the unlikelihood of the Dogs winning three from six (the Broncos and Dragons, sure, but the Storm or Roosters or Souths? Hmm). The order is still up for grabs, although I would be surprised if any of the current top four - Panthers, Sharks, Roosters and Warriors - fell out for a bottom half team.

(note that the premiership favourite has bounced from Penrith to the Phins to the Warriors to the Sharks over the last few weeks - this thing has no bloody idea)

NRLW

The best two teams remain the Broncos and Roosters. The Knights clearly have something and I think you could argue the Titans do as well. The Warriors will almost certainly fall backwards into their first ever NRLW finals appearance. If the Raiders can refind some form, they should pinch the last berth, ahead of surprisingly plucky Tigers and Bulldogs outfits and surprisingly disappointing Sharks. Cronulla do tend to finish strong, so let’s put a pin in that. Despite being only a third of the way through the season, the Dragons, Eels and Cowboys have no hope.

QCup

Out of the running are the Hunters (had their roster raided and had to rebuild on very short notice), Clydesdales (better than expected but still not very good), Devils (bill for the dynasty has come due) and Tweed (dunno, look like spiritless garbage). Country Week threw up its usual array of bizarre results, which leaves us with a field that you can throw a blanket over.

The Falcons are in pole position, with 30 competition points. In second is Redcliffe with 27 and then all of four points separate them from Ipswich in 11th, with 23 points. The two hottest teams at the moment, Wynnum and Townsville, both have 9.5 wins but the Seagulls are in third and the Blackhawks in eighth. There are four rounds remaining and no way to know what’s going to happen.

QDub

Your top three are the Bears, Devils and Tigers. Collectively, they have two losses. The Tigers’ loss was to the Devils and the Devils’ to the Bears. Burleigh are technically undefeated but sit in third after consecutive draws with Mackay and Ipswich. Anyone from fourth (Ipswich) to ninth (Western) could still make up the last three places and be the team that gets put into a woodchipper by one of the top three in the prelims. The Capras have played to their usual standard, Wynnum have been disappointing and after pulling themselves off the bottom of the ladder in ‘24 and ‘25, Tweed have reverted to playing winless seasons (they lost the spoon bowl two weeks ago).

NSW Cup

No one knows what the finals system is because no one cares.

Super League

Bearing in mind that I haven't watched a full game of Super League (except one blowout in person), Leeds are the team to beat for consistency. The Rhinos are a win clear of perennial contenders, Wigan, and surprise contenders, Wakefield Trinity, who are on a six game winning streak up the standings. Saints are outside looking-in, although well within striking distance of Leigh, Warrington and Hull KR. The whimpish Catalans and down are not relevant, even if the three expansion teams have had pretty good years and might not even finish in the bottom two.

NRLQ

I have been watching NRLQ for the paid parts of the club subletters. I don’t enjoy this because it is repetitive and none of these children can defend. A seemingly insurmountable lead disappears very quickly with a bit of possession. No one tell PVL about it. He might mistake it for good footy. I endure for my readers.

The Broncos are all but eliminated. Mimicking their senior counterparts, Brisbane are not a top three team but this competition only has four. The Dolphins are all but assured a grand final place, and their opposition will likely be decided in the final week when the Titans play the Cowboys. In their last meeting, North Queensland blew a 20 point half time lead to lose to Gold Coast by 10, so we’ll see what happens.

How do you enjoy The Maroon Observer?

On second thought, don’t tell me how many of you are sitting on the toilet while reading this. I can guess but I don’t need to know.

I would prefer to think that you are enjoying these damper than usual but otherwise sunny and cool days that are trademarks of winter in this state while perusing the latest news and updates from Queensland and the world of rugby league.

Around the grounds

Panthers 24 defeat Eels 18. How do you win this much and not also pick up a sense of grace - or at least panache, something - along the way? Tom Jenkins is as unlikeable as anyone else on this team, except for Freddy Lussick, who is in a category of his own thanks to his frequent flappy-armed appeals to the refs. The NRL should cut his arms off and then dock Penrith the two points for the two sin bins pour encourager les autres.

Titans 34 defeated Cowboys 6 (W). Of the four men’s NRL teams and three women’s in Queensland, the following are no longer guaranteed a place in Around the Grounds in 2026: men’s Broncos, men’s Titans and now the women’s Cowboys join this illustrious club. There is nothing there. Gold Coast should get very little credit for doing this but do get credit for being third on the ladder.

Speaking of credit, shout out the people of Townsville. This game had an announced crowd of 10,093. Even if overstated, you could hear that the crowd was much bigger than usual. The bloodlust can serve multiple purposes it seems.

Cowboys 18 defeated Broncos 10 (M). Did you feel the bloodlust awaken? Despite Todd Payten messing with forces he does not understand, and Bob Katter’s baffling comments, I didn’t feel anything. I think there’s a piece in revisiting the mid-2010s Cowboys-Broncos rivalry, maybe one for the off-season when I have time to go back to the games. Until then, it’s not hard to work out why the bloodlust is dormant. Recently, one of these teams absolutely stinks and this night, it was the Broncos.

Broncos 30 defeated Knights 12 (W). Connoisseurs of this newsletter may remember that in 2024, Tamika Upton convinced the Southwell sisters to do a QDub season with the Capras. It did not go well and the Capras finished 2-7 with the wooden spoon. You could sense the tension through the screen from Rockhampton. The first half of this game had a similar vibe, as if a long-simmering quarrel had been revived between the Broncos’ key playmakers (Brigginshaw is clearly enjoying just turning up and doing whatever in her retirement tour). Once that was put away, and the Broncs got the ball back, then it was game over.

The Knights are clearly one of the four best teams in the league and, if they can find another gear in a preliminary final, could stage an upset over at least one of the top two. Newcastle have conceded fewer points than the Roosters, while having played both Sydney and Brisbane. Credit to Ben Jeffries, who was given another two years this week?

Wynnum 58 defeated Tweed 8 (M). Everytime I looked up, Wynnum were scoring a try. It’s times like this that make me wonder what the future of the Tweed Seagulls is in this league. Somehow Tweed are in next week’s feature game as well. Can’t even blame the Titans stink.

Titans 38 defeated Dragons 18 (M). Because the Titans are at least taking care of business. The roster is not particularly high quality but we would not have been able to reliably expect previous iterations of Gold Coast to dismantle the worst team in the comp whose morale is in the toilet. These Titans can at least do that. I ask the Dragons fans booing their team: what did you expect?

Super League highlight sprint, week 20. Shocked no one has made a run at Jez Litten in the NRL yet, as Hull KR came from behind and ultimately smashed their cross-town rivals. Wigan did likewise, running through who else but Bévan Français. Trinity got on the board in less than a minute, had a player sent off in the first half and still managed to beat Cas, 52-14 (Jason Qareqare was of some assistance). Warrington put on some late points to make some scintillating attack from the Leopards a little more respectable. Olly Ashall-Bott - think Reece Walsh’s Toulousain understudy - went out early with a hamstring injury as Catalans worked their superior experience, luck and mastery of the wet conditions to edge out their rivals in the French derby, reversing the previous SACRE FUCKIN BLEU in direction, if not in magnitude.

Farewell, sweet prine

Ah nuts:

Laurie Daley has quit as NSW Origin coach amid a health scare…

The 56-year-old has battled health issues throughout this year’s series and that is a factor in Daley’s decision to walk away following two months of incessant criticism of the Origin and Test legend.

Although Daley has denied the health angle - incidentally, its great that all of this is playing out in uncaptioned video and talkback radio, super helpful for the literate newsletter compiler - he’s going and it is a smart move to get out now. You got 2014 and with 2026, you’ve restored some semblance of respect for everything that happened in between.

This isn’t The Blue Observer though (ugh, imagine, yuck) and Slater should be concerned. Getting Queenslanders to Queensland is one thing but Billy’s choices tend to, putting it politely, leave a lot of meat on the bones. Two Suncorp deciders lost in three years doesn’t sit well, even if he has won three series from five attempts. He won’t necessarily be allowed the space for questionable decision making if New South Wales is able to either sign up someone vaguely competent or convince Cleary to come on a year early. It won’t take much in the way of poor performances for the state roles to reverse and the Maroon chalice to become the poisoned one (c.f. 2021).

While we’re here, the “NSW doesn’t get Origin” stuff has to stop. It’s not that it’s not good gear but they’re using it now with all the incisiveness of a boomer doing Minions posting. It’s deader than when a corporation jumps on the latest meme. They killed it. Let’s workshop some ideas for a replacement, and for dealing with the recent Blue transplants to SEQ (labour camps? getting the QFCC involved?), and come back to it in April.

Intermission

It’s an unorthodox technique but I’m interested to see whether using your teammate’s face as a catching surface takes off.

You’ve got to have good governance

There were simply too many PVL quotes including an appeal to good governance to pick just one for ironic contrast. In any case, this is what it looks like:

Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys has recruited one of his most trusted confidants - former detective, Racing NSW investigator and Perth Bears director Jacqueline Johnstone - as his top lieutenant at the NRL…

She has been a senior figure at Racing NSW, where she led the investigations and surveillance department before taking over marketing. Johnstone was also last year installed as one of the inaugural board members of the Bears ahead of their entry to the NRL in 2027. She previously had a career with NSW Police, specialising in criminal investigations.

According to sources in rugby league, speaking on the condition of anonymity, Johnstone has been brought in as acting chief operating officer at the NRL…

It is unknown for how long she will occupy the role at the NRL, which she is performing as a contractor, and if she is stepping aside from her director duties with the Bears.

Great! I appreciate the clarity - including a no comment from HQ - around the appointment of various lackeys, especially ones who were cops. I love that for us. What’s a conflict of interest? Is that the war on boredom that our friends at [insert sponsoring bookmaker here] are fighting?

Matthew Johns: Titans whisperer

Really?

NRL legend Matty Johns has been inspired by the Penrith Panthers to help transform the Gold Coast Titans into a team full of local talent

Was that… necessary?

Johns said he wanted the Titans to develop a similar pathways system to give the Gold Coast team an identity.

“If you look at the teams who have sustained success, the majority of players are from their local catchment area,” he said.

“They have grown up around those postcodes and come through the same junior competitions. They are like-minded and had the same football education, so they form combinations easier.

“The best example is Penrith. The moment they got their junior structure in order, suddenly you’ve got a crop of young guys who have come through at the same time.

“They have been educated the same way and there’s been a production line. That is what you’re after, that’s the goal.”

What were the Titans doing that this is considered revelatory advice? No one noticed the subdivisions that have been built up and down the highway over the last 20 years? Footy players come from new suburbs. Look at your city:

I would have told you the same thing and not asked for any equity. Do the Frizelles need a Maroon Observer subscription? Then again, a glance at Nearmap would have had the same insight.

And it’s not even the stupidest thing in this newsletter

Surely this is Roy’s best work since V’landys is the Greek god Apollo:

NRL boss Peter V’landys thinks big. So, here is a radical, revolutionary suggestion for him to capitalise on his $5.3 billion broadcasting rights war chest and achieve his dream of “global domination” for the code: Allow one attacking kick, or a forward pass, to an offside receiver per set of six tackles…

Ask soccer supporters their problem with rugby league and they’ll say “passing backwards”. Ask NFL fans what they admire about rugby league and they’ll say, “playing without helmets and pads.” Allow one kick to a deep offside player per set of six, and the 13 aside game would appeal to Europeans and Americans.

If you asked soccer supporters what their problem with rugby league is, they’d ask you what the fuck you were talking about. Not a single NFL fan has ever admired rugby league and if they did, it wouldn’t be for playing without helmets and pads. That schtick was made up by rugby league marketers and is almost as old as Masters himself.

As plenty of people on Reddit have pointed out, it’s probably time for Roy to hand in his papers. The piece, and I read it in full, reads like he had three half ideas - there’s something about international franchises, the Barassi Line, Christchurch - and mushed it into one column. Normally, I’d encourage people to at least hear the elderly out but I got whiplash from being bounced between topics so rapidly.

You can just stop any time, Roy. If you find yourself with an itchy finger afterwards, start a newsletter. Anyone can do it.

Upcoming slate

Cowboys vs Roosters, NRLM, Thursday 7.50pm, QCB

North Queensland won this game at Magic Round. It was a win against type, showing some tenacity, and against the odds, with the Roosters considered then and now to be significantly better than the Cowboys. I don’t buy the Roosters hype, mostly out of latent disgust for the organisation, but also their offensive advanced metrics are not hot. Easts do boast the highest floor in the league and the fourth most efficient defence. Whether the Cowboys’ trio of Drinkwater, Purdue and Clifford can break that down is the primary theatre of this battle. That bovine bench is also lacking. This the Cowboys’ last difficult game on the schedule until finals, facing four teams currently 11th or worse. A loss here would not make much difference either way but a win would be very funny.

Dragons vs Dolphins, NRLM, Friday 6pm, Wollongong

When you remember that the games are scheduled way in advance and no one thought the Dragons would be quite this bad, this is an odd timeslot. The otherwise healthy-rating Dolphins will get another 6pm Friday game in two weeks and the following week will see the Broncos make their debut in the slot. Anyway, I have some reservations that the Dolphins will serve up a 66-0 style performance but this does seem unlikely and they should exterminate the Dragons. The question is what margin do we consider an acceptable result? 30? 40? 60? 150?

Warriors vs Titans, NRLW, Sunday 1.25pm, Wagga Wagga

It’s NRLW Magic Round in Wagga Wagga. Unlike last year, this year’s weather forecast is immaculate. Given that teams have warmed into the season and are starting to play some sparkling football, this bodes well for the on-field product. I am probably more interested in how many people actually take up the NRL’s offer of a regional Magic Round than any of the individual results but Warriors and Titans will be a useful yardstick game. Both sit in the second tier of clubs, with the Knights, and the Titans’ pack has yet to be really tested in a way that the Warriors starters and bench (doesn’t seem fair to have both Butler and Nuuausala riding the pine) will be able to do. Some good matchups: Hufanga vs Chapman, Bostock vs Waaka.

What does a Rooner initiation ceremony look like?

I’ll let you sort out the details but I’d ask you go easy on the hazing. Perhaps as demonstrated by the newest member of our Rooner crew, Matt (yes, another one), it is as simple as clicking this button and following the prompts.

UPGRADE TO PAID

Welcome aboard Matt. I think with a name as common as that in middle aged male footy circles, no anonymising nickname is necessary. I did briefly consider “Hutzpah” but enh. Let me know if there’s a better choice. I should probably start a list of this.

You, too, may want to consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges. Your financial support keeps the lights on at The Maroon Observer.

If you don’t want Substack clipping your ticket or to commit to an ongoing subscription, Ko-Fi is also available for one-off tips.

Stats pop

The QDub, the competition everyone is definitely excited about and remembers to watch regularly, has an advanced metrics page for paid subscribers. I’ll do likewise for the NRLW in a couple more weeks.

Read this

• Rugby League Writers: Diamond Shape, The Best 40/20 Ever & A New NRLW Star

• The Sportress: Six, again: Collapse

• Eye Test: Run meters over expected (RMOE) update after Round 21

• Storm Machine: Game 760 – S29E21 Review

• Duncan Mackay: The crisis that nearly killed the Commonwealth Games forever

Notes

• The Chiefs signed Zac Lomax. PNG continues to work towards an answer to “what would happen if took a NRL team and gave it the absolute worst vibes possible?” In other, equally exciting news, a Senate hearing this week confirmed that third party payments to Chiefs players are subject to income tax (h/t Rooner Ryan for watching the hearings, that's commitment to the bit)

• The Bears sign Tyson Smoooooooothy. Trinity pick up Mason Teague to fill the void.

• Brisbane 2032 Olympic aquatic centre seating could be slashed amid budget pressures

• Lord Mayor reveals priority projects to transform Brisbane for the 2032 Olympics

• Rugby’s landmark concussion case enters crucial week: the key questions answered

• This thought comes courtesy of the comments section at Sports Industry’s Substack. Over 24/25 NRL regular seasons, there were very approximately 91 million average viewers for regular season NRLM games, 27 million for men’s and women’s Origin and 24 million for the men’s finals series. On a simple pro rata, of the $135 million per year Nine is going to spend in the next broadcast deal ($145m less a guaranteed $10m ad buy from the NRL), means Origin is worth about $25 million per year, the finals about $23m and the regular season would be about $86m with a rounding error left over for the NRLW and internationals (although this is more laziness on my part than a reflection of reality). You might pay a premium for the grand final and Origin as rare events that have outsized cut-through, but also pay a discount for anti-siphoning, but it puts into context how little value is driven by the clubs specifically, where each regular season game on FTA is worth about half a million, compared to the revenue generated by the NRL (~$1 million per non-grand final) and Origin (~$3.5 million per men’s Origin). Always think that’s worth highlighting when club figures start talking about the toll Origin puts on their season. Reminder: you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for State of Origin.

• AFL confirms State of Origin future with Victoria to miss 2027 match. Huh, interesting.

• Hotseat: I would like to applaud the Wests Tigers’ commitment to the bit. I don’t even know which recent speculation/character assassination to link to but it sounds like Benji’s going down in the next 12 months.

• This presents an opportunity for the NRL to have its cake and eat it too. NRL20 goes to NZ. Then, fold the Wests Tigers, relocate the licence to Queensland and create a new Tigers club “based” in Ipswich (home ground: Suncorp Stadium). Could be run by the Ipswich Jets or a JV between the Jets, Easts Tigers and/or North Ipswich Tigers, whatever the IP lawyers decide is easiest. You wouldn’t even have to change the name, although you definitely would. Get rid of all radioactive Magpies-based attachments. Existing Wests fans would be assigned new clubs from the expansion franchises by lottery. No need to redevelop Leichhardt Oval, saving NSW taxpayers millions. Problems solved. Get it done, Vlando.

• Australia’s newest media outlet used to be the One Nation Supporters Network

• I have nowhere else to put this thought but I think the Odyssey discourse proves a maxim I have for social media: none of these people know what the fuck they're talking about. In any direction. I haven't seen the movie, so dunno if it's good or not but I can't believe I used to think they were smart!

• Anyway, for those whose seasons are over, of you need some time filling recommendations, here’s what I’m 📖 Reading: Cave Art / 📺 Watching: The League / 🎧 Listening: The Joy of Why

Nickelware

The fate of the Queensland pennant runs through the Titans, of all teams. The Phins have matches against the Broncos and the Titans left, while the Cowboys’ last derby is also against Gold Coast. Two from two will see Redcliffe win the NRL North for the first time while a loss puts them at risk of being caught by North Queensland.

Sidebar for this headline:

Noting that, at time of writing, the Broncos are ahead of half of the western Sydney teams.

Some good content

Temp check

It’s that time of the year where the lack of news-news forces me to write about footy. Seeing as “vibe check” sounds so old fashioned now, let’s see how the Queensland NRL teams are faring in terms of the spectrum of black body radiation. Remember that bluer is hotter!

Broncos (M) - 2700K (fading incandescent bulb). The season has been over for weeks and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you a Kayo subscription. Given this is not a team that plays for pride alone and that this is the end of an era for this roster, the results in the rest of this season are entirely meaningless (outside the race for the Queensland pennant). Should give that Reece Walsh the ball more.

Broncos (W) - Ultraviolet (this is very good). The only knock on the women’s Broncos so far is that they ain’t played nobody. They crushed the Cowboys and beat the Sharks and Tigers. Things will get more real when we can gauge against the Roosters, the Knights and the Titans. Upton and Southwell are superlative together. Brisbane should be premiership favourites based on what we’ve seen so far.

Cowboys (M) - 4000K (standard office lighting). Almost the definitionally median team in the NRL. What North Queensland have going for them is that the opposition must come correct. If they do not, they risk the Cowboys being plucky and hanging around and sneaking in a win. If a top eight team comes with a modicum of respect, then the Cows lose by 20. Unclear if this is good enough to be in the finals or what it says about Todd Payten’s tenure.

Cowboys (W) - Infrared (this is very bad). With a surprising Bulldogs victory and without a substantial change in course, the Cowboys are racing the Eels for the wooden spoon.

Dolphins - 5000K (cool white). This team is going to make the finals before being overwhelmed by the occassion and being driven off the park in the first 30 minutes of their first appearance. Even if they win their first finals game, the hedonic treadmill just shifts expectations to winning the first prelim, the first grand final, etc. Then it’s all trying to break droughts after that. It’s exhausting.

Titans (M) - 3000K (warm white). Given the Titans looked like a 3-21 team for most of the season, to finish something like 6-18 or 7-17 would be an improvement, albeit one that would see the Titans get the wooden spoon in a third of NRL seasons instead of nearly 100%. As they often do at this time of year for Titans fans, thoughts turn to the future. Gold Coast are not really losing anyone next year, and gain Hiroti from the Sharks, so who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Titans (W) - 6000K (daylight). The Titans should be able to get themselves into the bottom half of the top six, at the very least, but probably won’t get a lot of credit until late in the season when everyone else notices. While this is unlikely to be Gold Coast’s year - a preliminary final loss would be a good result, another grand final appearance would be exceptional - their young roster will benefit massively from the experience and be very threatening into 2027.

For the competition as a whole, I don’t see any standouts on the men’s side. You could make a case for any of at least five teams: Panthers, Roosters, Dolphins, Warriors and Sharks. I can’t stretch that to Knights or any further down the ladder to teams that will be lucky to even make finals. After all the blowouts and sludge, finals in the National Rugby League usually deliver, so having an open race into September (and a 3-in-8 chance of a new winner) might make up for what we had to sit through in March.

We remain ever the optimists.

Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics

There aren't too many publications that combine the physics work of Ludwig Boltzman - he of the textbook introduction - with rugby league and yet here we are, our own little ultraviolet catastrophe.

Around the grounds

What a weekend for South Queensland.

Broncos 14 defeated Panthers 12. Some outlines of the team that won the premiership on show again, now that the team is nominally full strength, even if clearly still mangled. Interesting that the Panthers, when wearing NSW blue, can defeat Queensland but the Queensland clubs have beaten the Panthers three times in the last five weeks (one of the other weeks was a bye). It’s telling that it took beating a team of war criminals to break Ben Roberts-Smith’s curse.

Warriors 42 defeated Cowboys 4 (W). The difference this week is that the Cowboys backs got an opportunity to let the team down. Even if we overlook the frequent and very basic handling errors, I don’t know what was going on on the right edge of defence. They may as well not have been there. The embarrassing thing is that the Warriors took advantage of the other side, with Goldthorp and Peters, almost as easily. It got bad and then got worse.

Titans 50 defeated Eels 12 (W). This blew out early and never looked in doubt in intrigued by the shift of Isa’ako to second row. We've seen a little bit of this and the former-Pelite seems as well placed as anyone to make that transition thanks to her power, footwork and general capability. Paid a few dividends here.

Broncos 40 defeated Tigers 12 (W). The upside for the Tigers is that they're the best team in western Sydney and are likely to be the team that I thought the Eels were going to be. Tough day out but not a disaster. The Broncos are good.

Titans 38 defeated Seagles 32. Anthony Seibold is sitting at home, thinking well, well, well not so easy not to suck shit is it? On one hand, I thought that Hannay was making the Titans earn the right to play freewheeling football, putting them in a miserable grind in the first half of the season, and now having down that, has loosened the reins. On the other, his palpable disgust post-game makes it clear how much work he and the team have to do. I'd probably give the boys their due before worrying about conceding 30+ to a team that was allegedly headed for the top four.

Dolphins 36 defeated Cowboys 16. That did not start well for the Cetaceanoids - the Cowboys’ second try was sensational - but they found their groove and got over the top. There’s positives for both sides. The Phins arrested their downward slide out of the finals and just need two more wins in six games to get into the post-season. The Cowboys played out another plucky loss with a 20 point margin, in the vein of the Warriors game. It’s not that North Queensland are bad, it’s just that they’re not very good but at least force their superiors to come correct.

Intermission

Sunshine State-wide

The winner is: Jeff Reibel.

Reibel severed ties with the Cowboys at the end of last season after seven successful years and he will officially take charge of the QRL in November.

“It’s an incredible honour to join the Queensland Rugby League and contribute to an organisation that plays such an important role in the fabric of our state,” Reibel said.

“Rugby league in Queensland has a proud history and a vibrant future.

“I’m excited to work alongside our clubs, participants, volunteers, partners and communities to help strengthen the game at every level.”

Jones and Reibel were considered the major frontrunners for the post after being short-listed by the QRL a fortnight ago.

So many sensational bombshells for an anodyne appointment.

Given the Cowboys’ feeder club policy during Reibel’s tenure, we can infer some changes on the horizon. November will be too late to change anything for 2027 but after that, it’s anyone’s guess. Quper League? NRL2? An 18 team touch tournament? I suppose the upshot is that this newsletter won’t be wanting for content.

The Orcas

If you want to get into the paper, send Dean Ritchie a jersey:

These are the first exclusive images of the Southern Orcas’ playing strip.

The Christchurch-based NRL bid team has designed home and away kits that are predominantly black and white with red piping — red being a colour synonymous with the Canterbury district.

There is also a subtle ocean blue through the white areas of the jumper.

Releasing the jumper designs is another significant step for the Orcas, who are bidding to become the NRL’s 20th franchise in either 2029 or 2020.

Worth noting that the Orcas was a Wellington-based bid but I guess Chalmers and Lowe sensed the shifting wind.

I think the logo looks pretty good - strong NHL vibe - but the jerseys are plain. This is an improvement on the visceral reaction generated by the Dolphins’ inaugural jersey, which turned out to be fine in the end.

I take two points of interest. The first is that we’ve seen a logo for the Orcas before we’ve seen the Chiefs’ logo and a jersey before either the Bears (which seems to be coming on August 8) or the Chiefs. I guess its easier to do if the club in question doesn’t exist in any meaningful way, except the future tense.

The second is that while officially, the NRL is paying lip service to a possible SEQ4 for NRL20, the reality is that the way NZ2 is being reported suggests it is as locked in as the Dolphins, Bears and Chiefs were. The rest is detail to be sorted out. The early reports on the previous expansions have shown that PVL hasn’t walked back any of these in a way that matters. He’s gotten the deal done.

SEQ4’s best chance in the short term is if the Chiefs go belly up and need to relocate to Ipswich, a la this classic from 2017:

THE NRL’s bluff to relocate the Newcastle Knights to Brisbane has been received with indignation in Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane.

The Daily Telegraph’s report that league administrators will look to move the Knights to Queensland if they are unable to offload the wooden-spooners to a private buyer was on Monday ridiculed by Knights legend Matthew Johns as well as Ipswich Jets chairman Steve Johnson.

According to reports, Ipswich, in Brisbane’s west, is the likely destination for a Newcastle relocation because of the demand for a fourth team in Queensland from rugby league broadcasters.

Johns said Newcastle fans would riot against the NRL if administrators went through with the move.

“It won’t happen,” Johns told Triple M’s The Grill Team.

“Knowing the community up there. They’d set NRL headquarters on fire first.”

I assume he meant Newcastle but it would also apply to Ipswich.

How times have changed.

Upcoming slate

While the QDub takes a two week break and the QCup also takes a break next week, I did want to briefly draw attention to the NSW Cup bravely playing curtain raisers at 3.30pm and 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon and the game between the reserve Sea Eagles and the Jets being rated a flat zero/radioactive. That sounds bad until you consider this weekend’s Raiders-Tigers rendezvous in the NRLM is similarly toxic and the widest gap in competitiveness on the slate actually belongs to the Rhinos against the Bulls, with an enormous 340 rating difference.

What a competition, what a sport.

Pride vs Magpies, QCup, Saturday 3.30pm, Innisfail

What do you think will happen when one team that has five draws from 15 games plays another team that has three draws from 16? Do you think the Innisfail Inning is likely to end in a draw? Do you?!

Cowboys vs Broncos, NRLM, Saturday 7.35pm, QCB

Undertaking ARCANE RITUALS to activate the DORMANT BLOODLUST of the QUEENSLAND DERBY.

The more I think about it, the more I think “dormant bloodlust” is the new “cellar door”.

Broncos vs Knights, NRLW, Sunday 1.45pm, Langlands

Is this the only serious game of the weekend? Cowboys-Titans is rated higher but that’s Elo not catching up with the on-field. The Raiders will either mince the Sharks and make themselves into contenders or hit a hugely embarrassing wall. That leaves the contender against the not-quite-contender in the Jesse Southwell Cup (it’s also the Romy Teitzel Cup but people forget these things). I have been guilty of underrating Newcastle so it would be wise if Brisbane did not do likewise. The Knights’ lineup can take it to the Broncos.

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Stats pop

Do lucky teams hit a wall in the finals? Please God, let there be comeuppance for teams taking the piss.

Ah, no, not really. So if ever there were proof that the divine is an illusion, here it is.

The most extreme examples of luck - here measured as the gap between a team’s actual winning percentage and their Pythagorean expectation, basically outperformance of points difference - tend to flame out but not in a way that is reliable. The 2003 Panthers were the last team to win the premiership with a rating over +1.5. As it stands, the Roosters are +1.8 on this metric, currently leading the NRLM with more wins than their points difference suggests, but that would not put them in e.g. Storm ‘06, Raiders ‘23 or Raiders ‘25 territory.

Read this

• Eye Test - Measuring performance of players returning from syndesmosis and Lisfranc injuries (the main takeaway being that the Eye Test has given in to Datawrapper)

• Rugby League Writers - Grubbers Through The Line, A Tap Start & Tough Titans

• The Sportress - Six, Again: Chaos Merchants

• Storm Machine - Game 759 – S29E20 Review

• Defector - FIFA Got What It Came For

Notes

• There are only five rounds left in the Maroon Observer QCup Tipping Sickoship. Shamrocker currently leads, three tips clear of me and foreatesevenate. At the bottom of the table, we have a three way tie that may come down to a countback on who missed fewer tipping rounds, which puts Dan from The Sportress in reverse pole position.

• Curious to see if there’s any movement on the field size for the next couple of RL World Cups. The coming 2026 event was originally meant to be a) in 2025, b) in France (and the US before that) and c) host 16 teams. The various disasters that predicated the World Cup returning to Australia saw the lineup slimmed down to 10 men’s and 8 women’s teams, mostly to save money on running what should be the sport’s international marquee event. While there are domestic governance issues that have ruled out e.g. Ireland and Italy and competitive balance issues that make adding another 6/8 teams a challenge (as we saw in 2022), I wonder if anyone at the IRL will get itchy watching FIFA succesfully expand from 32 nations to 48, and then possibly to 64, and start thinking about how to engineer 16 decent teams out of the rugby league player base and then introduce pausas de hidratación. Likely we would need to see some selection of USA, Canada, Jamaica, Serbia, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Greece, Italy and South Africa added on the men’s side and achieving that requires a divorce of the rep game from the domestic (of which I am somewhat in favour). That said, a small pre-tournament to qualfiy for a ticket to the main tournament, and otherwise quickly weed out of the minnowest minnows, would have little commercial return. Relatedly: The World Cup Got Worse On Purpose.

• For the record, rugby union’s men’s World Cup has 24 teams and will be coming to Australia (????) next year.

• Must admit I hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to DAZN, other than their colossal fuck up of Ligue 1. Mike Meehall Wood wrote about them a bit this week in a rugby league context, here’s another piece looking at the business overall and I note that the parent company seems to be mulling an IPO. Would be a good opportunity for an ambitious upwardly-mobile guy who likes doing deals to get some equity (presuming the business plan shows some signs of profitability). Relatedly: NRL-Super League negotiations set to resume following record-breaking NRL deal.

• Hot seat: the Dragons signed their interim up to be permanent and Seibold is off to Port Moresby. Good luck!

• Shibasaki looks to be a Bear. Also, he’s signed for Perth.

• Warning - extreme Gold Coast headline ahead: Parents ‘devastated’ after Gold Coast high school axes surfing program

Nickelware

The state of the NRLW

Given that PVL has given us all we could ever want - novelty expansion teams in Perth, PNG and NZ and riches beyond the wildest imaginations - what other worlds are there to conquer? Oh yeah, there’s the girls:

Negotiations on a new deal are yet to begin, but on the 20th anniversary of the NRL’s Women in League round, Cronulla captain Tiana Penitani-Gray knows what she wants included.

“Being able to expand the salary cap, being able to make the women players full time is definitely a step in the right direction,” she said.

“Take away financial insecurity, take away having to juggle multiple jobs or study alongside the expectation of putting out a professional product.”

What the female playing group is able to extract from the next round of enterprise bargaining will tell us a lot about the future of the NRLW.

My broad thesis is that the NRL has made generally the right strategic decisions in developing the NRLW. People, including me, frequently make the category error of confusing growing pains with overarching structural issues. While some of the clubs used to whinge about the cost of the women’s program, there have been issues with scheduling (especially around covid), introducing multi-year contracts while expanding has had predictable results for competitive balance and the NRL forgot to organise the 2021 season, by and large, the NRL have pulled the right rein at the right time to get to this point.

If you needed any proof of that, look at the AFL’s inability to land the AFLW season in a place that makes anyone happy. It’s been pre-season, it’s been post-season and still, the NRLW obliterates them in TV ratings. Aggregate (despite the AFLW having more teams!), average or grand finals, whichever way you slice it, the NRLW is miles ahead. This is not just my rugby league parochialism when I say that I believe the NRLW is one of the top women’s professional sports leagues in the world, outside of soccer.

