It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times, and now the Wooden Spooners have cast their eye over the weekend of rugby league that was with the NRL Round 14 Weekend Headlines.*
Going beyond the scores, the NRL Round 14 Weekend Headlines gives the extra insight in the NRL that only the Wooden Spooners can.
All reports are unconfirmed and please contact our legal team or Buzz Rothfield aka Hans Moleman for complaints.
* – Please note in anticipation of the NSW-only fixture between Dragons and the Bulldogs being dull, the NRL Round 14 headlines have been launched before the round is completed.
THE STORM GO UNLOVED AGAIN
While most fans would celebrate their team going to the top of the ladder, the majority of Victorians were unaware their Melbourne Storm finished Round 14 in first place.
The Wooden Spooners conducted a snap Twitter poll on an AFL page and came up with these responses.
“What’s a Rugby? Is that the one the Wallabies play?”
“Is the Storm the newest AFL team?”
“Who cares? Rugby is for meatheads!”
“Yeah, the Demons are having an amazing season! It’s about bloody time!”
This is, of course, not news to the Wooden Spooners who broke the exclusive behind the scenes of a Victorian Rugby League Community Information Night earlier in the season.
Meanwhile, the Sunshine Coast mayor has met with Craig Bellamy, saying the Storm can stay there as long as they want.
Stay tuned for more….
CHANNEL NEIN’S PROPOSAL
Channel Nein CEO Hugh Marks has pleaded with Peter V’landys to give Brisbane a chance against South Sydney.
Marks has proposed the Broncos get a 40 point head start in their Thursday night clash against the Rabbitohs at Lang Park.
“We really need our Queensland cash cow to start winning, so a 40 point start should be enough,” said Marks.
While the NRL approved the head start, Souths are still heavy favourites to win 50-40.
Stay tuned for more….
PENRITH DENY APPROACHING NRL TO MOVE STATE OF ORIGIN BACK TO END OF THE SEASON
Before the State of Origin teams were announced a few weeks ago Penrith had been defeated once in their last 32 regular season games.
Now they have lost two in a row against midfield runners the Wests Tigers and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks on consecutive weeks.
On both occurrences the Panthers had many of their stars watching from the grandstand due to Origin camp duty or suffering the effects of the brutal infliction of wind burn on the Queensland defense.
However the Panthers board believe they are being punished for being the best side in the NRL and have reportedly contacted the NRL to delay the final two games until later in the season.
When approached, our contact on the Penrith team denied the reports.
Speaking of Origin…
Stay tuned for more….
GLADYS THE GROOVY MULE
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been hired as the Blues’ Official Team Motivator for the rest of the Origin series.
She won’t actually do anything though; she’ll just stand around staring at the wall, ignoring the players, and thinking about how awesome coal is for 10 minutes before taking a call from Scotty from Marketing and leaving the room.
“There’s a reason behind this. I’ll show the boys that if she can be the dictator of our fine state while doing bugger-all, then us smashing the Queenslanders again will be a piece of piss by comparison,” explained Blues coach Brad Fittler.
Stay tuned for more….
56th HALVES COMBINATION FAILS TO LIFT BRONCOS AS FANS WONDER IF KEVVIE IS JUST A CRAP COACH
The Broncos started in Canberra with yet another halves combination, and the one that was played was also different to the one originally named after the withdrawal through injury of Albert Kelly.
It didn’t matter much as Karmichael Hunt and Tyson Gamble were solid, but not enough to turn around the Broncos fortunes.
Reports that Kevin Walters was lining up Allan Langer for a playing role have been denied. Although he did admit he was tempted given his skills, experience, and the fact he was match fit after running behind the Broncos team every game, often covering the most metres per game.
One Broncos fan was very happy despite the loss however. Norm Gregson placed a bet through Sportsbet at the start of the season on Karmichael Hunt-Tyson Gamble to be the starting halves in Round 14 at the handsome odds of $500,000-1, which he took for $2 and also a multi combined with Canberra to win by 13+.
When asked what he was going to with his newly acquired funds he replied, “I was going to loan the club $25,000 so they could make an insulting offer to Matt Dufty so it ensures he joins another club.”
Stay tuned for more….
NRL BRACED FOR PLAYERS UNDERTAKING OLYMPIC TRACK AND FIELD-STYLE TRAINING TO REPLICATE KOBE HETHERINGTON SEND-OFF
Just when it looked like the NRL had found some great middle ground between protecting players and not turning the game into lower division English football match, the Raiders v Broncos match saw Kobe Hetherington sent from the field for high contact.
He was sent despite Corey Harawira-Naera tripping over after being ankle tapped and falling into the Broncos defender; footage actually showed Hetherington attempting to readjust lower in anticipation of the contact, something you would think would count in his favour.
All the good work of balancing was wiped by the pointing of one finger.
There’s a bigger downside though.
Canny club coaching staff have now identified that diving into an opposition player could get them sent off and they have changed training schedules already.
We have reports that up to six club have quickly hired any available athletics coach to teach the players how to maximise their jumping power to maximise their opposition’s time off the field.
Whispers are that legendary Jumpin’ Jai Taurima has been brought in by one club. We also hear that one club has even flown in former pole vaulting legend Sergey Bubka.
Rumours are also that a club had even hired an WWE expert. We presume to deal with the relentless physical contact.
Stay tuned for more….
IT ONLY TOOK ANOTHER HAT-TRICK FOR WAYNE BENNETT TO ADMIT LETTING ALEX JOHNSTON GO WOULD HAVE BEEN A MISTAKE
Alex Johnston is a very underrated player. So underrated that the Rabbitohs had forgotten to re-sign him during 2020 for a long time.
Despite being arguably the best number one in the club, Johnston is a team man enough to stay on the wing and score try after try.
So it seemed quite strange when Souths were looking like they weren’t going to take up an option on the PNG International.
Of course he did, and Saturday proved what a vital cog he is.
We are big fans of course.
Looking forward to Johnston’s contribution to a big Rugby League World Cup for the PNG Kumuls.
Stay tuned for more….
QUICK ORIGIN HEADLINES
Reports that Sportsbet are going to offer a Anytime Catch A Bomb for Queensland in Game Two are unconfirmed.
NSW’s Strategy Of Picking A Lot of Players From A Side That Had Lost Two Games in a Season and a Half Paid Dividends.
Mediocre Website About to do Another Dane Gagai is Only Good for Queensland Dig.
Queensland to replace South Sydney’s Dane Gagai for Queensland’s Dane Gagai for Game Two.
Reports Queensland Thinking About Replacing A Winger for Souths Logan’s Corey Oates Everything That It Wrong With This Season’s Team.
