Unfortunately, the on-field action was overshadowed by a numerical howler on the part of the officials in the Sharks v Cowboys match. Let’s hope that the footy, rather than the officiating, dominates the headlines this weekend. The last thing we want to be hearing about are conspiracy theories.

Here are my thoughts on Week 2 of the finals series.

Manly Sea Eagles v Cronulla Sharks @ Allianz Stadium, Friday night

The battle of the beaches kicks off Week 2 of finals action. Both teams enter this contest with injury clouds surrounding key players. Todd Carney has been ruled out and Brett Stewart is in extreme doubt.

Manly to my mind were far more impressive than Cronulla in their respective matches last weekend. Cronulla struggled to get the ascendency up front against the Cowboys despite having a clear advantage in the forwards whereas Manly really muscled up against the Roosters.

Success in September is built on winning the physical battle and defence. Manly proved last Saturday night that they are physically and defensively very strong, limiting the Roosters to a solitary try from a grubber kick. Although their attack was continuously repelled by the Roosters, they do possess many attacking weapons and have the ability to put on many points on the scoreboard.

The loss of Todd Carney is a big blow to Cronulla. Despite being below his best last week, Carney is an X factor type player and a match winner in his own right. In his absence, I struggle to see where Cronulla’s points will come from. Coach Flanagan will be forced to adopt a direct “up the middle” game plan which relies on the likes of Paul Gallen, Andrew Fifita and Co continually getting over the advantage line and creating second phase opportunities for Michael Gordon. If Manly defend like they did last week, they should be able to counter this. I don’t expect Cronulla to play too laterally.

The only concern I have about Manly is if they can rebound physically from their brutal contest 6 days ago. If they can, and I expect they will, they will have too much firepower for a Cronulla side which has already ridden its luck this finals series. Expect Cronulla’s defensive left edge of Jonathan Wright and Sosaia Feki to be worked over and face an attacking avalanche. Feki will likely be peppered by an aerial bombardment from Daly Cherry-Evans so it could be a long night for the rookie.

Manly to win this one comfortably for mine and set up a mouthwatering battle next weekend with sentimental favourite, South Sydney. Northies should expect to turn a good profit in the Shire this weekend.

Melbourne Storm v Newcastle Knights @ AAMI Park, Saturday night

I expect this game to be far closer than Friday night’s encounter. The Knights were particularly impressive in wearing down and eventually overpowering the Bulldogs. They played what you call smart finals football – executing a conservative game plan based around high completion and an accurate kicking game in a nutshell. It was a typical Bennett orchestrated finals performance.

Melbourne put in a mixed performance against a fired up Bunnies outfit focused on exacting revenge. They were caught off the pace early and before they knew it they were chasing the game. To their credit, they slowly worked their way back into the game and were the better side in the second half. At 14-6 down, they were on the receiving end of a horrible video referring decision, a decision which halted their momentum and revitalised a tiring Bunnies outfit. It was a huge decision in the context of the match. If the decision had gone in Melbourne’s favour, I believe the eventual outcome of the game would have been different. But that’s footy for you.

As impressive as the Knights were last weekend, they played an opposition far inferior to that which Melbourne encountered. I have found it particularly hard to establish a form line around the Bulldogs, who have been very inconsistent this season. Melbourne will not hand over the cheap possession that the Bulldogs did last weekend and they are a far more disciplined outfit than the boys from Belmore.

Nevertheless, the game will be an arm wrestle. It will resemble trench warfare and I expect it to be a close, low scoring affair. The likes of Willie Mason, Beau Scott and Jeremy Smith will fancy their chances of dominating their less experienced forward opponents. If Melbourne can match the Knights physicality, a moment of magic from one of the “Big 3” may prove to be the difference.

Melbourne has won their past 7 encounters against the Knights and I expect history to repeat itself, just. A parochial Melbourne crowd will get the Storm over the line and into their 8th preliminary final in the last 9 seasons.

* * *

For the sports multi, take Manly and Newcastle, both at the line.

Something’s got a hold on me and it’s Week 2 finals action – bring it on!

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Here are my thoughts on Week 1 of the finals series.

