Here's a random fact - With Junior Pauga's 4-match ban for his high shot dismissal on Connor Tracey, the Sydney Roosters now account for 20% of all games suspended this NRL season, and that doesn't include Joseph Sua'ali's send off in Origin I, which would push it to 25%.
Admittedly, almost all of the Chook's suspensions come from Pauga and Spencer Leniu's 8-match ban for a racial slur.
In fact, I'll use Sua'ali's suspension to segue into Origin II, because thanks in part to Sua'ali's 7 minutes of infamy, we've got ourselves a decider in 3 weeks, as Origin II saw New South Wales bounce back from Game I and play the most perfect opening half anyone's seen for years, as Queensland were absolutely whipped in a defensive performance that the Wests Tigers would've admonished.
34-0, the most dominant opening half ever seen in an Origin match, in front of the second-greatest Origin crowd in history, and if you want some context, the Titans were only up 30-0 at the half when they defeated the Warriors 66-6 during Round 16.
It throws up even more questions for Game III, because after having one arm tied behind his back in Sydney, Michael Maguire has shown he can absolutely hack it in a Blue jacket (Getting more out of Latrell in 80 minutes than Freddie did in 6 years), while Queensland are going to have to break their pick and stick stereotypes with how thoroughly the 17 were outplayed at every position, including Madge taking Billy Slater to the cleaners upstairs...
But we've seen this all before, not even 2 years ago - A big win in Game II is followed by New South Wales having to overcome the might of Lang Park and the crowd of orcs parochial Queenslanders, a place where the visiting Blues have only won a deciding Game III twice in 44 years, the last coming in the Andrew Johns series of 2005.
Interestingly enough, they'd be the first Blues team to win a decider at Lang Park without Ricky Stuart's involvement, because he was the halfback in 1994 (Which was his last Origin game before Andrew Johns succeeded him), then he coached the team in 2005.
Now, back to the club games, with Manly, Souths and the Titans all getting byes to give me 7 games to find 3 winners:
- The only game on Friday night has Canterbury hosting Cronulla in the rematch from Round 2, when the Sharks towelled up the Berries at Shark Park after some decisions went against the visitors, namely Kikau having a valid try rubbed out, but it must be noted the hosts have made great inroads since then, although captain Stephen Crichton will most likely get the night off after his monster game at the MCG on Wednesday.
- The New Zealand Warriors, fresh from having their season ended by a satanic ritual from the Gold Coast Titans, take on a Brisbane Broncos team resting most of their Origin players, although Reece Walsh should've been able to play, considering he was used as a speed bump by Latrell Mitchell... In short, a team in crap from versus a team in crap form, not even 9 months after they met in a Preliminary Final.
- The Newcastle Knights hosts the last-placed Eels in the Saturday twilight game in Newcastle, and this week Parramatta half Dylan Brown said he didn't know the Eels were in last place until he saw the ladder pop up on the Channel 9 telecast of the Tigers-Raiders game (In which the Tigers jumped the Eels on points differential), and the most startling part of that story is we have found evidence of an NRL player watching another game in their own spare time.
- The ladder leading Melbourne Storm host the Canberra Raiders at AAMI Park, and of course the Raiders are the only visiting team to have a winning record against the Storm at AAMI Park (8-6), but last Sunday's walloping from the Wests Tigers showcased once again that the Raiders cannot be taken seriously as a contending football team, so just watch them come out and look good in Melbourne.
- St George-Illawarra host the Redcliffe Dolphins at Kogarah on Sabbath Sunday, and it seems the Shane Flanagan Dragons are busy building away for next season, having secured Damien Cook from Souths in a mini-homecoming, and now Nick Cotric in the last week... still, looking at how Zac Lomax has played for NSW, they'll miss him dearly next year.
- The Channel 9 Sunday game has the Penrith Panthers hosting the North Queensland Cowboys, and you can only assume the Panthers are going to show the Cowboys how a team stacked with Origin players can perform on a weekly basis.
- And the lucky last game, a rare 6:15pm Sunday night game, has the Roosters hosting the improving Wests Tigers, who made the most of their games at home over the last fortnight, and earlier I did note that the Roosters have the most suspensions of any team this season, well, the Wests Tigers are not far behind in second (15 weeks vs 12 weeks).
And now for the Succinct NRL Tips for Round 17, here we go for 3/7...
Biggest toss-up is the St George-Dolphins game...
Still, I'd need divine intervention and a Ouija board to get more than 3 right this week.
Round 16 Score = 3/5
Running score after Round 16 = 72/121 (59.5%)
Lock of the Week
Because even blind squirrels find a nut once in a while
Spot on last week as Souths shut out Manly in a game you wouldn't watch again once, let alone twice...
This week's Lock, and believe me it's very hard to find a team to Lock in this week...
Oh wait, yes it is, because Penrith will absolutely dunk the Cowboys into next week, because it's cool to be a cat, it's COOL FOR CATS:
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v5H5SSrtTLev64LGzHhASVZgmHqeyY8-KPzaevKhxDENrCmRG47zyFuAy3KvwGnckpBe560HLiyx1_LZ-1mZFyJgmdbxDLvlD_9ltJRbg=s0-d)
What an appropriate lyric from Squeeze:
"The Cowboys take position in the bushes and the grass"
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