Raiders Review With Blake & The Pork (Canberra Raiders NRL)
Raiders Review With Blake & The Pork Episode 151 - Big Papa 300 Not Out
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> 20 years of September, the day I'll always remember. >> Yes, I will, cuz that was the day. >> And Baba scored the try. [MUSIC] >> We all got the chance to see him. Never said nothing, the great things about him. Ricky went depending on you to tell us the truth. Ricky just told me his hand to say, our papa loves the red zone. [MUSIC] >> Then when he hit the line he crushed bone. >> And when he scored all the rabbits did was mown. [MUSIC] >> Our papa loves the red zone. [MUSIC] >> Then when he hit the line he crushed bone. >> And when he scored, and the rabbits weaved and mowned. [MUSIC] >> Hey guys, this is Ricky Stewart. Let me make it very clear, I do not endorse the Raiders review with Blake and the Pork podcast, go to the Mighty Raiders. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome to Raiders review with Blake and the Pork and Matt on. >> I'm Blake. >> I'm Matt. >> And this is the podcast, who knows the third most popular Raiders podcast on the internet with one of us coming to you from the filter store and very somewhere in the thousand civic location of which we will never reveal where we believe in that. >> No, no we won't. And another person's in New Zealand and someone else sounds like they're in the toilet. >> Right. >> You know when you speak to someone, they answer the phone and you can clearly tell they're on the toilet, that's what you sound like. >> Right. >> You just got that echo. Where's the bird man? Where's the budgie? >> The birds in the other room. I'll put them in the other room. I'm not in the toilet. >> Where's Daisy? >> Daisy's in the other room with her squids until it's gone, bring her in. >> No. >> I can if you want. >> Matt, you're back in New Zealand. >> I am a back road a rower. Got here on the weekend. The wires have sold out and sold out a billboard. >> Is it sold out a billboard? >> You know what happened last week that was sold out and people got in touch. I think that I click to was for the Raiders Bay. I don't even know how you have a Raiders Bay at Belmore. It's basically one grandstand in the hill. But there were still tickets available when I said they were sold out. Maybe sold out now. I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be sold out. Especially on the back of that. >> I think it has sold out now because there was a media release that went out for the venues this weekend including Belmore. It was nice to watch your game and not at two in the morning. Kind of watch your game without too much stress. >> It was weird to have that last ten minutes. This is in the bag. We're not going to lose from here. >> Never. >> That was one of the softest tries you will see. I thought we looked great, but I thought Souths were pretty poor. We'll talk about the game at length. We'll go into the news first. The big news, it's massive. The team list was now. Pupa's going to play as 300. The right decision, I think, has definitely been made. I was worried that we were going to rest him. Obviously, Jared Crocker last year. But this is a must-win game. With Pupa out, our chances of winning that game would be significantly decreased. >> It's so good. Josh, Pupa Lee, I think we're going to agree. >> Part of me wonders if it's the right decision, actually. I do wonder whether we're going to make the eight regardless. Honestly, I know it's almost a must-win game. We can get into the fixtures later and how many points we need to finish on and for and against and all that. I do wonder whether he could rest and play this weekend in Canberra next weekend in Canberra and we get 20,000. The club makes $400,000 and it's just a different atmosphere. I don't know. At first, I thought he should definitely play. Maybe the older grandpa in me starting to wonder whether it's necessary. Whether we could have manufactured a home Pupa 300. But the decision's obviously out of their hands. >> I dig straight at the end of the match, spoke to Don about that and he said he's got to play with their win. >> Yeah. >> Ricky in the press conference. >> When, yeah, he did say, yeah. >> He said, look, I'm not going to say whether I'm going to name him or not. And look, people, there's still potential of a poor smokey because big reds on the extended bench. So, you know, there's still a few days to go. There's still plenty of time for Pupa to pick up and knock at the end of the inning and be rested. But I think he should play. I'm glad he's playing outside of us. There's not really a huge precedent for resting players so that they can play their milestone game at home. I mean, we saw it obviously with Craig last year. But, you know, you look at this year, he played his way. He played his play. >> Yeah, look, he did. But it was the same situation they had to win. But the thing is, next week, it's a day match against the seagulls and there is something in what Matt says. You know, you could get 25,000 people there in a day. A decent weather day match. We get a full crowd. Everyone wins on that one. >> You know, that's the thing. I'm not trying to say there's anything more important than two points. But when you're running a business and you have the opportunity to make $400,000 more, you know? >> You put a third ahead of points, Matt. >> He specifically just said he wasn't. >> No, it's just, it's food for thought. Some things are more important than money, like winning. Glory. Money is temporary. Glory is forever. Look, you know, I'm glad he's playing. He needs to play. If we win this game at Belmore, you're going to get a big crowd against Manly anyway. I think if it's a nice day, we get a big crowd against Manly regardless, you know? And a couple of thousand here are there. Speaking of other things that people, I got a couple of corrected on a couple of things I said on the show last week. People