One of the NRL’s strategic decisions was to not extract any payment from the broadcasters in exchange for free production and air time. It’s been one of the keys to getting the league off the ground. It is also hard for the women to demonstrate their commercial value when their games are bundled in with the men’s and assigned a notional price of zero because that’s what everyone expects. But when the NRLW is a prerequisite to support four 1-million-viewer games across Origin and the grand final, then the dollars start to come into focus.

My contention has been that the ratings on the women’s game are somewhere in the ballpark of a quarter of the men’s. In theory, if the women could produce as much content as the men, then that inventory would be worth about a quarter of men’s. If the new broadcast deal is going to support a men’s salary cap of $16 million or more, then you can do the math.

An increased cap would help address the concentration of talent on the Roosters’ and Broncos’ rosters. Two of the longest standing franchises and the two clubs you have to go to win the title, have managed to hoard most of the NRLW’s talent. If no club can differentiate on salary for more than two or three players, then the best talents are going to naturally gravitate to where they can get success.

The agreement gradually increased female players' minimum wage from $30,000 to $50,600 per season, taking a team's total salary to more than $1.5 million by 2027.

A squad of 24 players, making the minimum would cost $1.21 million in salary. If the cap is $1.5 million, then clubs have less than $300,000 to cover the higher salaries of their top talent. If underperforming clubs can’t offer noticeably more money than the Broncos and Roosters, how can they expect to attract anyone that might turn the franchise around?

By contrast, the minimum men’s minimum is $130,000, so 30 players on minimum salary is $3.9 million. On a cap of $12 million, 67.5% of the cap is headroom that can be used to buy talent. The women’s headroom is 20%. If the NRLW’s minimum salary was $60,0001, then the cap would need to be over $4 million to provide similar headroom, and a similar opportunity for the labour market to allow clubs to balance their rosters.

My other contention is that the women’s game has picked all of the low hanging fruit and now the real work begins. The easiest part of the audience to build is locked in and may not grow as fast as it has over the last decade. The player pipeline is building and can seemingly accommodate a 12 team league, albeit while showing similar strain to the men’s talent pool.

If the league cannot sustain more teams, and it will be at least a few years before that’s the case, then to keep growing, as Penitani-Grey suggests, the league will need to play more games. Going from an 11 game schedule to 14, 18 and 22 is not the work of five minutes but it is a reasonable goal over the medium term. The next leg-up in growth will come when the NRLW season starts a few weeks before Origin and the quality of both improves markedly.

Finding free air for the women’s game is not going to happen. The 2021* season was nearly five years ago and covid and wild weather then make for an anecdote rather than data. Far more people watch the NRLW now than did then. The ratings and attendances bear this out.

The men’s NRL season runs from February to November, once we include internationals, there simply isn’t room on the calendar for a women’s season without overlap or clashing with a tentpole of the NRLM season. With the new broadcast deal, you are going to hear more and more about NRL because the broadcasters need to generate as much interest as possible to get a return on their investment. If that means making Pete Badel do more front facing short form videos and having Dean Ritchie write even more ridiculous columns to be spliced by aggregators on Twitter, they’re going to do that. No one said it was going to be good but there isn’t going to be much time or oxygen left.

If the NRL wants a standalone women’s grand final, and perhaps once the supporting infrastructure under the NRL has had a revamp this will be possible, then Friday night before the men’s grand final is a yawning chasm in the sporting calendar waiting for a marquee event to fill it. This would still only take a million-viewer event and turn it into 1.5 million: good but not transformative.

The complaints that there is too much footy to watch on a weekend will fall on deaf ears. The overwhelming majority of the audience does not watch even close to all eight games and fewer still will extend themselves to ten. The point is to drown out everything else and make following rugby league a full-time hobby, even if that means doing little more than watching a few games and scrolling social media. If that seems dystopian, sorry, I didn’t invent this future. I just live here.

The NRLW’s audience rests on a tripod of three groups:

1. People who enjoy rugby league in general

2. People who support the specific teams playing

3. People who want to watch women’s sport

The people in the first group will make do with a splitscreen arrangement. The NRLM cannot satisfy the latter group and even if it is the smallest, it has the most potential. If the NRL can budge the second group, by far the largest, from watching one game a week and change, to two games a week, then that will be a huge gain.

The revolution continues

One of the benefits of having total editorial control as an owner-operator of a small rugby league newsletter is that you can offer a focus that other media, needing to attract a large, mainstream audience, cannot.

Irrespective of how many games there are in a weekend, The Maroon Observer promises to prioritise watching the worst Queensland NRLW team before watching the best non-Queensland NRLM team.

Whether you consider that a feature or a bug, is up to you but that’s how it’s going to be.

Around the grounds

Broncos 22 defeated Sharks 16 (W). Whether it was the weather or the misogynistic Sharks fan base abandoning their club, this game had less of a vibe than your average statewide curtain raiser. This led to a game which was close but felt like it had all the stakes of a 50 point blow out. Watch the Sharks amble to the scrum with a minute to go and burn 30 seconds in the process. Cronulla were punchy, and got into the contest on a surplus of possession early in the second half, but are not in the same weight class as Brisbane.

Tigers 32 defeated Cowboys 18 (W). The Cowboys’ middle is water. We expected the halves to be ineffective, and they are, but the forwards (bar maybe Weale) are doing nothing with or without the ball. It doesn’t take a lot of guile to get at the Cowboys. Throw in some errors and silly penalties and you have an ass kicking. The score closed late in the game but the result was never in doubt.

Sharks 66 defeated Dolphins 0. Probably not the main takeaway, which is that the Dolphins are utterly stuffed if their stars don’t return and align very quickly, but an observation: the Broncos have been in the NRL a lot longer without giving up 66 points (EDIT: a 66 point margin).

Titans 36 defeated Bulldogs 10 (W). If you looked up the definition of rugby league class, this game would be pictured adjacent. The Bulldogs were there and did some stuff but couldn’t threaten the Jaime Chapman show. The Titans took care of business and never looked stressed doing so.

Tigers 32 defeated Magpies 24 (W). For a near top-of-the-table clash, this didn’t disappoint. The game ebbed and flowed, first in the Tigers’ favour, then back to the Magpies and finally back to the Tigers. A surprising number of NRLW-affiliated players, including both Titans and Broncos signees on the Souths Logan side of the ball. I liked what we saw out of the Tigers’ playmakers, Montgomery (enthusiasm), Piliae-Rasabale (kicking) and Desic (promise).

Tigers 30 defeated Magpies 16 (M). Most of the chat around this game was the shuffling to accommodate Billy Walters’ limited minutes at dummy half as he prepares to return to the NRL. He ended up playing the first half after Milford began to struggle. Floyd Aubrey put on some phenomenal footwork for a try but that was as good as it got for the Magpies. A series of tries against the run of play around the break for the Tigers put the result out of reach and even Easts can keep Souths Logan in disarray under control.

Cowboys 19 defeated Seagles 18. We don't do Fraud Watch because otherwise three quarters of the league would be listed and the only way off the list would be elimination from finals contention. That said, Manly are clearly fraudulent. North Queensland do not have pretensions of being better than league average, albeit it is a very tenacious kind of mediocrity (see also: Rosoters win, Panthers win), but Manly could not put them away. Can't say I've watched much Fozball but both of Braidon Burns’ tries are screaming neon indicators of disaster ahead. Redeveloped Brookvale still looks like a dump compared to the big boy stadiums.

Storm 22 defeated Titans 18. Let’s hear from the fans:

That’s not to say that the errors from the Titans weren’t being matched by the Storm’s own. The final tally for both teams: Storm 13, Titans 16. Suffice to say this match didn’t reach very high standards.

Intermission

This was great too, just too long for a gif.

Sunshine State-wide

Kate Jones wants Ben Ikin’s job:

It is understood the Queensland Rugby League has finalised a shortlist of four candidates with [current ARLC commissioner, Kate] Jones, former Cowboys CEO Jeff Reibel and Brock Schaefer, the NRL’s head of performance, pathways and strategy, among the leading targets.

The QRL will begin formal interviews from Monday [13 July].

I don’t have insight to offer as to who would serve rugby league’s interests in this state - it’s more of a wait and see what’s real and what’s rumour-mongering - but I note the proximity of Jones and Schaefer to PVL, along with the Cowboys’ past insistence on trashing their own performance to get their own way under Reibel, and wonder. Let’s reserve judgement for the moment.

Otherwise,

Jones has tentacles in Queensland’s corridors of power

Read your work out loud before you submit it, guys. She is not a squid. I assume.

Expansion chat will never die

Let's expand socialist competition widely for the increase of grain production:

This masthead can reveal the NRL’s 20th licence has been valued at $20 million a year as part of the record $5.3 billion TV rights deal brokered by V’landys and departing NRL CEO Andrew Abdo.

It can also be revealed that the NRL’s 20th team will be based in New Zealand if one of three proposed Kiwi bids can table robust business plans that satisfy the ARLC’s international expansion desires.

The ARL Commission’s preference is to expand to New Zealand - not Queensland - to drive the global growth strategic plan that will also see the NRL look to overseas markets such as Japan and Singapore to stage premiership games.

So many revelations! $20 million per year is the new $15 million per year Kayo tipped in for the Dolphins. It may just cover the club grant, maybe depending on what the cap is, making the prospect of NZ2 at worst revenue neutral for the ARLC.

Peter Beattie was quoted:

“This is the best rugby league has ever been and we’ll keep growing.

“The Dolphins (who joined the league in 2023 as the 17th team) wouldn’t be here without Peter V’landys.

“He understood the importance of expanding into Queensland and Peter and the Commission understand the importance of the Pacific.

“New Zealand is no-brainer (for another NRL team), but we haven’t ruled out Queensland, so it all depends on the business plans that are put forward.”

What a weird thing to say for a former ARLC chairman. You could have done this, Peter, so why didn’t you?

Meanwhile, we officially bid farewell to Andrew Abdo:

BR: Can you see a team one day in Japan, for example?

AA: I can and I can see a competition that has real relevance. The FIFA World Cup is happening at the moment. The Olympics and the FIFA Soccer World Cup are probably the best example of truly globalised sports. It’s going to take decades to get rugby league there, but we’re on the march. There’s a plan in place and the foundations have been laid for us getting there. It’s going to take generations, but we’re on the march. That’s exciting because the underlying fundamentals are good. The game is incredibly engaging and fun to play. There’s different formats of it. I think that rugby league will become one of those games that becomes really globalised.

Sickos dot jpg. Let’s fulfill the party directives!

Upcoming slate

Panthers vs Broncos, NRLM, Thursday 8pm, Commbank

Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha…hahahahahahaha…haaaahhhh.

What’s the point?

Still haven’t won a game since an alleged war criminal was in the sheds.

Warriors vs Cowboys, NRLW, Saturday 3.15pm, Mt Smart

The Warriors’ hype train hit a bump, to say the least, with an upset loss to the Raiders in a dispirited display. The Cowboys are looking lost. Whether this will be a good game or not is unclear but it is probably the most informative of the slate as to the future paths this NRLW season will take.

Dolphins vs Cowboys, NRLM, Sunday 4pm, Suncorp

Well, well, wellity, well. The result of the last week’s contests have put a massively different spin on the outcome of this. Whereas two weeks ago, we would have considered a Dolphins walkover likely, it is now not so clear cut. We should get some answers as to whether the Dolphins operating at near full strength can refind their mid-season form or if that was an illusory purple patch concealing an otherwise pedestrian team.

The Maroon Observer is 250 posts old

I don’t want to think about how that means I’ve probably poured half a million words into this newsletter over the last 3.33333 years (that’s 1.4 posts a week!) but the most recent few thousand words and graphs might be to your liking:

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Nickelware

Read this

• Eye Test - The best place to take an attacking kick from

• The Sportress - Six, again: Narratives and Life

• What You Get Is What You See - The tip of the pyramid: The NRL's TV deal should terrify rugby union

• James Smith - The most controversial trophy in rugby league

• Aaron Timms - World Cupcophony

Notes

• From what I can tell, the pundit class spent the post-Origin period pillorying Brent Read for saying Laurie Daley sucks. Never mind that every Blues fan in the country thought that to the point that a bunch of former captains had to write a letter telling everyone to calm down. Never mind that victory over Simple Billy doesn’t absolve anyone of their incompetencies. Never mind that there is plenty of other stuff that Brent Read does to criticise him (he’s like a weaker Badel). Still, this was their primary takeaway. Riccio: the media is what makes Origin special, etc, etc.

• Storm may be getting sold off? Read and Badel limited themselves to one use of “bombshell” and it was in a caption.

• Jarome Luai to depart Wests Tigers. Oh my god I can’t believe it a decision the Tigers made didn’t pan out what a shock Luai looked like such a hero and not a giant knob I’m so surprise

• International rights key to unlocking NRL value for Dazn

• Tonga can dare to dream after rugby league investment

• Wannabe Olympic MMA group tried gifting $82,000 cognac to Brisbane Games committee. “Swiss-registered FIMMA wants MMA in the Olympics and formed last December. It rivals organisations such as the UFC-aligned International Mixed Martial Arts Federation.”

• U.S. House Passes Bill To Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent. Turns out I wasn’t being hyperbolic when I said daylight savings is tyranny. Turns out DST is MAGA.

• London Broncos should know 2027 fate in a fortnight, says Lockyer and "They're not your players" - Broncos defiant over Chiefs signings. If the Broncos don’t get promoted, Chammas wants the PNG boys to play for the Hunters in 2027. The players have contracts with London and not really sure QCup will be sufficient preparation for the NRL but sure.

• An update from Ryan and Kaue. You may recall that the Keighley Cougars’ owners took over the club, intending to make it more inclusive to the LGBT+ community. This had naturally generated death threats from small minded dipshits that follow rugby league, so the owners were about to give it away. A show of support from the fanbase has convinced them to stay on. “During an interview with ITV Calendar we were asked whether we had let hate win. That question really stayed with us because, perhaps without realising it, maybe we had. What the supporters of Keighley Cougars have shown us is that they simply weren’t prepared to let that happen. They reminded us what this club stands for. They reminded us why we started this journey in the first place. We’ve always believed Keighley Cougars should be about much more than rugby. It should be about bringing people together, creating opportunities and making our town proud. The incredible support has given us renewed energy and belief to continue building that vision.”

• Ahem:

Welcome to Stats Drop, an inundation of rugby league numbers.

If you’re receiving this by email, a reminder that the Datawrapper embeds work best on desktop, then next best if you click through on mobile and least best as presented in the email.

Where have all the good players gone?

Once upon a time, way back in 2019, a NRL club looking to fill out its roster could pick up a Nicho Hynes- or Jamal Fogarty-quality player from Queensland Cup. Even as late as 2023, you could spot a Keano Kini, Sua Faalogo or Morea Morea (now coming to the Chiefs).

In 2026, Caius Fatili is in Super League with Tyson Smoothy, Maika Sivo, Br*die Cr*ft, Tristan Sailor, Zac Lipowicz, Jacob Alick-Wiencke and Keenan Palasia. That leaves homebodies like Guy Hamilton, Moses Mbye and Anthony Milford behind to dominate a competition that has a lot more district A-grade (and declining former NRL) talent in the ranks than it has in years past.

When the Dolphins came into the league in 2023, there was a surfeit of second tier players that didn’t directly move onto their roster but plugged gaps created by players moving around the labour market to fill the 30 jobs newly created. Trai Fuller and Jono Reuben would not have played NRL without the league expanding.

Even for established teams like the Broncos, who regularly went to the QCup well to fill the depth chart, the sudden scarcity of decent second rowers has been a problem for a while. It’s only when no one is injured can Brisbane string together enough wins to take the title. When players at key positions do inevitably get injured, then 5-11 is the result.

The Bears are slated to join the NRL in 2027, the Chiefs in 2028 and possibly a second New Zealand team as early as 2029. Given how stretched the league already feels, adding three more teams does not bode well. To find the first graders required to fill out those rosters is going to require scraping the bottom of the talent pool.

This is all very qualitative and the eye test can be deceiving. What quantitative changes have we seen in the NRL talent pool since the admission of the Dolphins that might inform what’s coming?

One would assume that the most noticeable impact on rosters would arise from changes in the rules around roster construction. The concept of a top 25, as a function of determining minimum salary, is introduced in 2006 and this is formalised to the top 30 structure we are more familiar with in 2018.

While we don’t see a lot of impact directly from expansion, the impact of covid is clear. The number of 10 game players drops precipitously in 2020 because of the shortened season and there is a huge increase in players used in 2021, the highest in nearly 20 years, as clubs grappled with a rapidly changing public health situation.

Immediately prior to the pandemic, the average NRL club in 2018 and 2019 carried two players in their top 30 that they didn’t use. These players sat as spare capacity. The post-covid elimination of this spare capacity indicates the greater strain on rosters as administrators (largely vainly) search for talent that can play week-in, week-out in first grade. If the rate of churn is relatively fixed, then those players must be coming from somewhere.

Between 2015 and 2025, 1,560 players in Queensland Cup and 1,573 players in NSW Cup played at least five games in at least one season, noting there is some overlap in the lists. Of these, 283 in QCup and 579 in NSW Cup spent some time in the NRL between 2016 and 2025, enough to meet the same qualifying criteria for first grade. For qualifying players, the probability of playing at least five games in a season of QCup and another five games in one season of NRL is 18%, and is double that for NSW Cup. This disparity likely reflects the greater number of feeder arrangements below the Tweed.

Of these qualifying players, 111 in QCup and 205 in NSW Cup played their last qualifying season in state cup at the same time (up to 2025) or before their first qualifying season in the NRL. While this is not a perfect definition1, and only captures a snapshot in time, we read this as roughly 35 to 40% of players that spent time in both the first and second tiers were promoted to the NRL, rather than highlighting those heading into state cup in the twilight of their career or bouncing between as a fringe player. That means the proportion of the state cup playing pool that become solid NRL players ranges from 7 (Qld) to 13% (NSW).

As a proxy for player quality, we use Z score to measure player production, i.e. the accumulation of statistics that correlate with winning. For the quality of a career, we use Wins Above Reserve Grade (WARG) to capture the volume of production.

Strangely, production shown in Cup has a weak correlation to that produced in the NRL. While this has myriad potential explanations, it rules out Z score as a scouting metric to be used in isolation, which it was never intended to be.

To get a finer toothed comb on the data, let’s break players into cohorts defined by the year they stepped up to the NRL: 2016-17, 2018-19, 2020-22 and 2023-25.

There are a lot of details to parse through here. While the average NRL career Z score in each of the cohorts is similar, the Queensland Cup players have a consistently higher Z in Cup than their NSW counterparts. This means, on average, to get out of Queensland Cup, players have to work harder and separate themselves more from the pack than would be the case if they played in New South Wales. Whether this disadvantages potential Maroons or makes the Sydney-based contingent a bunch of pitiful weaklings is an exercise left to the reader.2

There are two golden cohorts, whose career NRL Wins Above Reserve Grade per cohort member is noticeably higher: the 16/17 NSW cohort and the 18/19 Queensland cohort. Around 30% of both cohorts have accumulated at least five WARG in their careers up to 2025, a mark that only 15% of NRL careers reach.

Here is a brief selection of the former: Joseph Tapine, James Fisher-Harris, Damien Cook, Mitchell Barnett, Cody Walker, Angus Crichton, Josh Addo-Carr, Addin Fonua-Blake, Viliame Kikau, Dylan Edwards and Cameron Murray.

Here is a brief selection of the latter: Jahrome Hughes, Brandon Smith, Moeaki Fotuaika, Kotoni Staggs, Scott Drinkwater, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Patrick Carrigan, Payne Haas, Thomas Flegler, Reuben Cotter, Tom Dearden and Rhyse Martin.

In the absence of these golden microgenerations, the stats bear out that the cohorts transition from reserves to firsts in roughly the same manner with some idiosyncrasies.

The cancelled 2020 seasons and the covid-affected scheduling of 2021 - NSW Cup only made it through 15 rounds before being cancelled, while the Queensland Cup finished a week after the NRL in a frequently disrupted schedule - means that there is no correlation between Cup production and the NRL for that cohort of players. Presumably some mix of missed development time, small sample size in Cup and covid psychosis explains this.

Most importantly, we see an enormous increase in the number of players undergoing the transition. Since the addition of the Dolphins to the league in 2023, approximately 42% more players have matriculated from the Queensland Cup to the NRL, and 32% from NSW Cup, than the typical annual rate from 2016 to 2022. While these players have not had the time in the NRL to accumulate significant WARG, the sheer volume of them necessitates that their mean production will be lower and there will be proportionally fewer high quality outliers.

If you were, like me, wondering where all of the good players have gone, the answer is now clear. They’re all in the NRL and they brought a bunch of scrubs with them.

Salary cap

The essence of Moneyball, a cliche so hackneyed now that not even the Courier Mail will touch it, is the efficient pricing of sporting talent. How the pricing structure works depends on the regulations around paying players. Leagues often have a minimum salary (a maximum salary is much rarer), a salary cap to be limboed under and a salary floor that has to be exceeded. In the NRL, the minimum salary was $130,000 for 2024 and the salary floor was 95% of the cap.

The history of the salary cap ended up being a tangent to the main point but plotting it out, and making some adjustments typical of Stats Drop, reveals some interesting details in the history of the National Rugby League.

The line I ran with during the last round of bargaining with the RLPA, circa 2022, is that V’landys capitulated to get the deal done, after months of prevarication by Abdo and co. His toadies in the media downplayed the surrender so they didn’t make the Great Leader look bad.

But, when factoring in inflation and hindsight, the outcome is incredibly club-friendly. The cap appears to decline in real terms from 2023. By 2027, we will be back to 2018 levels and overall spending on player salaries will match 2020, even with the Dolphins now in the competition. That this was his plan all along would require V’landys to have successfully forecast inflation, a difficult thing to do for experts, and predicted the Iran War, one of the stupidest things to ever happen, so we’ll put a pin in that.

This decline is not unprecendented. The salary cap in 1998 was $3.3 million and nominally had increased by $1.1 million by 2012 but this was a decline of about 10% in real terms before The Commission We Had To Have, and a sudden surge in legacy broadcasters realising they were competing with the internet for attention, put the sport back into the big time.

We can only speculate what the cap will be past 2028. Historically, the cap increased by 33% in 2013, 34% in 2018 and 15% in 2023, aligning with the start of new TV deals and the conclusion of enterprise bargaining. With the new broadcast deal increasing revenue by - if we take the numbers at face value - approximately 75%, then the range of possible caps are $14 million (a PVL and club-friendly increase of 15%), $16 million (an increase of 33% in line with historic step changes) or $21 million (a RLP-friendly deal that aligns with the 75% increase in broadcast revenue).

Accounting for inflation, Super League’s original salary cap of £1.8 million in 2002 (approx. AU$4.9 million at 2002 exchange rates, higher than the $3.5 million in the NRL that year) would be worth £3.4 million in 2026 (AU$6.6 million at today’s exchange rate).

The current salary cap is £2.1 million (AU$4 million), raised circa 2020. While the southern hemisphere’s salary cap has increased 80% over 24 years in real terms, England’s has declined 40% and that’s without accounting for purchasing power loss. That some Super League clubs can’t even spend up to the cap, tells its own story of professional rugby league in the northern hemisphere.

And yet, they keep winning the World Club Challenge. Go figure.

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A very Blues-like series

While we have previously established that how you feel does not matter, the vibes coming into this were seriously off. Queensland were favourites? How could that be? Then, to recap this year's men's Origin series, the Maroons provided:

1. A very brave loss in the face of adversity

2. A crushing victory interstate

3. A bed shit in front of a home crowd

That sounds a lot like the Blues usual, doesn't it? I don't want to read too much into a single series but after last year's annus mirabilis - Origin and two Broncos premierships, which is once again, an experience most fans would cut an arm off for - this year has been more of an anus. Chickens come home to roost. Such is life. Reaping, sowing, etc.

It is easy to be philosophical. What else are you going to do? The Maroons played badly enough, for long enough, to give up an almost insurmountable lead in a decider, going down 18-0, real quick. This was mostly, but not entirely, down to Selwyn Cobbo - I relieve you of your Qobbo duties, sir - and Kurt Capewell reliving trauma from 2023.

Even when events turned more to Queensland's favour, the Maroons couldn't get anything to go their way. Max Plath was offside. A promising play was returned to the house by Bradman Best. Ashley Klein had a blinder, by which I mean he must have been blind for part of the game. Someone check his slips, please, and then find out why he only has a duty of care towards Koula. If someone can explain the brain protective action of wrapping arms, which transmutes a concussion-causing send off into merely three concussion-causing penalties, I'm all ears. Either way, too much Ponga, not enough Walsh. No one played straight. We've seen the ceiling of Sam Walker. Why select Carrigan if not to play him? Slater rode the hot hand and by the time he realised it was cold, and needed to make changes, it was too late.

There are always silver linings. Every Blues fan in the country spent the entire game terrified they were going to blow it. Laurie Daley is redeemed and hopefully will be extended so this battle of wits between he and Slater can continue forevermore. While I refuse to accept the media forcing Nathan Cleary on me, and believe that the Panthers’ success represents an ongoing national crisis, hopefully now that Cleary has DOMINATED Origin, he can go back to his usual cardboard-flavoured rugby league. His hamstrings are due to explode any minute now.

New South Wales will be back to tearing themselves apart next year, presumably around whether Daley’s halftime speeches are now too motivating. They're not really enjoying this per se, so much as they are relieved at not having failed again, which is not the same thing. It doesn't matter how many they win, they still won't get it.

You can wait with bated breath to see what happens but for now, I need a juice and a lie down.

Welcome Martod

Great nickname. Didn’t even make it up, that’s just what he calls himself. The rest of you could take a cue from Martod, instead of leaving all the work up to me.

Anyway, we’ve reached the point in the season where the rate of new subscribers slows down. By now, you’re either in or you’re out on the NRL in 2026. However, the slowdown has happened much later than in previous years, for which I am grateful.

Somehow, there’s still another nine weeks of NRL regular season left before we get to the good stuff. If you’d like any further updates on people who have decided to pay money to subscribe to this newsletter, or you know, rugby league news, you can receive it in your inbox by clicking the button below.

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Around the grounds

Sharks 28 defeated Broncos 16 (M). The only observation from this game is that the Sharks are bad. Any good team would have won this by at least twice as many points.

Roosters 34 defeated Titans 10 (W). That unfolded as expected, even if the Kolc binning was kind of stupid. Had Gold Coast survived that and not conceded the Fressard try, they would’ve been within reach but that was only the slimmest hopes to find a route to victory. The Roosters are too good and we may look back on a 24 point defeat as a “good” loss.

Broncos 50 defeated Cowboys 4 (W). The Cowboys got beaten through the middle of the field, which was meant to be where they were strongest, so badly that the union halves didn’t have a chance to blow the game. It looked like women against girls, even if the girls included several Origin-calibre players. That combination of Upton and Southwell is fantastic already. It’s round 1 and all that but could be a long road ahead for North Queensland if they can’t get on top of things quickly.

Capras 30 defeated Falcons 20 (M). Not quite as close as it looks in the final score, this was 6-6 at half time until the Capras worked out that hitting their big PNG boys with the short ball on the line was the key to unlocking the Falcons’ defence. John, Waiembi and Tai all scored tries. Crazy that the best PNG talent in the game resides in London and Rockhampton.

Knights 13 defeated Dolphins 12. I do not understand how Newcastle does it but they manage to bring the absolute worst out of the Dolphins. The Phins could play like the ‘22 Panthers and would still lose to a last-placed Knights outfit. Noting that most of the good players were missing, and that the winning streak was going to come to an end eventually, the Dolphins flubbed their first test. More like Bad Schneider amirite? Time for Averillo to 6 to blow the doors off the comp. I also want it on the record that the ball travelled more than ten metres and Jamayne Isaako is very aware of this rule after the 2022 QCup final he bottled for Tweed in the space of two minutes. Wyatt Raymond who refereed both this and that game, should have been aware of that and given Isaako the benefit of the doubt.

Magpies 32 defeated Dolphins 10. I did not make it to the end of this complete annihilation of the Redcliffe Dolphins. After Byron Johnson went off for a head assessment, the Magpies’ spine was Anthony Milford, Jesse Arthars, Billy Walters and Callum Eggerling, like some sort of bizarro universe Broncos team. Milford and Walters do make a pretty good tandem and score some great tries. I have no idea how the premiers-presumptive managed to fall over quite this badly but they were never, ever in this contest.

Super League highlight sprint, week 17. TOULOUSE 60 DEFEATED CATALANS 18: SACRE FUCKIN BLEU. Anyway, I completely failed to clock the weekend just gone was Magic Weekend from which, of course, the French are excluded.

Robbed of expansion chat

If you’d told me in 2019 that the guy who was largely responsible for ballooning ratings and attendances, regular profitability of the NRL, financial stability for the clubs and had added teams in Brisbane and Perth was this dude…

…I’m not sure what I would have made of that.

On one hand, many of the strategic goals I wanted the NRL to work towards are now within reach, a situation driven by a man whose approach to wearing a tie is similar to my own (poorly). On the other hand, there is the constant media fawning and manipulation, the set restart has rendered the sport unwatchable toxic waste and the omnipresent odour of graft is in the air.

Todd Greenberg, Andrew Abdo’s predecessor as NRL CEO, was a cautious leader. He made what I would have considered all the “right” decisions following the “correct” process but he did not make any headway towards these goals. The idea that expansion needed a detailed study from a Big 4 consultant into markets and footprints is antithetical to V’landys’ pathology of getting deals done. History will judge whether Greenberg was ineffective or just unpopular.

The broad lessons of the PVL era so far are obvious. Good publicity is better than bad. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Number go up means more money and more money is more power and with power, you can do whatever you like. To wit:

The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) has secured a record-breaking $5.3 billion media rights agreement with Foxtel Group, Nine and Sky NZ, establishing the largest broadcast and media partnership in Australian sporting history.

The seven-year agreement from 2028 delivers a substantial increase in annual revenue to the game, returns control of competition scheduling and structure to the ARLC, expands access for fans across key markets and creates new opportunities for growth in Australia, New Zealand and internationally.

V’landys gets his $5 billion headline and he claims 95% of this is cash. Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t find this all that interesting. Three weeks ago, it was leaked that a deal was near. Two weeks ago, we saw some of the details. This week, it’s been confirmed without much more information but somehow an extra $300 million was found behind a couch cushion.

The announcement has not generated any excitement, falling flat like so many of the NRL’s recent announcements that have been undermined by a constant stream of BOMBSHELL reports about LANDMARK DEALS in the BRUTAL WAR with the AFL/CHINA. It is exhausting. Haven’t I given enough (metaphorical, emotional) blood to this cause already?

Dating back to the start of my rugby league posting career, I’ve always been fascinated by expansion. It’s where sport and social sciences, particularly geography, intersect. With the entry of the Dolphins and the imminent arrival of the Bears and Chiefs, I had been thinking about expansion and how my perspective has evolved over the years. We had been robbed of the ability to speculate on expansion by V’landys - shock, horror - actually expanding the league. I was three-quarters of the way through a long analysis looking at the options for a 20th team before events overtook the post.

In between confirming that the future will look like the past, the Courier Mail reported:

* The $5.3b deal runs until the end of 2034 and could reach as high as $5.5b pending investment from New Zealand TV…

* A clause has been added for the provision of a 20th NRL team being included by 2029-30, most likely in New Zealand.

Previous reporting had tantalisingly hinted at a tenth match being included in the deal, which would have allowed us to consider whether such a team would be in the Southeast, or New Zealand, or elsewhere.

But nope, it’s New Zealand. This is contrary to Andrew Abdo’s previous suggestion that the competition would not expand again before the end of this deal they’ve just signed, and does not commence until 2028, but Abdo has since departed for Tennis Australia.

I don’t have an issue with NZ2. I would have preferred a Southeast team for my own parochiality but I found that locating a team to be more challenging than you’d assume. Ipswich has the infrastructure and maybe the money but not the population, hence the artifice of the “Western Corridor”, nor the stadium, unless it wants to submit to the LNP or play in an increasingly congested schedule at Suncorp. The Sunshine Coast has the population and the stadium but no one pushing for it.

A second team in New Zealand, presumably in Christchurch following the Cowboys game, makes sense if Sky NZ will increase the amount it tips in, capitalises on the surge of popularity that the NRL has enjoyed after covid and will make better use of the 6pm Friday slot. A South Island team playing Dolphins to the Warriors’ Broncos could be the tip of the spear that sees future expansion clubs dropped in to Wellington and Hamilton to compete with, and then destroy, Super Rugby. All of this is good news, provided the NRL can find some competent people to run the club and aren’t on the hook for ownership of a third franchise.

The one saving grace is that even once NRL 20 is resolved, we don’t have to stop there. 20 is just a number Nick Politis came up with. He’ll be dead soon and provided each franchise adds to the pie and the NRL’s revenue per club keeps increasing - this deal increases from $25m per club per annum for the 16 team league to $36m1 for the 19 team league - why wouldn’t the NRL add more teams? Fan fatigue and lack of available talent? When has the NRL ever been concerned with what players and fans think?

Instead, the expansion chat must push further into the future and become more exotic. Forget Ipswich, Central Coast and Adelaide. Think Singapore, Fiji and Hawaii. It is a glorious future and the world belongs to the Vlando-Leninists.