South Sydney v Melbourne Storm @ ANZ Stadium, Friday night

Historically, Melbourne has had the wood on the Bunnies. In the corresponding game last season, Melbourne put the Bunnies to the sword. Melbourne’s start was electrifying and the Bunnies could not go with them. The game was over in the first 30 minutes.

The Bunnies this year are a different proposition. They are arguably the competition’s most talented side personnel wise and they play a scintillating, yet structured, brand of footy. Combined with their physical presence, they have been a daunting proposition for most opposing sides. To beat the Bunnies, you need to match them in the arm wrestle and limit the involvement of Greg Inglis.

Inglis is the absolute key to South Sydney. If he’s not fully fit, the Bunnies cannot win the premiership in my opinion. He is their most important player by a country mile. Their whole game plan hinges off him returning the ball strongly and giving them “front foot” possession. This immediately gives their intimidating forward pack momentum which enables the likes of Reynolds and Sutton to attack against a retreating defensive line.

Unfortunately for the Bunnies, Inglis does not appear to be fully fit. He has more tape around his knee than an Egyptian mummy at present.

This presents the Storm with a great chance to knock off the Bunnies this weekend. Craig Bellamy will be drilling in to his players the significance of victory this Friday night…a week off and a home preliminary final. Such a prize almost guarantees the Storm will be right up for this game. Victory, however, will depend on the accuracy of Cooper Cronk’s kicking game. Expect Cronk to pepper the wingers or be willing to put the ball over the sideline or even dead in goal to limit Inglis’ involvement. If Cronk has his kicking boots on and executes accordingly, I expect the Storm’s 9 year winning run against the Bunnies in Sydney to continue, just!

Cronulla v North Queensland @ Allianz Stadium, Saturday afternoon

Only the most optimistic, one-eyed Cowboys fan would have had their team featuring in this year’s finals series 7 weeks ago. Neil Henry was made the scapegoat for a side which had horribly underachieved until then.

Henry gets the axe and suddenly the Cowboys rediscover their mojo. They are now playing with confidence and a kind of carefree attitude which makes them unpredictable, yet extremely dangerous. Their two most important players, JT and the man they affectionately call “Mango”, are firing on all cylinders. The Cowboys are the team with the most momentum in the bottom half of the Top 8. Having won 4 of 6 in Sydney this year, I think it’s fair to say that their “Sydney hoodoo” no longer exists.

The Sharks have performed admirably this season in the midst of adversity. They have done remarkably well to make the finals series, despite the on going distraction of the ASADA investigation. Central to the Sharks’ chances, are the effervescent, Todd Carney. League’s former bad boy has turned a new leaf at the Sharks and for once his footy, rather than off field antics, is doing the talking.

Focusing on tomorrow’s battle, Cronulla has a more dominant forward pack, whereas the Cowboys have more firepower out wide. There are injury concerns over a number of key players going into this contest. Carney has a hamstring niggle, Fifita has a calf strain and Matt Scott is returning from a broken finger.

If it rains, as is forecast, I’m leaning towards the Sharks as the forward battle will be even more important. If it stays dry, it enhances the Cowboys chances greatly and perhaps JT will be the difference. It will be an intriguing battle. Hold off on your bets until the final line-ups are announced.

Sydney Roosters v Manly Sea Eagles @ Allianz Stadium, Saturday night

This will be a brutal affair with very little separating the two sides. It is the most even contest of the weekend in my opinion. Both sides have powerful, yet skillful, forward packs with electrifying backlines. Defensively, they are both extremely sound and the most effective at executing the up and in style “umbrella” defence and forcing attacking units into error.

Daly Cherry-Evans, Jamie Lyon and David Williams are the best right attacking edge in the competition. On the other hand, the Roosters possess the most potent left sided attack in James Maloney, Michael Jennings and Daniel Tupou.

Jared Waerea-Hargreaves is a big loss upfront for the Roosters but I don’t think this tips the scales in favour of Manly. League’s most ill disciplined player, Luke O’Donnell is a capable replacement and an experienced finals campaigner who surely will be ready to make amends for his brain fade against the Tigers a few weeks ago.