reached out to me about various things. The other one was Ben Polick got in touch and said that they don't count season ticket holders that aren't there on game day. I reckon they probably did back in two thousand. >> I think they did 2,000. I reckon they did. Look, that figure was merciless. You were there. I know you were, Blake, and I was there, but that was mercilessly inflated 7,000. >> Yeah. So I, there's a few games in the Dark Days post Super League, you know, pre-Ricky comeback where I reckon the crowd figures may have been adjusted. But in this day and age, we've been assured that it's all done, you know, you scan in on your way in. There's no sort of manual counting of tickets or anything. So the figures are, you know. >> Thank you, Ben. I appreciate you. I appreciate you pointing out the times and Blake's wrong. And I encourage you to keep doing it, Ben. >> Yeah. No, that is a great thing for you to do, Ben. That is a public service that you're, you're providing, Mr. Polick, and long may continue. >> We should they reflect on, on Papa's career and what, you know, incredible career it's been. And I think the difference between Papa's 300 and Jake Crocker's 300 was Papa's still going on strong, you know. He's potentially going to play. Well, he's going to go on and break through. He plays next year. He's going to break the record at some point for the most ever games for Raiders play. And I think for Jared Crocker, you know, getting to 300 was kind of the thing in itself that kind of was, you know, the way for his career to sort of, you know. And it was, I really doubt that he was going to get there. So we kind of nursed him along to get in there. Whereas Papa, yeah, I think he's got, you know, he could play 350 games for the Raiders. He's going to go around at least another year. >> No, I was just going to say in many ways, this 300 games almost stuck up on us, you know. Like we were so aware of Jared Crocker's 300. It was like we knew it was next year. And then we knew it was three games. Like it was, we were, we were made so aware from the club because obviously Jared's history with injuries. We're probably, he's just been motoring on and to the point where how influential he is with our club, we were considering splitting him and Tarpon up last week because the game before, when they both went on the field, it was just a drastic drop off. And obviously we'll talk about the game and the game against on the weekend was so much different against the, against the bunnies with our bench rotation. But yeah, I think he'll be in for a big game this weekend. I mean, he's still playing well enough that previous Queensland forwards were calling for him to play in the third game. Yeah. You know, they wanted him to play. So for a guy that'd be playing in the middle to be playing that well, he's obviously taking care of his body in such a way. And what upsets me too is like you think about all of the fanfare that they gave Jared away. We were hard graves about three weeks ago on flops. And you barely hear a peep for Papa. Yeah. In the Sydney media. Yeah. It was GWH, JWH, JWH, JWH and I'm just wondering. But there was a lot, there was a lot, there was a lot for Toots. There was a lot for Toots last year, you know, across the board. That's true. Obviously the club went all out. But I, but I would argue, I would argue and I love Toots. And I actually have the affection for JWH with all his faults. But Papa is a great player out of the three of them quite easily. I think he's, he's a great player. You would struggle to find a, you'd struggle to find a more like player, you know, a friend of mine who I'm working over here actually is Grace Hamilton, Grace played for the Roosters in the NRLW. She also gapped in the Walla Roost. One of her favourite players in rugby league of all time is Papa Leetley. She says, "I love your prop." And I said, "Who's up in there?" She's like, "No, no, no. Perhaps." Yeah, it is. And it's just... He's lost by sides of the athletes. Right is down there. The douche. I scraped my mind and I thought, "Look, I'm just going to come up with four great memories of Papa." And there are so many of them that I'm going to break them down to these four. One. The 2012 home final against the Sharks, where he dog-shot it, Port Gallin continually, and we all loved it. They weren't all dog-shots. They weren't all dog-shots. They weren't all, but there was a couple of them and good on you. I loved it. It was the young one coming through and smashing the old one and teaching him a few things. You know, serving up to Gallin, what he'd always served to other people. And it was fantastic because he could do it. It was fantastic. I can still... He'd affected the match. And then young Jack Wharton ran on to that match. I thought, "As a reserve, what was he playing the match for everyone?" Then, of course, we go to the 2019 matching Melbourne, where we're down 18-0. Vulnerable Lunavales, you know, does the salute of the crowds. He does the big dive across the line, taking them up. And when Papa goes across and scores that try and puts us in front and points up like that, and everything went wild in that stadium, Papa made a statement there. I mean, ice cream so loud, I prolapsed in the house and my wife kicked me out because I carried on so much. I hadn't been on the red. I will admit. But that was a joyous moment. I actually think that was slightly more joyous than when he went over the line against the bunnies in the 2019 preliminary final at home, which I thought was also excellent. And it was probably a bigger moment in this... That'd be iconic one. The iconic one. But I actually think the Melbourne one was a moment in that season where we made a statement that we were the real deal. Whereas the next one was, you had to do it then and we were up against it and he produced it in the big shows. And the last one, and this one's for us under carbon. In 2020, during the COVID season, when we had