Intermission

The MAJESTOICAL ibis.

A brief history of Australia at the World Cup

Here is how Australia has gone at the men’s soccer World Cup -

• 1974: Lost badly to West and East Germany, drew with Chile (finished last in group)

• 2006: Beat Japan, lost to Brazil, drew Croatia, lost to the cheating Italians in the knock-outs

• 2010: Beat Serbia, lost badly to Germany, drew Ghana (finished third in group)

• 2014: Lost to Chile, Spain and Netherlands (finished last in group)

• 2018: Lost to France, drew Denmark, lost to Peru (finished last in group)

• 2022: Smashed by France, beat Denmark, beat Tunisia, lost to Argentina in round of 16

• 2026: Courageously beat the perfidious Turks, lost to the USA, drew Paraguay, lost to a surprisingly equally ranked Egypt in round of 32

Did you notice the difference? Prior to 2026, Australia has been granted an opportunity to be belted by one of the eight nations that has won the World Cup. In 2026, the best team we got to play were the Americans, who were in turn systematically dismantled by Belgium. Disgusting. I demand a rematch against a far superior opponent. If the penalty shootout had gone differently, we could have been roadkill for Argentina, as is our right and tradition. This is too far, FIFA!

Weird that the Socceroos have barely played two dozen World Cup games, and still managed to face France, Denmark and Chile twice each.

Despite the unrelenting chaos of Mexico-England, this ends our brief foray into the world of futbol until the next World Cup.

Upcoming slate

The top rated game of this week is in the NSW Cup. It finally happened. Fold rugby league.

Sharks vs Broncos, NRLW, Thursday 7.45pm, Cronulla

We all expect the Broncos to romp home in this one, so it serves more as a test of what the Sharks have than anything else. They have been known to spring an upset on a more fancied opponent. Chalk up a try for Ellie Johnston on the line but that might be it. Kiria-Ratu will do her best to kick the Broncos to death. Brisbane return with the same well-oiled machine as last week, so will be challenging to contain for a team that struggled with the Knights.

Devils vs Falcons, QDub, Saturday 2pm, Nundahdrome

We’re nearly halfway through the QDub season - how time flies - and the 3rd placed 4-1 Devils face down the 4th placed 3-2 Falcons. The Falcons have not named a halfback at time of writing, so that will be interesting in and of itself.

Dolphins vs Sharks, NRLM, Saturday 3pm, Seaworld

How’s this for a get-right game? In for the Dolphins: Tabuai-Fidow, Plath, Bostock, Cobbo, Flegler. While they are all named in the reserves, I assume at least a few will back up for this, with something of a point to prove. The Dolphins looked short-handed for the first time in months against the Knights, so any impetus Plath and co can provide will go a long way to arresting any slide. The Sharks were woeful against the Broncos and will provide a very similar lineup.

Expansion chat will never die

I have written a lot about expansion teams over the years, including

• On Expansion and its relationship with Sydney (2019)

The Dolphins cycle

• BNE2 or On Expansion and its relationship with Brisbane (2020)

• BNE2.1: The game done changed (2021)

• BNE2.2: The Gemba Report (2021)

• BNE2.3: What is the point of it? (2021)

• Dawn of The Dolphins (2023)

• Conflict on Caxton III (2024)

The Chiefs cycle

• NRL18 (2023)

• NRL18.1: Why the PNG NRL team is a bad idea (2024)

• NRL18.2: PNG Rising (2024)

• Chieves-tok (2026)

The Bears cycle

• NRL18 (2023)

• This is why we have to hear about the North Sydney Bears every few months (2024)

• NRL18.3: Bears are BACK (2025)

• Beardenda (2026)

If you’d like to read more, I put some of the analysis I was working on, on Ko-fi which is also available for one-off tips, if you’d like to financially support The Maroon Observer without getting a full subscription.

Otherwise, paid subscribers on Substack and/or comped Ko-fi tippers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges.

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Read this

• Eye Test - Did the NRL get a stealth rule interpretation change after Round 13?

• Rugby League Writers - Sharks Playing To Cues, Fullback Defence At Its Best & Another Raiders Flick-Pass Specialist

• Ant’s Slant - Blues killer was inside the house all along

• YNR - Is Karl Stefanovic Ready to be a Loser?

• 🎧 Phantom Island - What do TV ratings actually tell us about sports leagues? (US focus but still interesting)

Notes

• 'Dream come true' as Pacific rugby league accord signed

• Super League club (York) asks for £50,000 bailout

• Wembley crowds fall short of what was announced. The RFL is overstating crowds by 15-20k in some cases.

• Luke Hanson (?) joins Titans

• We talk a lot about the finances of the broadcast deal but is anyone interested in how broadcasting TV actually works? While it is not precisely my area of expertise, it feels like it could temper expectations that the quality of the broadcast is at any risk of improving.

• Was his surgery to turn him into an egg?

Some good content

NRLW SEASON PREVIEW SPECTACULAR

The NRLW is back and finally, we have some real sport. The format and clubs remain unchanged from last year with the added bonus of no set restarts, as God intended. 12 of the 17 NRL clubs will play each other once with the top six progressing to the finals.

Last season was dominated by a hitherto-undefeated Roosters side losing the grand final to the Broncos, as is right and proper, with the rest of the competition at some distance. The Titans scraped into the finals, the Cowboys finally put together a good season and the Sharks and Knights were in the mix. In the absence of any major destabilising forces, this year is likely to promise more of the same.

As the season kicks off on Thursday night, here is my season preview in the form of a reverse order predicted ladder:

12. Bulldogs - The highest profile Bulldog is either Tayla Preston or Ash Quinlan, which seems a dubious proposition. Almost the entire roster is signed for this season and no further. If I was a Bulldogs fan, I’d be concerned that they aren’t going to be able to field a team in 2027 but there are more pressing matters in 2026. I’m sure Gus is all over it.

11. Dragons - While the Dragons are perpetually terrible, and fortunate that the Warriors have rejoined to the league to prevent them from being the only active foundation team to not have won a title, at some point they have to put it together. I approached the men’s season with largely the same philosophy and that has not gone well, and Taliah Fuimaono does not replace Raecene McGregor and Shenae Ciesiolka does not replace Indie Bostock (over a three-to-five year window), but c’mon. Do something. This is not a high bar. Teagan Berry is not going to fix this by herself.

10. Raiders - The Raiders finished last season where they should have based on their underlying statistics. They have some good but not exceptional players, these being the property of Brisbane and Sydney. Krystal Blackwell and Sheridan Gallagher are good gets to lift them off the bottom of the ladder.

9. Cowboys - This is not me having a go at the Cowboys out of a latent NRLM rivalry. I have always been a big supporter of the Wowboys/Cowgirls/whatever your preferred nomenclature. However, you have no halves. That seems like a big problem. Tillett retired and Dibb left for Newcastle, one of a few solid players to depart. Manzelmann can lead but someone needs to kick the bloody ball. The solution seems to be relying on union players? Also, Jakiya Whitfeld is out with pregnancy. The rest of the team is not too bad. I thought this was going to be a spoon contender but there are some real disasters-in-waiting out there.

8. Tigers - While the Tigers have been little more than a speedbump since entering the league, this off-season has seen them add Holli Wheeler, Shaylee Bent and Raecene McGregor, three players who lend some skill and plenty of experience to the group of children being fostered at Concord. With Sarah Togatuki and Emily Bass, there’s something resembling a core forming.

7. Knights - The punditry like to confuse the Knights’ couple of good years, in which Newcastle took advantage of a market inefficiency where they were willing to spend money and no one else was, with an inherent quality of the Knights’ approach to women’s football. With a couple of exceptions, those players are no longer there. While there are still good players in Newcastle, this is not an unstoppable juggernaut. This is a league-average program.

6. Eels - The Parramatta roster has become sneakily good. They only added a few players, Keilee Joseph being the marquee, and didn’t lose anyone of consequence over the off-season. They have Joseph and Elsie Albert up front, Rory Owens and Abbi Church at the back, and recent U19 Origin players like Ginn, Alo and McWilliams. That’s not bad. Rachael Pearson might be too slow to compete at the top echelon but she still has enough to keep this team from dropping too far down the standings, if they can just put it all together to challenge the bluebloods [citation needed].

5. Sharks - One of my blindspots is that I’ve never really gotten what the Sharks offer. At some point, the record is the record and Cronulla have never finished lower than sixth. Give me the China Polata redemption arc, combined with a career season for Chantay Kiria-Ratu.

4. Titans - The Titans have not returned to the lofty heights of the 2023 season which, if you look at that year’s roster, is not much of a surprise in retrospect. However, there has been turnover and Gold Coast have been quick to jump on a lot of young talent to keep the damage caused by the loss of Mato and Bent to a minimum. You get Brown, Elliston and Chapman as your veterans and then it feels like every young up-and-comer is currently at Robina.

3. Broncos - The Broncos lost a fair whack of the premiership winning roster, as the free market is wont to do, but they managed to replace some of it in the aggregate. Nu’uausala and Joseph are gone, in comes Yarrow and Mato. Broughton leaves, we get Southwell. There’s no replacing Hufanga but it is what it is. Expecting a good year but not a repeat.

2. Warriors - People got too excited about the Warriors’ return last year but this year, they really have swept up all the latent Kiwi talent and brought them home. Four players from the defending premiers defected, including the incredible Stacey Waaka, which should take last year’s average team and turn them into contenders.

1. Roosters - The Blues swept the series and nearly one-half of all Blues caps this year went to Roosters.1 They are not going to fuck this up. They’re going undefeated. You earned this, New South Wales. Enjoy it. This is your team.

Talking about yourself is the single greatest engagement ha-

Normally, I would put in a little spiel about the changing internet and how hard it is to reach people but I am going to keep it to a simple request this week.

Around the grounds

Bulldogs 30 defeated Titans 12. Valiant effort, etc, etc. I did briefly try to contemplate a Bulldogs fan who lives in the Gold Coast suburbs and my brain shut down. Moving on. With the imminent kickoff of the NRLW, we will soon start dropping men’s games from the recap.

Roosters 24 defeated Broncos 12. Playing NRL? I’ll show you something interesting.

The two types of teams are fraud and bad. All teams fall into these two categories. Roosters? Frauds. Broncos? Bad.

Warriors? Frauds. Tigers? Bad. Contrary to what you may have heard, the Bulldogs are actually bad.

Dolphins 26 defeated Warriors 24. It would have been classic Dolphins to capitulate in this scenario, exactly as they have many times before, but not today! Cobbo redeemed his numerous handling errors that led to conceding points by scoring the try that mattered most. Lemuelu had a fantastic game. Brad Schneider’s presence is a greater atrocity than anything Ben Roberts-Smith committed and the Dolphins should be held accountable. The Warriors lacked creativity in attack - the Barnett crash ball almost worked once in the ten times tried - and were prone to the kinds of lapses the Panther-types in this league will feast on (probably), although none were as poor as the Phins losing possession for not having a dummy half.

Outside of Magic Round and Perth, this is the first Dolphins game to record a crowd in excess of 40,000 that did not also involve the Broncos. The cheer when Sam Healey scored was both deafening and sustained. It’s nice to be here at the start of a new rivalry. Let’s hear from the fans:

In a seesawing, dramatic and highly entertaining encounter where most of the key statistical areas finished relatively even, the Dolphins were easily the more dangerous attacking unit — making eight line-breaks to five (it was 6-1 at one stage) and 48 tackle-breaks to 30.

The fanbase venting is certain to zero on diabolical displays from Adam Pompey and Ali Leiataua, again exposing the Warriors’ age-old lack of genuine quality and depth in the centres in jarring and costly fashion.

Cowboys 26 defeated Panthers 12. Hahahahahahahaha… hahahahhahahahaha… haaaaah. Two weeks in a row. Nice. This was a slow battle and then the result happened all at once. You could tell the Cowboys were putting their whole asses into this one for Taumalolo. Considering I was prepared to write this result off weeks in advance, the Cowboys are now 9-7 with eight games to go, a schedule that includes the Eels, Broncos, Raiders, Tigers and Titans. Winning four should get them into eighth. If they show half the ticker they did in this one, they’ll be in the finals.

Capras 51 defeated Cutters 12 (M). The Capras sported an excellent retro jersey for the return leg of the Friends of Coal Bowl. While I dipped in and out of this game, the stats reflect my impressions: the Cutters did not have a lot of ball (36% possession). I attributed this to errors but Mackay and Central were similar in this regard. The Capras just made way more metres and scored way more points and when they did err, it was in less catastrophic places than the Cutters. Whether this is the time to write off Mackay’s chances this year, we’ll probably need more sample size but jeez, can’t be having this if you want to break that drought.

Australia 0 drew Paraguay 0.

Algeria 3 drew Austria 3. Familiarise yourself with the Disgrace of Gijón, in which West Germany and Austria conspired to eliminated Algeria from the 1982 Cup. In 2026, Algeria and Austria could both advance on a draw but if one team won, the loser would be eliminated. Find the last ten minutes or so of this game (or settle for this video). Some of the funniest sport you will ever witness.

The future of Slater

Queensland coach Billy Slater drops State of Origin contract bombshell on Maroons:

Billy Slater has dropped a bombshell on the Maroons after revealing he won’t be signing a contract extension with Queensland and his Origin coaching future hinges on a handshake agreement.

Slater is on the cusp of guiding Queensland to a fourth series win from five years in charge of the Maroons heading into Wednesday week’s decider against the NSW Blues at Suncorp Stadium.

The 43-year-old remains off-contract with the Queensland Rugby League beyond this series amid speculation he could take charge of the Melbourne Storm if veteran coach Craig Bellamy retires at season’s end.

Bellamy, 66, revealed earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disorder and there is no guarantee he will remain in charge of the Storm beyond 2026.

After winning his first two Origin series (2022-23) in charge, the QRL announced Slater had committed to a three-year extension to lead the Maroons for the 2024-26 series.

It seems obvious which way this is going to go but speaks to a point Ben Ikin made a few years ago about the coaching pathway being an important part of the QRL’s purpose. Can’t help but notice that Darius Boyd has been doing a pretty good job with the juniors.

Intermission

Our (maybe) autistic king rides again in QCup. Billy Walters hits Jack Ahearn with a show and go for the Magpies’ second try in their 20-14 victory over the Devils.

Souths’ new mascot family

Behold:

Reggie is an old man, both as a character and the guy in the suit (who beat up a child). He is therefore representative of 95% of Souths’ fanbase. Like Russell Crowe (who threw a phone at a hotel employee).

The rest, though, appear to be designed to appeal to a new, more inclusive generation of fans. Think Poochy but less proactive and more woke. While I had some jokes about the rabbits opting for non-traditional identities, there was a very good chance of coming across mean-spirited about something that is very clearly meant for children, a distinct group of people from the many millennials that maintain a child’s mentality.

Frankly, the last thing I need is to be cancelled for “Ruby self-identifies as neurodivergent. She is neurodivergent but not in the way she thinks,” and “Jack is on the verge of becoming an ace gym junkie. He will later win at least two grand final mascot races.” It’s not worth it. Still, let's just say you wouldn't have to work very hard to convince me Oliver was poly, although I don't know which suffix is applicable. Maybe he doesn't either.

Instead, my primary conclusion is that the Grand Old Club sees furries as its future. While Souths claims that…

Everything you need to know as a parent or guardian. All content on this site is family-safe, ad-free and South Sydney Rabbitohs approved.

…wait until the shippers get hold of this to make Rabbitohs mascot yaoi.2

Further reading - Andrew McCutchen: “Furries”

Upcoming slate

Super League has been something of a challenge this year, even in highlights format, but I did want to provide an honourable mention to the French Derby this weekend. Les Dracs have won all three previous meetings but Catalans are very weak and Toulouse are punchy. In fact, the three promoted teams are all at least two wins clear of Huddersfield on the bottom of the ladder, which is something of a miracle (except for the Giants and their fans).

Pride vs Jets, QCup, Saturday 3pm, Barlow Park

The Pride have had five, five, draws from 12 games. Five. The Jets are shaping as this year’s dark horses to track the Dolphins deep into the finals, once the Falcons have had their inevitable accident (they remain one of the luckiest teams in football this year). It’s 3rd versus 4th on the ladder and a real test for the Northern team to see if they’re legit or going to end up with Sunshine Coast in the bin.

Broncos vs Cowboys, NRLW, Saturday 5.15pm, Suncorp

While the defending premiers going up against a neutered steer of a North Queensland side is going to be about as entertaining as the last three attempts, in which the margin has increased with each meeting, I can’t go past the Queensland derby aspect, even if the better derby is Titans-Broncos and the Titans get a reality check out of the gate against the Roosters. Anyway, it’s better than Eels-Tigers.

Knights vs Dolphins, NRLM, Sunday 4.05pm, McDonald Jones

The Dolphins have now won eight in a row, which is as good a streak as they ever had in the BRL when it mattered. Rugby League Project lists from June 8 to August 10 in 1986, including a win over every other team in the league, as the Dolphins’ longest winning streak in that competition.3 Newcastle presents the first of the three key wins because these games are always interminable slogs. If the Dolphins can move the ball fast enough and prevent the Knights from putting everyone to sleep, then they can get to nine. Unfortunately, Brad Schneider will probably be named to play.

Say hello to Hazza, Roon Crew

I already regret writing that. Sorry but there’s no way to change it. Thank you for your support though.

I was thinking of listing off the nicknames for every Rooner but I was worried I would inadvertently come up with a name that you would personally find offensive; we’re being very sensitive this week. I am also not creative enough to come up with 30 concepts at the level of e.g. “Burmanese Python”, “Forty-seven Rohin”, “Marz Attackz” or “Bundaberg’s Rose”. There was a lot of Thommo, Ando, Chucko, etc that, while Australian, is not funny unless you think being the Other, Other Davo is a good gag.

Also, I suspect everyone stopped reading when I started talking about Rabbitoh fanfic. I did my best to bury that as low down the newsletter as I could.

If you have by some miracle managed to grit your teeth to push through that, or want to read a meandering 5,000 word piece later this week about NRL expansion that may or may not be happening, or want a bad nickname that is mostly annoying, you may want to consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.

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Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges. Your financial support keeps the lights on at The Maroon Observer. If you don’t want Substack clipping your ticket or to commit to an ongoing subscription, Ko-Fi is also available for one-off tips.

Stats pop

I have built out the Super League part of The Almanac with statistics from current and historical seasons. It will not incorporate last weekend’s results at time of publication but it will soon after. The in-season stats include a list of players by Wins Above Reserve Grade called the Chap 200.

There’s just one, small, teeny tiny problem. The top 50 chaps are all wingers, fullbacks and centres with a couple of halves. The best forward is Catalans’ Zac Lipowicz at Chap #54. I was clued in to the issue when the All-Time* (*2019 to present) Super League Chaps had Bevan French at #8 and Jai Field at #10.

This is not the first time I’ve tried to build player ratings for Super League and I encountered this problem last time but still didn’t do anything to fix it. Super League data does not include for the amount of time on field, which is naturally lower for forwards than it is for backs, and I have not made an attempt to adjust production based on the listed position. Whereas Australian player ratings are based on FTy and PTy, I only put together FTy for the Super League (and even then, took out tackle busts).

Still some tweaking to do but getting the NRLW up and running will take precedence.

Nickelware

The Dolphins have taken the lead from the Broncos by one draw with a game in hand. It is a strangely even Affiliates Premiership this year, with each of the confederations have a good team, a mediocre team and a bad team. Only the Free States are at some remove from the rest of the field.

Wynnum’s grip on the shield is slipping. After taking a very early lead with their success in the junior competitions, both the Bears and Falcons are now within one win with several months still to play. Both clubs’ men’s and women’s teams are looking stronger than the Seagulls.

Read this

• Campo - Why the Dolphins clash with the Warriors is the NRL’s unlikeliest blockbuster

• Eye Test - Why Manly can lay claim to the best defense in the NRL

• The Sportress - Six, Again: The Rhythms

• Storm Machine - Game 757 – S29E17 Review

• Unabridged - Turkey? Türkiye?

• SportsIndustryAU - Australia should host the World Cup and other fairy tales

Notes

• Despite losing to both the Titans and Cowboys in consecutive weeks, the Panthers have conceded 13.9 points per game, the 18th least in NRL history through 17 rounds. Of the 17 teams ahead of them, 9 won their grand final (‘07 ‘12 ‘20 Storm, ‘08 Seagles, ‘10 Dragons, ‘13 Roosters, ‘21 ‘22 ‘23 Panthers).

• I can’t look at this directly, it feels too dangerous, but has Daley weakened the Blues team in an attempt to salvage the series? It’s like he’s making it too easy to spring a trap. I am not going to think otherwise until there’s about 10 to go.

• The camp that is in favour of electing PVL as god-emperor of rugby league thinks they have found a loophole to bypass the democratic process. While I think it is unlikely that will work, it can serve as a tactic to improve the sense of inevitability of PVL’s accession to godhead, weakening resistance, and further undermines Dave Trodden’s institutionalist thesis that this is the commission we have to have. Interestingly, the comments on the Courier Mail article are largely negative, suggesting that this might be a bridge too far, even for the right wing cranks of the rugby league electorate.

• Klese Haas extends to 2029

• Oryn Keeley off to the Storm. Farewell, we’ll always have the 2024 QCup grand final. Now you are dead to me.

• Riley Price to the Warriors, as the Dolphins clear house.

• Pregnancy RLFC claims another victim

• Between Josiah Karapani and Junior Amone appearing at Wynnum, it is another banner week for rugby league’s most ethical club.

• Two charts that seem broadly relevant to the moment: A fifth of Leave voters have died and political ideology is the strongest predictor of Messi-Ronaldo preference. That cognitive reflection is biased toward Messi but short form video to CR7 confirms several other priors.

• Pro-One Nation Facebook groups appear to be run by foreign ‘meme factories’ that monetise content

• DR Congo superfan denied US visa to support team at World Cup

• Fitzbibbon!

Hotseat: Waiting for Toddo no longer

For some reason, The Maroon Observer almost never leads off with Cowboys news but uh, sure, I guess:

The North Queensland Toyota Cowboys have agreed to a two-year contract extension with NRL Head Coach Todd Payten, running through the end of the 2028 season.

Currently in his sixth season as Cowboys Head Coach, Payten’s extension will see him surpass Paul Green as the longest-tenured coach in club history.

I don’t think we’ve seen enough to justify this. I don’t think anyone does. The news conspicuously comes just as I rang the bell at the top of the market, so at least I’m not alone in my overrating the season to date, but you’d think someone on the Russian nesting dolls of boards at the Cowboys would be a bit more switched on.

I also think its possible to overreact. The way we look at coach contracts should be different to the way we look at player contracts. A two year extension, this close to the expiration of his current contract, is the minimum faith the Cowboys could show in Payten. Every coach has to have time on the clock, otherwise they become lame ducks. If the club doesn’t have the belief to extend the contract, or forces a coach to work year-to-year, then the players aren’t stupid enough to miss the message from the front office.

As a result, we see mediocre coaches get extensions because the club wants it to work for a little while longer as the board prevaricates - because you never know when a donkey becomes a thoroughbred! - but they are not necessarily guaranteeing the full term of the contract will be seen out.

Very, very few coaches go out on their own terms. We all understand that while the coach is ultimately responsible for the results, and it is famously a results-based business, the coach is not really responsible for the results. The players are. The coach has some control over the roster and how tahey play but it is far from total control.

To hedge the fact that coaching is a messy, chaotic business, in other fields of footballology, coaches get guaranteed money. This unimpeachable logic often results in wealthy backers and state governments paying out tens of millions of dollars to get rid of deadwood coaches they extended just a few years earlier, similar to failed CEOs getting golden parachutes so they feel free to “take risks”. This seems to work really well for society as a whole, so it is not surprising to see it come to rugby league by stealth.

Payten will probably continue to bob along average and may well make it to 2028, where he will be due another good season. Perhaps that is the best the Cowboys can do and they aren’t in a position to take a big swing like the Sharks did dumping John Morris for Craig Fitzgibbon, a change that has more or less worked out.

If the Cowboys flop for the rest of this year, and have a poor start next year, the Cowboys football board will fire Payten at least a year early. Few will remember this extension if that happens, and it seems optimistic to promise he will surpass Paul Green (is that a good thing?), but in that event, Payten will paid some fraction (possibly close to one) of his salary for the years he won’t be coaching.

What is going on out there?

Trying to work out what the audience - the royal you - likes and doesn’t like is a guessing game. Substack’s analytics are not great, way too detailed in some areas and terrible for analysis in the aggregate. Whereas I grew up on an internet that prized views alone, and later followers, subscriptions and likes are also important these days. In deciding what to write, I follow my own interests and cross my fingers. The most viewed post of the year so far was about Origin stats and received one like. Go figure.

My most recent post got (relatively speaking to other posts) a lot of likes, a good number of views but strictly speaking cost me two subscribers.

I have been joking that these were chuds that unsubscribed but I think its more likely that they were email addresses no longer in use or Substack scrubbing spam subscribers, which I guess is a thing. It is entirely possible two people realised they were in the wrong place politically and decided they simply could not tolerate my presence in their inbox. If you’d like to correct their imbalance, the button is right here:

Subscribe now

Everyone is welcome, even those that disagree with me (provided you never talk to me).

In the meantime, if you’re on Meta’s premier social network for gas leak enthusiasts that seems to compromise entirely of brands talking to each other in front of half a billion people (really? I am expected to believe that?), consider chucking us a follow. You can join League Eye Test as a Context Collapsed Rooner and… that’s it. Just him.

Around the grounds

United States 2 defeated Australia 0. I remembered during this game that I need massive stakes to take an interest in soccer. The prize was going to be how good the posts would be if the Yanks lost. Alas. Americans can't post (about international sport, in English).

Paraguay 1 defeated Turkiye 0. Turkey stinks. Paraguay scored in less than 90 seconds, were a man down for half the game and still won. A very unfortunate diminishment of Australia’s victory.

Dolphins 36 defeated Tigers 22. Despite a set of Dolphins fans sitting next to the Fox mics, the commentators spent the entire game talking about the Tigers as if they were the protagonists and not an annoying speedbump. Redcliffe took care of business with a sub-par performance, possibly related to the missing personnel and having to play Brad Schneider, possibly related to having to play the Tigers. As with the Broncos in 2023, people will focus on the offensive punch but the real success is in having a resilient goal line defence. Jarome Luai sucks.

Titans 19 defeated Panthers 18. Hahahahahahahaha… hahahahhahahahaha… haaaaah. This is the Titans’ first win over the Panthers since 2019 and only their eighth ever. Not being a complete derelict, I don’t keep an up-to-date list of great Titans wins but this is not only their win of the year - the win over the Broncos is devaluing rapidly - but possibly of this decade. Massive wins over the Warriors, by 60 in 2024 and by 44 in 2021, would also be worthy contenders. The Titans didn’t play exceptionally well but took the chances given and hung tough. Cleary or otherwise, most teams down 12 to the Panthers would fold and the Titans did not. It is the first tangible proof of concept for the Hannay system with Zane Harrison as 7 and suggests that we might, this time for realsies, see an improvement in this team next season (do not confuse improvement with good). In this season, one more win and the Titans would pull ahead of the Broncos.

Warriors 38 defeated Cowboys 20. The Cowboys weren’t too far off the pace, going into the sheds down 14-10, a reasonable reflection of 30 of the half’s 40 minutes. Once Taumalolo got binned at 52’, an unfortunate accident but the punishment was a decent approximation of the prevailing philosophy at NRL HQ, North Queensland were never in the contest thereafter. The Warriors are, somehow, too slick and fast for the Cowboys, with Te Maire Martin having a career game. This result pegs the Cowboys appropriately: not able to compete with the top teams but not embarrassed either. The wheels could still come off but I’m looking for them in the bottom end of the eight.

Statewide split screening. Taylor Fenton of the Pride kicked herself a chip and chase in a see sawing contest that the Falcons eventually came out on top. Ipswich blew Tweed off the park in the women’s comp, with Moanekah Va’ai having a big hand in the Jets’ success, before, bafflingly, the men did the same to the Dolphins. Redcliffe scored all of their points in the last 15 minutes after the Jets got a 24 point lead, Brent Woolf binned and decided to cruise for the remaining hour or so. The Blackhawks shut out the league leading Falcons: I watched the game and still don’t really understand what happened. The possession share was even but Townsville outgained Sunshine Coast by 500 metres, so let’s keep an eye on the health of the Falcons’ pack for the rest of this season, and maybe the Blackhawks’ offence has finally arrived. The Devils have refound some form, comfortably taking care of the boring Wynnum Manly, and moving to 3-8-1. Won’t be enough for finals but will keep them above the Clydesdales and Hunters.

Intermission

You're supposed to drop to a knee there, Kodi.

And because I couldn't think of anywhere else to put it, here's the median American fan at the World Cup:

Is he… alive?

Technically, yes.

Upcoming slate

There’s a full slate of 34 games across the competitions and fewer than half are rated more than two stars of watchability and none get a full five stars. Worth noting the star rating system is designed to put about 20% of games at four or higher.

Dolphins vs Warriors, NRLM, Saturday 3pm, Suncorp

Proof that TV execs have no idea about rugby league is that this game is in the second least watched slot of the weekend. This brief respite from travel through the swamp that is the Origin-effected draw should be in prime time. I think, broadly, that the Warriors remain fraudulent and do not have the defensive chops that are required now that the set restart-a-thon has been eased off by the powers that be. The Dolphins can hold a line and have a better offence. Here is the Phins In: Tabuai-Fidow, Katoa, Plath, Cobbo and Flegler. Righto.

Tigers vs Jets, QDub, Saturday 2.30pm, Langlands

It is a bit early in the season to call this a heavyweight bout, not least because the Jets have rescheduled their round 2 game against Wynnum, but Ipswich have picked up where they left off last season, putting on big scores against the Pride and the Cutters. The Tigers lost a classic round 1 encounter against the Devils, but have also beaten the Cutters and the Falcons. Keen to see Va’ai and Marshall got head to head, as well as Wulf and Orchard.

Justice vs Nazis, WWII, 1945, Nuremberg

I watched Nuremberg (2025) on the flight home from England earlier in the year, which was fine but not great. Thanks to the excellent Unclear and Present Danger podcast, I found out there was an earlier TV miniseries from 2000 that has better writing (to a point), pacing and more Nazi hangings. The only drawback is that Russell Crowe’s Göring is superior to Brian Cox’s, but only just.

You gotta give the Broncos and Titans fans something to do because watching a vivisection from the Roosters and a boring bludgeoning from the Bulldogs, respectively, isn’t a way to spend your weekend.

Having said that, if I’ve seemed a bit maudlin lately, watching the few minutes of footage from concentration camps spliced into each movie1 is not a recipe to improve one’s mood, especially given the current political milieu. Anyway, have fun.

Welcome Shane to the Roon Gang

Luckily, Shane does not have any obvious personal details that lend would itself to an awful nickname. Thank you for your support of The Maroon Observer group.

You, too, may want to consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges. Your financial support keeps the lights on at The Maroon Observer.

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If you don’t want Substack clipping your ticket or to commit to an ongoing subscription, Ko-Fi is also available for one-off tips.

Stats pop

The Dolphins joined the Bulldogs and the pre-merger Dragons in having perfect records at Campbelltown Stadium in the NRL era. Canterbury last lost there in 1995. The Broncos haven’t lost at Campbelltown since 1992 but also drew with the Tigers in 2000, so haven’t batted 1.000.

This begs the question: do the Tigers have the worst record at their home ground, Campbelltown? The answer, to no one’s surprise, is yes.

Yes, you may say, but the Tigers are generally very bad. For purposes of comparison, the Titans have won 44.7% of their games played on the Gold Coast (210 games) and Wests Tigers - the very same team - have won an astonishing 57.2% of NRL games at Leichhardt Oval (104). The post-merger Tigers are at 39.3%, which is an improvement over the Magpies at 25%.

Does it mean anything? Probably not, sometimes there are weird splits in statistics, but it should make for an interesting couple of years for the Tigers while the NSW government redevelops Leichhardt Oval.

Nickelware

Read this

• Eye Test - How HIAs are impacting NRL clubs in 2026

• What You Get Is What You See - The FIFA World Cup proves rugby league was ahead of the curve

• The Sportress - Six, again: Normal?

• Storm Machine - Game 756 – S29E16 Review

Notes

• Raising money for good causes is not within my skillset. I’ve tried and I just don’t have the knack for it to meet my own, apparently lofty, standards. To make up for this, I am a reliable donator of money. If I see people I barely know raising money by doing something difficult/humiliating, I will usually sling them a bank note. To that end, two subscribers - Luke (aka ”Bones”) and Bron - are raising money via the City 2 Surf. If you have a few bucks and feel like doing a good deed before EOFY, consider sending it their way.

• Following the Christchurch game, I started writing a chunk about expansion but think I’m going to do it as a standalone feature.

• Highest ever Origin audience for Origin II

• NRL to grant Perth Bears $500k salary cap concessions in landmark third-party arrangement. Helps to be owned by the NRL, I suppose. Normally, this would be a scandal but not in this decade. Watching rugby league authorities to try manage labour market is like watching the federal government manage the property market. What if we just added more fuel to the fire?