What will separate the sides come Saturday night…a simple answer, SBW.

SBW is the best forward in the competition. His ability to offload the ball in the tackle and create second phase play is second to none. He can go to the line and put a player into a gap or steamroll his way through a brick wall. He is the complete footballer and a moment of SBW brilliance could well be the difference on Saturday night.

I also expect home ground advantage to play a factor in this game. Roosters’ fans are notorious for jumping on the bandwagon in good times and Manly supporters don’t like crossing the Spit, let alone Harbour Bridge.

Expect a bumper tri-colours crowd for the main course of the double header. They, together will SBW, will get the Roosters over the line in an absolute cliffhanger.

Canterbury Bulldogs v Newcastle Knights @ ANZ Stadium, Sunday afternoon

I just can’t get a read on the Bulldogs this year. At the start of the season, they were undermanned with the likes of Sam Kasiano, James Graham and Ben Barba on the sideline. With a near full strength line up, I expected them to gather momentum in the latter half of the season and charge into the finals as a serious premiership contender.

To the contrary, they have limped in to the finals with a series of mixed performances. Opponents this season have been able to effectively counter their short passing, lateral game plan. For the Bulldogs to win this weekend, Sam Kasiano and Ben Barba both need to have blinders. Kasiano may, but I can’t see Barba doing so. Injury combined with multiple off field distractions have dominated his season. He is nowhere near the player he was 12 months ago. I can’t see him turning the tide and rediscovering his 2012 touch this week.

On the other hand, the Knights come into Sunday’s encounter with some nice momentum. They are almost the forgotten side of the Top 8 with very few pundits expecting them to seriously challenge for the premiership.

They may be affectionately called Dad’s Army, but I really like the make-up of their side – a good balance of experience and youth, often a successful recipe at this time of the season. Jeremy Smith and Beau Scott provide some real steel to their forward pack. Tyrone Roberts is a much underrated halfback and I expect him to neatly steer the Knights around the paddock, showing experience beyond his years. Having the most successful finals coach of the modern day era plotting the Dogs downfall is also an invaluable asset for the Knights.

I expect Mad Monday festivities to be in full swing in Belmore next week with the Knights living to fight another day.

Good luck if your team is still alive in 2013 and happy punting!

The post NRL Finals Series Preview – Week 1 appeared first on Something Clever.

Today I was supposed to write part two of the column I started on Monday and discuss the goings on in NRL finals and AFL finals and it would be a nice and easy piece before this weekend’s matches. But NOOOOOOOOO Ricky Stuart has to come out last night and confirm the terribly kept secret that he is going back to Canberra to coach the Raiders.

I couldn’t pass up the chance to discuss this because it really does blow my mind, hey Ricky.

Somehow, Ricky Stuart is about to coach his fourth NRL club (not including NSW State of Origin and Australia), which means he will have coached a quarter of the clubs in the NRL. He only just started at Parramatta and was one year into a highly paid three year deal to rebuild the Eels, but now he is abandoning ship after one of the worst seasons imaginable to go to a club that waited too long to fire their coach and former Stuart teammate David Furner. The whole thing is a fiasco.

A lot of Parramatta fans are upset about this as it’s just another bad moment in a season that couldn’t get worse; however I think those fans are missing the point. The only upside in this whole thing is for Parramatta fans because they just got out of paying two more expensive years to the most overrated coach in the history of rugby league. It is win-win for Parra as they get out of his contract without having to buy him out, but also hit the necessary rock bottom to have the clear out of players they so desperately needed.

Whilst they may be at rock bottom, if I were an Eels fan I would be smiling today as everything can only get better from here. Next season won’t be easy, but they bring in talents like Corey Norman, Nathan Peats, Justin Hunt and unless he backs out of his contract Will Hopoate returning from his Mormon mission. They are going to make a very enticing backline (and hooker) and if they can get their pack in order they might just have a foundation to move forward.

Supposedly Neil Henry is getting the job and whilst Henry did a poor job getting the best out of the Cowboys this season until after he was told he was not being re-signed, he has a decent enough history. I don’t think I would have hired him were I in charge of the Eels, but I don’t think he is necessarily a disaster.