to go to the elimination final against the roosters up in Sydney at the SCGE, and he scored that try, rebarrel through and set the tone right next to the post and set the tone for us to go out to a lead in that match and that we weren't going to get pushed around. He has the ability to impose himself on the match and set the tone on it to the point that everyone else follows in. It's a softly spoken man, but he's actions speak loud. Yeah, I'd love to remember him in so many of those memories. The first three, obviously, still stick out. But just the smile on his face when he scored in that Melbourne game, when he looked at the camera and gives the point, this brings a smile on my face now. It's awesome thinking his big man is just barrel over, sliding on his back, leans up, sticks out a finger, smiles and gets up. You probably struggle to find a player in the history of our club that's been more liked by his fellow players. You know, who do you think would be more liked by his fellow players? And Papa, in the history of our club. I don't know, it's a would-be one. I like this. We've had a Hall of Famers, we've had, you know, mortals. But some of them have probably been a little bit polarizing in certain aspects or to maybe certain three members of the club. You reckon Alan Tung? Yeah, he is absolutely. Alan Tung is the nicest person in the world. Like, he's actually just too nice. He's too nice. I still have a suspicion that there is a basement somewhere where people trade in and people say, "Oh, I just didn't see my type. I'm onto your tongue. I'm onto your tongue." No one's that nice. The other game you mentioned, yeah, we were talking about Papa's, you know, big moments. And the other one, the game that I just have real fondness for, and I think about sort of more often than just about any other Raiders game in recent history, is actually the game where we went up to the SCG. And it was in that 2020 COVID season. And we played up against the Roosters. And we had so many players out. I think Nick Cottrick had just announced his sign for the Bulldogs. We were up against it and we had a huge performance. And Angus Creighton gave Papa one across the chops. Do you remember that? And it really fired him up. And then he went on and he scored a rampaging try again. And that's what my Pope gave us. But it's funny to think about, um, Papa is almost left. You know, Ricky had him signed to go to the Eels. And it was only thanks to the June 30 law, you know, which previously subsequently, you know, came to Biden's, but it was only thanks to that clause that he actually was able, they were able to convince him to stay at the club. So yeah, and where he didn't go. Oh, absolutely. He's been such, such a huge part. I mean, it would have had, you know, that he would have had, you know, offers, numerous offers over the years to like go to the Broncos and dolphins. Not everybody. Yeah. Every time he's off contract, there would have been, you know, a bunch of other suitors. So yeah, no, fantastic. Well, it's got to this point that I'm pretty confident he's going to get over. Like you said, over, um, took seniors record. What's that? Do we work out what it's like three eight years? They're in 16, I think. And T. Max going to go off. I said it's for not knowing that. I guarantee you there's nothing we can do about that. Three six three. That's, um, that's Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yeah, maybe. Uh, but what I'm saying is, is it statue worthy? I think yes. I think there are two statues that need to be built. Ones of Papa probably in that exact pose you were talking about, Matt, when he's lying over on his back point at the crowd. And one of, and look. I say half, I say this in. One half. I say this in just and the other half. I don't. Is our coach any sideline gear kicking a plastic chair. Half say that in just and half. I say that is, you know what? That possibly might be appropriate. I don't know. It would be good. We could have fun that one. Uh, next bit of news. Um, use of Wales Cup. Did you, did you watch most of the game? Were you there for most of it? Tim? On the weekend? Uh, no, no, no. I was not. I was there for the second half. Right. I got there where the result was well and truly no. Um, and so the route it all really happened by the time I got there. Yeah, because it wasn't on, um, anything. It wasn't even on the, you know, I couldn't get it. New South Wales rugby league. So when I signed up for that, I thought, 'Oh, I'll be able to watch all the use of the Wales Cup games, but there's no guarantee.' No, there's no guarantee. So huge result though, Raiders by 56. Well, it wasn't by 56, and a young man whose name again escapes me, who sits down near Veronica and Danny, just near where we did the sideline from. Again, and I apologise to her again, pointing out the 56, and I said, 'Well, no Raiders scored 56, because they could see this.' He did 16. So it's actually Raiders by 49. He looked at me like I was missing the job, which I probably was. Yeah, that's probably Andrew Perriman. But yeah, that's exactly who it was. Yeah, great, great result. But Owen Patti. So I only saw the highlights. I couldn't watch it, and by the time I got the ground, it just finished. Owen Patti played nine the second half, and look at the highlights, he was fantastic. He's the one, he's going to be the hooker in the Wales Cup, I think, next year. I think it's pretty much certain that neither Zach Wolfood or Adrian Trevillian will be at the club next year. Yeah, I know. If you look at our top 30 squad, and I know Trevillian's obviously one of the development players, I think there's only two guys that aren't signed next year. So two or three, so if you're going into the last month of football, and you're in a contract, then it's not looking great. Yeah, that's right. Look, and I think you probably know, look, and there's reasons to be sad about it for Beethoven. I think it's unfortunately probably the