• Rugby club [Keighley] owners quit over homophobic abuse. At some point, the fans of lower league clubs will stop chasing away people trying to keep their clubs afloat. It will probably be when those clubs disappear.

• Metro buses revealed as alternative to axed stage 4 light rail. Premier David Crisafulli said the “generational infrastructure” was reflecting the feedback from those on the southern Gold Coast. “We are delivering infrastructure for a growing state to protect the lifestyle of the people already here,” he said. We are building generational infrastructure by not building infrastructure that might offend the richie rich types at the southern end of the Gold Coast.

• More Morrin

• Hunt Signs On Through 2027. DEI includes senior citizens apparently.

• Scroll back up to those links and donate some money. I am making a list.

Welcome to the Pony Picayune, a regular, independent newsletter about the Brisbane Broncos.

The season is over. We don’t need to sugar coat or hand wring. The Broncos have ten games left on their schedule and to scrape into finals, will need to win at least eight. Recapturing the magic of last year will not produce eight wins in total, let alone in addition to the current tally of five, and that is without considering the crushingly difficult run of opponents left on the schedule.

It’s over. Put a fork in it. We’re done. Save it for the season review.1

Earlier this year, the University of Indiana’s football team won a national title. After decades of being one of the worst teams in the top flight of college American football, they broke through with their first title in an undefeated season. For a Hoosiers fan, how could that experience be topped? More success may come but it is never going to be like this. In all likelihood, there is going to be more pain and frustration in the future than elation and relief. That’s the maths of being a sports fan. Indiana fans have gotten almost everything positive they’re ever going to get. Why keep going? Why turn up next year? You could retire from being a fan and go out on top.

People’s reasons for turning up again next year are as numerous as there are people: an unfathomable and irrational love of the institution, a strengthening of bonds with family and friends, deeply ingrained habits (what else am I going to do with my Friday nights? I’m 38), community and geography, nostalgia and strong memories. Note that all of this seems to be divorced from the results, which is funny given the win-at-all-costs mentality that prevails in professional sport, but suggests these attachments are built around a church-like shape in people’s lives.

Since covid, following the Broncos has meant following a team that ranges from below average to outright bad. With the exception of the 2023 and 2025 seasons, the Broncos have missed the finals every year since 58-nil. No Broncos fan cares about making finals for its own sake. We’ve gorged on decades of near-meaningless finals appearances but the 20s have been a desert. While acknowleding that all but two or three clubs would cut arms off and sacrifice first borns for the kind of rebuild the Broncos have had, the Broncos’ winning percentage since the covid restart is a lofty 46.8%, the seventh worst mark in the league. The two best marks are held by the only other premiers in this epoch. The desert did include two oasis-like grand finals appearances, in which the Broncos won one and nearly won the other. This dissonance mirrors the week-to-week experience of watching Brisbane play.

In 2025, the Broncos put it all together and won. Last year wasn’t the first Broncos title but it was the first in a long time and the most thrilling. A late season surge translated into three come-from-behind victories in the finals, a feat that is unlikely to be repeated for its spectacle, panache and defiance; the only known antidote to the Panthers’ formula. So why not get out while the going’s good?

I was born in 1987 in Brisbane and while I’ve travelled, I have never left Brisbane, a place that is extraordinary for its ordinariness. In the environment I grew up in, the prevailing sport was rugby league and the local team is the Brisbane Broncos. They were the biggest thing in town when I was a kid. Becoming a fan seemed as natural as being a fish in water. I’m surprised at how complicated some other people make it for themselves. While I come from a line of casual league fans, it was never a load bearing pillar of my familial relationships, even if it is for some friendships, but having made rugby league posting my passion project for the better part of a decade, the Broncos are deeply embedded in the mental wiring in a way that I may never fully untangle.

So this is not my resignation letter from the Broncos fanbase. Even though that would likely improve my quality of life in some respects, I like being rooted in this particular place and time not because it is special in some way but because it is mine. If the friendships I’ve strengthened and acquaintances I’ve made in the orbit of this club, and a collection of jerseys, a lot of expended emotional energy and fading memories are all I have to show for it, so be it. We are all but dust and the eventual heat death of the universe will render all of this meaningless. The time you have is special because it is yours.

The Brisbane Broncos Pty Ltd do not see their fanbase as a collection of people with wants and needs. The Broncos exist to leverage our connection to our city and to the sport for its profit. While a lot of what follows will be directed at BBL, I don’t think there is anything particular about the ownership, the stock listing or the club’s governance that make it uniquely capable of being apathetic, even hostile, to its fanbase’s need for ethical leadership. All NRL clubs are at risk of this, as frequently documented in this newsletter, and this helps rule out switching allegiances as a solution to the conundrum created by the Broncos inviting Ben Roberts-Smith and his children into the sheds after the Dragons game.

Some of you are undoubtedly rolling your eyes at this. Just let it go, nothing’s going to change. More of you probably forgot that it happened. Oh yeah, whatever happened with that? A few of you may even be mentally preparing a defence. He’s an Australian war hero unjustly undermined by a woke establishment. More than a few of you will agree with me that, whatever happened there, sucks ass.

The frustrations layer upon themselves into a shit parfait. Who is Roberts-Smith to this club? I’ve been here for ages. I’ve been a paying member for nearly a decade. I even technically own a very small part of the club. How is this man privileged above me, and the thousands like me? Not that I have an interest in going to the Broncos’ dressing room but it would be nice to be asked. There wasn’t even a contest for it.

Broncos chairman Karl Morris claims Roberts-Smith is a citizen like everyone else. Except that almost no citizens of Australia are currently going through a criminal proceeding to determine whether they committed war crimes. It is, pretty much, just him. That the findings of Roberts-Smith’s defamation case in the Federal Court boil down to several allegations of murder, and more allegations of ordering subordinates to do likewise, makes me feel insane. How is this guy walking around? He has rich and powerful friends, does he? That says wonderful things about our society.

While it would be cleaner to set aside the culture war baggage, that Roberts-Smith is a totem of the chuddish, uninformed, right wing of the electorate, who think war is a free-for-all with no holds barred instead of a carefully orchestrated event that has laws because, if nothing else, you never know when you will be the civilian suffering violence at the hands of an alien armed force, is a factor in my grievance. Accordingly, I don’t think Adam Walsh’s fetishisation of the military complex and commitment to Whatever It Takes should be a cornerstone of Broncos’ approach to reputation management and I certainly do not want to be associated with it. Men would rather idolise an accused war criminal than go to therapy, its gender all the way down, crisis of toxic masculinity, etc, etc.

All of this is appalling. I wrote an email to the club, expressing that sentiment. They responded by thanking me for sharing my views, which are varied across the Broncos fanbase. I wrote back telling them that wasn’t much of a response, and that I would like an explanation - not even an apology or a commitment to making amends or heads on spikes, an explanation - and was met with silence. I asked for something entirely reasonable, in nice but firm terms, and did not receive it. How much do I need to pay to get an answer?

I was unsurprised by this, just as I was unsurprised by the Broncos deploying the overly optimistic strategy of ignoring it and hoping it will go away. I am floored by the stupidity of it all but felt strangely hurt. Despite all of the following words being true and known in advance, the Brisbane Broncos Limited is a small-to-medium enterprise, and run accordingly, that happens to be owned by the Murdoch family. I can’t believe they would not care about me.

The episode reflects the endemic attitude of the Broncos that they can take their fanbase for granted. The Broncos do this because they can. The member hotline is only open 10am to 4pm, five days a week, and I think this represents a recent increase in operating hours. If, as a customer that spends several hundred dollars with the organisation every year, you wanted some help without making a phone call, be prepared to wait a few days for someone to use GPT to read and respond to your email. Presuming that even happens at all, as when I signed up for a digital membership this year, only to have to follow up when the Kayo code did not arrive in my inbox after spending nearly $400. This level of customer service would not be accepted from any other organisation as omnipresent and regularly profitable as BBL, like a bank or a utility. Yet here we are, living at the whims of people who should be grateful to serve but know you’ll keep coming back anyway.

We’re all just numbers in a spreadsheet and provided there’s a good reason to explain why number go up or number go down, no one making any decisions about how those numbers are treated, will ever encounter any accountability about doing the right thing by the numbers. Dave Donaghy’s most recent missive to the membership was not about how an alleged criminal ended up in proximity to Kotoni Staggs and Michael Maguire but how the number of members just crashed through 70,000, a new record.

After several thousand words, I am still no clearer on what to do. I do not feel like throwing out my jerseys but I also do not want to wear one. I could wear a Kangaroos or Maroons jersey instead because Australia and Queensland have never hurt anyone.2 I definitely do not want to give these people any more of my money but I probably will to facilitate other aspects of a tenuous social life. I do not care about the on-field performance but it is easy not to care when it is so bad.

I will probably just wait it out. Like I did with Matt Lodge and Anthony Seibold - both bad but for different reasons - because, eventually, the club will turn over the donkeys. When that happens, I will still be here, so will the city of Brisbane, and we will want to watch the Broncos, whoever they may be, play.

We are all prisoners in a society of our own making, brains weighed down with the nightmarish traditions of the past. As pithy and insightful as those latter words were, Napoleon III was ultimately undone by a war with the Prussians, two decades later. If the 2020s are as reactionary as the 1850s, then it may be the 2040s before we see any change. May we all live long enough to see it.

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Read more

You win some, you lose some…

“…BUT NOT FOR ME” - Billy Slater

I have to say that I thought the vibes were rancid heading into this one. A Vlandoball Blunami could be the worst thing to happen to the sport since V’landys himself. With Flegler dropping a ball inside the first ten minutes, leading directly to a try and undermining the fast start that all the pundits had told me was Queensland’s lone advantage against a Blues side with too much strike and class, only confirmed this. Cleary and Moses? Oh no!

An important lesson from the second game of the 2026 State of Origin series was the identification of this category error. To confuse Slater’s overarching strategy with the team’s in-game tactics and zero in on the latter as the path to victory was shown for the false premise we should have all understood it to be. Slater has at least the minimal chops as a coach to pick a side that he wants, that will play for him and play his style of footy: assertive in the ruck, effective on the attack, quick quick quick while having a near perfect completion rate (95%!).

In something of a rarity in recent years, Queensland looked like the superior team from start to finish. At half time, down by only four thanks to the aforementioned Flegler error, the result was clearly in reach. It wasn’t until late in the game that it was clear just how badly it had gotten out of hand for the Blues. The Maroons finished up by 20 points, ran for 300 more metres and had the ball for an additional five minutes.

Queensland under Slater has shown itself to be inventive and flexible, capable of finding myriad paths to victory. There are limits - refer the outcome of the first game - but when the margins are this fine, this strategy has shown itself capable of trumping on-paper talent, albeit horribly mismanaged, time and time again.

For the record, my failure of analysis was that I’m a huge bitch and I reserve that right forevermore, so a second important lesson that is as applicable to footy as it is to life in general: no one cares what you think. What you feel does not matter. It does not matter what you personally think of Billy Slater or his ideas. It does not matter what you think of the lineups. It does not matter how badly you took the Ash Klein penis explosion/send off debacle. None of that has any impact on the game. The irony of writing this in my newsletter is not lost on me.

From two games, totalling 160 minutes of play, the Maroons have been the better team for around 130 of them. The balance of that 30 was the Origin coronation of “King” Cleary, aided and abetted by a man-advantage that everyone seems to have conveniently overlooked and was the deciding factor in their favour at that time.

We should have known New South Wales would fail as soon as “Cleary is undefeated against every player on the Queensland roster this year*” was pumped out on social media, a companion to the very relevant “the Panthers have won 93 million day time games” from last season. Dude should just hit the ice in his veins again and then retire. Spare us all the second hand embarrassment created by your biggest defenders.

Despite this dominance, the Maroons return to Brisbane in three weeks needing to win a decider. Given the absolute disasterclass that Laurie Daley represents for the Blues and the well-established home ground advantage of Suncorp Stadium, it almost seems a foregone conclusion. Let’s hope the Blues believe that and that Slater does enough to keep the Maroons focussed.

There are other lessons. Kotoni Staggs is, unfortunately for him, not going to be an Origin mainstay. This is welcome news for the Broncos and the fanbase, not least because we are only allowed one (1) walk-up starter for the Blues on the roster. Glenn Lazarus, Mick De Vere and Payne Haas represent a tradition of permitting one cockroach on the team and no more. Mitch Barnett seems poised to take Haas’ place.

In stark contrast, Selwyn Cobbo has picked up the Origin Gagai mantle. I dub thee, Qobbo. Perhaps more importantly, he took care of Staggs. This bodes well for one of the Dolphins’ three key wins and I am willing to sacrifice the second Conflict on Caxton of 2026 for the greater good of propelling the Dolphins deep into September. It is for the benefit of the greater capital city statistical area.

It is curious that when Ponga is hit in the head, that's just a sin bin, but when Ponga does the head hitting, Klein invokes his DUTY OF CARE and sends him off. Strange! Another important lesson appears to be that the concept of duty of care is very malleable? I don’t think the hierarchy of controls suggests the identity of a person is a potential control measure. Perhaps a lawyer had a word with Klein about not admitting the obvious vis-a-vis the head-mushing nature of rugby league in a medium that is discoverable. I’m sure our Sydney-based media apparatus will be all over this.

Speaking of Strange, are we going to keep ignoring this?

C’mon man, no one even knows who Charlie Chaplin is anymore.

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Around the grounds

Rabbitohs 48 defeated Broncos 6. Not sure the Broncos will win another game this season. Do not ask for whom the mean regresses, it regress for thee.

Dolphins 48 defeated Roosters 10. Chalk up a victory for the Redcliffe Dolphins over the Coogee Dolphins. Redcliffe were missing a stack of players but didn't appear to suffer for the absence. It speaks to the depth of the squad, which is surprising for the newest team in the league but also has a great deal of resilience built in after three seasons of injury crisis. Katoa and his team have dialled in the time signature.

Tigers 36 defeated Titans 28. While dog walking off my disappointment, yet again, with Gold Coast, it occurred to me that, statistically, the last thing at least a few people watch before they die is the Titans play football. I can't think of many more tragic things than that. Jarome Luai retains the most punchable face in the NRL and has shown no capacity for humility or self-reflection, as demonstrated by celebrating the try Phillip Sami handed him, as Sami’s brain collapsed into itself like a black hole. The hype man act has its limits. The Tigers limping into the finals, a great success by their standards, is evidence enough of that.

Super League highlight sprint, round 14. Rubbish weekend of footy and even the good stuff was bad. One of the Warrington players scored an 80 metre try and by the end of the chase, the ref had overhauled three Saints chasers, all alleged professional athletes. Toulouse if nothing else, and between terrible defence and awful kick defusals, there is very little else, will put up the gloves. Down 30-6, they narrowed to 30-24 before Leeds pulled away again. Continue to be disappointed no one prised Junior Nsemba away from Wigan. York scored a try directly from a line drop out and no other points in a thrashing thanks to Rovers. Catalans had mud puddles in their goal areas.

U19 Queensland 22 defeated New South Wales 18 (W). Queensland haven’t won this fixture since the Emily Bella game in 2023. A scrappy match, particularly for the Maroons, but it opened up in the last ten. Queensland looked like the more resilient and coherent team, even if it took some time for that to come to the fore, and dug themselves out of an eight point hole - true Maroons stuff. Enah Desic and Lilianah Lewis absolutely look the goods, the former for her skill, the latter for her running and both for their leadership. I’m already a Paitai guy, Deleni in this case, but Pollock showed some of the promise from her junior rep stint last year.

U19 Queensland 28 defeated New South Wales 14 (M). Queensland have never won the junior double (NSW have in ‘19, ‘22 and ‘24) and have not won back-to-back since the introduction of under 20s Origin in 2012 (it took until 2018 to even win one), so a controlled demolition of the Blues junior representatives was a pleasant surprise. It is with great pain that we acknowledge Alize Clarke looks the goods and is of course signed to the Melbourne Storm and Lateo had a solid outing but this win belongs to forwards, who collectively, brought the game to heel, starved the Blues of oxygen and space and, as the saying goes, laid a platform. Two try Tupou Francis is signed to the Broncos, in case you were wondering.

Ashley Klein hat ein großes Problem (mit der Gamblor)

NRL’s number one referee had $400k gambling problem:

An investigation by the Herald can reveal the NRL knew of Klein’s gambling issues for four years but let him continue to referee matches at the top level….

But away from the bright lights of packed stadiums, it can be revealed that Klein had a gambling habit that became the subject of an NRL investigation.

According to sources with knowledge of the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity, he lost more than $400,000 punting on horse racing and greyhound racing with corporate bookmakers before closing his accounts and placing himself on BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, in 2023.

To quote Matt Bungard, “there’s no evidence that any of it had anything to do with rugby league, but what if it did?”

This is the rational, objective response. Like many people, I had an irrational response. That a response is irrational doesn’t necessarily make it wrong - what else is intuition but an instinctive irrationality? - but some work needs to be done to justify it.

I don’t like the smell of it. It would have been better if this was out in the open in 2019, Klein had gone into rehab and then come back for the next season. Instead, we’re finding out about this years after the fact. That it has taken this route suggests someone has something to hide.

Is it any of our business? I think so, for perception’s sake if nothing else. Do you need to know Ezra Mam is an unlicenced-driving, drug-addled child-murderer? It is plainly not the same thing, as Klein hasn’t committed a crime and there is plenty of unethical behaviour that is not illegal, but it’s in the same constellation of consideration. A high profile executive at a public company with an addiction would put under a similar scrutiny. Why were we not owed a carefully worded press release and Klein owed some paid time off?

And then what is the purpose of this story dropping here and now? Maybe there are some more clues:

In another twist to the scandal that has rocked the NRL, it has now emerged that Klein has been doing career training at Racing NSW. Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys, who is also chief executive of Racing NSW, declined to comment.

Klein was pictured sitting on the Racing NSW stewards panel observing a protest hearing after a race at Royal Randwick racecourse on April 27.

According to a source with knowledge of Klein’s activities at Racing NSW, he has regularly spent one day a week with its integrity team shadowing staff.

The 46-year-old, who has been a referee in the NRL since 2009, has also done a day’s work experience with the Australian Turf Club, which operates Sydney’s racetracks, and is said to be interested in working in sport administration when he hangs up the whistle.

Klein has been a guest of Racing NSW in racecourse function rooms with his partner, Elly Howse, who was until recently policy director for NSW Racing Minister David Harris and now works for NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley.

What’s with all the cops in V’landys’ orbit? That’s super weird.

Klein hewing closely to V’landys’ set restart agenda in exchange for later career opportunities at least explains his refereeing. That’s par for the course professional corruption in Australia though, so what else is there?

Klein’s gambling was first flagged with the NRL in 2019, when Todd Greenberg was CEO and Peter Beattie was chairman of the ARL Commission…

A source with knowledge of the matter said it had been reported to the Beattie-led commission after the initial investigation seven years ago.

But Beattie, who was chairman until V’landys took over in October 2019, said the commission was not briefed at the time.

On Monday he asked the NRL company secretary to go through the minutes of board meetings to check whether Klein’s betting had come up when he was chairman.

“I checked the records and it never went to the commission,” Beattie said.

The Herald understands at least one other ARL commissioner was shocked by last week’s revelations, feeling blindsided they weren’t informed the game’s top referee had such a large gambling problem when it was known to the NRL.

The NRL has declined to answer questions about whether V’landys and the other seven members of the commission were aware of the 2019 investigation and the subsequent monitoring of Klein’s betting in the years after it.

Greenberg, who left the NRL in 2020 and was replaced by Andrew Abdo, declined to comment.

One way to read this is that the NRL conducted an internal investigation and didn’t see the need to raise it with the Commission and the unnamed source has confused the ARLC and NRL. Another way is that this is exactly the kind of thing the ARLC should be across so they can decide if and how they want to manage the risk. Neither angle is compelling.

Certainly, Greenberg knew and probably V’landys was aware, if for no other reason than a NRL referee with a gambling problem on horse racing is the kind of thing that gets gossiped about. Beattie could claim to be officially in the dark if he didn’t roll in the right circles. It adds another layer of conspiracy, for no real reason than I don't trust any of these people to be on the level.

Wiping away the patina of grime on this story, whether it matters depends on what motivation there is to reveal it. No one leaks anything this seemingly dirty for no reason. If you wanted to annoy the new god-emperor of rugby league, this might be a way to do it. If you wanted to lower the potential for broadcast rights by any means necessary, this might be a way to do it. If you wanted to fill the column inches in an otherwise quiet Origin period, this is a way to do that.

If you wanted to be a dick to Ash Klein, that seems as good a reason as any.

Intermission

Could’ve spent ages scanning for this in the game coverage but Reddit has saved me the trouble. Bless you, u/CreataceousClock.

That’s not a World Cup, this is a World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, presented by a half dozen massive multi-national corporations leveraging your patriotism into their profit margins, is underway in North America.

Yanks on the comms is awful stuff. The accent conveys no confidence that these slackjaws know what they’re talking about. Back to the Big 10 with you, bud.

It’s a time to half-remember to watch the games, a feat that easier during the WFH days than weekends, so we can get an update on who has changed their names. Once a upon a time, it would have been South Korea versus Czech Republic and now its Korea Republic against Czechia. Cabo Verde? More like Cabo Merda, amiritefolks? Oh, they drew with Spain? Nice. Good for them.

It’s a time for soccer nerds to debut their new models, without ever explaining how those models actually work or how they have been calibrated on a tournament that occurs once every four years. I think that’s something that’s changed over the time I’ve been doing this. You used to be able to expect a reasonable explanation of how a metric worked (so you could then re-appropriate it) but now it’s all anthropomorphising mathematical models with stupid backronyms. Bah!

It’s a time for rugby league nerds to get into their feelings about how our World Cup stinks and everyone else’s World Cup is better. Even rugby union has a big World Cup. Have you watched rugby union? How does that bloody happen? For a sport with two professional leagues spanning all of four countries (soon to be five), it’s amazing the RLWC exists at all. Frankly, you can keep your big crowds and worldwide attention and blue chip sponsors.

You know who’s really in their feelings? The Americans.

Ray Ratto put together a good post contrasting the two results so far in Group D: The USMNT Won With Flair. Can It Win A Grind? A fair and reasonable question, unless you are an American facing the void of global embarrassment, as if the Bush regime hadn’t beaten the Trump regime and the USMNT to the punch.

I’ve decided the worst sports fan is the one who responds to even analysis that isn’t unvarnished praise with OH MY GOD, JUST LET ME ENJOY THINGS.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Defector, the US just dominated in a WC game against a team they eked out a 2-1 victory against like 8 months ago, what the fuck else do they have to do? The Style Guide strikes again, my god.

I think it is cool and good that the US got to win a game in style to start things off. Will they win another game? Who knows. Will they have still won this one 4 - 1? Yeah. Enjoying things is good, especially when there are fewer and fewer things to enjoy each day for most of us

Yeah maybe it was a mirage but seeing a USMNT play like this in a World Cup was astonishing. They beat the piss out of the supposed best or second best team in the group. That was fuckin cool.

It was not. This is the second worst kind of sports fan. A country 50 times the population and 200 times the economy of Paraguay should not be celebrating victory. It is unseemly. Have some shame.

The third worst kind are the ones who think the Knicks winning represents some kind of blow against fascism. Only in Noo Yawk do teams winning championships mean something special. Spare me but at least that's contained to the contiguous 48. Let’s hear from the less deranged fans.

This is a skill issue, America. You can’t handle international sport. No one feels sorry for you and no one will celebrate your success, if any. You don’t get it.

Upcoming slate

This weekend’s club footy looks appalling. Even the statewide competition offering is poor while the NRL has some enthralling encounters, including the radioactive Knights-Dragons, toxic Bulldogs-Seagles and the sickos-only Storm-Raiders game. St Helens are playing Huddersfield, in rugby league, a game no one should watch.

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Notes

• The Eels have lifted themselves off the bottom of the ladder in an otherwise disastrous season by beating the worst teams: Broncos, Raiders, Bulldogs, Dragons. That Parra beat the Cowboys and not the Titans is interesting.

• New Zealand Warriors CEO’s stark warning to Southern Orcas over NRL expansion declaration. This is Cameron George talking his book and after his time at Bradford, we don’t really want Andrew Chalmers anywhere near the sport. Still, ‘Orcas’ is a cool name, Christchurch makes a lot of sense both from a stadium and potential catchment perspective, we are very likely to see a Dolphins-effect on the Warriors (rather than cannibalisation) but the bid suffers from the fact that the Orcas aren’t the Ipswich Jets, and would sit outside this newsletter’s remit. Challenging decision ahead.

• State of Origin simulcast, Monday night football calls loom as NRL close to finalising TV rights deal. Like expansion chat, the need for a constant series of bombshells to keep senescent boomers re-upping their News subscriptions makes broadcast deal chat very tedious. None of it means anything. They’ve ruined it. We'll find out the details in due course and we have no way of affecting the outcome if it sucks, except by walking away.

• Lang Park upgrade: Big screens, 1000 more seats in time for Rugby World Cup. That sounds like a waste of time and money.

• St Helens winger Feldt released from contract

• Arise, Sir Kevin: Sinfield knighted in king’s birthday honours list

• Championship clubs agree key Salary Cap changes for 2027. Very weird seeing my ideas from a few years ago be implemented. Hope it works!

• Australia’s Queensland commits AU$3.2 billion to CopperString transmission project. Very funny that the state government came to power opposing renewables and throwing all sorts of questions out there about the future of energy that have been resolved for a long time, while now tossing another $800 million at a project whose main purpose is to create a string of renewable energy zones in North Queensland.

Welcome to the Phin Review, a regular, independent newsletter about The Dolphins that is not the Australian Financial Review.

This chart would normally be behind the paywall but it neatly demonstrates a point I would like to make:

It feels very much like praising the Dolphins for their turnaround since the last edition of the Phin Review would be ringing the bell at the top of the market. That is the typically silly behaviour we engage in for these club newsletters, signalling the apex of the season with our exuberance and the nadir with our melancholy. Nonetheless, like Kurt Donoghue claiming a loose ball during a seemingly dead play against the Cowboys, I am going to plough ahead.

The Futures on The Almanac have the Dolphins at a near-certainty of making finals and gives them the third best odds of winning the premiership, albeit Penrith are currently twice as likely and this assumes the Phins maintain their current level of form.

Over the course of the season, Redcliffe have scored 0.8 tries more than their opposition per game but over the last six weeks, that number is +2.7, the second best in the league. Their recent form is the second best in the league for net metres and fifth best for net line breaks.

The advanced metrics haven’t caught up with the avalanche of points that are likely to come, now that the team is fit and firing, but has caught the Dolphins’ stingy (or efficient, if you prefer) defence. As it stands, the Dolphins are not quite at the Panthers’ or Warriors’ level but sit in the next group with the Roosters and Sea Eagles, facts reflected in Almanac tables and on the NRL ladder.

Those are all good numbers. They do not quite reach the heights of the back half of 2025, where the team was somewhat better again, but eclipsing that should not be a challenge if the Dolphins are going to have top four aspirations. While the line on the first graph may not continue to rise, if they can keep it going sideways, they’ll be on track.

The run home is full of pot holes, which the Dolphins love to fall in and wallow about (as per rounds 19 through 23 last year), but if they are serious, then they will need to find a way to deal. The three key opponents are the Roosters, the Knights and the Broncos.

The Roosters are putting together a similar resume to the Dolphins. They have similar points difference, Sydney have one more win than Redcliffe and both are competing for the top four on a pile of shootouts. While this most immediate clash will not be the blockbuster we need, thanks to Origin sludge, the return match towards the end of the season will be far more insightful. The Dolphins’ only win over the Roosters came in their very famous first encounter.

The Knights have been bad the entire time the Dolphins have been in the league, but other than their first encounter in 2023, the Knights have won every meeting between these two teams. Their criminally dull style of play seems to put the Dolphins to sleep in defence and the Red Fish sway slowly side-to-side when on the attack and fail to break the Novocastrian line. It is boring and it is infuriating. Put the frauds to the sword.

The Dolphins have only beaten the Broncos once, in a smashing that ruled Brisbane out of the finals in 2024. A reverse smashing in 2025 all but ended the Dolphins’ hopes of making the post-season for the first time. The Broncos are in very sick shape right now and are ripe for another pantsing.

A focus on these three key matches, adding a second win to where only one exists, and a high level of performance across the rest of the schedule and we can start thinking about how far the Dolphins can go in September.

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Quper League

(with a chapeau to Rooner Matty for that one)

It’s the news of the weekend:

Broncos chairman Karl Morris defended the club’s decision to invite Roberts-Smith to the Dragons game.

“He is able to come to watch the Broncos anytime,” Morris said.

“He is like any other citizen out there.

“That’s within his right (to attend a Broncos match) and that’s all I want to say.”

Cool stuff, mate. Doesn’t like something a snivelling weasel would come up with at all!

Actually, that wasn’t the news of the weekend, nor was V’landys’ dithering on the same topic, nor was the Broncos failing to beat the two worst teams in the NRL in back-to-back weeks, extending their losing streak after inviting a man charged with war crimes into the dressing room sheds, nor was failing to explain why such a man’s family was extended any preferential treatment in the first place.

No, we found out on Friday night that it was two tribes going to war; it was Quper League:

This masthead can reveal a rebel Queensland Super League has been discussed in what would represent the biggest political bombshell in the 104-year history1 of the Sunshine State’s premier competition.

Several executives have met over the past month to discuss breaking away from the Queensland Rugby League’s famous Hostplus Cup competition and setting up a rebel 12-team league.

The 12-team Super League proposal includes clubs from Burleigh, Brisbane Tigers, Wynnum Manly, Norths Devils, Ipswich, Townsville, Northern Pride and Papua New Guinea.

Brian Canavan, chairman of the QRL, responded on Saturday morning via press release:

The Queensland Rugby League (QRL) categorically rejects suggestions that a breakaway “Super League-style” competition is being established in Queensland.

Any rugby league competition played in Queensland is to be administered by the QRL as stated in the Australian Rugby League Members Agreement.

…

The scenario described in today’s reporting has not been discussed with the QRL and does not reflect any sanctioned process.

The QRL established a Statewide Competitions Working Group to consider the future structure of the Hostplus Cup, including the potential involvement of the Queensland-based NRL clubs.

Wynnum Manly, Ipswich and Easts all issued denials via social media on the same morning. Then:

One of the Queensland Rugby League’s most respected board members has tendered his resignation in the wake of revelations of a proposed 12-team rebel competition.

This masthead can reveal QRL director Brendan O’Farrell suddenly resigned on Saturday - just 24 hours after it was revealed some Hostplus Cup club officials had held secret talks on a Super League-style breakaway competition.

Also a member of the Broncos Leagues Club board, O’Farrell joined the QRL executive in 2024 and was understood to be supportive of a proposal for the Queensland Cup to be expanded from 15 to 18 teams in 2027 or 2028.

My god, the drama of it all! Except… we have one person writing these stories: Peter “Stinky Pete” Badel.

His original article cites two (2) anonymous club sources to describe the frustrations (some? most? few?) clubs are feeling in the alleged push for Quper League. His story about O’Farrell’s resignation is based on a single leaked email, whose text is quoted below.

In both stories, Badel conflates these events with each other and with Micheal Luck’s recent $2 million bombshell (Luck apparently had nothing to do with Quper League) and/or the REAL REASON Ikin resigned as QRL CEO (Ikin got a different offer from a tech company, one I assume that paid much better). Sometimes reporters do this because they’re hinting at a story that they can’t fully report yet but in this case, when you strip back the hyperbole, it all starts to look thin. Consider the reported facts:

• The QRL began a review of its statewide competitions after last season.

• We have not heard anything further about that process and it is now June.

• Some clubs may or may not have had a discussion about breaking away from the QRL but if they had, they hadn’t worked out who was going to pay for it or any of the other important logistics of such a decision (more on this in a second).

• The QRL does not support a breakaway competition and four of the eight clubs publicly denied their involvement.

• Ben Ikin recently resigned as CEO.

• Brendan O’Farrell also resigned from the board.

That’s about it. Here’s what we don’t know:

• How the QRL’s review is going, when the review was planned to be finished or what the review’s findings are likely to be.

• How a Quper League would be funded or under whose auspices it would operate.

• Whether the other four clubs are sitting pat ahead of an announcement or did not see the value in denying it or did not have the resources available to deal with it on game day (e.g. the Blackhawks issuing their denial on Monday night).

• Whether Brendan O’Farrell is resigning for the stated or for other reasons, and whether that actually matters.

Here’s O’Farrell’s leaked email:

“I have made the tough decision to step down from the QRL Board as the Statewide Cup representative, effective 6th June, 2026,” O’Farrell writes.

“I wish to thank you for the opportunity to represent the Statewide Cup Clubs as a director on the QRL Board.

“It has been a privilege to be entrusted with this role, and to act as your voice on the Board.

“Unfortunately, my time commitments across my other responsibilities have reached a point where I can no longer give this position the attention it deserves.

“I appreciate many who have relayed frustrations to me, and I can assure you that the QRL Board is aware of these concerns and are committed to addressing them.

“Until such time as a replacement director is found the best point of contact will be the QRL chair, Brian Canavan, who I have copied into the email for transparency.”

