It’s time for weekly Rugby League rant of The Gurgler’s angry man Buzz equivalent known only as the NRL Donkey, who provides his NRL Round 26 Expert Tips as well as offers an alternative, slightly unhinged view full of sass of the world of rugby league and beyond for another week.
The NRL Donkey’s NRL Round 26 Expert Tips and Weekly Rant
Rugby league is a very tribal game, especially in the dark haunts of Twitter (scarcely known as X) with arguments breaking out early and often after most games. But there are some things rugby league fans of any club can agree upon.
Todd Carney’s pissing in his own mouth goes beyond the “Rugby League hijink”. No animal should be left alone at any party where there are one or more current or former rugby league players. No one misses Paul Kent on NRL360, unlike the misses from Paul Kent’s world’s saddest ninja routine that night. And we can all agree that it was a shame that Buzz wasn’t also in person for the late-night pop-up Karate club. And the Grand Final should be played at 3pm. Not at 6pm, 7pm, or 8pm. And never Nein.
Additionally, fans of any team, decades of service to rugby league, Twitter (usually followed by brackets) handles, and bushiness of moustache can all agree….NRL officiating sucks and is hard to follow. And you’d think by now they’d be match fit, ready to run into the finals. But they aren’t.
It’s hard to know what’s a send off, what’s a sin bin, should that go on report, why is that ten in the sin bin when the other one wasn’t, and what’s that giant white line that ball is being put down on in the Storm v Dolphins game. Of course we all know there’s one certainty with sin bins, that Tigers games will feature plenty of them, mostly for the Tigers.
Yes it’s easy to pick on officiating, but a combination of The Bunker’s Boeing style incompetence despite technology, Gerard Sutton and Graeme Annersley’s lame attempts to justify all the garbage on a Monday means there’s little else to talk about sometimes. Fair play to Annersley we guess for fronting up at all. We’d like to see a La Tomatina style press conference with all the referees on a Monday where a club representative from each club gets a tomato. The referee with the most tomatoes at the end is dropped for the week.
Some match officials rule strictly by the book, some allow for common sense, which requires some mining using explosives so is usually in short supply, some use of a form of controversial Astrology that was outlawed by 95% of governments around the world in the 1920’s, so you can see why it is never consistent. Can the NRL change that, or should we just go down an even more ridiculous path. The latter makes for better reading, so I’ll go with that.
So what is the solution? Aside from setting up a No Sutton club, or introducing a second on-field referee, two in-goal referees, a second touch judge on each side, plus using AI to train drones hovering above the field to assist with offside and delicious deliveries from various team sponsors.
No, first in our great plan to save rugby league officiating is blowing up The Bunker. Which if you think about it is quite ironic, as they were literally created for people to avoid bombings in wars. Of course we will make sure on officials are inside at the time. And will have Todd Carney on stand by in case the fire gets out of control.
Secondly, we’re suggesting no more sin bins for anything. Especially Professional Fouls. Ridiculous that someone who lies on a tackled player for 0.4 seconds too long gets the same punishment as someone who did something that would be classed as assault off a rugby league field. Removing the sin bin would then halt any talk of who deserves what, and importantly leaves all 13 players on the field at all times.
But there has to be a punishment for sure. So players are still put on report and their crimes can be viewed in the cold light of a Tuesday in an office somewhere in Sydney, rather than a heat of the moment decision. But there should be a form of punishment at the game too, so how about each team loses an interchange for every player on report. That sort-of punishes the team who offended and slightly reward the team who were affected.
Of course some of you people on Twitter (stalked by brackets) will point out what happens with no interchanges left. Well then that team loses them for their next game. Imagine the kind of Mark Geyer at Origin special some players could pull off knowing there’s no interchanges left, and no further punishments for the current game. It would end up like one of those reserve grades games with five minutes to go and one team is getting flogged and angry and it ends up like a Friday night at a Kallangur night club. It would be like WWE, except there would be fewer people in lycra and actual fighting and most of the crowd would have a second digit of IQ. Sorry, if you like wrestling. Or better still. Sorry that you like wrestling. Talking of wrestling, this week’s tips have been a struggle, but did pick the Wests Tigers last weekend and refuse to pick them this week. Because they have a bye. Bye bye for now.
The NRL Donkey’s NRL Round 26 Expert Tips
NORTH QUEENSLAND v MELBOURNE
There’s talk now that Melbourne have won the Minor Premiership they are going to rest players.
I do these tips on a Monday, as by then I’ve reached a rugby league saturation point. So if Melbourne don’t rest their players this weekend the game preview attempt won’t be as funny. If it were funny in the first place. Which it probably isn’t. If you don’t think it is funny and wish to complain, please direct your email to gurgler.chat@gmail.com. The best complaint wins a hand drawn picture of your choice of Walker brother.
No one ever has anything nice to say about Townsville, so if you had a choice to go to Townsville or stay at home we’re sure you’d pick home nine times out of ten and then flip a coin on the tenth go. Cowboys looks a good bet until you see Melbourne have never lost a Thursday game v a Qld side.
Melbourne by 10
BULLDOGS v MANLY
Bulldogs are a real dark horse for the title and have recently added scoring points and winning away to the repertoire. Every week I marvel at remembering Manly are in the eight. But if you can believe it, for the past three seasons, one of the grand finalists has lost to the Wests Tigers during the regular season. Given that’s been a very exclusive club in recent seasons there’s still hope for Manly.
Bulldogs by 14
PENRITH v SOUTH SYDNEY
This will test if Penrith are truly busted arse for Premiership hopes in 2024. If they can’t beat Souths they can’t win the title. And still might not. Meanwhile, most of South Sydney’s white line fever is off the field.
Penrith by 34
PARRAMATTA v DARGONS
The who cares game of the week.
Not Dragons by 2.
DOLPHINS v BRONCOS
Does it get any better for a new local derby with both seasons on the line and the winner getting to taunt the other into Bali a week earlier than the other. Fair to say I’m very disappointed this game isn’t going to be later in the season in finals at Suncorp. Maybe next year.
Dolphins by 2
CRONULLA v WAHS
Somehow the Sharks are higher on the ladder than Penrith. That says more about the Panther than Sharks. And if you add the table positions of Cronulla and Penrith and multiply it by two you get the Warriors current ladder position. That’s pretty pointless. Almost like this game.
Warriors by 2
NEWCASTLE v GOLD COAST
Newcastle have a great record at home on a Sunday. Gold Coast’s record away from home isn‘t quite so good with people usually making the walk of shame after a big Saturday night. Oh, and the Titans have a terrible away record v NSW teams.
Newcastle by 18
ROOSTERS v CANBERRA
You gotta give it to Ricky, how he got his team up for beating the Panthers to save their season. But it is funnier for neutrals when he loses.
Roosters by 30