right decision. Trev's just been injured too much. He's actually improved and gets the spot where we can take the risk of him doing it. I personally like to, but that's why I don't have him on football clubs. And Zach, as much as he's a Raiders man, and he does a good job in so many ways, he does have a defensive deficiency that the good sides know about, and they exploit. You know, we saw it at the Paramount final a few years ago at the Paramount Estate, you know, three times he let two tries, and by that stage it was over. Yeah, well, that's defense has obviously been the big, you know, the big thing for hookers. And that's what we've seen that the turnaround and things have been a lot better since Tommy Starling's been starting at nine, although his service, you know, isn't probably as good as I was Zach Wolfens, or Danny Levi's, his energy and his running and his defense is incredible. Yeah, no, Martin was the other one that looked really good every week. He looks better and better. And I don't know if he's actually got a spot in the top 30 for next year yet, whether he'll still be a development player, but he certainly wouldn't be out of place. And I would not be surprised to see him. He'll be at the top 30 next year. Yeah, I'd be stunned if he's not all the efforts going towards him. He, because when he stands next to his brother, I thought he was small. Now, I stood next to him as he came off the field. He's not small. Yeah, he's not small. He's small. He anyway, so he's brother's massive. Yeah. He's also big. But the thing is, when you watch him play, the lines he runs, the way he tackles, everything about him, he's a monster and a machine. And he's going to be in the top two next year. If he's not, I will eat pork, humble pie, but I don't think I'm going to be. On the NRO website, they actually updated the squad for next year. And so Ethan Sanders is, or 25 to 27. Miles Martins isn't going to be in the top 30 as well, 25 to 27. Sevillea Tamale, 25 and 26, and Manny Nicholson, 25 to 27. So some sliding signs there. All the players coming off contract through here, we already know about. Or there's a deal on the table like a Rapina. So it's, so Wolford, Holler, Cocktrick, Jordan Rapina, James Shiller, and Elliot Whitehead are the ones that don't have contracts the next year. Yeah, so they'll all be gone. We're, Rap is the only possibility of staying, but the longer it goes on, and we still haven't heard anything, it's sort of spiced. I think he said last week, you sort of make his mind up sometime this week. I'm starting to think that he probably will go overseas. I think, you know, the lure of it over the years, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, I'd love him to stay. But at the same time, totally understand his decision to move on. He's one of the players that he's there. He's got that one new deal on the table because he said he wanted something. That's what the club can do. And Rap has earned the right to have another season if he wants it. He's got two on the table. Yeah. And as much as I've loved him, he should take the two. Yeah. Well, he's been one of our best players this year. I still think he's been in the top, you know, half a dozen of our best players, most consistent, best performing players. Well, yeah, a bit of sort of transfer news. There's a bit of stuff happening in the transfer market. And Brian Tahoe is being shopped around to clubs. He's currently on 650 at the Panthers for the next four years. But he's kind of, I think he's kind of, you know, sorry as he's been in origin camp and when players get together in camps, they start discussing what everyone's on. And he's kind of come to the realization that maybe he is on unders and he's looking to move onwards. He's someone you guys would consider. I mean, I've said before, you shouldn't play big money for wingers anymore. But if there was one winger, I'd pay to be prepared to pay money for it. It's probably him. Kick return meters are humongous. Like they are the best. Still are. Like other aspects of his game aren't what they were two or three years ago. His kick return meters are the best of any winger in the league. So he is helping you get your side back. You know, an extra 10 meters back on every carry he does. So the forwards have to come back less. He's worth of a nap. But I don't think it's his asking it for more money. I think the news today that Blaise Tullangi has gone through the pandereth on the amount of money they've probably had to pay for him. They're looking to play where they can save and decide the title. Especially now as his mate has racked off to his go off the west tie. Always mates. Always mates pretty much left at the corner. They've all gone. And so it's like no longer one of those things. And they're thinking, well, now that's there. We're not going to have a, you know, a screen out from the other players. You know, can we move this 650 on? But having said that, one, I think he'd be a good culture fit. He seems like an extremely good human. Like from what I've seen of him, yes, he's, you know, some of the companies kept I haven't particularly liked. But he individually seems like that. And his kick return made us fantastic. Yeah, he plays like the only thing is his, the only thing is he's not as tall as he'd like on the wing to contest kicks. But that is literally the only fault I can pick out of Broadway. So yeah, I would. Whether it's 650 for a winger. Oh, we'd have to pay more. That's the thing. But I'm saying if we were prepared to offer, I mean, what was, what were we prepared to offer? Stefano, we, there was talk from 800,000 to a, to a million. A million. Yeah. And he's got, what's the good point? What's the good point? 