That can read as someone who is fed up with the QRL fat cats taking forever to make a decision and preparing to become Quper League CEO, and I think that is the impression that Badel wants you to have because it is more interesting, or it can be read as someone who needs to move on from this position - for personal reasons or because they’re sick of people whinging or whatever - while in the middle of a delicate stakeholder negotiation and wants to make a professional, but quick, exit.

I’m not saying this is nothing - smoke, fire, etc - but I’m also not going to spend a lot of time considering the implications until it is more substantive. By the time you read this, Badel may have added another chapter before it runs out of steam, just like they managed to spin the Ipswich Jets would like a NRL licence, please into a week’s worth of content. Look: more 20th team chat, this time for 2029.

To the extent that it exists, it is as likely that Quper League is a negotiating tactic from some of the more fed-up clubs to extract more money, in the mould of the Grand Prix Manufacturer’s Association, as it is a plan to revolutionise rugby league in Queensland and capture all this cash left lying on the table (grand total: 15 cents).

Now, let’s spend a lot of time considering the implications. You can tell this plan wasn’t well thought through. This shouldn’t be a quote that can be given:

“They are clearly not happy with how the QRL is running the game,” said one QRL source. “But who is going to run the rebel comp if the NRL won’t fund it?”

That’s the kind of thing that should be worked out before anyone talks to the Courier Mail. The other source expounded:

“Clubs are taking the matter into their own hands,” he said. “We would want the NRL to govern a Queensland Super League competition. They provide most of the funding to the QRL anyway. This is not a move that will be taken lightly but the QRL is running dead on the future of the competition. The QRL set up a working group last October and have now disbanded that group with nothing to show for their work. Hard decisions need to be made and the QRL won’t make them. The QRL is doing rugby league a disservice in Queensland.”

Given that the QRL has a vote on the ARLC, and the ARLC runs the NRL, and the “interim” CEO of the NRL would very much like the Commission’s support to push through some significant changes in governance, how do you think the politics of that is going to play out? Seems like an inopportune time for this gambit. You might also want some advanced assurance from V’landys, despite him showing precisely no interest in non-NRL rugby league, other than one off-the-cuff comment about directly funding the statewide clubs back when the NRL and QRL were feuding.

Continuing:

“The Hostplus Cup has to stay a second-tier comp and it can do that with the NRL clubs fielding teams. If the QRL keeps the doors closed to the NRL clubs, they increase the risk of an NRL reserve grade reforming. That will mean the Hostplus Cup is history because it will be a third-tier league – and there will be no funding to fly teams around the state. The QRL needs to have the Cowboys, Titans, Dolphins and Broncos in the Queensland Cup to safeguard the competition for the long term. If an NRL reserve grade starts up, the Queensland Cup is essentially dead.”

This is all true. I’ve been saying it for years but without making such a mess of my underwear. While some have switched sides, the front remains exactly where it was.

Quper League isn’t going to solve this. Partly this is because no one has addressed what happens with junior and women’s footy - worth remembering that neither the Dolphins nor Blackhawks could scrape a women’s team together for this season but they think they can pull this off? - but the mix of clubs is wrong. The mooted eight would be the ones who see themselves as above league average but they don’t have what a Quper League needs.

If you wanted to have a theoretically commercially viable Quper League, you wouldn’t bring the Norths Devils and Bishop Park with you. Last year’s grand final attendance, played just down the road from Nundah at Redcliffe, between the very successful Devils and the Burleigh Bears, shows that the fanbase just isn’t there to sustain a key place in a smaller league. It wasn’t that much better in 2024 when they were playing the Dolphins. Further, no one cares about Easts. We all know you’re going to drop the Brisbane thing eventually. Shane Richardson is gone and you aren’t going to the NRL. The Broncos and the Dolphins will soak up any Brisbane-based attention in this competition.

What you want are clubs with a defined catchment, and the possibility of turning out a crowd, and a half decent place to play, so it looks like a real semi-professional league with a view to developing some broadcast revenue. Why does that matter? I was recently reading Nate Silver’s recounting of his time running FiveThiryEight:

The core mistake, though, was that almost nobody was thinking about how to make FiveThirtyEight a viable business. We had essentially no dedicated business people or “product” people or anyone else whose job description depended on the site being economically viable. We never developed the muscle memory or the infrastructure to be a commercial product.

Relying on the largesse of a better capitalised overlord leaves you exposed when the winds of fortune change funding priorities. A slimmed down QCup should be built to be able shoulder some of its burden commercially, even if it is mostly funded by the NRL.

There’s no planned team between Redcliffe and Townsville, which is a drive of 1300km that would take you past at least half a million people, and there’s no team between Wynnum and Burleigh, a much shorter drive through much denser suburbia, albeit that is a deficiency of the current competition but one that the status quo will find easier to address.

The Sunshine Coast Falcons are playing in a soon-to-be Olympic stadium and are based in the third largest city in the state but couldn’t make the cut. The state government just spent tens of millions rebuilding Browne Park and you’re immediately going to put the LNP offside by ditching the Capras. So much work was put in to get the Clydesdales back on the field, with their history older than the entire Gold Coast, they just got the lease on the ground from the government and we’re going to put that in the bin, apparently.

Papua New Guinea just got tens of millions of Australian taxpayer dollars for rugby league. If the Chiefs wants to use QCup as reserve grade, that’s fine, but from a Queensland perspective, if the choice is between a country that already has the resources and a town that would serve our strategic purposes, I don’t think that’s that a hard choice.

Meanwhile, Burleigh, whose suburban ground is named after a Country politician who was premier for all of seven months and played union, and Townsville, whose field is taped onto a pub-slash-casino, are included despite the fact that they would be directly competing against the Young Guns and the reserve Titans, who play in the same towns.

What are we doing here?

There are formats that could address the unwieldiness of an 18 team Cup. Consider promotion and relegation. The usual failure of such systems is either the commercial gulf between leagues (as in the PL) and/or the shallow depth of the labour market (as in the SL). Considering these facts in advance would help design a system that reduces cost, sharpens the top end while maintaining heritage and representation across the state.

A ten team Queensland League 1 could play 18 rounds with a more focussed talent pool with six teams going to the finals for the Cup, while the winner of the eight-team Queensland League 2 would get promoted for the wooden spooner of QL1 after a 14 round season and there could be a fun play-off between the QL2 runner-up and the QL1 ninth team. We’d also have the benefit of laughing at the Twotans and Twoncos being relegated.

Less travel, less games per club, putting players in more competitive situations, putting clubs where the need to be and more inventory to sell Kayo to pad out their September schedule: there’s food for thought.

We (well, I) here at The Maroon Observer are always looking for ways to improve the end user experience for you, the reader

Once upon a time, it was possible to create some profile for yourself by simply being an above average poster on NRL Twitter. While I still like posting, now to Bluesky than Twitter because I’m a lib, it does not have the same cut through. Notwithstanding that, I’ve been doing this for a while now and the fact that no one has pointed out how old that schtick has become, tells you something about the potential audience.

Fellow traveller posted a… I don’t even know what Substack calls them… a note? identifying other pillars of the extended Rugby League Perverts Substack Network. At least, that’s what I called it. I never sought anyone’s permission to call them “perverts”.

This is worthwhile doing from time to time because it is impossible for anyone to find everything that’s going on, even in the narrow world of rugby league writing on the internet.

I was taken aback with how much better Substack’s social function has become, even though this presages an imminent enshittification of the platform, and that real human beings, and not aspiring Linkedin influencers, seemed to be using it. I will be trying to post more notes (…?) in future.

Between that, Bluesky, which is more for me than you, and an Instagram account that I am getting the hang of, that’s the social media footprint of this operation. I refuse to engage in camera facing short form video, even though that would likely put this newsletter on a rocket to the stars, and there is also a Youtube channel that I do not have time to do anything with that, in theory, I could also post Reels to as Youtube Shorts™ but often forget to do so. There are too many places to be, none of them “good” unless you want to play by specifically ambiguous, esoterically precarious rules.

I do not and this is all tiring, so that’s what I recommend that you subscribe to the newsletter direct. You won’t miss anything and all the good stuff goes in the newsletter. The rest are tidbits to lead you to this box.

Around the grounds

Country 20 defeated City 18 (W). Country took the early lead, going 20-4 into the half time but forfeited their right to the ball through most of the second half, between errors and penalties (stop me if you’ve heard this one before), and letting City back into the game. The Mets blew through the line and could strip the opposition for numbers but left themselves too much work to do and ran out of time.

Country 34 defeated City 30 (M). After an early run of scoring for Country, it looked like it would be their day. City were not making the defensive efforts, however, once they got off the bus and got to work, City levelled the scores. Country still controlled the game through the middle of the field and managed to find more scoring opportunities. City staged a late comeback, as was the theme of the day, but ran out of time. Country complete the double, reversing their fortunes last year.

Devils 18 defeated Tigers 16 (W). This is the Tigers’ first loss since May 2024. Norths and Easts traded blows all game in a high quality affair before a binning of Narikah Orchard for a silly shot on the Devils’ kicker tipped the match in Norths’ favour. It almost looked like they’d blown the advantage before Tayla Sykes sprinted down the field for the winning score. Great tone setter for the competition.

Statewide split screening. The women’s Magpies kept the Pride at arm’s length all afternoon without completing dominating. A worthwhile first round performance. The Dolphins kicked the crap out of the Clydesdales, as expected and ending any shortlived speculation that Western had turned a corner, and Tweed did something likewise to PNG. Dudley Dotoi exploded out of the blocks to score first for Townsville and got the second try going, on the way to the Blackhawks dusting the Tigers. As much as Norths-Easts was high quality, Western-Tweed was a drag with the Clydesdales coming up on top.

Dolphins 40 defeated Cowboys 14. Did someone say, “finals footy”? Anyone? No? Look, we may just be past the mid point of the season but this is Origin sludge, so time has no meaning so I can look forward to finals if I want. The Dolphins look great and can now win tough(ish) games. That wasn't quite what this was, with six points awarded by the bunker out of insanity and another dozen from laziness (there's those Cotter habits Billy loves). The Cowboys look like a team thats going to scrape into the eight. Again, something like an achievement given where they were.

Titans 28 defeated Broncos 20. The Broncos’ sparkly jerseys made it look like they were staring in a Rock Eisteddfod production about rugby league. While my initial instinct is to belittle the Titans for not acting like they’ve been here before, the Broncos deserve what they get for this one. Brisbane had superior ball and yardage but pissed away every opportunity, and their season, while Gold Coast played their grand final. Since 2020, the Titans are 7-7 against the Broncos. That’s the third best record the Titans have against any club in that period, behind the Tigers (6-2), who have gotten three spoons in that time, and their other rivals, the Warriors (7-4).

Falcons 29 defeated Bears 22 (M). If the Falcons are the luckiest team in the QCup, then they look good while doing it. Mason Peut, Taine Couper, tip of the cap to you, gentlemen. Lots of long range production and incisive play near the line, the Falcons are exciting and fast and the Bears couldn’t keep up.

Super League highlight sprint, round 13. Leeds beat St Helens after David Klemmer got himself binned with the scores levelled and less than 10 to go. Remember Kyle Feldt? Mapapalangi was a bright spot for Cas as they fell short against Leigh. Warrington won a spiteful, referee-filled encounted with Hull FC, the latter really struggling this year. Bradford beat York with some extra polish in the battle of newly promoted teams. Jim Lenihan’s tenure at Huddersfield is off to a poor start, crushed by Toulouse with the first try scored by Ethan Quai-Ward for his new club. Wakefield and Hull KR played another aggro affair with two send offs in separate incidents - dunno why everyone in Super League is so cranky - but Wakefield had some superlative touches in attack to pick off the upset. Only (?) 12,000 turned out for Wigan’s visit to Catalans in Paris. Huge swathes of the field were covered in confetti, the main broadcast angle was weirdly high and the Warriors crunched the Dragons with some globetrotter shit. As a consolation, Sol Faataape’s mullet is outrageous.

Intermission

If Zac Laybutt gets any worse, it's going to be RONALDO (Philitonga) TIME.

Book club

Unless you’re a Dolphins fan, or maybe a very exuberant Cowboys fan, it is clearly not Queensland’s year. As a result, I am beginning mental preparations for an 8-0 wipeout across the full spectrum of State of Origin. This is mostly planning the evasions I will have to employ to avoid incurring permanent psychic damage from tedious Queensland is in crisis takes online.

The Ashley Klein debacle came very close to being one of Queensland’s great victories. Had the Maroons a better option than Jojo Fifita, the Blues wouldn’t have had such an easy time down the right hand side in the late game and that might have been enough to stop one of the tries. C’est le sport.

On one hand, having come so close, it makes sense to run it back with the same team. The baffling exception is the promotion of Briton Nikora to cover the reshuffle caused by Pat Carrigan’s absence but at least, Finefeuiaki seems to be on the bench now. On the other, if this team gets a case of the 2025 Canberra Raiders finals (which is where I am), then we’re in trouble. Slater is probably sufficiently skilled at vibes management to avoid that (I would not be) but that’s the test he has to pass.

A brave showing is not sufficient. That card has been played in game 1. The Maroons have to win. If they don’t, there may be nothing standing in the way of a Blunami.

History provides some perspective. I have spent the last few weeks working my way through The Greatest Game Under the Sun, a solidly detailed history of Queensland rugby league written in the late 80s in the style of Haddan’s Our Game or Heads and Middleton’s Centenary of Rugby League.

The focus is primarily on Queensland’s representative fortunes in interstate and intercity games and hosting tourists, as well as Queensland’s impact at the international level (highly variable), while the BRL and other club leagues are given minimal attention. There are scattered details about off-field matters, which are fascinating and support my various long-run hypotheses about the history of Australian rugby league.

The main takeaway is that Queensland really stank in some decades, regularly losing games by 30 points when that was like losing by 50. When rugby league first started, and all of the international calibre players were based in Sydney and supplanted by 15 freshly professionalised Wallabies in 1909, Queensland didn’t have much of a response in the interstate series. It took until the mid-1920s to find a foothold. In the 1960s, as the wheels start to fall off and talent migration becomes a flood2, Queensland could not compete. This was killing the Interstate series long before Origin was mooted.

With 15 of the last 20 series under our belts, it pays to remember that sometimes New South Wales has to win. Even more rarely, they have to win a lot, to feel like they’re still part of this, even if they don’t get it. You can’t win 100% of the time. Maybe this is a year we take some medicine and make it 15 from 21. If you want your children to have this too, then what comes is for the greater good.

The other thing is you don’t have to do is watch the disaster unfold.3 The Expanse comes in book form and TV form, both of which are good (I am rewatching the latter now that For All Mankind has finished, while two-thirds of the way through book 4) and either may be preferable to watching annihilation.

Upcoming slate

The NRL is in peak Origin sludge, so even the highly rated Dolphins-Roosters match will be skewed by team list announcements, especially if Katoa is in NSW camp. Titans-Tigers might be fun but it is far more likely to be bad. Then again, if Gold Coast can win, we wonder if they can close in on Brisbane on the ladder, who don’t look like winning another game this year.

As usual, the other leagues have more interesting match ups that aren’t sludgified but you’ll have to ferret those out at odd hours or different platforms. I like Cutters-Magpies in the QCup for chaos potential, Devils-Bears in the QDub and St Helens-Warrington for a who is going to lose in the semis preview.

Support The Maroon Observer

I wrote about the Cowboys. They’re not the most interesting in team in the league right now but in a pretty good spot nonetheless.

I will write about the Dolphins later this week and then, if I can muster the fortitude or get a response to my email to the club (subject line: Broncos host accused war criminal), the Broncos.

The club newsletters feature plenty of neat charts and notes on the NRLQ team (which I eyeball the Cowboys as the second best of the four) for the paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges.

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Stats pop

On the off chance that you were paying close attention to the Super League Elo ratings, I have added ten seasons of pre-modern matches (1986/87 through 1995/96 seasons) to seed the Super League era ratings. This follows what has been done with the NSWRL/NRL ratings. If you see a substantial change, that’s why.

Nickelware

Pretty good chance that the Dolphins take their first pennant this year, after three consecutive years in second place.

Read this

• Campo - Rugby league must rise to Kane Evans’s level of courage

• SportsIndustryAU - Boomtown for the NRL! The Networks & Streamers come out to play

• Storm Machine - Game 755 – S29E14 Review

• Rugby League Writers - Panthers Scrum Try, How Ponga Beat The Storm Slide & Roaming Ronaldo

• 🎧 Panic World - How the internet destroyed TV (and itself)

Notes

• Former NRL enforcer Kane Evans comes out as gay, reveals dark 20-year internal battle with his sexuality. The thing that always strikes me about people coming out as gay, trans, queer is how much better they feel about themselves and life after: “I’ve had people blackmail me. I’ve had people try to throw me under the bus, I’ve had people try to deflect their problems by trying to out me. And it just built up a lot of shame, and fear and guilt within myself. Now I’ve spoken about it, I’ve shattered all those chains. They’ve lost their power. I feel like coming and speaking to you today, fear, shame, guilt – all of that, I’ve cut ties with all that. I feel peace within, and I feel like a weight has lifted off my shoulders.” Great stuff. He won’t be the last.

• Maroons U19 teams announced: men and women. Off an undefeated QDub campaign with the Tigers, Enah Desic headlines the women’s team at halfback while we’ll see what the Cowboys’ Taj Lateo, who kicked the game winner in the Mal Meninga final for Townsville, has to offer for the men. A reminder that Darius Boyd is the U19s men’s coach.

• Trai Fuller extends to ‘27

• Margin watch: through 13 rounds, 2026 has fallen behind 2021, even with the Tigers’ thumping, 18.2 plays 17.1. Still in front of 1995 (17.0).

• I enjoyed my first experience of watching City-Country live, so think the QRL made the right move taking it off the grand final day agenda. I think it’s a compliment to everyone involved that both games seemed to be played at a level comparable to the senior statewide comps.

Welcome to the Bovine Bulletin, a regular, independent newsletter about the North Queensland Cowboys.

At the risk of setting myself up for even more failure of augury where the North Queensland Cowboys are concerned, it looks like the Cowboys are much better than expected this season. They may even qualify as decent.

It is an even numbered year, so Todd Payten has the team running well and has been doing so for long enough that it no longer qualifies as Payten’s Patented Purple Patch and seems to be real.

The Cowboys are hardly a steel curtain of defence, as evidenced by the failed shootout with the Eels, but they are a team with a high floor (best in the league) and a high level of median performance (currently second best in the league, and third best over the last six rounds).

The ruleset has simplified game plans and the Cowboys can run fast and in a more or less straight line down the middle of the field and then wait for asphyxiation to take its toll on the defence. It doesn’t require a great deal of skill or creativity, which are in short supply, unless Scott Drinkwater is feeling frisky.

This is not foolproof, especially if the opposition de-friskifies Scott Drinkwater and as Origin takes its annual toll, but it is easy enough to execute and punch a ticket to the finals. After the Raiders loss, the Cowboys are still two-to-one odds of making the post-season (68%). While this may seem like a low bar to hurdle over, it is a lot higher than it was looking in February.

What has tended to separate North Queensland from the NRL’s good teams, of which there are very few this year, has been their lack of seriousness. Even this has been improving as the season has progressed - witness the Roosters win.

As it stands, the Cowboys are 8-5. This is only good enough for ninth on the ladder with the bye points factored in, and the Bovine Boys are somehow still a week away from their first bye. This will be welcome ahead of the two toughest asks on the calendar and then another bye to recuperate.

To play the schedule game, the Cowboys have 11 games left. Of these, chalk up Origin-period losses to the Panthers and Warriors, split the Dolphins series, and drop one or two against the Seagles and Roosters and you have a realistic path to 15-9 or 14-10. With a helping of luck, they might even approach 2022’s 17-7 season. Irrespective of how the Cowboys arrive in September, it will likely be carrying more wins than losses.

All teams have strengths and weaknesses in their gameday lineups. According to the advanced stats, the Cowboys’ back five is one of the most productive in the league. Of the crop of young backs that's come through in the last few years, Tom Chester was not the one I expected to make the step up to solid first grader but he has. This has the added bonus of providing some cover for Jaxon Purdue’s sophomore slump. Purdue has only posted one Z above 30 since round 7 while Chester has consistenly batted over 100.

In fact, every Cowboys platoon is above league average by Wins Above Reserve Grade, and combine for the NRL’s best total, but the eye test suggests there is room for improvement. It is far too late in the season to consider this but the gap between where they are now and a premiership is probably one more good forward. Tom Mikaele has been playing that role and long may it continue, with support from Jason Taumalolo, and Heilum Luki is coming along, but one more mean bastard could put this side over the top. Maybe there’s something to consider if Payten would like to put together back-to-back good seasons.

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Rugby league doesn't love you

A while ago, when my eldest was four and the youngest was a toddler, we were leaving Bunnings. It was a ten minute drive home and the youngest was upset. Operating in a base state of exhaustion and frustrated that I was being yelled at for something I could do nothing about, I lost it: yelling, slamming the steering wheel, real jerk-off behaviour that lasted maybe 30 seconds. I stopped when I heard my eldest trying to soothe her sister, exactly what I should have been doing. It is a sobering moment when a four year old shows more emotional maturity than you, the ostensible grownup.

Parenting, it seems within my limited experience, is an unending series of small humiliations until you are blessedly shuffled off this mortal coil. There is love and triumph and relief but mostly, it is humbling yourself before the human condition. Do you have any idea just how much shit I have had to clean up? Worse, I feel like I have gotten off lightly on the fecal front, so if nothing else, this experience lends itself to a degree of self-awareness, a wider perspective on life and a deep understanding of the effects of fatigue on the human body.

From time to time, the NRL causes me to, using the parlance of our times, “crash out”. This is not merely being upset or frustrated but finding yourself on the express train to a psychotic break. The 2023 grand final was diappointing in the extreme but that was the kind of disappointment you sign up for when you get into sports. This kind of crash out is much worse. The emotion overwhelms and threatens the tether to reality. We are beyond rationality. Many a radicalisation has started here and when you contemplate retributive acts of terrorism against Phillip Street, it is time to take a deep breath and have a lie down.

When you spend as much time on this as I do, it is very easy to get too wrapped up and lose sight of the forest for the weird-looking parasitic plants harvesting all the nutrients from the idiots that thought we were all in this forest together for the betterment of the ecosystem. The 2019 grand final was such a moment, as the Roosters’ trainer was man of the match. The postponement of the 2021 World Cup, with the background of the godawful six again season, was another. The 2021* NRLW semi final similarly triggered me for reasons I don't even remember. Ashley Klein sending off Kalyn Ponga was the most recent.

Within a day or so, I was concocting conspiracies of V’landys’ very real influence on the media, the denial that the NRL issues specific instructions to the referees on how to manage games, Ash Klein’s insane commitment to the bit and the Assassination of Archduke Tolutau Koula. I realised that while this may have some truth to it, it is also too crazy to be able to express, even in this newsletter of crankery. Declaring open season on referees was probably not going to be productive. I recalled my own maxim: rugby league doesn’t love you.

It was time to have a lie down.

The time spent away varies. I got over the Broncos being “dudded” in 2021* by not watching the women’s grand final and that was it. I took the last eight weeks of the 2021 regular season off but watched the finals. The Klein incident was likely in the ballpark of I am too pissed off and I don’t want to hear any of your stupid fucking opinions about this and normal business could resume after the weekend once everyone else had moved on to something else.

This enforced vacation only applied to the professional tier of the sport. I don’t have an issue with the community game. The Ipswich Jets’ roadshow was coming to Dayboro, one of a dozen cosy towns on the limits of the Southeast that delineate city from country, and an easy half hour drive from home. Following the kids nagging me about going to the footy1, this seemed ideal.

On a cracking Sunday, we had lunch at the bakery in town, went to the game, had the easiest time in the world parking thanks to the pleasant volunteers from the Dayboro Cowboys, sat in an amphitheatre at the foot of Mount Mee and watched a catastrophic upset. One of the worst teams in rugby league overcame one of the best teams in Cup, a stunning victory in the mould of Tsushima or Midway, masterminded by their former coaches, the Walker Brothers.

The Cydesdales held the ball for most of the first thirty minutes and decided the game then and there. The Jets’ Lachlan Ilias, showing the skill that has brought him to Dayboro, took nearly forty minutes to engineer a try by repeatedly running his edge out of space. Julian Christian cussed out the opposition loudly enough to hear it from the sidelines. Western’s backline had one of those games they’ll tell their kids about.

There are worse ways to spend a weekend than letting your children safely run around somewhere not near you, enjoying a flat white and surprisingly high quality football in peace and quiet, with green vistas and fresh air. With a semblance of balance restored, it was time to return to the NRL and get into the content mines. Now to take a big sip of water and check the news:

Broncos host accused war criminal, Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith after shock Dragons defeat

Ben Roberts-Smith was a surprise visitor to the Broncos’ dressing room after the club’s shock loss to the Dragons, with the Victoria Cross recipient revealing the touching reason for the invite.

Excuse me?

What a week

A lesser writer would make an appeal to you to subscribe to improve their mental health. I am lesser still than that and won’t even link it to my mental health.

The Broncos have crossed that line between everyday villainy and cartoonish super-villainy

Being a Broncos fan requires a degree of making peace with evil. The Broncos are the richest in a sport whose politics do not venerate the wealthy. Worse, the club is owned by the Murdochs, whose own politics have made the world a worse place to live in ways unavailable even to the average billionaire.

On the substrate of grime, cheating and violence against women commonly associated with the National Rugby League, add strata of success and arrogance, the Super League thing, getting every Friday night game, rehabilitating Matt Lodge, Ezra Mam and yeah, we get it. It’s a real shit tiramisu. They hate us.

Friday nights are scheduled the way they are because the Broncos are the most watched team in the league, something like Super League had to happen, I wasn’t thrilled with Matt Lodge, he sucked, he’s now been at six NRL clubs and everyone has forgotten why they were pissed off in the first place, and other than the cosiness with the Courier Mail, News’ ownership is so arms-length that it barely has an impact on the day-to-day. We all make moral compromises somewhere. That’s life. No ethical consumption, etc, etc.

Having “war criminal” in the same headline as “Broncos” is a depth that even the White-Seibold era did not manage to plumb. The whole story, as reported by the Courier Mail, as follows:

Former Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has made a surprise appearance at Suncorp Stadium.

Roberts-Smith was spotted in Brisbane’s dressing room after Sunday’s shock 30-26 loss to the Dragons.

The Victoria Cross recipient has a relationship with Broncos welfare manager Adam Walsh, who is also a former SAS soldier.

The Broncos became the first team to lose to the Dragons this season.

Roberts-Smith was invited into the sheds after the game and said he was grateful for the Broncos’ hospitality.

“The Broncos invited my daughters today because of all the things they have been through and we were very grateful,” he said.

Roberts-Smith has been charged with five counts of war crime murder. The former soldier is expected to fight the charges.

The Ninefax papers followed up with:

The Broncos refused to comment on the matter, but sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed Roberts-Smith had not been a guest of the club, did not visit the club’s chairman’s lounge during the game, and that most of the players had no idea he was in their inner sanctum.

Senior figures at the NRL were unaware Roberts-Smith had been invited into the Broncos’ sheds, but later said it was a matter for the club who they wanted to invite to their dressing room.

Setting aside the culture war, the absolute best case scenario for the Brisbane Broncos’ front office is that they don’t have control over who is around the players. At some point, long before game day, someone should have asked what this guy, who is charged with several counts of homicide-related crimes, would be doing here - imagine how anyone on a murder charge would be treated! - and who approved his kids getting passes. It’s not like “Roberts-Smith” shouldn’t ring alarm bells.

Note the carefully curated non-comment from the club that specifies the places he wasn’t, suggesting access to other places that fans who aren’t accused of war crimes aren’t usually allowed.

The worst case scenario is that the club is supporting an alleged war criminal through his trial and, by association, so are the fans and sponsors of the club. I, for one, did not sign up for that. The courts will rule what they may but I would humbly suggest a man who fought multiple defamation cases, backed by the richest and most powerful people in the country, and lost them all so badly that he is now the target of a criminal action, may not be a PR slam dunk.2 If his children have suffered, I can think of one man directly responsible for that.

I consider myself smart and I spend a lot of time around people who are also smart, so despite my self-conception as an irony-poisoned cynic, I find myself floored by acts of stupidity more often than I would like (sometimes by those very same smart people). This genre of idiocy more galling to me than just about anything else.

Cast your mind back to 2019 when bushfires ravaged the nation. Scott Morrison famously claimed that he, in fact, “doesn’t hold a hose, mate,” and refused to return from holiday in Hawaii. Eventually, he was badgered back to Australia, where he was the most hated man in the country.

What was infuriating about this historical footnote is how stupid it was. We all understood that you personally do not fight the fires, Scott. We all understood that your presence in Australia is purely symbolic. We also expect our leaders to show empathy and provide reassurance in times of crisis. How does a man, whose background is in marketing and has risen to the top job in the country, not understand this?

In 2021, two years after this incident and as Morrison’s government was in the process of fumbling the pandemic off to the states, the Parramatta Eels tried to steal the then-Prime Minister from the Sharks, in a widely panned post that is still up on Twitter. The Eels would later sign Jack de Belin, who had been recently acquitted of rape, and be sponsored by James Hardie, who fought paying out compensation to victims of asbestosis. They’ve made some shocking decisions there.

This example of the Eels’ stupidity is ordinary, run of the mill, NRL idiocy, like writing a character reference on club letterhead for Brett Finch. What the Broncos have done is worse by several orders of magnitude.

Morrison was the prime minister. De Belin was found not guilty before being signed by Parramatta. James Hardie are at least paying money to launder its image. What is Ben Roberts-Smith or his kids bringing? Who is that for? How did you let this happen? Do you have a basic understanding of what’s going on? Am I taking crazy pills here?

As a result, I did something I never do: I emailed the club to complain. It would be nice if everyone involved in this fuck-up was fired but I expect this is the last we’ll hear about it.

I need a lie down.

Intermission

The broadcast didn't pick up the kid doing sick wheelies on his ebike down the sideline.

Around the grounds

New South Wales 12 defeated Queensland 4 (W). Pick your poison: series sweep with a total margin of 17 points compared to a 2-1 series with a 36 point margin. It’s probably about the only thing you want to take away from this particularly low ebb. That and I can’t believe it’s taken the Blues this long to get here. Not expecting much different next year.

Dragons 30 defeated Broncos 26. This was entirely foreseeable, if on the unlikely side, and anyone trying to sell you on this being the biggest upset of the season doesn’t know ball. I didn’t watch the game, because I have self-respect, but was annoyed at having to delete my snarky question as to whether the men’s Dragons or women’s Dragons would win a game first. The men managed it, by the same score, in equally annoying fashion, as they did last year.

Raiders 26 defeated Cowboys 12. Let’s hear from the fans:

It was equally pleasing to see this defence put the clamps on Scott Drinkwater so clampingly. He’s given better sides more difficult times, but Canberra controlled him in two ways. Firstly their middle did not quit in defence. The Raiders worked hard to win contact and reduce the chances he had to run. They remained aggresive throughout, and their ability to fill in to the backrow spot when Young or Hosking had to make an extra effort was pleasing. The centres and wingers too were extremely effective at identifying Drinkwater as the ‘out-the-back’ man in defence, and jumping him as he got the ball. Timoko and Tamale should be hailed for this.

Upcoming slate

I am undecided how much NRL I can stomach this weekend. Oh, Saturday is all Queensland derbies? Presumably for Queensland Day, which I'm guessing the state government had a hand in, what with Mega Round and other cringe (they massacred my idea). Christ, they got the AFL and netball on board too. Great, that’ll be fantastic during the Origin sludge fest, especially Broncos-Titans. Fine, I’ll probably watch that.

The Queensland women’s premiership also gets underway this weekend. Last year, Easts Tigers swept the women’s statewide competitions and they’ve already won one of the junior comps this year. Burleigh won the other and Souths Logan have been strong, so expecting some combination of those three with a North Queensland team to be in the mix.

Keep an eye out for Wigan, fresh off their Challenge Cup annihilation of Hull KR, smashing the everloving piss out of Catalans in Paris. The Stade Jean-Bounin holds 20,000 people and is next door to freshly crowned European champions, Paris St Germain.

Thank you for reading The Maroon Observer

Asking if you enjoyed reading this newsletter seems bold, given I had an awful time writing it. Nonetheless, with a round of club newsletters about to drop over the next couple of weeks, you may want to consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges.

UPGRADE TO PAID

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Thank you to Rebecca for upgrading to an annual subscription this week. If I’d known there were women reading, I… wouldn’t have done anything different. The newsletter is what it is. Welcome aboard.

Stats pop

The NRLM, QCup and NSW Cup now have advanced metrics pages that are available to paid subscribers through The Almanac. The women’s will come about during their respective seasons when half a dozen rounds have been played. If the pages haven’t been updated to round 13 by the time you read this, they will be shortly after.

For the Big M, I have also included a link to a spreadsheet that has a lot of detailed season-to-date data with some simple filters if you feel inclined to make some historical comparisons, e.g. “with a net possession flow of -4m34s, since 2019, only two NRLM teams have given up as much ball through 12 rounds as the 2026 Broncos: the 2020 Broncos at -6m22s and the 2021 Bulldogs at -3m37s” (this is bad) or “since 2003, the 2026 Panthers have the ninth best net metre flow at +292 in the NRLM through 12 rounds but the 2026 Roosters are ahead of them in seventh, gaining, on average, 321 more metres than their opponents. By comparison, the best non-Vlandoball mark was set by the 2007 Sharks, at +234” (this is good).

