This athlete needs to work on his technique...

Epic Finals Clash: Roosters 19 Tigers 15

Saturday night, at the SFS, 6:30pm kick off - Tigers home game. What? Tigers home game? A bit weird considering the SFS is well known to be the Roosters'. Didn't matter last night though, The Roosters was able to come from behind to win in a massive thriller that took the game to extra time.

Two key moments which got the Roosters through in my opinion:

• Anasta's field goal on the 80th minute which forced the game into extra time
• Shaun Kenny-Dowall's intercept try which ended the game after 100min.

Honorable mention to Todd Carney's brilliance who had a hand in the 2 second half tries from the Roosters.

I have dedicated our new blog layout to the gutsy win the Roosters produced last night.

TaekwonDOH!

So you already know about it. The World Taekwondo Federation (Yeah, that's the W.T.F , people )banned the dude for LIFE. (or maybe?) It was pretty bodgey how he got disqualified though. But I guess rules are rules? Kicking the ref to the head aint smart... but emotions run high in that kind of arena.
Still an Olympic fail. You get the gold medal for that, Cuban Taekwondo guy.

Where is League going?

Never has so much happened in an NRL season that this year - well from my experience anyway.

What has happened? Quite a few things actually:

Salary cap taking its toll on players, with the big news of Sonny Bill Williams leaving his 4 or 5 year deal with the dogs. Off to France to play Union. More and more of league players are finding the big bucks attractive overseas, i.e. England and now France. I was on the Daily Telegraph today and read of Souths' Dean Withers going overseas too. Then there was the news of Gasnier leaving a while ago. And even the douche Paul Gallen commented that he would leave league for bigger money - way to make yourself a bigger douche mate - ruined Origin, might as well ruin your reputation as a player also, douche.

Solution?

Get rid of the damn salary cap - why does league need it? Soccer, Union, NFL, Basketball - all successful, profitable sports that I do believe do NOT have salary caps - sure teams would suffer in terms of the rich vs the poor - but so what - it will keep players in the game = a better game to watch = happier audience all around - why can't David Gallop see this?

Grapple tackles.

Although very alarming and dangerous to a player - grapples have somewhat been reduced after referees and players complaining about them, naming the Melbourne Storm as the main culprits. But as I read through the Daily Telegraph site, Melbourne are not the only ones. In fact, there is a list that shows the team that grapples the most. Souths were second with 19 offences with West Tigers being the first. Melbourne were ranked 4th. Ironic how Jason Taylor was having a sook about the way grapple tackling was being used, especially against his own men, when his damn team are one of the main offenders.

Misbehaving Players:

It's becoming more common seeing misbehaving NRL players being mentioned on the news, with the most recent Todd Carney urinating on some dude's head - nice. This issue doesn't really phase me however - sports people are people too - and what Todd did was pretty funny.

Footballers turn boxers?

Mason almost did, having a few fights lined up, but never actually happened. Anthony Mundine has started a fad - even though he switched to boxing ages ago - I read that he won again - can someone please beat him?

Souths not last.

Self explanatory - and I'm amazed just how good Craig Wing actually is - I think since he's come back he has scored a try in each game - Riley Brown needs to damage his other shoulder.

QLD winning Origin again.. not expanding on that.

There are probably more issues I haven't noted, these are the ones that are lingering in my head, feel free to comment on the ones that I missed.

Roosters 10, Melbourne 6.

Picture from League HQ (Sydney Morning Herald)

To be honest, I was not fully confident to back the Roosters to win this game, maybe it was for this reason, why I stopped tipping. The Roosters, once again held their own against the benchmark team Melbourne, at the SFS.

The Roosters last year, were one of a few teams that managed to defy the storm from winning all their games. It appears that this has continued successfully at the early rounds of 2008.

Watching the live stats on nrl.com and listening to the live audio coverage provided by ABC radio, I hanged on to my seat and witnessed the very tight game. From memory, I heard them commentate on David Shillington's two tremendous hits on the storm's half back Cooper Cronk and some other noob, alot of drop ball from both teams, and the fullback wars that almost had Minichello score a try, up yours Tim Bailey.. I mean Billy Slater, stopping Minichello was not on.

It was Shaun-Kenny Dowall (winger) who scored the only try for the Roosters, with Captain Craig Fitzgibbon (lock) converting and kicking 2 penalty goals. Bloody Billy Slater just had to score in the last 5 minutes, with storm captain Cam Smith converting Slater's shitty try.

With this particular Roosters win, I can say with confidence that the chookies are a real threat for taking the NRL premiership, having won 2 out of their first 3 games, things are looking good for the red, white and blue.

Only worrying factor was Anasta's high hit on a storm player. This incident could rise and possibly come across with the NRL judiciary which might find Anasta guilty, meaning loss of game time.

You can view an article of the game here.

Tuesday-itis?

Counting down the hours until today is over. Why did the 4 day holiday feel like it only went for 2? I hate how the world punishes us by making working hours seem so long and never ending. And then when the holidays come the days come and go too quick that when you wake up the next day you have work?

Roosters are playing the Storm this saturday - Getting a bit worried about that game due to our loss to the Broncos - I heard however that the ref called noob rulings during the game which caused the chooks their loss. Whats the point of having video referees when they still can't get the calls right? The Sharks however won impressively over the premiers with Kimmorely scoring a field goal - for once the little dude did something for his team and not screw it up like he did with all his Origin experience.

3 days of work left after today. Watch it feel like 2 weeks.