40 minutes, you know, toes, 80 minutes. The rumors. Well, the club president at Penrith have said that they're not shopping him around. But, you know, you don't know who to believe or what to believe, especially don't believe Danny Weidler. But I, you pay, you pay big money that you get right to own in the club. His work rate, his ethic is, he would be such an influence on the younger outside backs. He'd possibly be the only winger that you would spend big on. That's what I reckon. And I still, I still think we were being used in that entire Stefano saga. You know, I don't think there was talk that we had a 900,000 dollar offer on the table for him. I don't think, and then we pulled it. And even though some of the media. You know what happened, they actually said to us, or this is how it was reported that he said, actually, you know, he's not interested in coming to Canberra. So then the raid has pulled it. And they don't actually said, we actually look, Ricky, whoever said, we actually appreciate his honesty. Because in the past, we have been dicked around. You know, I mean, we have been just used as a bargaining chip. You know, it's like the David Fieder saga all over again. Did they repeat a lot? Yeah, refuses to go. So people said we were still in for him last week, and it kind of bothered me. No way. He would be the only, I would be the only winger. I think you take the risk on spending big on. You know, there is talk about his work rate and his body size, you know, trucking up twice every set that he will actually tire out at some point. But mate, like the guys are freak. He's just an amazing rugby league player who sets up Penrith every single set of six. He takes the hard run, you know, and the reason they are so successful is that their middles can concentrate on defense. They're back five, take all the runs out of their own half. You don't ever see Fisher Harris taking a big hit up in his own half. They're only finishing sets of six when they're on red zone attack. So it's just a very, very, he'd be a dynamic add. But, you know, us getting that type of mark here, winging down the camera would be pretty rare. I'd imagine he'll be getting it. If he is leaving, he'll probably be going to play with one of his mates. Yeah. It's probably most likely to be either bull vlogs or tigers. And I think that the mole did a bit of a tweet sort of implying that he was going to go to the tigers and then who clearly retracted it and claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked. But, um, what hackers, Russia hackers generally don't hack your account and then do tweets about rugby league. It's usually like sex or Bitcoin or something, isn't it? No, I would disagree. I'd like to do that. That exact thing there. Tap the ball. It's what we're talking about. Back, talking about forwards, not getting back into a hit up star. Something I saw in the match against the revenues, which we would get that for on the subject, is that Trey Mooney on one set, in particular, when we were getting pinned, was the second hit up after a long kick. He got back there and was the second hit up. I remember thinking that's a workbook right there. It was good. He played well. I'm sorry. He played great. He did. Any other news for us? Uh, yeah. So the NRLW season kicked off and, um, in fine style. It did. It did. It was a crushing wing. It was really nice to see. There was no fade out in the second half, was it? No, well, we scored most of our points, um, in the first half. But yeah, the second half, you know, still, still did really, what, 32 to 12? Yeah. And that's what's down. Only bad thing about it was a lot of dumber getting hit in the head. And now she's off a concussion protocol. But Shaq, too, I know it comes back into a place that's so well. I would. Great. I interviewed Blake and Fox very own Shaq. There we go. Shaq, too. Yeah. Um, is coming back off the wing. So, you know, like, uh, I wish, um, has done a speedy return. Um, it's good to see Shaq back in the side. Yeah. But that's really real down side of that match. Yeah. Some other news, um, actually four players have resigned as well. Mackenzie Wiki, Mona, Mona Lisa Soliola, Chante Tamara, who is, of course, the, um, the hooker, uh, and the sister of Zara Tamara. And Serena, uh, Neko Katoa. Come to play the Nepal and you will get the best promotions. I realize you've been a real podcast. Yeah, you should leave them to me because everyone already makes fun of me, anyway. Um, no, that is, that is good news. And of course, they are playing at home this weekend. And I believe either you can get your latest membership and actually go into the match. Yeah. And it's actually, uh, which is great. Because in the past, your membership, um, didn't actually count for NRELW games. Um, so you had to buy tickets. Whereas you can use your membership now and just, just, just as, as any other game, just go in there and, and scan it. And look, here's what I'm saying to all of you. But if they announce a crowd and the pork in that, let's, it is that get on the train now, you know, what I saw on the weekend in that match was there is no fade out. It's all killer, no filler. Get on the train now. I think I'm going to lift the tray for this year. You want to be there on the ground if you'll get there. Yeah, but if they do announce a crowd of 8,000, it looks like there's only 3,000 people there will know that they just automatically count all the, uh, season ticket holders. Yeah, all the season ticket holders, except there are more season ticket holders. And that obviously is the right guy. So that is our 11 AM on Saturday at GIO Stadium. So get down there and support our girls down there. Ladies, women have, have them base on that match. Get down there and do it. So we should probably, we should probably get into the favorite. Before we do that, we've actually got to listen to a question, which I didn't put in the run sheet. But someone's reached out to the podcast, Matt. And they've, they want to know, are you related to Canberra's IT philosopher, Nathan Lenevez? Yeah, Nathan's my cousin. There you go. All every, every, every Lenevez, I mean, there's only so many. If you're a Lenevez, you're probably a cousin of