Next will be to work on player ratings for Super League and see if I can find a useful way to do international rankings3. Club pages will get an overhaul during the off-season to incorporate proper WARG calculations and advanced metrics. An Origin page will also make an appearance at some point. Maybe once Wikipedia is updated with Queensland-NSW results from 1893 to 1907.

Nickelware

One of the great things about maintaining your own stats is that you can tabulate what’s important to you. That’s really what nickelware is all about.

The other fun thing is that if you don’t like the way something goes, you can just delete it from the record. Want the Storm to have two extra premierships to annoy people? Done. Want to take even more premierships away from the Storm because you think there’s still something fishy going on? Sure. Ashley Klein has an AI hallucination about how workplace health and safety operates4 during a game? Struck from the record.

With innovations like this, I still can’t believe I haven’t been considered for any of the going CEO roles.

Read this

• Eye Test - Brisbane’s discipline is digging a hole they can’t attack out of

• The Sportress - Six, Again: The Vlando line

• Storm Machine - Game 754 – S29E13 Review

• What You Get Is What You See - The best day of the rugby league year is here

• Rugby League Writers - Fa’alogo In Defence, Young Down The Shortside & The Footy People Want

• Our friends at have started a Substack. One to check out if you want gripes about data inconsistency in Australian sport or a history of Docklands stadium.

Notes

• Contrary to previous reporting, QRL’s City-Country is this Saturday with the women’s game kicking off at 11.30 and the men’s at 1.30 at Sunshine Coast Stadium. Up the Metropolitans.

• Don't forget to get in early for your Queensland Day shopping. The shops are going to be total chaos if you leave it to Friday.

• Record TV Ratings for Origin I. It didn’t break 4 million but people clearly love their slop. It ain’t changing any time soon. Conversely, Origin III hits big ratings, but series falls slightly year on year. Maybe finding the ceiling for the women's game? Or do they just need some set restarts to get going?

• Welcome to the hotseat, Kieran Foran.

• Phins: Molo powers on with new two-year deal

• Titans extend Jets affiliation to ‘27

• Country week venues announced: Ayr, Blackwater, Clermont, Gympie, Innisfail, Roma and Warwick.

• As noted above, Wigan beat Hull KR in the Challenge Cup. Googling it the week before, one of the first results were concerns about the crowd numbers, which it turns out were justified, hitting an 80 year low.

• Reliably informed that Bob's Bulk Booze does exist in Brisbane. Fans of cheap liquor rejoice.

• Dunno what this means: “Some of the Gold Coast Titans' biggest stars have joined forces with principal partner, The Lottery Office, in a new TV Commercial for FutureBall, which recently launched as Australia's most 'winnable lottery.'“

That was a travesty

I am going to need some time. Probably a week or so will do it, with a few deep breaths, maybe a long run and a couple of beers. Perhaps I will read Nick Campton’s column about the game needing a good Origin.

Because that was an all-timer by Ash Klein.

Oh well, no one will worry about how Queenslanders feel.

As a result of my needing to practice self-care and distance myself, you will not be treated to me making fun of Ethan Strange’s Hitler mustache or Mat Thompson replacing Spencer Leniu with Victor Radley in his awful pre-programmed patter or offering a grovelling apology to Sam Walker. I will not even attempt to riposte comparisons to Sualili’s send off a couple of years ago that will be as dreadful and poorly thought-through as the Blues’ offence was for 60 minutes of that game. Nor will I insist that this being the Blues' greatest comeback, along with 2021 as their greatest series win, says something about New South Wales.

Everything after this point was written before last night, so cue whiplash change in tone in 3… 2… 1…

Remember to click on things

My oldest man gripe is that no one bloody clicks on things anymore. This may not seem like a problem for you, the satisfied forcefed algorithm enjoyer, but for those of us in the content mines, we would really like it if you clicked and explored the internet under your own power and curiosity to find new things, broaden your horizons and generally become better people.

If the rumours about what Google is planning to do to search are true, then we’re all fucked:

First, yes, this would be the final nail in the coffin for digital media as we know it. It would effectively wipe out search traffic, and by extension, ad revenue for basically every website that relies on those things to exist. For those who have never had to care about internet traffic, in some for or another, it is the only way online businesses make money. While Google has continued to tweak what it requires from websites to rank in their search algorithm, it has stayed remarkably consistent as a metric and there is no real replacement for it. Even during the peak Facebook traffic era, search was good enough for entire publications to rely on it — and keep their ad-based businesses running — in between viral hits. Now that social traffic has dropped to zero, Google Zero would wipe out everything else left.

This newsletter is not my day job and I don’t get ad revenue, so this is not strictly speaking the end of the world for me, even if it ushers in a period of cultural decay and informational stasis that may threaten what makes us fundamentally human.

I prefer to rely on subscriptions for my side hustle because the only intermediary between me and the reader is the email service they use. That is why every single edition of The Maroon Observer includes this box:

It is hard to get attention in a world where Google doesn’t function, social media elevates slop and no one wants to do the work to find something novel. Your subscription, free or paid, goes a little way to pushing back against that.

Around the grounds

Dolphins 30 defeated Raiders 22. Even if we weren’t entering the sludgiest part of the calendar, I didn’t think a whole lot of this game, mostly for Vlandoball reasons, and don’t think there’s a lot to take away here. Brad Schneider should not have been allowed to score that try in a first class match and I like Tevita Naufahu. Instead, let’s hear from the fans:

The right side was the most problematic. Four of the five Dolphins tries came on that side of the uprights, and most involved a torture of Daine Laurie that seemed so cruel that Isaiya Katoa decided to inexplicably not attack the weakness for near 30 minutes of the second half. Thank Christ for the Geneva Convention, otherwise this could have got messy.

Dolphins 36 defeated Capras 16. The Dolphins were far and away the better side, running faster, looking sharper and tackling harder. Redcliffe took an early 20 point lead and then opted to manage Central in the second half, picking up a couple of quick, late tries to tamp down any thoughts of a comeback at 26-16.

Falcons 38 defeated Wynnum 30. The margin is reflective of the difference between the teams but does not reflect the road taken. The Falcons looked in control, leading 20-10 at the half, but a resurgent Seagulls side took it to them in the second half, even taking the lead at the hour mark, but the Falcons turned on the jets and ran them down.

Sea Eagles 12 defeated Titans 8. Those are some paper-ass Sea Eagles. After an hour of play, Manly’s completion rate began with a 9 and the Titans’ with a 6, and yet the Sea Eagles only led by 10 points, had a helping hand from the refs and still nearly lost the game to the worst franchise in rugby league. Woeful. Manly are on the express train to September disappointment and probably another few years after that.

The Titans, at least, are now good enough that their severe, acute and chronic problems are diagnosable. The pack sucks: it is not built for the current rules and cannot move fast enough to make any space for the backs. Campbell and Kini can’t do anything because they don’t have any room to move and even when they do, there’s no teammates standing in even remotely the correct position to profit. Harrison goes sideways and there’s nothing left for Brimson, Sami and co but the touchline. The Titans also drop the ball a lot, a problem afflicting a lot of the league in 2026. There’s maybe one or two teams in the NRL that can tackle and until that number increases, worrying about the defence is a waste of time, but Gold Coast have the boys that can generate points if only the slugs in front of them would hurry up.

Tigers 24 defeated Devils 16. At 24-0 with a lot of time remaining, you start to wonder what the point of playing that game is and whether a mercy rule might present a better use of everyone’s time. Norths struck back, showing that they are at least capable of that, but I don’t think Easts were worried at any point in proceedings.

Jets 22 defeated Tweed 20. If you wanted to argue that putting all the fringe first graders into a single team wouldn’t affect the competitive balance of the competition, you could show them this game and everyone would furiously agree with you. The titanic showdown between Gold Coast’s feeders delivered no thrills, poor defence and even worse conversion attempts.

Cowboys 30 defeated Rabbitohs 12. When the score narrowed to 18-12 after the Cowboys blew two near-certain tries, I felt the gorge rising in my throat. Fortunately, Souths’ resolute commitment to giving the Cowboys more opportunities worked in North Queensland's favour, which the Cows finally took advantage of to extend their lead in the last quarter of the game. Souths’ team of unloved losers made Reed Mahoney look likeable. That's a huge culture problem that should result in the Bunnies’ relocation to Yekaterinburg. Why don't we have Bob's Bulk Booze in Brisbane? I like cheap liquor.

Andrew Abdo is dead (sure about resigning from the NRL)

The king has left the building:

Andrew Abdo has resigned as chief executive of NRL.

Abdo, who was appointed as the head of the NRL in April 2020, is believed to have taken up a position with Tennis Australia after the departure of their chief executive Craig Tiley.

That seems like not an ideal start to broadcast negotiations. The AFR had a write-up to this effect in a surprisingly lack lustre effort that was out-written by the fairly-maligned Bevan Shields. To wit, no one “walks through a pressure cooker,” alone or otherwise, and fans of losing and winning teams are complaining about the rules.

Two facts were worth noting: Amazon seems likely to make a pitch (one guesses they will go for a Monday night football-style product) and the insiders seem to think the FTA market is not real healthy, which I was saying in 2019 so its nice to see everyone catch up.

This does pave the way for PVL to install himself as joint chairman and CEO, a role he has already been effectively occupying and is now doing on an “interim” basis that will surely become permanent. At least the savings and quality product will be delivered to me, the loyal NRL consumer. Failing that, an ex-cop or a flunky from Racing NSW will be parachuted in.

Abdo has been fortunate to go out on his own terms. I thought for sure he would be sacrificed to protect V’landys after it became clear how badly the covid broadcast negotiations had been botched by the latter. I, for one, am glad I did not buy his dad’s book for a bit. Looks like I’ll dust off my QRL CEO cover letter and CTRL+F for NRL instead.

We’ll always have the great interest you showed in the 2023 under 19s Origin.

Farewell.

Intermission

It is strange to see Rimbu in a Tigers jersey. Still waiting to see if he’s going to wind up at the Bears or the Chiefs or both.

Sunshine State-wide

We’re not only halfway through the NRL season, we are now halfway through the Queensland Cup season. With the women’s premiership starting in a little over a week, it’s time to recap where each club is at before our attention is split.

Teams are ordered by ladder position, which includes the hated bye points. More stats can be found in The Almanac.

1. Falcons (8-1). Surprising early clubhouse leaders of the competition, the Falcons are good. Sunshine Coast are also the luckiest team in football, outperforming their Pythagorean expectation by nearly two and a half wins with only the fourth best points difference. That luck doesn’t have to run out in the regular season but teams are often found out in the finals. Liking what I’ve seen Tom Casey brings to the team at five-eighth.

2. Dolphins (6-2-1). My personal pick for the title this year, the Dolphins have re-established themselves as the essence of competence. Other than a round 1 loss to the Bears, Redcliffe threw away a game against Sunshine Coast with +8 net errors (21 total). Since then, it’s been a series of crunchings of the opposition. Look out for the spurned coach Dave Elliott coming to get what’s his.

3. Jets (6-2-1). It is not terribly surprising to see Ipswich where they are. The recruitment drive, changes to the roster and the overhaul of the entire Jets operation after that 0-20 season has left them only one way to go. Tye Ingebritsen should be celebrated for this but we’ll see if they can go deep into September. I’m not betting against it.

4. Bears (5-2-2). The defending premiers have had something of a lack lustre start to the season by their own standards. The two most recent results are a loss to the Capras and a last gasp victory over the Cutters, two teams that are rarely in the same ballpark of the competition as the Bears. Nonetheless, it would be silly to rule Burleigh out from here.

5. Tigers (6-3). Easts sacked Matt Church in the off-season, replaced him with Jim Lenihan, who has now departed for England, and been replaced by Ben King on an interim-basis. That’s a lot of disruption in 12 months for a club still trying to work out the shape of their post-2023 rebuild. Counterbalancing that is the coming alignment with the Bears and the turnover of the roster. Might be too much talent for the interim to really mess up though.

6. Pride (3-2-3). The Pride have had few gimmes on the schedule so far, having to face down other Northern rivals as well as Sunny Coast, Redcliffe and Burleigh. We might expect the Cairnsites to have a better second half with more games against the cellar dwellers and the mid-table to establish themselves.

7. Capras (5-3-1). We wondered if the Capras post-covid golden run might have come to an end after an innocuous 2025 campaign that ended in 13th. That seems to have been premature, although Central’s points difference is negative and the offence is a couple of points per game off the pace. Whether that will see the Capras slide down the ladder in the second half of the season or if they can keep their heads above water is one of the things to watch.

8. Cutters (4-3-2). A hot start has not precisely sputtered out but the Cutters are finding the going tougher. An emphasis on speed, a lack of other opportunities for players to matriculate and the competition coming back to their level for structural reasons have all benefitted Mackay greatly. There’s a better than even chance of them breaking a finals drough that dates back to their 2013 premiership. Jimmy Ngutlik is still up there in the Guy charts.

9. Magpies (4-3-3). The coin flip team. It’s just a shame that playing exactly at 50% is not good enough to make top eight in a 15 team league. Can beat the best on their day but can also throw away entire halves of football. Tom Duffy is fitting in well, Anthony Milford has it and Callum Eggerling might be having a breakout season.

10. Wynnum (4-4-1). The Seagulls are singularly unimpressive, in the literal sense. There is nothing about them which impresses itself upon the mind.

11. Blackhawks (3-6). Townsville should divorce permanently from the Cowboys. It only brings them down. While there were some hints of fraudulence in 2025, it should not have regressed to the mean quite this hard. Probably would’ve liked to have seen more out of Jacky Campag.

12. Tweed (2-6-1). This doesn’t seem to be heading in the right direction from a win-loss perspective, or from a schedule perspective where the only win over the Falcons so far is cancelled out by giving the only win to the Clydesdales.

13. Devils (1-7-1). Any doubts you may have had about aspects of the Devils dynasty have been amplified massively this year. The team just cannot get it together. The Devs are currently running as the least fortunate team in football, playing at 2.2 wins under their Pythagorean expectation, so there is a slim chance that may turn around.

14. Hunters (2-8). Roster turnover was always going to make 2025 hard and Darren Lockyer personally made it worse. There are always some worthwhile players in the mix, they just need time and experience.

15. Clydesdales (1-8). It’s a bad team with poor coaching. They look like they have no game plan, other than stupid gimmicky tactics. Christopher Woodbridge has been a bright spot.

Upcoming slate

The Challenge Cup final between Wigan and Hull KR might be the pick of the bunch.

That’ll just about do it

Putting aside the hacky backs-against-the-wall, Queenslander mentality for a second, the Maroons have lost three players to injury, including Upton and Robinson, and are already down 2-0 in the series. It is hard to imagine the Queensland B-team beating the Jillaroos tonight but stranger things have happened (1959, 1995, 2020, etc, etc).

That makes now an appropriate time to talk about the potential for whitewash. The last Origin series sweep was the Maroons in 2010 and the last Blues’ sweep was way back in 2000, which is potentially before some grown-ass adults reading this were born. Presuming the southern aristocrats prevail, whether you want to chalk this up as an historic achievement by the New South Wales, the state with the media, money, demographics and rugby league political-cultural complex biased in their favour, never mind managing to avoid decimation by injury, or just another thing that should happen more often but they fail to do because of their innate shortcomings, I will leave up to you.

I am less interested in the result than I’ll be looking for the margin in this one. The last series was lost by a net of 36 points. Queensland are at risk of being swept but are only down by nine so far. Even a 12 point loss in game 3 would be a net improvement on last year. While a 26 point (or more) beatdown is not off the cards, it seems less likely based on how well they’ve run the Blues so far. I think if you want to look at something from the ashes of this series, it’s that the gap is wide but not as wide as many pundits will make it out to be.

Tip: Queensland 13+

Thank you for reading The Maroon Observer

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Nickelware

Read this

• Jack Snape - Andrew Abdo leaves NRL as a punchline for Peter V’landys

• Campo - Why Queensland rookie Sam Walker is the great unknown of State of Origin I

• Eye Test - NRL 2026 mid season advanced stat leaders

• Rugby League Writers - Dolphins Attack The Middle & Monitoring The Rabbitohs Left Edge

• Storm Machine - Game 753 – S29E12 Review

• The Sportress - Six again: Mess

• 🎧 Rugby Reloaded - What Was The Original Derby Match?

Notes

• Jai Arrow drops NRL retirement bombshell after motor neurone disease diagnosis

• Cowboys sign Katoa and Ramien

• World Rugby launches bold new six-year strategy to shape the future of the game. This is not interesting. There’s a lot of use of “grow”, “invest”, “strategic” and not a lot of detail. There’s a single oblique hint to the financial crisis that their top flight clubs have been dealing with in England, Wales, Australia and elsewhere but mostly what’s surprising is how much of a parody of itself it is. As anyone who has worked in a large orgnisation knows, the release of strategic plans have less impact on the day-to-day work at the coal face than just about any other change (c.f. changing a filing system or implementing a new procedure). World Rugby are very excited about the WCs in the USA but don’t seem to have allowed for America splitting into five separate republics as a result of the looming second civil war.

• The Titans will play the Eels at Vegas next year. More when it matters (it doesn’t matter).

• French clubs push back on summer plan

• The sporting spectacle of the Enhanced Games was underwhelming but the financial rewards were not. “Doping bad” seems to be an extremely old fashioned view to have, and there is no way to have unregulated doping unless you want 12 year olds pounding EPO, HGH, T and steroids, but doping bad. It shouldn’t be allowed. The organisers of this stuff just need to fuck already. Will the people of the 2120s look back at this like we look back on amateurism? Perhaps.

• Berlin’s state parliament approves bid to rehost Olympics on or after 100th anniversary of Nazi-run Games. Not going to be hard to outperform LA28 while ICE is ripping people off the street and the centennial of the Hitler games.

• Australian tram patronage by route. GC is pretty up there. Now to see if the current state government is planning on funding any extensions.

Welcome to Stats Drop, an inundation of rugby league numbers.

If you’re receiving this by email, a reminder that the Datawrapper embeds work best on desktop, then next best if you click through on mobile and least best as presented in the email.

Who is going to win game 1?

We rate players based on their ability to accumulate useful counting statistics. We call this accumulation production and then do some maths on it to convert different stats to one footy currency. Taking account of positional play, time on the field and the general milieu of the season, we can create a lot of numbers that we can use to assess individual performance. In theory, summing up the individuals should give an indication of team strength.

First, the year-to-date form of each player selected for Origin:

The only area Queensland’s individuals have collectively outperformed NSW’s in 2026 is in the back five. The Blues’ second choice centre pairing has a lower rating than their very capable equivalents in the centres for the Maroons (even if Tabuai-Fidow is out of position - we make no allowance for this) but Queensland are also carrying the lowly rated Jojo Fifita. Ponga makes up some significant ground on Tedesco, thanks to his red hot start to the season, but you’d be hard pressed saying that makes him definitively a better player.

Elsewhere though, the form of the platoons leans, in some cases very heavily, blue and the overall team rating is strongly in the Blues’ favour. If anything, the poor record of the Eels, and to a lesser extent Mitch Moses, so far in 2026 underrates his capability.

The primary advantage, and likely what will decide the game in the Blues’ favour, is in the starting pack. This won’t be news to anyone, just as it will be obvious that part of that gap could be closed by selecting Finefeuiaki and Luki over Cotter and Capewell. The impact of bringing those two in and pushing Cotter and Capewell further down the team list and pushing Nikora - who’s Z rating is 7, not 77, not 107, just… 7 - elsewhere altogether, speaks for itself and would be the simplest way to improve the Maroons by the numbers. Bringing in Reece Walsh and slotting Kalyn Ponga into the three-quarter line is another, but more difficult to demonstrate with certainty.

Second, the career-long experience accumulated by the Origin players:

The Blues lineup is significantly more experienced than Queensland’s. James Tedesco remains one of the highest rated players in the NRL era by this metric, and is getting on in years, so naturally flatters the Cockroaches’ numbers.

The disparity in the forwards is once again extremely concerning, not least because the Blues starting five all have careers that puts each of them in the top decile of all players in the NRL era. The corrollary of experience is age, so there is perhaps some hope that the theoretically younger, less experienced Queensland team can run rings around the old dogs.

Finally, the production that these players have put together in Origin games:

This chart is a bit deceiving, as Origin rookies count for precisely zero but we would expect them to still make some sort of impact in 2026. Compare the previous career experience, where Addin Fonua-Blake brings 12.6 WARG, the third most of the Blues, but zero previous OFTy. If you are particularly interested in the mechanics of Origin FTy, there is some detail after the paywall.

In the olden days, I would have a means of turning these numerical disparities into a approximately quantified probability of winning the game. The Blues tended to have a 5% advantage in win probability and it was very rare for their to be a surplus of good Queensland players at any time.

This series appears to be no different but the results speak for themselves.

Where do Maroons come from?

In 2022, after the first men’s game, Lion Co took the four Xs off the left sleeve of the Maroons’ jerseys and replaced them with postcodes. The postcodes were notionally meant to represent the communities from which the players had emerged.

For game 3, XXXX and the QRL changed these to highlight other communities and this is how you get Kalyn Ponga dropping the 4740 of Mackay for the 4725 of Barcaldine, a town of about 1,000 people that is a six hour drive from Mackay and eight hours from Mt Isa, the two towns that Ponga seems to have grown up in.

This promotion tied-in with limited release cans with a single digit printed on the label - the idea was to assemble your own postcode with XXXX cans and share a picture on social media - and proved so popular that Lion brought it back for 2023 and then extended it to the women’s team in 2025.

For a marketing campaign by a Japanese-owned corporation, this still manages to break through the thick crust of irony and magma layer of cynicism to reach my heart (and my wallet). Not just in a sense of pride that this vast and inhospitable landscape that we call home creates and moulds people who come together to do extraordinary things, but also because this is data we can analyse. We can start to sense where Maroons come from by the places they choose to shoutout on their sleeves.

A few years ago, I theorised that the state government’s priority development areas of Ripley, Yarrabilba, Greater Flagstone and Caloundra South would be the wellspring for future Origin talents. It is too soon to tell if that will definitely be the case but we can see what the current Maroons were up to ten or twenty years ago.

While we could easily pull the birthplace of every player, being a Queenslander is not strictly about being born here. Junior club records are not well defined and can be confusing to trace but a postcode at least indicates there is something about that place that is likely to have been formative to that player.

Rather than trying to plot the density of shoutouts in individual postcodes - most of the Brisbane ones are tiny against the scale of the state - or even local government areas, I’ve classified players by their health service. Strange as it sounds, this is the best system for regional divisions across Queensland that is also readily available. While there is some stolen valour (Gympie, and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, should be in Wide Bay, not Sunshine Coast), the major towns tend to be grouped appropriately.

In the age old river city rivalry, northern Brisbane (12 shoutouts for Metro North) seems to be at a disadvantage to the southern suburbs (19 for Metro South) and even the Penrith of Queensland, the Gold Coast (17).

Surprisingly, Mackay (16) has been much more productive than the other North Queensland regions. Even Central Queensland is on par with Cairns and Hinterlands (9 each). This is partly a function of the narrow window in which we are looking - over long enough, density of Maroons should reflect population - but also there are several stalwarts and walk-up selections of the current Maroons, including Cherry-Evans, Cotter and Dearden, that just happen to originate in Mackay, Sarina and surrounds. Similarly, Upton, Munster, Grant and Hunt form the Capricornia contingent while only Val Holmes and Gehamat Shibasaki have wanted to rep the Townsville region (4). Only Ali Brigginshaw has picked a postcode in Ipswich, although I expect this will increase once Sam Walker and Ezra Mam takes on their first non-replacement assignments.

Unsurprisingly, there aren’t a lot of inner city postcodes. We don’t see any 4000, 4006 or 4101, like we might have in the first half of last century. Julia Robinson opted for St Lucia (4067) in this year’s series, while Pat Carrigan and Christian Welch represented the eastern suburbs of Holland Park (4121) and Camp Hill (4152) respectively, and Makenzie Weale and Lindsay Collins both selected the Stafford area (4053). These suburbs are all about an eight to nine kilometre drive from the CBD.

Robinson’s selections of Samford Valley (4521) and St Lucia seem strange - no one is “from” St Lucia, it’s a place you live while you go to/work at UQ - given she was born in Ipswich (4305) and went to school in Ferny Grove (4055), and if nothing else, reminds us that this is not a precise science, the players might not be taking this super-seriously and we shouldn’t either. Consider Destiny Brill playing with 4124 (Greenbank) in 2025 and changing to the adjacent 4118 (Browns Plains) for 2026. Was that a mistake, are there two sides to her family separated by the Mt Lindesay Highway, or did she just move house down the road? Does any of that actually matter when it’s all north-west Logan with Mo Fotuaika and Jaydn Su’A?

Tarryn Aiken was born on the Central Coast in NSW, played some junior footy with Wyong and later moved up to Tweed Heads, where she moved from touch to rugby league in 2019, and played for the Seagulls and the Broncos. You will notice that, while Aiken resided in the greater Gold Coast region, there isn’t a great deal of Queensland residence in that synopsis. Aiken could hardly be expected to run out with 2259 (Wyong) or 2485 (Tweed Heads) on her sleeve, so she opted for Coolangatta (4225), which is as far south as you can get while still having a postcode start with a four. We can only imagine the furore if it was a two.

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Should Tarryn Aiken play with a 2485 sleeve? It would be very funny if nothing else. We should bring back Greg Inglis to play with 2440 while we’re at it.

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He’s doing it again

Men’s Origin teamlists are out: Maroons and Blues

The Blues’ lineup has its problems but this looks like par for the course for them. The pack looks imposing, the squad has polish and experience. While there are some questionable interchange choices, these are merely unpalatable and reflective of the coach’s mores but not the end of the world.

The Maroons are in a much more concerning state. After years of questioning Billy Slater’s decision-making and arrogance in his justifications, only for him to win three of the last four series, I have decided to not criticise the selections. You can argue that bad process outs eventually until you’re blue in the face but the results are what they are.

I won’t be criticising the exclusion of Reece Walsh, the incumbent Australian fullback and carrier of the most recent premiership winners through an all-time finals run, for no apparent reason. I won’t be criticising the inclusion of Selwyn Cobbo, who is having a terrible season by his own standards, let alone the rest of the league, and who could not get a run when he was playing well.

Despite all available evidence, Trent Loiero will be fine. No problems there. Rueben Cotter has been mediocre for a while, plays his club footy at lock and won’t have Dearden coaching him home but is nonetheless, selected on an edge. Queensland has both Heilum Luki and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki available and only one of them is in the squad and the latter does not appear to be preferred to the husk of Kurt Capewell. This is good stuff to me, the Billy Slater appreciator.

I will get over the fact that Slater picked a slew of Cowboys when they were bad and barely any now that they are good. None of the defending premiers are starting. The Titans’ Jojo Fifita got a bath from Newcastle’s Fletcher Sharpe and got a cap. There are more Storm players than Munster and Grant. This is all beyond reproach.

There is so little to critique, I keep forgetting Sam Walker, a player I hate and who should, at most, get one Maroons jersey in a dead rubber before never being seen again, is the new halfback.

I won’t comment on his Seiboldian excuses, like I did in 2024:

I will instead defer to my grovelling apologies issued in 2025:

But I can’t get past Lindsay Collins. He stinks.

Slater’s genius is that he arrived in a position where the chalice held by his lone opponent is so toxic, that only Brad Fittler and Laurie Daley were stupid enough to be seen holding it. Cleary’s entirely foreseeable arrival in 2028 should put an end to Slater’s tenure, where selecting the best Blues team, using them in an appropriate way and not giving a halftime speech that seems to give the whole team the ick about the idea of winning, should see the Blues become the dominant state for a while.

Until then, we may as well win a few more.

This insult will not stand (it will stand)

Unbelievably, not a single member of the QRL board reached out to support my application to become CEO. Looks like I’ll be doing the newsletter for a bit longer then.

Around the grounds

I did it. I watched almost all of Magic Round (I missed a few halves here and there). I almost never get to watch the whole round, because of constraints on time and interest, but I indulged this weekend and what a weekend it was! If you wanted to know what National Reserve Grade would look like, this was not far off the mark.

Sharks 38 defeated Bulldogs 16. An early, insurmountable lead, a slew of frustrating errors (25) and then some late tries for the loser to make it slightly more respectable is the Vlandoball formula. The Bulldogs win the fraud-off.

Dolphins 32 defeated Rabbitohs 10. An early, insurmountable lead, a slew of frustrating errors (28) and then some late tries for the loser to make it slightly more respectable is the Vlandoball formula. Really needed this Latrell game in Origin.

Sea Eagles 46 defeated Tigers 18. An early, insurmountable lead, a slew of frustrating errors (25) and then some late tries for the loser to make it slightly more respectable is the Vlandoball formula. Weird that the refs decided to start blowing penalties after this? Can't imagine why when the rules are so good and functional.

Pride 40 defeated Clydesdales 12. When you were at school, there was at least one kid that would get the ball, dick around and showboat with dummies, show and gos, steps, goose-steps and so on, none of which would deceive, go anywhere or impress anyone. I am too old for my peers to have pretended to be Benji Marshall but its something like that. Half a dozen Clydesdales play like this.

Cowboys 18 defeated Roosters 12. Finally, some real football. “The North Queensland Cowboys are winning this on defence,” is an actual sentence said by Dan Ginnane. While it is true, and this was a high value but not entirely unexpected win, it might be the first time anyone has said anything like that about the Cowboys in a decade. Considering the blatant cheating from the referees - throwing Sam Walker around is not a binnable offence and it actually should be rewarded because he keeps throwing forward passes the refs are too cowardly to call - the Cows did well to keep their heads and keep pointed in the right direction. Mikaele looked completely done. Luki made some pleasing defensive plays. Enjoying what Tom Chester is bringing. The ragdoll in a washing machine is good now.

Bears 14 defeated Cutters 13. This was a moral victory for Mackay, as the referees did their best to hand Burleigh the win. A spurious binning of the Cutters’ Sean Mullany at 67’ sapped the Cutters of the last remaining strength, hanging on against a Bears side that didn’t seem to have a lot of ideas. Guy Hamilton took advantage, sped past a spent defence and went over at 74’ and that was game. A disappointing end to an otherwise quality contest of fast running and hard hitting. The Cutters have a lot to recommend them and have shown they can go toe-to-toe with the big dogs.

Storm 34 defeated Eels 8. This didn’t feel like a 20 point win for the Storm but on review, what did the Eels have to offer? Parra have two gears: coin flip shoot-out or being squished out of the game while looking like they’re trying. I guess that’s something. The Storm are working their way back into form. Wouldn’t be terribly surprising to see them rack up wins over the lower half of the ladder but still not clear if they have the talent to take on the top half.

Knights 36 defeated Titans 12. Gold Coast played in a way that befits the jersey that got everyone so excited. The Titans under Hannay have a game plan and by god, they’re sticking to it. It’s good enough that the first third of the game is enough to convince you that there might be something there but then the Titans wilt, and then collapse, and the margin blows out past 20. Unlike what feels like the rest of the NRL, the Titans don’t make a lot of handling errors and some players have their moments, but it doesn’t add up to much.

Magpies 30 defeated Hunters 20. Souths Logan got off the plane, didn’t get out of fourth gear and handled the Hunters in a way a 10 point margin does not reflect. Jason Demetriou was on ABC’s Pacific Beat and mentioned that because of the lack of pathways infrastructure in PNG, it takes new Hunters a year or two to adapt to Cup. Given the London Broncos, of which Demetriou is coach, had a big hand in decimating the Hunters’ roster, that goes a long way to explaining why the Hunters’ lack polish (balls passed too hard, basic handling, can’t recover short kickoffs, etc) and why they’ve gone from a reliable week 2/3 finals team to bottom four. But mostly, Anthony Milford kicked them to death. Liking what Byron Johnson is doing; it’s been a while since we had a fast whiteboy fullback in Cup. Welcome to Hercules Kondo, who joins the Rugby League Hall of Fame for Names, along with other inductees Denver Ford, Memory Paitai and Adaquix-Jeramiah Watts-Luke.

Warriors 42 defeated Broncos 12. That one stung a bit. I didn't expect the Broncos to win but I also didn't expect to get completely reamed by Ash Klein. People like to defend the referees by saying they just follow orders but they have a huge amount of discretion as to how they go about their work. Klein decided to be a complete dipshit. Carrigan got binned for a regulation Panthers tackle. Klein calls a strip for a clearly dropped ball. Khan Pereira is binned instead of sent off. Tuaupiki got a set restart for a leg pull instead of a bin, followed by another set restart on the next tackle, the only two the Broncos got all game. You win some, you lose some and sometimes the referees decide for you out of misplaced crankiness. The only upside is that the Warriors will overvalue this result, setting their fans up for another disappointing September that they'll tell themselves they're in the mix for.

Panthers 28 defeated Dragons 6. In a game that the Panthers treated like I treat Fridays at work, the absolute worst call of the weekend went against Damien Cook and the Dragons. Brian To’o did not have possession. How is it possible that you refereed enough rugby league to get into the Bunker without learning anything about the sport? Imagine taking that away from fans sitting in the rain at the end of Magic Round. Sociopathic. What's worse is you made my sympathise with St George. We’re going to have to unretire Buzz Rothfield to sort you little shits out. Fix it.

