South Africans have never been good at League!

Rugby Forwards haven’t made it in Rugby League since a one-off Ray Price did back in the 80s.
Wingers and Centres did OK but the game has plenty of good Outside backs already.

Just a waste of Cap space and Roster spots.

Your Salary Cap estimations are in reality way off.
At the Rabbitohs many players are getting paid less than what they could get at other clubs.
It is a fact that 90% of the Roster has signed for less.
Regardless of what Rothturd and Anasta says in their Limited News network…

Solly confirmed this, Not a single player is getting a million dollars at Souths under the Cap…

I am sure Latrell and Murray gets paid more than $1M but there are plenty of 3rd Party deals at Souths.

So under the Cap… the main players who are out injured.
Murray, Johnston, Munro, Wighton, Walker, Humphreys, that is about $3m under the cap give or take $250k.
Add Havili, Ravalawa, Mamouzelos and Gray, that is another $950k

These 10 players take up a little over $4m in the CAP!
That is an over estimation of their cap status!

Munro, Humphreys and Gray will all get paid more under the Cap in 2026.
Havili and Ravalawa will be moved on.
Johnston and Walker, if they re-sign will also be on less in 2026.

That is the Business under the Salary cap!

I expect Mamouzelos to be out about 8 weeks.
Jye Gray… TBA

All I will say is that Humphreys and Johnston could play next Friday.
Shaq Mitchell is back in the Reggies from injury.
Schuster is getting close to a first-grade return.
Tyrone Munro, who is slated to return in Rd 12 says he is ready to play in Rd 10 but the club may hold him back.

This would be my team if all these changes do occur:
01- Latrell Mitchell/Jye Gray
02- Alex Johnston/B Bentley-Hape
03- Isaiah Tass
04- Campbell Graham
05- Tyrone Munro/Fletcher Myers
06- Josh Schuster
07- Jamie Humphreys/Lewis Dodd
08- Sean Keppie
09- Jayden Sullivan
10- Junior Tatola
11- Keaon Koloamatangi
12- Jai Arrow
13- Lachlan Hubner
Interchange:
14- Jye Gray/Euan Aitken
15- Tallis Duncan
16- Davvy Moale
17- Shaq Mitchell
RESERVES:
18 Liam Le Blanc
19- Thomas Fletcher.
20-Talanoa Penitani
21- Lewis Dodd
22- Salesi Ataata
23- Nazareth Taua

The Rabbitohs only had 4 months to gather players for 5 grades in 2002.
First Grade, Reggies, Flegg, Ball and Matts.

Won the Court Case on July 6, and started pre-season training on November 1.
Trials and Comp games in February and March.

What are the Bears complaining about?

The Bears already have Reserve Grade, Flegg, Ball and Matts teams in the competition.

That is due to you being a Youngster.
Premierships were in 1921 & 1922…
Runners Up in 1952
7 Wooden Spoons.

The Bears seldom made the semis!

Besides the 1990s, the Bears have only made the semis 5 times since 1952.

From 1908 to 1999, the Bears only made the playoffs 19 times in 92 seasons.

The JOKE of the League!

This is the Rugby League Section of the ROAR…

If you look up at the menu at the TOP, you will see that there are separate sections for AFL and YAWNion.

Surely you people in Perth would have preferred your own Brand, team colours and logo?
What does Perth have to do with a North American Bear?

Perth Redbacks would have been better.

I hope you people in Perth realise that North Sydney are the JOKE of the League in Sydney for over 80 years!

I hope you do well…

The private consortium pulled out, as I don’t think they wanted to be linked to a North American Bear OR an antiquated team from Sydney.

The people of Perth deserved their own team name, colours and emblem.

Is Latrell playing five-eighth against the Cows a shock?

NOPE, all Rabbitohs fans have been writing about this all weekend.

If you are going to change the rules for 1 or 2 players then you should throw it open to all players and all nations, Pommies and Kiwis.

If that is what you want to do to allow the very best 34 players from the NRL to play Origin, then allow them to play for another nation at the end of the year.

Regardless of where they were born or raised or where you came from, when it comes to selecting an Australian Test team, you may be lucky to get a handful of Aussie players with Origin experience.

You either enforce the current rules, or you don’t.