Matt's. If you're a Lenevez, then you're on this planet, you're probably a cousin of mine. And so there's not that many. But yeah, no, I'm definitely, Nathan's my, Nathan's very close. He's my, my, my dad's brother's boy. Yeah. So I've known Nathan my whole life. Yeah. Yeah. See, yeah. Nice to that question. I'm just talking to you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't get to talk to Nathan that much. Obviously moved on and grown up. But Nathan's actually born on Christmas day. There's a fun fact. There you go. And he's a IT philosopher. He's, he's, he's big in IT. I actually googled him to see if there was any sort of link between, to you and him. And he's actually got a YouTube channel with seven subscribers, but no content. So jump on board, start subscribing. Because it's going to be big, when it comes to people. It's going to be big. He's big in Japan, as they say. And now it's time for, ah, it's planned off the week. Oh, look, and there's so many things to choose for. But Black, are you leading off? Okay. So I don't actually have my own ask plan this week. But again, we got a lot of messages. People wanted to nominate Wyatt, the referee. What's his name, Wyatt? Roy? Uh, Wyatt, I cannot remember. He's doing the touchline in our match this week. He is, they talk to, is it white, Roy? I thought it was white, Roy. I keep saying white, because he informed me, I actually wasn't talking to me when he said it, that he was actually, but I was right there on the spot. It is just listening in. That he was named after Wyatt. Uh, whether or not he was joking, I don't know, but I was there. So there's, what are the whites of there to be named? I can't think of any other famous whites outside of that. There was one in parliament. Oh, that's white, Roy. That's white, Roy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's white. What's his name, the referee? I can't think of his last name. Can't think of his last name. I'm looking this up. Yeah, you know, we'll look at it. But yeah, a lot of people wanted to say him, did they? I personally don't, uh, don't share that. You know why, you know why they were all getting in touch? White Raymond. Do you know why they were all getting in touch, uh, to say white Raymond? It was because, you know, with effectively zero seconds left on the clock. Oh, yeah. He said Elliot Whitehead to the sin bin. Now, I personally, I've got to say, I actually think that was the right decision. And I'll tell you why I think he was telling me. Hey, Elliot knew exactly what he was doing. Elliot went in to make sure that that was the last player of the game. I mean, the sirens kind of got, it's the clocks kind of hit. And the sirens kind of gone as Elliot's coming in to make contact. But what we've learned in recent years, you know, it was the famous West Tigers Cowboys game. The game doesn't end until the referee says the game ends. So just because the time hits zero and the siren goes, that doesn't mean that the game, you know, you can still keep on playing after, after the sirens gone. So I was okay with the decision. You know, people were saying, all we have to see are the things nine minutes and 59 seconds in the next day. No, he doesn't. A similar thing happened at the end of the end of the state of origin in the third game where Angus Creighton went to play the ball and there was about seven seconds to go. And he just took every second to play the ball and was like baiting the referee to do something. And the referee that I call in the game with about half a second left. Clearly players, you know, there's so many loose parts of the game now. Like when was the last time you saw a player touch the ball with his foot when he's playing the ball? Yeah, that's right. And it was one of the penalties, one of the things that happened on the weekend and one of the actions plays when they went back and looked down and said, well, there's nothing wrong, but that is not correct. Play the ball. Well, there was a there was a bit of a crack. I haven't called it out of the year. There was a bit of a crack down in the start of the year as if you didn't even sort of make it look like you were rolling it back with your foot. But now, yeah, they're they don't. That's all those things that started here. We're going to penalize this. We're going to look at this. But what I would say, the other thing people said it was jokingly sent to the sin bin because, you know, as the last second or the last half a second, whatever you want to say of the game, and the game was already over, that shouldn't really make a difference. Like the rules should be exactly the same. The one thing that we call out for, you know, from referees, all year is consistency. And we don't like when they apply rules at certain places and other places. So you got to apply the rules the same as if it's a close game, you know, because if roles, a bit to say was a close game and the roles have been reversed, it was us on the attack and we needed to score and a South's player did that, we'd be blowing up about it. We'd say, well, why didn't the referee apply penalty? Why didn't he send it to the sin bin? It happened to us at Wollongong and Ben Hunt, twice and a set of six in the last 30 seconds of the game held us down if you remember, and they didn't say Ben Hunt. Very well. Keep getting your repeat set, repeat set, repeat set. And we lost by two. And I mean, I agree, why he just went too early? He went with like four seconds to go. And he just, I wasn't even that much. I've watched it back again and again. It's basically zero, but you don't know to what, you know, you know, yeah, how accurate the clock is on the screen to whatever they're doing and then the siren went afterwards. Yeah. But, you know, until he blows the long whistle, he blows the shot whistle first, until he blows that long whistle, the game's still on. So, you know, it is what it is. What I did have a huge problem with it. But what you're saying is