Intermission

Callum Eggerling hit the Hunters home crowd with the Judah Rimbu celebration. Great stuff. Also surprising there's a dedicated Souths Logan cheer squad in PNG.

Women’s Origin II

Queensland spotted New South Wales a hundred expected points from errors and were extremely fortunate, partly courtesy of the May Magic Round weather we’ve all come to love, to be in reaching distance of the win.

Jasmine Peters had two match winning opportunities. The first, she didn’t drive hard enough to the line and looked terrified of being tackled and losing the ball and that’s exactly what happened. The second, she didn’t keep her feet out of touch and the lacked the spatial awareness to know she’d blown it again.

It is not fair to blame one player for a result but, to deploy several cliches, the Origin arena is built on getting specific moments right and when the state needed her to execute, she did not. Peters did not have that dawg in her.

Fortunately for Peters, there is plenty of blame to go around to the rest of the team. Lofipo had an off night. The halves were fine but not excellent. Three different hookers were given a go. Too much burden is placed on Upton and she is, at the end of the day, only human. The pack erred and did not dominate.

The bright side is the future. I have never really noticed Rory Owens, in either the NRLW or previous Origins but she really stepped up to the plate. Kiria-Ratu looks like, at worst, a good second fiddle. As Gus noted during the early phases, the Maroons are around 24 years old and the Blues are 28. The Blues’ dominance of women’s footy has at least one, maybe two, more series to run. Then they will be old and we will be young.

What this series shows is how thin the depth is at the super-elite tier, especially for Queensland. Peters’ critical moments reminds me of Emma Paki, who I compared to a deer skating on ice in the wet games of 2024. Paki had no business being out there and Peters might have been the best pick of those available but it shows it is a long drop from Robinson, then to Hippi, to Peters in the winger depth chart (dunno what Emily Bass did to get her card marked). If Queensland is to take advantage of its future, and noting we are missing Aiken, Pelite/Isa’ako and Jorgensen off the top of my head, and Ciesiolka is out of form, then having a better second tier of player to plug gaps when they inevitably occur is going to be crucial.

But here and now, only pain lies ahead. It took 15 years for Queensland to overcome structural disadvantages, adapt to the new interstate rugby league and actually win a series. It probably won’t take that long this time, but it might be a while.

Upcoming slate

They’re call it one of the worst weekends of rugby league TV in history, folks. Just absolute trash.

Hull KR vs Wigan, Super League, Friday 5am AEST, Craven Park

Hull KR, after an abysmal start to the season, have won five on the trot and have looked good doing it. The stats love Rovers. Wigan are Wigan but had some dud games a few weeks back but might be finding form again. Interesting yardstick game. I probably won’t be getting up at 5am to watch it. Tip: Hull KR

Capras vs Dolphins, QCup, Saturday 5pm, Browne Park

This will be my first opportunity to see the new Browne Park in action but from what I’ve seen online, it looks like a huge upgrade. Putting aside the Dolphins Derby, this should be an ideal timeslot for a Rockhampton sunset, provided the weather cooperates. The forecast looks good at time of writing. I am increasingly of the opinion that the Dolphins have some flaws but no team in the league seems capable of exploiting them, a la the Devils in 2024. In lieu, Redcliffe are going to continue to dominate. Tip: Dolphins

Cowboys vs Rabbitohs, NRLM, Sunday 4pm, QCB Stadium

This is our next look at the post-Dearden Cowboys. There’s minimal impact from Origin, with just Cotter going to camp, it’s an opportunity for Clifford to step up again and for Sutton to establish himself as a bona fide first grader. The Rabbitohs aren’t necessarily going to be a sterner test than the gritty win over the Roosters, as Souths are currently on Fraud Watch, but more wins makes the future of 2026 more secure. Tip: Cowboys

Thank you for reading The Maroon Observer

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Read this

• What You Get Is What You See - Ultra-processed rugby league is a big problem for broadcasters (and the NRL)

• Eye Test - BOOTWATCH 2026

• Campo - Why Gold Coast’s retro Chargers jersey is already the toast of the NRL’s Magic Round

• Nick Tedeschi - Ivan Cleary begins long goodbye with a legacy built to last well after he leaves Panthers

• The Sportress - Six again: Magical?

• Storm Machine - Game 752 – S29E11 Review

• Rugby League Writers - What Is Foz Ball? How The Dolphins Used Their Speed & Croker’s Passing On The Up

Notes

• Mike’s piece above is very good but I am struck by the use of the food metaphor. Ccompare also homogenised rugby league. I wonder if we’ll see a cultural rejection of this highly processed, homogenised, factory fast food approach to sport, as we did with food and drink in the 2010s, in the coming decades or are the zoomers too cooked? Given the 10s was led by Instagram and the 20s by Tiktok, perhaps it will hinge on the next evolution of social media. So, no, we’re probably not going to get a mass rejection of footyslop.

• Margin watch: 2026 has edged slightly ahead of 2021, 17.52 plays 17.45. The margins of the last two rounds are in the 94th percentile for all rounds since 1988. So far only round 4 and round 7 were in the bottom half.

• Queensland secures NRL Magic Round in mammoth deal locking it in until 2032, which includes the wonderful turn of phrase, “…in a golden runway to the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.” What does that mean? English, motherfucker. Do you speak it?

• One million viewers average for women’s Origin 2

• Actual, for realsies, turnstile attendance at Vegas was down 1.5%, from 38,107 to 37,557. Hmmm. I assume factors outside of the NRL’s control will be blamed, to the extent that this is given any airtime whatsoever, which it won’t be! We cannot question the narrative of ever increasing popularity when a broadcast deal is being negotiated.

• SANFL kicking goals with growing viewership as AFL draws criticism

• Arama Hau extends

• Tyson Smoothy is coming home… to Perth. I’ve often said Perth is the Wakefield of Australia. Good for him. Sucks to be Wakefield but then it always sucks to be Wakefield.

• We did an entire cycle of this ‘Dolphins roster is terrible and it is definitely going to finish last’ four years ago and looks we’re just doing it again. There is always a bigger fuck up in the league. The irony will be when the Chiefs don’t get that treatment because of Luai, Johnston, Watson and Rudolf and end up last in 2028.

• XXXX Queensland City v Country team lists

• IOC: No sports cut yet [for 2032], but a process for cuts by discipline; Youth Olympic Games 2030 on hold

• ‘[Brisbane’s Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner] explained he drinks 30 to 60 millilitres of high-polyphenol extra-virgin olive oil from shot glasses immediately after waking up for health reasons. “I’m kind of into biohacking.”’

Some content

It was a banner week for News Corp content. In addition to Badel threatening bombshells with a giant head, we got this:

Cool! Thanks for letting me know.

Welcome to Stats Drop, an inundation of rugby league numbers.

If you’re receiving this by email, a reminder that the Datawrapper embeds work best on desktop, then next best if you click through on mobile and least best as presented in the email.

Here’s a question: do the Perth Bears get to claim North Sydney’s two premiership titles from 1921 and 1922? American sports franchises have some confusing legacies, e.g. the Cleveland Browns of today have the legacy of, but are not continuous with, the Browns of the past, who are now in Baltimore, trading as the Ravens, but this is not typical for Australian sport. There will be over a century between the North Sydney Bears winning the 1921 premiership with a 7-0-1 record and the entry of the Perth Bears into the NRL.

Here’s another question: when the Fox chyron flashes up under an ex-player, noting that they played so many “premiership” games, which premiership are they referring to? The answer to this one is obvious but leads to a follow-up question: how many premiership games did Wally Lewis, the finest player of his generation and one of the all-time greats of the sport, play? Is the answer 80, 166 or 256? You have to wonder how the vice-captain of the 1982 Invincibles and captain of the 1986 Unbeatables would have been selected without having played a meaningful club game.1

Here’s a final question: are we sure that Alex Johnston has scored the most tries in the history of Australian rugby league? I didn’t want to ask this question when the record was broken, because it would have come off as churlish, and I am also confident that for any given value of Australian club rugby league, Alex Johnston is the all-time greatest try scorer2 but there are a range of values for what constitutes the history of Australian rugby league.

The records set in the first grade premiership of the New South Wales Rugby League and later the National Rugby League, are treated as exclusively synonymous with the records of Australian rugby league. There are four reasons for this:

1. The NSWRL first grade has been the highest quality club competition in the nation since at least the end of the second World War and if not since 1908. It is based in the country’s largest (or second largest, depending on the era and statistical method) city, had the biggest crowds, the richest clubs and most of the best players.

2. The rugby league media in this country predominantly originates in Sydney and is almost entirely based in Sydney. Owing to the inherent parochialism of Australia, rugby league and Australian rugby league, this gives the NSWRL pre-eminence in the minds of the people who are responsible for the sport’s news, history and myth-making, which is then adopted by the audience.

3. The Sydney competition’s record keeping was much better than anywhere else. The availability of records automatically gives the competition more weight than its counterparts that lacked a David Middleton or suffered data-destroying disasters at league offices.

4. It is narratively far less complex than the reality.

These are somewhat valid reasons for Australian rugby league to be Sydney-centric but presents a history of Australian rugby league that is very narrow, restricted to a single metropolis that most of the rest of the country hates on principle. If you read the official works and have a lack of curiosity, it is as if rugby league emerges fully formed in Brisbane, Gold Coast and Newcastle in 1988, a gift of beneficence from our superiors in the imperial capital.

As anyone familiar with my work will be able to guess, I contend that the history - distinct from the mythology required to sell subscriptions to Kayo and unread books bought for Father’s Day - of the sport should have a wider view.

A wider view of the history of Australian rugby league is messy. One thing we can do to address this is to draw lines in the history and treat sections differently. After the line, Australian rugby league occurs and prior to that is pre-history. You may have noticed that this newsletter prefers to work on an NRL-era basis for its statistics. 1998 provides the cleanest delineation between the suburban, amateur and semi-professional club competitions of the 20th century and the international, professional club competitions of the coming 21st century.

Depending on your view, you could shift this back to 1995, when the competition rebranded as the Australian Rugby League (despite adding a team from New Zealand), to 1988, when Queensland teams joined the New South Wales Rugby League, or even 1982, as the Sydney competition expanded beyond its city walls for the first time.

The question then becomes, what to do with everything that happened in pre-history? It is rugby league and it is history and it took place in Australia but the tyranny of distance and other challenges of the times make it difficult to coalesce tens of thousands of matches into a neat concept of the history of Australian rugby league. If you’ve noticed the awkwardness with which the NRL media treats the Dolphins’ history or the Super League split, that dissonance originates here and the preference for simplicity overrides.

The question may seem academic but it is important. Today’s rugby league institutions derive their legitimacy by claiming direct descent from the pioneers of the sport of the 1900s. The early players and administrators that got the sport off the ground in Australia had trophies and awards and cups named after them. Today’s administrators are their rightful heirs, descendant in an unbroken line that even the World Wars could not disrupt, and that is why the Broncos winning the premiership in 2025 is treated the same by our governing bodies and broadcasters as the Bears winning in 1921.

We are not going to overturn a large portion of rugby league’s culture in today’s newsletter but it has been something that has weighed on my mind for the better part of a decade. Happily, we can have a higher quality of discussion thanks to Rugby League Project, in collaboration with Redcap’s BRL, adding the scoreline for every Brisbane Rugby League premiership match to the RLP site.3

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For the purposes of this analysis, we are setting the line of pre-history at 1988. This is contrary to the editor of the Brisbane rugby league premiership Wikipedia article, who writes:

Although the Brisbane Rugby League took a significant financial and competitive downturn, it did not become a second-flight competition when the Brisbane Broncos entered the Sydney Rugby League in 1988. Rather, it officially lost top-tier status after the 1994 season, before the advent of the Australian Rugby League, in 1995.

I do not believe this is a widely held opinion or have any official bearing and I will not support the top flight status of a competition whose 1988 champion was something called the Seagulls-Diehards. The 1987 merger between Fortitude Valley and Tweed Heads is telling in its own right about the strength of Brisbane’s historic but dying rugby league clubs and the forces causing their demise4, lending weight to the decision to bring in the Broncos to the NSWRL and set the line accordingly.5

In Sydney, Brisbane and elsewhere, there are myriad club cup competitions that accompany the main premiership, whose importance to us now is different to the importance of the people at the time. Largely, we have diminished this silverware in the face of an anachronistic hyperfocus on the premiership, which in turn maintains the unbroken line of inheritance. For example, the second half of the 1921 Sydney season was played as the City Cup, because of the Kangaroo tour, and so has been consigned to the dustbin of history as irrelevant.6

To provide some structure to the endless sprawl of rugby league competitions in pre-history, we need a taxonomy. Let’s set a definition that first grade strictly refers to the highest level of competition within a given league which occupies a specific geographical area, whereas first class refers to specific, elite first grade premiership games at specific times. This does have the annoyance of shifting the goal posts to, “What constitutes ‘elite’ or ‘first class’?”

The NRL has attempted to answer this in the Hall of Fame, but seems to be tripping over both its own insistence that the best players have to play in the (singular emphasis) elite rugby league premiership7, what it refers to as the “Metrics of Excellence” - no detailed description of these is included on the website - its own lack of records and that it has to retrospectively justify the selection of the first 100 inducted in the centennial of rugby league, while maintaining a sense of consistency with future inductions.

Consider Herb Steinohrt and Eric Weissel. They are both in the Hall of Fame but never played in the elite rugby league premiership. Weissel played 18 seasons in the Riverina as a fixture of country footy. Steinohrt spent his career in Toowoomba, representing that city in at least 70 (according to RLP) and up to 125 (according to the NRL) games.8 Both are examples of players who could reach the highest levels of the sport without playing in Sydney or Brisbane. It will surprise no one to learn that all examples of this kind of player in the Hall of Fame pre-date the second World War.

After 1945, every Hall of Famer spent major parts of their careers in Sydney or less often, Brisbane. Only a handful, including Barry Muir and Duncan Hall, never played in Sydney. Most of the best post-war Queensland players either migrated to Sydney clubs or the Sydney competition expanded to create the Queensland clubs they played for. Some, like Lewis, played the best part of their careers in Brisbane and gained selection for the highest representative honours from there, while others, like Beetson or Meninga, set themselves up for future success in the Sydney competition after beginning their club careers in Brisbane.

The outlines of what could constitute a first class club game prior to 1988 start to emerge. Before World War II, you could have a lucrative career in the country and still expect a reasonable, if more difficult, route to representative honours. By the 1970s, with some exceptions, you had to be in Brisbane or Sydney, and preferably Sydney, to have a crack at the summit.

On the 1952-53 Kangaroo tour to Europe, players based in Toowoomba and Newcastle (4 each) outnumbered Brisbane-based players (2). After the 1973 tour, Kerry Boustead in ‘78, then playing for Innisfail South before heading to the Roosters the next season, and Rohan Hancock in ‘82, a Toowoomba stalwart9, were the only selections from outside the Brisbane and Sydney competitions. Boustead played in all five tests against England and France (Australia lost both games against les Chanticleers) but Hancock was only selected for the test against Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, en route to Europe.

While the leagues were never at parity in quality10 or finances11, this suggests any district first grade game prior to 1945 could be considered first class, while after 1945 and before 1988, first class club games in Australia should be restricted to Brisbane and Sydney12 and after 1988, Sydney (and then the ARL and NRL) alone.

We will set aside whether to include city cup competitions in this definition of first class13, or restrict it to premiership games only, but if there’s a first class, there can be a second and third class. We will also set aside the question of whether a first class representative game is strictly an international, as the highest level, or is defined by the quality of the league that the players are selected from (i.e. a first class rep game is one played by first class club players, so could include the Bulimba Cup).

South Sydney’s status as the club with the most premierships in Australian rugby league history comes into question. Naturally, the 2014 NRL title puts Souths on a level pegging with Valleys and given that the resurrected Valleys club plays in the BRL, which is now in the third tier of the sport, it is inevitable that the Rabbitohs will claim that title outright.

Valleys, despite playing fewer games, have the best historical points difference in the table. The Brisbane clubs seem more evenly matched than Sydney’s, with Valleys the clear leader, then Norths, and the next four having between 500 and 600 wins and seven and ten premierships, an observation that has been made and speculated on in previous analysis. Redcliffe and Wynnum, being later additions, have fewer premierships and less time to compile wins.

What is apparent to me is not the unearthing of any statistics that revolutionise our understanding of the game’s historical hierarchy but that the presence of Brisbane clubs in this concept of first class offers a new dimension, another couple of splashes of colour and detail, on the portrait of Australian rugby league. Sydney’s historic marques are one thing but add Brisbane’s Big 8 and we have a more complete, more attractive picture. Were we able to add Ipswich, Toowoomba, Newcastle and other results14, we would have a more comprehensive picture again.

These tables are not in and of themselves terribly interesting and serve as trivia, rather than history. What to do with 4,500 BRL results and 7,200 NSWRL results? What are the important questions? How would, say, post-War Balmain have stacked up against post-War Southern Suburbs? Or which 1923 champion Eastern Suburbs clubs would be victorious: Coorparoo or Bondi? Or 80s Wynnum against Parramatta? Or Norths’ 6-in-a-row in the 60s against St George’s 11? Is there a way to approximate this?

Let’s start by plotting the class Elo ratings of these clubs. Brisbane’s rugby league history is significantly messier than Sydney’s, so we will focus on the clubs that people are most likely to be familiar with - the four cardinals, Valleys, Brothers, Wynnum and Redcliffe15 - and their antecedents, alongside Sydney’s traditional dozen and their two late stage expansion teams.16

Sydney’s wider spectrum of competence becomes very apparent. St George recorded a rating of 1841 at three points in the 1965 season. No Brisbane team eclipsed 1721, set by Brothers in 1957. At the other end of the scale, Parramatta bottomed out at 1274 in 1962 while final rating of the Mud and Bloods, 1337 in 1987, a season in which Wests finished equal last with one win from 16 games, bettered Wynnum’s previous low of 1344, reached twice in 1973 and 1974.

We can theorise why this might be. The structure of the Brisbane season, tending to be shorter than Sydney’s and necessarily involving more repeat fixtures, would have an influence. Having fewer teams would not spread the talent as thinly, and Brisbane would be less prone to the sharp discontinuities caused by the emergence of true superstars, who tended to congregate in the Sydney competition or head overseas. While there is less of a gap between the best and worst, the overall mean would be lower.

This disparity also presents a problem. A 1700-rating in Brisbane is not likely to translate to a 1700-rating in Sydney, on a like-for-like basis. You would expect to have to de-rate Brisbane club ratings to account for the generally lower standard of play. However that is derived, it is not going to close the gap between a Northern Suburbs team rated in the high 1600s in the late 1960s to a St George club rated over 1800. Brisbane’s Norths would likely struggle to compete with Sydney’s Wests at this time, the Magpies serving as the perennial runners-up to the all-conquering Dragons dynasty.

For a single Brisbane club to be competitive with the top end of Sydney, that Brisbane club would have to be substantially better than its compatriots and that never seems to eventuate. Even Lewis’ mid-80s Seagulls never quite kick clear of Meninga’s Magpies or a declining Tigers or a resurgent Brethren.

I had thought that I could use the results of the interstate series as a proxy for the relative strengths of Brisbane’s and Sydney’s competitions but there are two problems with that. The first is obvious.

The two bright spots for Queensland are noted and the rest was a very long descent. There is a reason that Origin rules were brought in after all.

Ironically, the much more successful Queensland Origin sides of the 80s, who won the one-off games in ‘80 and ‘81 before winning the ‘82, ‘83, ‘84 and ‘87 series, were predominantly selected from Brisbane-based clubs. Of the 300 Maroons caps awarded between 1980 and 1987, 59.3% went to players plying their trade in Brisbane. Three out of five of the BRL’s best were capable of competing with Sydney’s best but they needed more help from the other two to close the gap between the states.

The second issue is that Queensland residential selections are not necessarily a proxy for Brisbane’s best talent. While Maroons selections tended to heavily skew towards the southern end of the state, Brisbane was not necessarily the strongest of the three main southern leagues. In 1933, Toowoomba won their first two games of the Bulimba Cup and it was proposed that, ‘the Downsmen [Toowoomba] deserved the honour of meeting the Rest [of Queensland]… if successful, they should go to Sydney intact to play New South Wales.’ Shockingly, this idea was approved and Toowoomba duly beat The Rest, 22-7, before rebadging as Queensland and then being destroyed by New South Wales, 24-zilch. The QRL reverted to a more traditional selection process thereafter and lost the series 3-1. This was only the Blues’ fourth win in 12 years.

If we restrict our analysis to the period from 1960 onwards, after Brisbane has gotten a stranglehold as the strongest league in Queensland, in that period Queensland lost the interstate games by an average of 12 points. We can translate that - very approximately - to a 150 point Elo rating handicap17. We can then take the end of season ratings for each club, add 75 points to the Sydney ones and deduct another 75 from the Brisbane ones and then rank the teams in a hypothetical combined league.

Unsurprisingly, it is not pretty for the Brisbane teams. The “league” starts with 18 teams in 1960 and grows to 22 by 1982. I’ve marked 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th on the charts as proxies for premiership contention, qualifying for finals, qualifying for an expanded finals series and the competition cellar, respectively.

No Brisbane team ever makes the top four. Norths is highest ranked at fifth in 1963 and 1970. Norths would make finals for a decade, and Valleys, Wynnum and Souths a couple of times each but, unless this hypothetical ARL decided to implement a 12 team finals system, the Brisbane clubs would largely have been also-rans. Given the lack of commercial viability of these clubs as it was, removing any sense of success would have only hastened their demise.

Whether the Brisbane competition could have been strengthened by incorporating the Ipswich league (or Toowoomba) is an interesting thought experiment but one that is unlikely to yield an alteration of the long-run trajectory of the sport in the Southeast. Given one would expect the Bulimba Cup to have provided sufficient iron-sharpening opportunities that rarely seemed to translate to the interstate level, it is unclear if this would have a marked effect at the club level. Notwithstanding Ipswich teams playing in the Brisbane league from time to time, including Langer’s Jets joining the BRL in 1987, the headwinds from demographics and economics would have still been too powerful to overcome.

Mergers of competitions with a consolidation of the number of clubs may have proved a more viable strategy, as Duncan Thompson demonstrated in Toowoomba in the 1950s, but that is two very politically sensitive propositions laid on top of each other. It also starts to look a lot like entering a combined Brisbane team into the NSWRL. As Marx noted:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

I never thought they’d eat my face

The NRL tripping over it's own dick coming into Magic Round is a tradition like no other. The high point was 2021, when in the week leading up, Peter V’landys lost a defamation case, the sport was dying under an overload of set restarts and a head high tackle crackdown had been laid over the top.

In 2026, Peter V’landys is in court for a defamation case, the sport is dying under an overload of set restarts and I don’t know where this crackdown on pushing, escorts and other aerial ping pong nonsense has come from but here we are.

Given the average fan operates on a significant delay from us sickos on the cutting edge, I doubt any of this will get much of a mention during Schoolies for Dads. Instead, the final match of the weekend, featuring the Dragons and Panthers, will be treated with the appropriate respect as a blockbuster whose quality is reflective of where the NRL is right now. In the absence of anything meaningful to cover, like panicking about moving Magic Round because of torrential rain, and before they are allowed to fully restrict their attention to Origin for two months straight, the media turned on the expansion franchises this week.

Nine sent Zac Bailey to PNG and found the same things I told you about a few years ago. Much of this has been obvious for anyone that hasn’t been feted by the NRL and the PNG government into writing out-of-touch PR for James Marape.

While I agree with the sentiment, I've also made my peace with what's going to happen. That there’s a hole in the ground where the resort extension is going, 18 months out from when it will need to be completed, is as good a sign that something is going to be built and as presenting it negatively is a reflection of the average journalist’s lack of construction knowledge.1

Another op-ed in THIS MASTHEAD went after the Chiefs’ tax-freedom: PNG’s tax breaks make a mockery of the salary cap. And you’re paying for it. No way! I’ve been saying this for ages and other than future Prime Minister Pauline Hanson, no one gives a shit. It is disgusting that each of the NRL clubs are getting $4 million of taxpayer funds to wave through the Chiefs. No one cares.

When I was a kid, a million bucks was a lot. Being a “millionaire” meant being wealthy, not just owning your own home.2 It is now 2026 and a million bucks is both a lot of money - that would be a life changing for almost all households - and nothing at all - what difference does $5.4 million over four years make to the federal budget? Perhaps this is the source of the apathy.

That apathy should be mirrored by a disinterest in the program’s overall spend. The Commonwealth of Australia is a country whose budget expenditure last year was $785 billion. The Independent State of Papua New Guinea is another country, whose expenditure last year was $9 billion. $60 million would be less than a rounding error on either budget statement.

If Albanese backtracked on the Chiefs tomorrow, the proposed spend on rugby league in the Pacific will not be re-deployed to solving any social problem you could care to name. There would be no hospitals or schools, or even doctors or teachers, here or there.

Labor does not respect the intelligence of its electorate and desperately wants to be seen as serious by unserious, unthinking people who are bred to hate them. Witness the seemingly endless parade of cuts to social welfare.

If the LNP was in power, they would refuse to spend the money to make society better on the principle that they hate you and instead hand it over to mining companies to further exploit PNG. We wait with bated breath to see what stupidity ONP introduces into this heady, unstable mix.

What would a redeployment even look like? $60 million per year does not go very far among the millions of people experiencing a cost of living crisis. Offering ten bucks would be insulting more than anything else. Perhaps we could focus on not sending the US billions upon billions of dollars for submarines that are somehow both non-existent and obsolete, and not support US foreign policy that is the direct cause of global economic instability? Just a thought.

Guess what else you’re paying for:

$570 million in 2024–25 for a budget support loan to Papua New Guinea (PNG) to address the PNG Government’s estimated 2024 budget shortfall, with associated repayments totalling $128 million within the forward estimates to 2028–29.

You’ll be shocked to learn that this is not a one-off and a figure of half to three-quarters of a billion dollars has been handed over - sorry, “loaned” - to PNG every year since at least covid. That’s the price of regional security and not having a brutal civil war on our doorstep.

What’s another $60 million? At least we get footy out of it. If the money is going begging anyway, you may as well pencil in a couple of easy dubs in 2028.

Meanwhile, in Perth, Coach Mal Meninga reveals why Perth Bears have been unable to land a big-name signing. That was written by Dean Ritchie so I actually didn’t read it to find out the why. Adrian Proszenko’s piece, ‘It disappoints me’: Meninga breaks silence on Bears exit rumours, didn’t offer anything you wouldn’t have been able to guess at, other than there’s some friction in the Bears boardroom, which is downstream of the NRL’s captain’s picks and micromanagement, Meninga reluctance to move to Perth to do his million dollar a year job and hyperbole of the usual travails of getting a new franchise off the ground.

On one hand, “A crunch meeting between Perth Bears powerbrokers and NRL supremo Peter V’landys has reportedly handed the new franchise a boost in their bid to recruit big-name stars,” and on the other, “NRL clubs are set to demand compensation if the Perth Bears are granted salary cap relief to bolster their efforts to build a competitive roster before their 2027 entry into the competition.”

As you may gather from my tone, I am less interested in the merits (incoherent as they are) of these arguments, which is primarily clubland types panicking and hyperventilating to the media, than the timing.

As we know from the secrecy around Payne Haas’ defection to South Sydney, the reporters have very little to offer if it isn’t fed to them. The nature of these tracts then suggests discontent somewhere in the machine. It doesn't take a genius to guess that it's rooted in existing clubs not being happy the new clubs will be given any advantages.

The time to complain about these franchises was before the clubs voted to admit them to the NRL. But then the existing clubs wouldn’t have gotten their money. What were they supposed to do? Quite the dilemma.

Re: QRL CEO position

Dear Mr Canavan and board members,

With the resignation of Ben Ikin from the position of Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Rugby League, I am writing to you to express my interest in the soon-to-be vacant position.

After two decades as a professional engineer and nearly a decade of writing about rugby league, I have no proven skills or experience that would make me a suitable c-suite executive. I was recently turned down for a very similar role to the one I currently occupy at a more prestigious institution because I was an insufficiently impressive candidate. It’s fine. I didn’t even want the job.

I do not understand marketing. I have no idea why payroll has to be so complicated. Accounting and balance sheets? Dunno. Let the lawyers run the legal team, I just want the lawsuits to go away. Governance is a buzzword and communications does not require any skill or expertise.

I have only ever managed small teams but as I move into middle age, I have a greater appreciation for the boomers trying to set completely arbitrary standards on millennials entering the workforce, even if those standards were stupid (the standard I set is obviously correct and always will be).

I have little-to-no interest in cultivating the kinds of relationships with the media that made Ikin a well-known and effective CEO. I have met a handful of rugby league figures, none of whom have wanted to meet with me a second time. Ditto podcasts.

I think the six again is a blight on the sport. I have never even played rugby league and did not follow the sport for some of the 2000s and most of the 2010s. I am reluctant to travel, especially to anywhere like Mount Isa. I could probably manage to approve the budget for a good Christmas party.

However, I am blessed with a gift for holding short, and to the point, meetings. I tend to equivocate so that I always sound like I was pretty close to being right. I like to frame all risks as a catch-22 with no solutions that don’t involve spending a lot of money. I find most KPIs to be a meaningless waste of time, so there’s one efficiency I can offer, along with a distaste for engaging in unforced small talk. I can operate Teams with a minimal of fuss.

I can think through a problem like few others and do have a genuine ability to plan strategically, although my main tactic would be to ensure that I am surrounded by people who understand the topic at hand better than I do and ask them questions like, “What do you think? Why?” and “Is this political?” and “If you were in my position, what would you do?”

Understand that I am writing to you on a public journal which demonstrates all of my failures of foresight. This newsletter also contains repeated, and frequently immature, criticism of Peter V’landys, Andrew Abdo, David Crisafulli, various NRL clubs, referees, broadcasters, Pete Badel, the Walker Brothers, future Dragons halfback Brodie Croft and other important stakeholders that would make my presence completely untenable. My only saving grace is that the audience for this newsletter is so small that it is not worth suing me for defamation.

Like many rugby league administrators, I would have no idea what I’m supposed to do or why I’m supposed to be doing it. I think this would make me the perfect candidate for the role. I look forward to hearing from you to discuss the remuneration package. I will not work weekends.

Yours sincerely,

Liam Callaghan

Around the grounds

Dolphins 44 defeated Bulldogs 12. This was not a polished performance from the Dolphins and I think it’s pretty clear now that the Bulldogs are a bad team (boy, that was a season and a half), so let’s not get too excited about this. However, the Phins have won two after losing four in a row, so the team is at least pointing in the right direction and showing signs of recapturing the things that have worked well for them in the past. While they are unlikely to become world beaters, Redcliffe might find enough to beat the bad teams on the way to 13 wins. Jonathan Sua: very bad.

Roosters 28 defeated Titans 12. The classic Vlandoball game. While it was more decided on skill than referee beneficence, the inflection point of the game, where it ran away to an inevitable conclusion, came around 25-30 minutes in the game. After that, Gold Coast may as well not have been on the field. The decision to award the Roosters their first try was horrendous and no one will care because it was against the Titans in the 6pm game. Olly Pascoe didn’t embarrass himself and does Zane Harrison have something? Quick, pile all the possible pressure on.

Eels 33 defeated Cowboys 30. Eighteen errors. And I spent a bunch of time in the first half writing up how good the Cowboys have been for the next Bovine Bulletin. First sentence: “At the risk of setting myself up for even more failure”. Referees had a blinder, as we’ve come to expect, inventing pushing penalties and enforcing a pointless shot at goal after golden point had been decided. Losing Tom Dearden is not ideal for Queensland, north or otherwise.

Knights 44 defeated Dragons 10. I guess I hate myself then. Just adding a note that it’s been 60 years since a top flight club team went winless (1966 Roosters, 0-18). Those Roosters were the first for 20 years in any league. You know, just in case it comes up.

Sea Eagles 32 defeated Broncos 4. Jake Trbojevic looks like he's wearing a bubble wrap condom on his head. I don’t know whose pleasure that is for but it ain’t mine. He should be suspended for a few weeks for bringing the game into disrepute. The only upshot of this game is every win for Foran's Manly is another embarrassing loss for the legacy of Seibold, and everyone who pumped his tyres to get the Sea Eagles job. Looks like Foran is Jeff Saturday if it turned out Saturday was Alex Ferguson.

Clydesdales 28 defeated Tweed 24. The Walker Brothers, who coach the team I told everyone to stop tipping last week, won a game before the Dragons.

Cutters 26 defeated Hunters 24. If you were watching Storm-Tigers instead of this, you don’t know ball. The Hunters began the game up 12-0 after ten minutes. The Cutters levelled at 14-14 by half time. No one could make a conversion and the game hinged on several, frankly insane, plays. The Pietzner try (see below). The Bawase try. Rivett kicking Lama in the face. Brilliant stuff. That’s why we watch Cup. Impressed with the Cowboys’ Mason Kira in the red zone.