Promote Samoa and Tonga to Tier ONE status, and pay them the same as Origin and Test players, and then we will see who they decide to play for!

It won’t be for Australia!

That is only due to the fact that 60% of our Back 5 players are out.

If AJ, Graham and Munro were all available…
Gray would be at 14.

Now we have Walker and Humphreys out.

Everything I wrote is factual.

The eligibility now is you need to have played in NSW or Qld before your 13th birthday to qualify to play Origin.

Phil Gould is DEAD WRONG!

I have always held the view that regardless of this tier 1 and tier 2 situations that if you play Origin you should be available for Australia first.

If you are NOT selected for Australia, then you can have a tier-two nation to fall back on in a World Cup year.

The operative phrase is… In a World Cup Year…
The 3 Riff players should be banned from playing origin as they chose Samoa first and foremost and took themselves out of the selection process for Australia.

The 4 Nations Pacific Test Series is not a World Cup!

State of Origin should always be a selection process for players wishing to play for Australia.
I have been saying this for years!

The selection criteria has changed over the years, but the State you were born in should be the only priority.
In recent years, to accommodate players not born in NSW or QLD, it is now that you must have played in either state before your 13th birthday.

It has been difficult to convince the dummies in the media and uninformed fans.

The majority of 2024’s High-Performance Staff have been sacked and replaced!
About 85% are gone!

That is absolute rubbish…

There is no way in hell Sam Walker will be at the Rabbitohs.

Barry…

Defeating the Premiers is worth more than defeating the lowly Dolpims and Dragons.

In the Pre-Season, not many scribes or opposition fans gave the Rabbitohs any hope at all, with many predicting a Bottom 4 finish!

I penciled in 5 wins and 3 losses in the first 8 weeks before Murray and Latrell were injured at training.

I must admit that the day both Murray and Latrell were injured within 5 minutes, I went out like many other Souths fans and got sloppy drunk.

I wasn’t in a good way at all with that 5-3 prediction drifting out rapidly.
I always thought that at full strength, the Rabbitohs could beat the majority of teams with the Panthers, Storm and Sharks being the exception.

I don’t rate the Broncos, Bulldogs, Raiders or Manly as premiership contenders. They are all too inconsistent, but it is a close competition.

Beating the Dolphins and the Dragons, I was surprised and happy, considering the players in the injury/rehab squad.
Having Mitchell, Murray and Aitken out was bad enough but with Munro, Graham and Johnston out as well, it just doesn’t seem possible to win those games.

Losing to the Sharks was expected.

To thoroughly trample on the Panthers in the first half was so pleasing.
My neighbour, the Riff fan, calls me road kill…
He is in hiding, I haven’t seen him at all, lol.

The refereeing in the second half was pathetic and so biased against the Rabbitohs, thus the 18 points scored.
It seemed Klein was doing his level best to get the Panthers the win with a 5 nil set restarts going to the Riff with 3 of those on the last tackle and ZERO to Souths, it was so wrong.
The first 2 tries were scored off the back of those set restarts.

I counted at least 6 that should have been awarded to Souths but weren’t.
Twice, we were tackled in the air right in front of the officials, but no penalty…
The Members and True Fans at the game were ropable!
As a fan and as a retired referee, it was so blatant!
Referees watch the game differently than the average one-eyed fan as we see things many others miss. Not even the players know all the rules.

Moving forward, I think the Roosters, Cowboys and the Bulldogs are probable wins before the Storm in Melbourne.

Who knows, my predicted 5-3 start may be correct; perhaps it may even be a 6-2 start to the season?

Mary…
Please comment on what I wrote above about this bit…

**********************
I remember the last time such an idea was floated. Some executive at C9 commented that if C9 were to lose the rights to State of Origin, they would forgo the rights to competition games.

As he put it…
State of Origin is the Jewel in the Crown where their profit comes from.
C9 loses money from the Competition games because the cost of production is extremely high.
***************

Will Channel 9 lose money on broadcasting the Competition Rounds if they don’t have the rights to State of Origin?
Origin is worth about $200m or more?

FTA only show 3 games out of 8.
Personally, they should show at least 5 games, if not all 8 or 9 in the future, in conjunction with FOX!

