Lock up the kids & keep their rugby league footballs safe, the AFL invasion is real
Souths need Latrell, not false hope
South Sydney cannot bluff their way through September without Latrell Mitchell. He was running at training, but only at a slow jog, and the Rabbitohs are hopeful rather than certain that he will return around the finals because nerve damage affecting his back and legs carries no definitive healing period.
That matters because Latrell is one of perhaps four or five players who can materially change a team. Souths showed their split personality again when they failed to score in the second half and survived only because of their first-half lead. They sit sixth on points differential, only two points ahead of Canterbury, with the Bulldogs, Warriors, Tigers and Roosters ahead.
The Bulldogs game is a must-win for Canterbury and enormous for Souths. Ashton Ward, meanwhile, is believed unlikely to return this season after tearing his hamstring while attempting a conversion. Souths are losing bodies precisely when they need steel.
Manly are one loss from oblivion
Manly are cooked unless they rediscover their defence immediately. They have lost five straight, sit four points outside the eight and, by my reckoning, have conceded about 128 points across their past three games.
That is not bad luck. It is attitude, coaching and preparation. Defensive systems do not simply vanish unless the work and energy underneath them disappear first, and Manly are currently playing without enough of either.
In reality, the problem should be fixable within a week. I just don’t know whether this team can fix it. Lose again and the season is over. No excuses. No mathematical fantasies.
Horsburgh cost Canberra the game
Corey Horsburgh cost Canberra two competition points. Strip away the excuses and the missed-tackle statistics and that is the brutal truth.
Horsburgh reached between Dane Gagai’s legs during the tackle. I don’t know what his hand did, but Gagai and the dummy half reacted, Canberra received the penalty and were within range to level at 26-all with seven or eight minutes remaining. Horsburgh then clipped Gagai over the head, producing an immediate penalty and sin bin before Newcastle went upfield and scored.
That is not gaslighting. It is accountability. Dumb players who believe they are smart lose football games, and Horsburgh surrendered the advantage he had just created.
Christian Nicolussi reported that Horsburgh and Ricky Stuart then clashed in the dressing room. Canberra have now granted Horsburgh permission to leave despite one year remaining, he appears likely to join the Bears, and I think the relationship with Stuart is finished.
The Roosters must break Penrith’s grip
The Roosters need to beat Penrith because one win from 13 meetings since 2020 is no longer history. It is a mental scar.
Luke Keary admitted the Roosters had concluded their style could not beat Penrith, and changing personnel has not solved it. Joey Manu has moved in and out, Noa Noonoo has added considerable firepower and still the Roosters have not found a reliable way through.
Penrith have now lost Isaiah Yoak, one of the two players alongside Nathan Cleary whom I would protect from injury, although there may be hope he returns late in the season. That removes the Roosters’ last hiding place. They need a formula now because if these sides meet again in a preliminary final, everything will be on the line.
Global round is expansion without a purpose
The global round is classic rugby league administration: announce the destination before proving the point. Peter V'Landys has declared it certain for 2028, with Hong Kong, Japan and England discussed, but three new stops will not produce three times the benefit of Vegas.
Hong Kong makes commercial sense as a major gambling market near Macau, while Japan shares Australia’s east-coast time zone, although the roughly 10-hour flight remains a serious burden. England is crazy. The trip takes 22 hours at best, interest in the English Super League is fading and there is no broadcast appetite capable of funding the exercise.
Vegas worked because it became a thunderous season launch after the original American betting-market plan was blocked by legislative change. Keep what works. Don’t drag teams around the planet pretending every stamp in a passport is growth.
Give Robertson the licence to disrupt
The Southern Orcas are showing the courage established clubs have lacked. Their four-year offer to former All Blacks coach Scott Robertson is genuine, they expect him to sign within a week, and I hope they secure the 20th franchise.
Robertson does not possess the detailed rugby league knowledge of a conventional NRL coach. So what? Specialists can handle tactics, fitness and the technical grind while he leads the organisation, the same broad leadership model Mal Meninga has outlined for the Bears.
The game desperately needs someone willing to attack its stale pattern of two hit-ups followed by a block play. Chris Anderson once imported England’s flat attacking style, won premierships at Canterbury and Melbourne, and watched the competition copy him. Today every coach looks and plays the same. Rugby league needs a disruptor, not another photocopy.
The AFL invasion is real
The Ipswich Jets are right to sound the alarm. The NRL is not doing enough to repel the AFL, which has treated expansion into rugby league territory as a war while head office admires the shine at the top of the game.
The AFL targeted mothers by selling itself as safer, then targeted geography by offering councils money to repair neglected grounds, install lights and pay groundskeepers on the condition that rugby league posts came down and AFL posts went up. Councillors took the improved facilities because voters could see them.
That strategy has rolled through New South Wales and Queensland, with AFL grounds now occupying prime land in towns where they were once barely visible. The NRL’s arrogance is staggering. The elite competition may be thriving, but the foundations underneath it are being stolen one oval at a time.
Kill the bronze-medal farce
A third-versus-fourth playoff is embarrassing and should be buried immediately. Aaron Warburton raised the idea after attending the soccer World Cup and Peter V'Landys embraced it as a way to fill the Grand Final-week vacuum, but copying another sport’s dud fixture is not innovation.
Players do not want to bash themselves for the privilege of finishing third. Two players indicated they would require State of Origin-level money or withdraw injured, while paying two 20-man squads could cost $1.2 million. The premiers receive $1 million, with only half going to the club, yet the NRL wants to spend more than that manufacturing a consolation game nobody values.
City-Country died the same death: elite players were rested, withdrawals multiplied and interest collapsed. Build anticipation towards Sunday instead. Grand Final week needs theatre, not a meaningless collision between two teams already eliminated.