Panthers 30 defeated Raiders 18. I had this on but between kids and being the end of the weekend, didn't get to watch it so intently that I could provide my usual searing insight. I did tune in at times to hear Andrew Voss desperately try to sell us that the first half was sufficient evidence that rugby league is not broken. Buddy, they pay you whether the game is good or not, you don't have to carry water for those losers. Rugby league rises above its dickhead administration time and time again. It succeeds despite, not because, of them. Dipshits like Malcolm Knox, who is a rugby union writer and therefore wouldn't know good rugby if it bit him on the ass, need not apply.

Intermission

What to do when the cutout pass doesn't work? Luke Pietzner of the Mackay Cutters gives it just the right tap with the left foot and it's try time.

Hotseat

☠️ Seibold

☠️ Flanagan

🔥🔥🔥 Ciraldo

🔥🔥 Payten

Kieran Foran has whatever the opposite of a flame emoji is. 🧊? ❄️? Whatever it is that Stuart, Bellamy and Bennett get by default. It’s been a very disappointing season so far for those of who demand blood.

Fortunately, the carousel is firing up early in the lower grades:

The Brisbane Tigers can confirm that Head Coach James Lenihan will depart the club following this weekend’s Round 9 clash after accepting an opportunity to return to full-time professional coaching in the Super League.

He has been UNLEASHED at, or possibly on or by, Huddersfield. The most promising thing about this move is not the likelihood of Lenihan being able to turn around Huddersfield’s structural off-field issues, which are remote, but that the pipeline from QCup to Super League was not closed after Rohan Smith flopped at Leeds. The career trajectory for the ambitious coach is changing to something like: QCup head → Super League head → NRL assistant → NRL head coach. Super League isn’t just feeding players up, but coaches as well.

Upcoming slate

Obviously, all eyes will be on the biggest competitions of the weekend: round 4 of the NRLQ premiership and also maybe women’s Origin. The second Origin does not seem to be attracting the kind of buildup that it has in the past, being swamped by Fox going all out on their promo for Magic Round, and so I wonder if this says Something About Women’s Sport, or if its just my imagination? For the record, I am tipping Queensland 13+.

Rabbitohs vs Dolphins, NRLM, Friday 8pm, Magic Round

To paraphrase one Dolphins fan, the loser of this game will be outed as a pack of frauds. My money is on the Rabbitohs to get it done and a Fraud Alert will be issued for the Dolphins post-game. Despite a baffling surge in some stats backing the Dolphins in as one of the middle of the table teams, Souths are clearly in the upper echelon. Redcliffe may have forgotten how to play in front of a big crowd. Tip: Rabbitohs

Hunters vs Magpies, QCup, Sunday 3.30pm, Port Moresby

While you’re waiting for the Broncos game and instead of the interminable dreck of Titans-Knights, can I interest you in the local PNG commentary team that does the Hunters game? They get piped in on Hunters home games on Qplus, which is always a delight, and will be the only game with some degree of production in this split round. One expects Souths Logan is the higher quality of the two but there is considerable variability in performance, so the result hangs in the balance and may well take several severe changes in direction during the game. Anthony Milford is killing it at this level. Tip: Magpies

Warriors vs Broncos, NRLM, Sunday 4pm, Magic Round

One of the worst experiences I’ve had at a Broncos home game, excluding the ones against the Storm, was getting pantsed by the Warriors. As is well understood, there is a large Kiwi contingent in the Southeast. They will be out in force for this one. Ironically, given the other two games have precisely zero draw, the stadium might not be big enough for the Sunday slate. Anyway, Adam Reynolds returns so that might make the Broncos slightly more functional but perhaps not functional enough to carry the second string backs and J. Hunt starting. Tip: Warriors

For your consideration, I offer a five point plan for my administration

1. Elimination of all bye points from rugby league.

2. Removal of all salary caps as un-Australian.

3. Establish statewide programs in southern Logan/northern Gold Coast, Wide Bay, Darwin, Noumea and Guangzhou.

4. Demolish Davies Park and secure the construction of a new 25,000 seat stadium with working toilets on the site on the basis that I will personally flip South Brisbane to the LNP.

5. Recognition of Palestine, West Papua and Taiwan by the QRL.

If that doesn't sell you on this publication, then check out these new advanced metrics (this is a first draft - feedback welcome) in The Almanac.

These are only available to paid subscribers, so you may want to consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers get full access to the club newsletters, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges.

UPGRADE TO PAID

If you don’t want Substack clipping your ticket or to commit to an ongoing subscription, Ko-Fi is also available for one-off tips.

Thank you to Rob for becoming a paid subscriber last week. Welcome to the Rooner Gang.

Nickelware

Read this

• Campo - Ahead of his record game for North Queensland, Jason Taumalolo is still forging new legends

• Eye Test - Justin Holbrook unlocked the attacking potential of the Newcastle Knights

• Gavin Willacy - The new 14-team Super League is working. Why not add London too?

• The Chronicle - Outback rugby league roars back to life uniting devastated towns

• The Sportress - Six, Again: Excitement and Administration

• Rugby League Writers - Knights Look The Goods, Four From 50 & Storm Win

• Storm Machine - Game 751 – S29E10 Review

• Ant’s Slant - Schuster’s Redemption Pitch - Who’s Buying It?

• Stuckness - The Millennial Song (can’t argue if I’m honest, even though Black Fingernails, Red Wine, a song I thoroughly hate, was my preferred, more localised answer)

Notes

• Bucking the trend and refusing to believe in any aspect of the Newcastle Knights. Sorry, not happening. Now did Ponga, Best, Marzhew and Young max out at 250 on Z and combined for 0.75 WARG? Yes, but we all know statistics are flawed. (Dane Gagai looks a bit out of place on the spreadsheet)

• We’ll talk more about men’s Origin after the lineup is announced but I am kind of enjoying the swirling together of Billy’s hare-brained selection scheme, Queensland’s relative depth at most positions except halfback and the tension that we can’t possibly fuck this up while Daley is on the other side (but could we?). Sam Walker is already on the outs. Should they unleash Munster with the 7 jersey?

• Townsville Blackhawks have won the Mal Meninga Cup (U19) for the first time since 2016, defeating Wynnum, 21-20, with a last minute field goal. Taj Lateo kicked the winner after earlier going through the ad hoarding chasing a grubber. Townsville lost three straight MMC finals from 2021 to 2023.

• Kalifa Faifai Loa is playing for Atherton and Townsville Brothers in the same weekend

• Clifford re-signs until the end of 2028

• Pauline Piliae-Rasabale recommitting to the Titans for the 2026 season

• North Wales Crusaders update (it’s not good)

• $1.5b Trump Tower deal on Gold Coast scrapped, developer says. What? No way. “Let’s just say that with the Iran war and everything else, the Trump brand was increasingly toxic in Australia,” he said. “Some time ago we knew it was time to part company.” Uh-huh.

• These election results don’t mean tacking left or right, but delivering for the whole country. UK Labour got smashed in local elections over the weekend, turning traditional red areas into the light blue of Reform. Some of that is the UK’s criminal first past the post system and it’s only local elections but think we can say Workington Man is, at best, resting.

• In other seemingly irrelevant elections that double as a harbinger of doom, Farrer By-election post-mortem – Where to now for the Coalition?

Some content

Intuitions

Every now and again the blogosphere hits it out of the park. This analysis from Rugby League Eye Test may seem bereft of the usual charts and paraphenalia that get the nerds excited but it’s hard to overstate just how critical these three paragraphs are:

A traditional set (no set restart awarded), has a try scored 8.9% of the time. Assuming that try is worth 5.5 points based on a 75% goal conversion, the expected point value of a normal set is 0.52 points.

An adjusted set that includes a set restart sees a try scored 22.5% of the time, and multiplied by 5.5 is worth 1.24 points.

Yes, a single set restart being called in an adjusted set is worth 2.4x the expected points than that of a traditional set with no restart of the tackle count. That’s a substantial benefit. Assuming 8 set restarts are called in a game with four given to each side, that is worth an extra 5.8 points per game over a match with zero set restarts.

This made my jaw drop for two reasons. One, that is an astonishing advantage for the NRL to hand out such little consideration. Two, I can’t believe I didn’t do this first.

We’re finally getting to the underlying mechanisms of why the set restart has altered rugby league for the worse. We understand it qualitatively - the pile-on of aerobic effort caused by set restarts drives the defending team above their lactic acid threshold, from which they are unable to defend effectively and over the course of the game, fatigue compounds, causes errors, leading to more defending, creating a doom loop of pain that is inevitable and boring - but the quantitative aspect - why margins don’t correlate with a straight count of set restarts and why the impact is non-linear - remained less clear.

Many years ago I took a stab at expected points for rugby league and if you re-read that piece from 2018, you’ll see just how far ARLAF have come in the eight years since. In the pre-set restart rugby league of the late 2010s, a set that started 35 metres from the team’s own goal line would covert to a try at a rate of approximately 9.5% or 0.52 expected points. A set that starts 70 metres out (or 30 metres from the opposition goal line) converts at 16.6% for 0.91 expected points. While those numbers are precise but not necessarily accurate due to the sample used, that means the lift downfield from a typical kick for touch given for a ruck infringement penalty is worth something like 0.4 expected points. Any set restart, which was intended to supplant those penalties and stop them from slowing the game down, is worth 0.7 expected points.

Congratulations, you invented a super penalty to bring the little man back to satisfy the readership of a now-retired alcoholic dinosaur. Great stuff.

The beautiful thing about the set restart is no one knows why they’re given. “Ruck infringement” could mean any number of a thousand things. This gives referees a huge amount of discretion to deploy set restarts and an even bigger influence on the outcome of the game. One team getting as few as three more set restarts than the opposition is worth two expected points, which is enough to lift that team’s winning probability to around 60%.

This seems to confirm my suspicion that the outcomes of games in 2026 are hard to predict pre-game but very easy to predict in-game. One team gets an early leg up through set restarts and the rest of the game follows through on the physiological consequences. The outcome then depends on who gets the favour of the referee and that looks a lot like a coin toss. Because the referees employ the Nuremberg defence at every opportunity, they will decline responsibility, although I think there’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone at NRL HQ for this.

Developing an intuition for what was going to happen when this rule was introduced seemed straightforward enough in 2020, we’re now six years into this and there’s more nuance to consider. While I admit that I don’t have a good feel for these second order effects, do you know who should? That the changes in the area that set restarts that can be given and the way the set restart is deployed passed through without any stakeholders - the committee it originated from, the coaches, players, administrators and club officials - sending up more than a cursory concern, says a great deal about the amount of expertise in charge of the sport.

If only there could be some accountability for this. Oh well.

We’re so back

I have returned to Australia, where people talk normal.

While battling the worst jet lag I’ve ever had, and that of my young children which makes it ten times worse, people ask me if I enjoyed my holiday and I shrug, which is the most concise way I can communicate that I am thankful that I can watch footy again without it taking place at an extremely weird time (the morning) and am glad my children are sleeping in their own rooms again.

I don’t have the time to go back and catch up on the games of the last four rounds of the NRL (I have watched the QCup feature games of the last few weeks though, and boy, is the defence bad) but similar to 2021, when I didn’t watch the last third of the season and I missed nothing, I don’t think any team’s season is going to hinge on what just happened. If that makes me a hack and a fraud, so be it.

Women’s Origin

The Blues defeated the Maroons, 11-6, last Thursday night in Newcastle. The difference was a pair of Origin plays. Booo, hiss.

The Maroons hasn’t won the women’s Origin opener since 2023. 2026 was far from the disaster of 2025 or even 2024, a series that the Maroons won. In theory, that provides some hope that a rearguard defence can be put together in Brisbane and Gold Coast to reclaim the series.

However, the quality of the game makes it difficult to extrapolate forward. Queensland had control in the first half, thanks mostly to good kicking and the Blues’ errors, but lost the imperative in the second half, as Queensland began making their own errors and were slowly ground down and out of the game. Opportunities for both sides were rare, which might be the highest compliment to be paid to this, handling aside, otherwise compelling contest.

I was reasonably happy with the Queensland performance, which looks a step up from last year’s squad in disarray, even if that squad was several steps off the Blues’ pace. The debutants, particularly Hippi (who is now injured) and Kiria-Ratu, did not look out of place and it is somewhat relieving that the conveyor belt that turns over talent for the men’s team is starting to fire up for the women’s. Queensland may not win the series but if the Maroons maintain this standard, even a whitewash would not be as concerning as the performance of the first two games of last series.

The squad for game 2 has been announced with minimal changes.

It may have been my absence from Australia but I didn’t notice much of a buildup to the game until the day of. We all understand that this should not be the first game of the women’s season (All-Stars is on an island on its own in the calendar and that is what it is) and the players would be better off with some game time under their belts but until the NRL expands the Dub further, we’re going to have to live with it. Acknowledging that, this is still the earliest any State of Origin game has been played and having only just completed Anzac Round, Origin starting this early feels out of sync with the rhythm of the season.

Vibe check

Coming in to round 10, with Origin season officially open and men’s Magic Round just over the horizon, instead of going around the grounds, let’s check in on where each of the Q4 are at.

Cowboys (6-3, 6th) - Todd Payten is going to make eat a lot of shit, isn’t he? It’s an even numbered year, so the Cowboys are running well, on paper at least. Other than a very concerning opening fortnight and a supremely lack lustre performance against a Sea Eagles side that the Cowboys have struggled with in recent years, North Queensland have won all their games. That includes beating the Sharks, Bulldogs and Broncos. They’ve yet to play any of the season’s apex predators - clashes with Souths, Penrith and Warriors are through the Origin period - and the rest of their schedule looks no harder than it has been so far, so why not a finals berth, an early exit and a big fat extension for Toddo?

Broncos (5-4, 9th) - When I left, the looming injury crisis suggested that results would turn against Brisbane. Surprisingly, the Broncos are 2-2 over the last month, which is fine, and more surprisingly, the crisis has somehow gotten even worse. Players are now suffering from injuries that I have to google. Accordingly, there’s no real telling what’s going to come from the babiest of Baby Broncos. Even once the team starts to resemble something like its best configuration, it’ll take time for fitness and cohesion to rebuild. Whether there’s any season left or anything to salvage remains to be seen.

Dolphins (3-5, 11th) - None of the Dolphins’ pre-season problems seem to have been solved. Sure, they’re playing teams closer and chalked up a win over a very bad Storm team but the defence isn’t there, the attack isn’t coherent and they keep losing close games through their own stupidity. They are, once again, underperforming their Pythagorean expectation. It won’t be impossible to turn this around but when are we going to see it?

Titans (2-6, 14th) - Along with getting three byes, an absolute hammering of the Eels might be one of a few bright spots in this Gold Coast season. It is going to be a challenging start to the Hannay era but the sheer dreadfulness of the Dragons should insulate the Titans from last place. How could they possibly be under cap pressure?

Intermission

Does Micheal Luck know what a ‘justification’ is?

The $2 million bomshell:

The Broncos, Titans and Cowboys could field reserve grade teams under a controversial $2 million proposal for NRL clubs to join the Queensland Cup.

In one of the biggest shake-ups in Queensland Cup history, this masthead has been leaked a top-secret document outlining plans to expand from 15 teams to 18, including NRL glamour club the Broncos.

The proposal has been put together by Cowboys football boss Micheal Luck, who has presented the plan to Queensland Rugby League chairman Brian Canavan as the Broncos’ derby rivals ramp-up their push for a reserve-grade outfit.

This idea has been floating around for a while, with its background in the Kyle Laybutt scandal, and we’ve most recently talked about it here and here. While I could learn to live with the NRL teams fielding in QCup, the benefits being touted, for all concerned, are extremely dubious in my view and would put existing rugby league heritage in this state at risk.

There are two new bits of information to consider. The first:

The Broncos and Titans, who already have feeder-club arrangements, are said to be ambivalent about the proposal, while Redcliffe have had a Brisbane State League heartbeat since 1947.

That suggests the Cowboys are out on an island here, which we’ll get to in more detail once I’ve finished asking what the “Brisbane State League” is? In his fevered rush to drop this bombshell, Badel has conflated the Brisbane Rugby League, which Redcliffe entered the lower grades of in 1947 and joined the premiership in 1961, and the Winfield State League, which was the precursor to the Queensland Cup and ran in various formats from 1982 to 1994, which we talked a bit about here, in which Redcliffe participated in the early editions when it was run alongside the BRL.

The second is that Micheal Luck, recently promoted from football general manager to CEO of the Cowboys NRL experience and instigator of the Kyle Laybutt scandal, has laid out his proposal:

In the proposal obtained by this masthead and sent to Canavan:

* Luck proposes a 22-round format, starting next season;

* The travel and accommodation bill is budgeted to cost $2.1 million; and

* The competition will feature big-game blockbusters with NRL-style derbies involving the Cowboys, Broncos, Dolphins and Titans.

You know where you can see blockbuster NRL derbies? The NRL. Is this the best you can do? Here’s the quotes from Luck:

“We’re of the opinion that having the NRL brands in the Q Cup comp strengthens the competition and gives it more national relevance, both from a fan perspective and commercial partnership perspective. The one step in Queensland that we believe is still out of touch is that second-tier of football. Our club-contracted players can’t all be together under the same banner. We want this operational for 2027. The modelling that we have done suggests there is very little negative impact on our affiliate teams, so it’s a win-win in our view.”

The first part may turn out to be true, or is at least plausible because more people, inexplicably in my view, care about the NRL teams than Queensland Cup but I’d want to see a bit more than a napkin of business plan before committing to it.

The second part makes no sense. The quotes are joined up by me to save space but there isn’t a lot of connected thinking. Seemingly only the Cowboys think the second-tier is “out of touch” - out of touch with what? What the Cowboys want? Sorry if that doesn’t move anyone.

Good teams don’t make changes because they are good. Bad teams are bad and so need to make changes to address their problems. Looking at this and concluding that good teams are good because they don’t change is backwards. Expecting the Queensland Cup to be redrawn so the Cowboys’ juniors can play together before they are inevitably dumped onto other clubs to find success to keep cap space clear for duds and has-beens is not compelling.

As I’ve written before, an 18-team Queensland Cup is unwieldy. The quality of competition as it is with 15 teams, and the background labour market disruptions caused by expansion at home and in the UK, is at a low. Ringfencing the fringe NRL players into four clubs leaves a bunch of other spaces in rosters that have to be filled in with players from district A grade, competitions which are already under strain. Quelle surprise that was outside the scope of their modelling.

An expanded competition with more roster spots to fill will mean a lower average quality of play, which would not benefit the Cowboys reserves in any case, and the QCup is already at some distance from the standard of NSW Cup. The only way to improve the quality would be to cull teams. Luck hasn’t outlined which clubs are going to be excluded to make way for him to fumble his reserve grade roster. Perhaps it is time the Cowboys decamped for NSW? It’s going very well for the Storm so far and then we wouldn’t have to hear about this anymore.

“It wouldn’t take too much to organise. Under the wider proposal, it would create another eight to 10 big rivalry games a year. You could have Broncos versus Cowboys or Broncos versus Dolphins in the Q Cup, but we also could have derbies within our own footprint. For example, the Cowboys versus Northern Pride would be a big drawcard for Barlow Park (in Cairns). That’s not only a benefit for us, but for the Hostplus Cup from a revenue and commercial partnership perspective. At a time when the NRL are crying out for more content and going into a broadcast negotiation, I would think that the QRL would like to have something that they value to be able to add to the offering.”

The intra-NRL rivalry games are worth nothing in the second division. If they were worth something, they would already exist. If the NRL was “crying out for more content”, they could get the broadcasters to engage with QCup as is but instead let them off their hook from their FTA obligations during covid. NRLQ may have football benefits but it has had precisely zero cultural impact and it is made entirely of Queensland NRL derbies. The most likely scenario is these QCup games end up being curtain-raisers for the real deal, so add nothing to either ticket sales or broadcast revenue. Where does the revenue come from? There’s barely a market for Dolphins-Titans in the NRL as it is.

For games between NRL reserves and statewide programs, maybe there’s something there. The average Blackhawks game might get a couple hundred people and given the NRLW Cowboys don’t attract much in the way of spectators, assuming that level of interest is a reasonable proxy for the interest in the Young Guns (a debatable assumption), we’re looking at maybe one or two thousand for the really big draws? That’s generally bigger than a QCup game gets, an injection of $10k or so once or twice a year for the QCup clubs, but would they want to give up the fringe NRL players, invest in marketing to pump up the fixture and build a tradition, and admit three more sharks to the tank for $20,000? I dunno if that stacks up.

For it to make a real difference to the bottom line, you’d want a crowd that’s in the several thousands, which would require different venues for hosting QCup clubs and changes their cost structure, or equivalent cash considerations from the NRL clubs. A tripling (or more) of demand seems unlikely and smacks of Blake Solly arguing an all-Sydney conference would automatically generate 30k crowds. Again, dunno if that stacks up.

“The disconnection is a massive thing we have to work on. We have major logistical disadvantages.”

Buddy, that’s what you signed up for. Being a regional club has its pluses - the parochialism of the fanbase - and its minuses - its harder to manage and recruit players. Canberra has the same issue but instead of whining about it, they try to find solutions. Complaining about the vast, underpopulated expanse that is North Queensland is like Brisbane complaining about media pressure or Gold Coast about the lack of. It is what it is. Get on with it.

The real problem the Cowboys face isn’t their development pathways. It’s their management that - say it with me - doesn’t know what it’s doing or why it’s doing it.

Strangely, Luck hasn’t proposed any changes in this regard.

Upcoming slate

It’s the Challenge Cup semi-final weekend (Saints vs Warriors, Wolves v Rovers) so there’s no Super League on the slate.

There isn’t a lot of compelling fixtures in the southern hemisphere, although who picked Capras-Jets as a bellringer in the pre-season? Not this guy.

If you really hate yourself, there is a toxic waste dump of a Dragons-Knights game that you could take in on Saturday before Tweed-Clydesdales on Sunday. I can’t believe the Walker Brothers haven’t turned Western around yet.

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Stats pop

The competition pages on The Almanac have been updated to round 9, as has the 2026 Dataset spreadsheet (paid subs scroll to the bottom of The Almanac).

There is also a new page for Super League. I will likely do the historical tables in the next few weeks and follow up with club pages in the off-season.

While I was away, I mentioned that I had thought I had a problem with the way player ratings were calculated. I was right, I found the problem and fixed it. Apologies for the poor QA on my part.

Fortunately, only a sliver of one analysis this year used (and did not really rely on) these dodgy numbers, which has now been amended, and this now allows me to get to work on updating club pages with the correct player ratings (more a problem for NRL than state comps) and then producing advanced stats for paid subscribers, the commencement of which was how I found out there was an issue in the first place.

Maroon Observer QCup Tipping Sickoship

Don’t forget to tip if you are in this competition. The frequent draws are not helping aynone. Stop tipping the Clydesdales.

Nickelware

Read this

• The Times - Super League risks becoming part-time if it snubs NRL — no one else wants it

• Rugby League Writers - Why Standing Tackles Kill

• The Sportress - Six, again: Entertainment, baby!

• What You Get Is What You See - How to watch the Dolphins in 2026

• Storm Machine - Game 750 – S29E09 Review

Notes

• Belated statewide rep updates: Wynnum Manly defeated Norths, 26-16, to win the Cyril Connell grand final, Burleigh defeated Townsville, 30-12, to win the U17 Women’s, and Easts defeated Souths Logan, 32-22, to win the U19s. Wynnum and Townsville play the Mal Meninga Cup grand final this Saturday. Mackay won the men’s Foley Shield for the first time since 2021 and Townsville picked up the women’s title for the fourth year running, although this year’s competition was much more competitive. Gold Coast won the men’s and Brisbane won the women’s SEQ Chair’s Challenge. In the 47th Battalion, Capricornia claimed the women’s title and Sunshine Coast the men’s in Toowoomba. Players from those three carnivals will feed into City-Country seclections on QCup grand final day.

• Margin watch: 2026 is still tracking with 2021 at 17.5 points per game. I don’t really want to speak this into existence but the gimmick the NRL are looking for to end their self-inflicted blowout-a-thon is that the trailing team always receives the kick off (when tied, the scoring team can receive), not to introduce a faux-decision-making process. It would be better to restrict the set restart to the attacking 20 metre zone or, better yet, disappear it into a void but we know this not to be a realistic possibility.

• Broncos Annual Report: won both NRL premierships, dividend up from 2 cents per share to 3, profits after tax in 2025 up $2m to $7.7m (attributed to winning two premierships, increased ARLC grants ($24.4m) and “additional funding for each Club for competition expansion”, i.e. waving through the Chiefs), operating revenue up 20% on 2024 to just under $100m, ticketing and membership up 12%, merch revenue doubled and then some, board registered perfect attendance, keeping an eye on environmental risk, Donaghy makes $535k per year plus car plus a short term incentive scheme (another $300k in 2025), stadium expenses up to $10.4m, the racist owner of the Storm (Brett Ralph) is no longer listed in the top 20 shareholders.

• Separately, Stephen Mayne is running as a non-board endorsed candidate for the Broncos board. His pitch, that Australian sports clubs are community owned instead of being an asset for News Corp, is not compelling. For mine, News Corp is the ideal owner, with deep pockets and no interest in interfering with the board and letting the CEO get on with it. The Broncos don’t need to take a leaf out of the Eels’ playbook, on top of all the other Broncos-ness, and plenty of other “community” clubs are the playthings of a handful of idle rich people (see: Wests’ debenture system, how do you get a membership to Easts?, etc). At least the Broncos’ corporate operations are transparent. Mayne does not expect to win the election or have any influence.

• Rugby union’s Pacific heartlands threatened by NRL spree after Moana Pasifika’s collapse. Speaking of clueless whinging, pretty satisfying to see the shoe on the other foot. Albo’s going to have to do something about the Chinese sponsors though (proclaim the Australasian Empire, with rugby league as its imperial sport).

• Melbourne Storm insist Craig Bellamy has ‘fire in the belly’ to continue following Dolphins defeat

• Saifiti Announces Medical Retirement

• Sevens star set for code switch, signs for Titans

• Cowboys: Hifo & Veivers join Top 24, Nanai out for a month, Harrison Edwards released, Ashley Marsters signs

• RLP continues to add BRL results. Take this as a reminder to chuck some money at their Patreon and check out Redcap’s BRL site.

• PIF to cut LIV Golf funding after 2026, league announces new board members, strategic plan. Feels like we can put breakaway leagues in the bin for a while at least.

• Hung Vuong Stadium construction begins as part of Vietnam transformation plan. Sounds like something that could be aided with a NRL team.

Programming notes

While I’m on “holidays” in “England”, service will be reduced. It is difficult to write a full newsletter if you don’t have access to one-half of the newsletter’s remit.1 In lieu, we’ll keep it light and tight.

Things that happened

Mr Luai is going to Port Moresby:

The PNG Chiefs will stand for something bigger than a single country. We are also the team of the Pacific. Jarome embodies that identity, and his presence in our jersey will resonate across every Pacific community.

As attested by the ‘23 grand final Panthers, and the Blues in general, getting better without Luai, the Tigers could hardly have landed on a better first signing for the Chiefs. It will be weird for Luai to go back to the NRL after spending 2027 playing for the Magpies but he won't be the only one in that situation. See also: the guts of the London Broncos coming to PNG.

Alex Johnston is also committed, although he seems less likely to spend next year in Cup, and don’t forget the extremely normal friend-haver, Toby Rudolf. There are still hurdles ahead - the tax lawyers are rubbing their hands together as we speak - and some significant reality checks in the offing in November 2027. Still, the Chiefs seem to be landing better signings sooner than either the Bears or the Dolphins. Do with that information what you will.

Luai was flown to PNG on a private jet, was given the five star treatment, the subject of comments from the Prime Minister and witnessed grit and passion at a Digicel Cup game. Not every player is going to get the red carpet but the show makes it more real. As I've been saying for a while, this is happening. Whether it is sustainable in the medium term remains to be seen but the rivers of gold from the next deal will make it hard to fail.

NRL Physio went on Kevin Walters’ podcast, or at least that’s what I gather from some of the screen caps, and talked about the shit he cops from clubs:

Seeney received a professionally-worded response from someone within the Broncos rebuking him for sharing the information, while two more anonymous replies also arrived that were far less diplomatic.

“They abused the living hell out of me!” Seeney recalled.

Seeney puts such reactions down to a misunderstanding from clubs of what he’s trying to do.

“I’m not angling for a job in the NRL… I don’t need (clubs) to accept me or be friendly, but you don’t need to abuse me either,” he said.

“A lot of clubs seem to think I’m trying to undermine them, but I am literally just trying to educate fans.”

Brien is far too nice but I’m not. I would write in the newsletter that you got mad and I certainly would not keep your name out of it because I have even less interest in getting a NRL job than he does.

The blitheness with which the entire NRL industry treats its fans is increasingly grating. I haven’t cared about this in the past, and would often play devil’s advocate and justify decisions made in a business context because people seemed unable to see what was actually going on, but the powers that be are not even doing you the disrespect of being patronising. You've got Abdo out there telling us splitting the broadcast rights is in the best interests of the game while PVL sells set restarts as an existential panacea for the future of rugby league. Guess who didn't ask for either of those changes?

At the other end, you've got hopped up club apparatchiks chewing out an independent creator for doing their job for them. That he does it in a way a large part of the fan base enjoys only makes it worse for them. How about this: you want a different story out there? You have a comms team. Tell them to pull their fingers out and do their jobs. There aren’t many places of business where you could contact an independent person, abuse them for doing something tangentially related to that business, and keep your job. That’s why the NRL is full of employable geniuses and not just the most venomous vipers in the pit.

I make this point time and again but rugby league would not exist, certainly not professionally and perhaps not at all, without the time and money fans are willing to invest. All the players, administrators, club staff, player agents, RLPA officials, coaches, broadcasters and so on are parasites on your money and your attention. They should show some gratitude but instead, they assume you’ll be there, wallet in hand, ready to dump it out into their pockets. If fans want more injury information, they should get it because the customer is usually right.

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Intermission

Made the long, somewhat annoying journey (why are there roundabouts with traffic lights on major highways?) to Headingley to see the Rhinos absolutely crush the Dragons, 46-4, something that I will get around to writing up in more detail at a later date, once I’ve settled on a suitably patronising “here’s what I did on my holidays and what it Says about a Big Issue” undergraduate tone of essay.

Only one set restart was called but the AWOOGA sound was not piped into the stadium - disappointing - and then I had to explain to my wife why that was one special that they announced it, unlike every other penalty that I interpreted from the ref’s signals. That was something that I had never considered and annoys me more that the stupidest part of the game gets announced while real penalties do not. Some more photos on Instagram.

Upcoming slate

Read this

• Eye Test - Melbourne’s edge defense has vanished

• The Cruncher - Is the 2026 NRL season really “unpredictable”?

• The Sportress - Six, Again: Space to Breathe (see below for a point of pedantry)

• What You Get Is What You See - Ratings, Reddit and the myth of rugby league growth

• Colleen Edwards - Kiwi stars welcome Maroons call-up after Origin rule change

• Nick Tedeschi - Storm success was as certain as death and taxes. So how has it all gone wrong?

• Storm Machine - Game 749 – S29E08 Review

• Rugby League Writers - Broncos Draw Up A Beauty, Tedesco For Origin & Storm Depth Issues

• Independent Australia - Beneath the anti-Zionist Big Banana

Notes

• Last week's email has the wrong watch guide in it. No idea why because I did everything right on my end. Sorry. As always, click through on the Datawrapper embeds.

• Margin watch: 23.5 pts/game is not a record round margin. It is 33rd highest in the 946 regular season rounds since 1988 and the worst since round 16, 2024 (24.4). The 17.5 average margin so far is bang on pace with 2021.

• Drinkwater to depart Cowboys. I’ll have to think about this for the next Bovine Bulletin. What it means depends on what you think of Jaxon Purdue.

• Sami signs on with the Dragons from ‘27. I’ll have to think about this for the next… oh, right. I won’t think about this anymore, other than to confusedly wrestle with the idea that the Titans are under cap pressure. But… how?

• Brendan Piakura hurt again

• Brian McDermott appointed England Men’s Head Coach

• Missed this last week: WSOO and NRLW rules confirmed. As in, the women’s rules are the same as they always are (no set restarts, 17-player sides). Lucky for the pro-set restart brigade, if there are any, the NRLW comp is so lopsided, no one will notice if the games are more competitive than they would otherwise be.

• French broadcaster TV5MONDE to stream Top 14 for free in Ireland and UK. Brief bit of union news to note that, “The Top 14 continues to go from strength to strength and is by far the biggest club rugby competition in the world… A new agreement with Canal+ starts in 2027 and is worth an impressive €128.7 million per season.” So the biggest union club competition in the world is due to get AU$200m/yr from its domestic deal while the actual biggest rugby club competition in the world is already at ~AU$300m/yr from Australian rights (taking ~$100m/yr off from ~$400m/yr for Origin, rep games, NRLW, NZ TV deal) and is likely to climb north of $450m/yr soon.

• “The expanded memorandum of understanding will also see past Titans players recognised with their names to be honoured through the renaming of the older age group competitions - such as the Anthony Laffranchi Cup for Under 14s and Preston Campbell for the Under 13s.”

• AFL sacks appeals board chair Will Houghton after Lance Collard case

• Rare Queensland set of bells rings its first peal in three-hour ‘marathon’ effort

• Spending several weeks in close proximity with my in-laws is teaching me new things about how people use the internet (not complimentary).

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