Speaking of disasters, that brings me back to Mr Stuart.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why this man is held up as such a fantastic coach that teams are fighting to pay him big dollars to coach their club and why some fans are desperate to get him or keep him. The man was a tremendous player but has been coaching for over a decade now and has one of the least inspiring resumes of someone with that many years under their belt.

Let’s look at what he has done shall we.

His career started off with the best season of his coaching career when he won the Premiership as a rookie coach with the Roosters in 2002. Ignoring the fact that the Bulldogs had the salary cap scandal that year which made life a bit easier, the main reason they won that title was because Phil Gould (and Graham Murray) not only built a fantastic squad, but he was holding Stuart’s hand the entire way and practically coaching that team. Say what you want about Gould as a media personality, and many people have, but he was and probably still would be an incredible football coach.

Every Roosters fan I know gives credit for that title to Gould and Fittler, not to Stuart. The Roosters made the next two Grand Finals with that incredible team but fell one game short both years. Now I guess that three year run must be why some rate Stuart as a coach, but then Stuart and Gould had their falling out, Gould left the Roosters and everything fell to shit for poor old Sticky.

He left the Roosters with a winning record and 3 Grand Final appearances, so it reads well, but knowing how good the squad was and how instrumental Gould was, the statistics tell a story that reality struggles to back up. He moved on to the Sharks for the 2007 season and I guess because expectations are low and because the Sharks did at least play defence under him, people act like he was a good coach there too.

Again, most Sharks fans I know never rated him either.

Again he left before the end of his contract and with poor relationships with many at the club including players and board members. By the end of his four years at Cronulla he had an amazing win percentage of 45%. They had one good year in 2008 where they made the preliminary final, but they were never able to reach those heights again.

After leaving that job he took the NSW Origin coaching job and we all know how unsuccessful that turned out, so we will leave it at that. On the subject of representative coaching, he also had the 2008 World Cup drama when coaching Australia when he lost the final to New Zealand and then was fined $20,000 for a post-match outburst before stepping down.

Then this year he returned with Parramatta. I must admit, whilst I didn’t think he would do a great job I figured he would at least get them defending as his Sharks team had and been a bit competitive. But no, the team not only didn’t defend, but they looked like they couldn’t care less for much of the season. Stuart handled the clear out saga terribly and turning a lot of the team against him and amazingly a club that got the wooden spoon in 2012 managed to play even worse in 2013.

Somehow his reputation wasn’t damaged beyond repair by this and yet again he leaves a club of his own accord and not at the end of a contract.

The Raiders have a very talented playing roster. They need a hooker desperately, but have enough talented players that they can work it out. Whilst they made week 2 of the finals last year, they have probably underachieved under David Furner given how talented their squad is and how much of a factory their Holden Cup team is and has been going back to when they won the first Toyota Cup.

I applauded their decision to finally end Furner’s tenure, but now I feel like they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

We will have to wait and see how they perform under Stuart, how well he incorporates their next generation of stars into the side and whether he can get the players to be disciplined on and off the field. They no longer have the Blake Ferguson, Sandor Earl or Josh Dugan distractions so everything is set up for Stuart to have every opportunity to succeed.

But surely if he fails yet again, there won’t possibly be a fifth team desperate to hire him. He currently holds a 51% win percentage heavily weighted by those first three years at the Roosters. But those seasons were a decade ago and it’s been all downhill since then.

For some reason NRL clubs look at Ricky and think he is so fine and that blows my mind.

The post Oh Ricky You’re So Fine appeared first on Something Clever.

Firstly the challenge that is Blake Ferguson. You know Blake is a problem when despite his obvious footballing talents, the fans of both clubs he has played for now despise him, as Sharks fans hate him for how he left citing he wanted to play for a title contending team, and then left to the Raiders who at the time were no better than the Sharks.

Raiders’ fans now hate him for how much of a problem he has been off the field and the lack of respect he has shown the club in trying to leave, as if it isn’t his own fault he is in this situation. I am not going to spend the time writing out all of Blake Ferguson’s incidents and troubles because the list is too long, but at the end of the day they mostly come down to attitude, immaturity and alcohol.