that the people's arse clown is white Raymond. Now, Matthew, I believe, Matt, I believe we share the same arse clown. Is that correct? Yes, it's the bunker. Who was in the bunker? It was Chris Butler. Wasn't it the bunker? He's out right this week, isn't he? Was he one of our tattoos? No. White Raymond's one of them. Ashclines, the ref. Oh, and then we've got two Sutton's. Yeah, we've got Chris Sutton. We've got white Raymond and in the bunker as Jared. Did you guys see just a bit of a segue here? Did you guys see there was a news limited story during the week, and they rated the best and worst referee for each side? Well, based on, you know, winning percentage this year, do you know who our best referee has been this year? Ash. Casey Badger. No. No, it's not your mate, Ash, Tim. It's actually Chris Sutton. So we've got something like an 80-something-percent win record under Chris Sutton this year. And you know our worst performing ref is, Tim? You won't get this either. Jared, sir. Isn't the red end color? Yes, Todd Smith. One of Tim's favorites. Yeah. Right, and I do. I think he's a really good ref. I think he's a great ref. The problem with Todd is he likes a really fast rock, and we don't. So we've had Todd Smith and a couple of the big blowout games. The two Cronella games, I think we had Todd Smith. So I remember, especially in that game at Shark Park, he's one of those referees that I especially noticed once a team gets momentum. They can just put on 18 points really, really quickly. But I thought the referee on the weekend, he kind of managed them back into the game with those three penalties in a row, the two set to six before their first try. There's no way many Tomoko, when Savage hit, what was that fellas Kepi, and knocked the ball out and Matt Tomoko kind of hit him around the chest of the mouth guard, popped out. It didn't hit him in the face. Yeah, but they also actually said that there was a shoulder charge. So he got charged. Oh, he's actually right arm. Well, anyway, he got charged as a shoulder charge. That was right in front of us and seeing the mouth guard. No, it did. He got charged. He got fined. Did he get fined for a shoulder charge? Yeah, I'm going to make sure that it's wrong. Well, that's just wrong. That's wrong. Going back to Chris Butler, right? Okay, the second try that was allowed, that shouldn't have been, where the replay clearly came back and showed Whitehead had his hand under the ball the whole time, and the ball never tucked ground. How did he even close to touching the ground? Okay, he had the replay convincingly showed it. But he's off the ground. Here's the issue, right? Here's the issue with that again, and this is not one people are blowing up with. He was sent up as a try. So for the bunker to turn it into a no try, they would have had to have found a definitive angle that showed at some point, you know, that no point did any part of the ball touch a blade of grass. If it had been sent up as a no try, but that that is on, that is on White. White. I thought White Raymond. I think he saw the angle that's definitively showed it. Oh, he was right there. He was right there. That is two different points, right? So yes, they've got to be able to definitively overturn it. And there was one camera angle that clearly showed it did not get to the ground. It didn't get close to the ground. But I also have an issue and I've spoken about it in years past that if the referee shouldn't have to send it up with a decision, if they don't know, they should be able to say, "I don't know. You have luck and take on the ones that you don't know, take an extra minute." They should be able to go, "Yeah, I think I saw it go down." But if you don't know, why are you forcing them to send it up? Because there's no way he could have known that touched the ground, because it didn't fucking touch the ground. Yeah, but the issue was with that one, right? I had no problem in this setting up for a try, because everyone thought it was a try. It wasn't until the video came in that you realised it hadn't touched. My God. You assume obviously it was a try. Yeah, you assumed that it would have been, he would have had to have got it down. And that's probably the thing, the referee assumed they got down. He assumed it. So I've been saying it up as a try, but there was convincing evidence what, what I really have an issue was, and it happened directly in front of you and people are okay, was that they didn't call it a double movement for Katie Walker. And they somehow seem to say that there was momentum in there. Now, what I saw was White Rain was on the other side. So he didn't see the side with the ball, and he was relying on his touch judge on this side, his name escapes me. I think it was Drew Altram. He was relying on that. And Drew Altram gave him the go ahead to do it. I disagree. I think he got that wrong, but he was a few meters back. So it's hard to say what he saw. He might have thought the arm was already crossed the line. You know, the ball was there and he was just lifting it as part of it. Didn't realise it was behind the line. The issue was when it got to the bunker, when it got to the bunker, he stopped before the line. He's no longer sliding. He is stopped. And yes, his shoulders over the line, his heads over the line. But the ball, and the arm carrying the ball is on the ground, stops short a line, and he distinctly picks it up and puts it over. It is, if you're doing an article on picture by picture, this is what a double move looks like, they could use that as an example. And then somehow, for Chris Butler to decide there was momentum in that, is absolutely outrageous at the time. And I haven't stood up and yelled like that for a while, have I? Well, I'll go. No, it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing. But people were asking me to be moved, security came down, reported to sort out the whole thing. But I did express very clearly the light that he was very