The C9 commentary is so second-rate compared to FOX.
They don’t actually “CALL” the game!

Will breaking up League into multiple channels work?

I doubt it!

I remember the last time such an idea was floated. Some executive at C9 commented that if C9 were to lose the rights to State of Origin, they would forgo the rights to competition games.

As he put it…
State of Origin is the Jewel in the Crown where their profit comes from.
C9 loses money from the Competition games because the cost of production is extremely high.

If streaming companies like DANZ, Amazon or Netflix win the rights, are they going to invest money into the production side of it, or will they just show the finished product?

FOX is selling to an English International consortium, They may be interested in showing League but not in the production costs involved?

For this to truly work, the NRL would need to pay for all production costs and then on sell the games to Networks as a finished product.

I, for one, am only interested in watching my team play.

If the rights are split up and we need to pay subscription fees for 2, 3 or 4 different networks, it will be difficult for me as my team may only play on, say, 8 Friday Night games.
So why would I want to pay for 27 Friday Night games?
It makes little sense!

There is no way I would pay to watch the Shoncos OR the Rorters!

It is curious why C7 would want to involve themselves in Rugby League, given that they are doing so much to muddy the waters and to prevent a Perth team from entering the Competition.

C7 owns the Newspaper, The Western Australian, who are dedicated to the AFL.
The Western Australians seem to fear a possible Perth franchise.

Kerry Stokes is the owner.

The last time Stokes stuck his nose into Rugby League was back in 2001 when he backed the Rabbitohs to help bury Murdock in Court.

I am starting to think this “Bennett Curse” is nothing more than a MYTH!
Sure Clubs seem to go downhill after Bennett leaves but is it Clint’s fault?

Hear me out!

As a Rabbitohs fan, I have seen this first-hand.
At the Rabbitohs Demetriou dismantled everything that Clint put in place.
Demetriou even stated at the time… I will do things my way…
I started to call Demetriou… Frank, lol. After Sinatra!

Demetriou changed our defensive system (we started to leak points)
Demetriou changed our attacking structure (we scored fewer points)
Demetriou started to get rid of our big props for midget Locks in the middle… (we started losing the ruck and were trampled on)

Demetrio brought in Reserve Graders instead of buying quality First Graders.
We were a TOP 4 team who went downhill.

The other top teams kept their big props and continued to trample everyone who came in front of them!
The Rabbitohs slipped down the ladder.

Now Wayne is back so have a look at the turnaround…
What an improvement in defence and attitude.
Sure our 2 wins were ONLY against the bottom feeders…
Dolphins: The Rabbitohs had many players who played in their first game for 10 months or more. Plus were missing Mitchell, Johnston, Murray and Aitken.
Dragons: We had Mitchell, Johnston, Wighton, Munro, Murray and Aitken out.

The most pertinent fact that seems to be overlooked is that every single club employed a Rookie Coach after Wayne left.
WHY… would they do that?

Coaches after Wayne left:

Brisbane: Ivan Henjack 2008-2009, Rookie
Dragons: Steve Price 2012-2014, Rookie
Knights: Danny Buderus 2015, Rookie
Broncos: Anthony Seibold 2019-2020, (Rookie 2nd season)
Rabbitohs: Jason Demetriou 2022-2024. Rookie
Dolphins: Kristian Woolf 2025- Rookie

Can you all see the trend?
Can you all understand why I call this “Bennett Curse: nothing more than a MYTH!

Why should Wayne Bennett be blamed and criticised when all of those clubs employed a Rookie Coach who changed their systems and dismantled everything that Wayne put in place?

It is a ridiculous argument created by some idiot in the Sydney Media!

CASE CLOSED:
In a Court of LAW… I have proven my Case!

Jamie Humprehy will need re-signing and upgrading.
The only question is how much?

As far as Salary Cap is concerned, WHY is it that only the Rabbitohs seem to be in Salary Cap trouble, year in and year out?

Why is that?

Any other club in the NRL can sign any player they want and nothing is mentioned.
How can Newcastle afford Brown in their Cap?

How can the Sharks afford Fonua-Blake?
Did they lose anyone of note?

Stephen Humphreys, his father was a Tiger.

His Grandfather Kevin Humphreys was also a Tiger.