With David Furner now sacked as coach of Canberra and Ferguson’s contract giving him an out due to that fact kicking in after the season, it is expected he will leave the club and most likely move back to Sydney, with numerous clubs being linked with him. Funnily enough, one of the clubs heavily linked with him are the Sharks, who definitely could use him on the field, but their fans would have to swallow a lot of pride to accept him back.

The question is, is Blake Ferguson worth signing? In the short term the answer is almost definitely yes, given he clearly is a super talented player and only 23 years old. My Rabbitohs are another team rumoured to be sniffing around him, as if we could use a player at any position it would be a strike outside back. As a fan of a club rumoured to be after him I am conflicted about signing him.

Half of me wants nothing to do with a player that has had countless chances, is facing a sexual assault related charge, just got done speeding with a suspended licence whilst being AWOL from his club and is overall completely unreliable and could cause much more trouble than he is worth, especially when the club doesn’t really need him.

The other half of me thinks that his talent is clearly obvious, he is fixable in the right environment and that he could grow up soon. Plus if there is any NRL club with the environment to help him, the Rabbitohs would arguably be it for several reasons. First and foremost the club under Michael Maguire has a very strong culture with players who keep each other in line and don’t tolerate the sorts of things Ferguson has been doing. Regardless of talent players are treated the same as evidenced by veteran Nathan Merritt being stood down for a week during preseason for sleeping in late. Secondly the club has a strong Indigenous culture both inside the playing group (Inglis, Merritt etc.) as well as in the community. If Blake Ferguson can be saved, Souths could be the best place for him.

The problem with the above sentence is the word ‘could’. I am still not convinced he is worth it, given it is possible he could destabilise a club that is successful without him. If the club do happen to sign him, I will welcome him and look forward to seeing him on the field, but I won’t fully embrace him until he earns our trust. I will always be waiting for the news that he is in trouble and has been stood down, suspended or even had his contract torn up.

Whoever does sign him is taking a massive risk and I hope for the sake of the NRL as well as Blake personally that he rewards them for taking that risk and gets his shit together.

That brings me to Sandor Earl. Obviously I have to be very careful what I say about this case as there is a lot we don’t know and a lot still to come out. What we do know is that Earl has now admitted he took as well as trafficked an illegal peptide and is going to be banned for it. If he gives up all the information he has then he might have his sentence reduced.

The news here is not the fact he took the peptide. At the end of the day Sandor Earl isn’t a huge name and he had been linked to the scandal for a while now. The news is the fact that he was supplying others with the peptide as well. I read elsewhere that other players haven’t been linked to his supplying, but I’m sure there is a lot more to come out.

Either way it is good to see the NRL and ASADA finally catch someone in the NRL, especially someone linked to Stephen Dank and I hope it is the start of them actually taking action against those they have evidence against as well as leading them towards evidence against those they can’t yet prove did it.

This saga has been going on long enough now that we need to start seeing action beyond a few accusations against clubs or players. The Sharks situation needs to be dealt with soon, whether that is taking action or dropping the charges (I can’t see the latter happening) and I’m sure there are other clubs and players being looked into.

If nothing else, I hope this saga has scared players into not only not deliberately cheating, but also into being more diligent about what goes into their body, regardless of who suggests it to them. Whilst I feel sorry for any player that took an illegal substance on the advice of someone they legitimately believed they should be able to trust and might have a legal recourse because of that, they still should do their own research into things to know what they are putting into their body.

The specific peptide Sandor Earl has been done for is actually a bit scary. There are reports linking it cancer and also how experimental it is. Is a football career even worth that?

For now however, Sandor Earl’s footy career, not just here but even his French rugby career he was supposed to be embarking on, is on hold. What happens to Blake Ferguson however is still very much up in the air. The 2012 glory days of Dorguson feel like a lifetime ago and both Earl and Ferguson may one day be viewed as a cautionary tale.

The post A Bad Time to be Dorguson appeared first on Something Clever.