likely to be asked out of the week, which he isn't. It's that Chris Butler, because he should have been there and seen that and called it back, because I guarantee you, and you know, people saw your poor thing, you're claiming you're victimized. If that had been a West Tigers player, or a Raiders player, or a Parramatta player, right, that would have been called a double movement. Oh, it was shocking call. OK, it wasn't a double movement. I didn't think at the time it was a double movement. Momentum gets him across the line. And do you know the actual, do you want me to read you the actual double movement rule from the NRL pamphlet, rules pamphlet? Section section 16.2. If the momentum of the player in possession carries him into the opponents in goal area, it will not be a double movement if the ball would have fished over the line, regardless. This is the important part of any subsequent movement of the ball or the arm carrying the ball. He's still finished in goal. He did bounce his arm over along the way, but the momentum got him there. He didn't stop and then lunge forward. The momentum carries him there all the way every time. And I thought that live. Go back a little. It's interesting, no, isn't it? Because it's not many people know the use of rule. No, I know that. But for years, that's because people would have been told, if you promote the ball, it's a double movement. And we've seen that. We've seen exactly what happened on the weekend. Go against the attacking team for decades. That was a very close call that could have gone either way. In slow motion, it looks like an absolute double movement. And then he's promoting the ball. In fast speed, it looks like his momentum got him there. But the ball wasn't on the ground. He definitely picked it up and placed it again. He was getting wrestled. He was getting wrestled. He left his arm. So I can see that the rule states that. But we've been stung. You know, like the other way, it's that one I can just live with. And we all have group threads, chats with other mates, who are friends of other clubs. And not many of them agree that that was a double movement. They mostly, but he does. But the other one was ridiculous, mate. Like the economy fans took it out and be like. Tell us Duncan did not get the ball down. And it's a failure of the bunker. And what upsets me is we're hoping to make the eight. We've got six games to go. We might have to win four of those six because of our four and against. You know, if we if that that's a 12 point swing there, pretend it was eight points. Sorry. Yeah. But I'll give you a different point swing. That could be an important eight points at the end of the year. If we finish on 30. I'll give you an alternate view on tell us Duncan's try. And this is what Tim and I were discussing actually at the ground. After Souths had had about 20, you know, 20 rucks on our line with repeated sets of six. We were actually saying it would actually be good if they scored here. Because if we give away another restart, someone's going to be in. I thought we were so close to having someone say. Very close. So him actually scoring wasn't always rushed out. While I was annoyed about it, yeah, it wasn't the worst result. But it was just the way the decision made. Now I must respectfully disagree with you, Blarke. I do say that his his shoulder and his head were across the line. But his momentum was stopped at that point. The ball in the carrying arm was behind the line. And he picks it up after that point and puts it across. Now, if I've misunderstood the rules and it basically says, if part of your body is over the line, you can bring the ball up and lift it. I apologize. But otherwise, there is something that makes me angry. In fact, you might say, "Grinds my gears." You know what really grinds my gears? And you know what grinds my gears? Is it when you're McDonald's, what's it called? McDonald's outplay goes off. And so then you promise you, Simon, that yes, we will go to McDonald's after the game. And you go up to Dixon McDonald's and there's only like the three staff that would normally be there on a Sunday night. And suddenly there's, I don't know, 50 or 60 rated fans all trying to get their food at once. And then you spend the next hour waiting to get your McDonald's mail. So you don't actually end up getting it till 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. Does that grind your gears? That actually did on my own. That ground my gears. That did grow my gear. I was watching that. And I probably would have left it the half hour mark. I would have left it the half hour mark. I was dead. Sorry, Eddie. It's not happening today. They don't have it. So what we did notice at the ground was that once upon a time, it was for the rest of the week that if we scored during the Mac as power play, which we're now doing again, it's no longer-- You've only got till midnight. Yeah, you've only got till midnight. So what they've done is they've limited it to a certain amount of giveaway, which is fine. But if the match ends at eight and people aren't getting there till nine, and people realize it's the only time they've-- Well, on the Friday, it was the game didn't until the Warriors won. He wanted to go. And I was like, the game didn't until 10 o'clock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you are inflicting upon your poor staff, a horde of people coming expecting to claim on this-- It was getting ugly in there. And you don't have staff there. So you're really going to look at your work, health and safety responsibilities towards your, you know-- What's that name? Psychosafety. Psychosocial safety of your staff members. And look, as we know, we don't say it's a great sponsor of camperatus, but they've got to look at that one. They've got to look at that one. Because you're right, that does grind my gears, Blocker. It does. It grinds my gears. Anything else growing gears? That was actually, I guess, what it was for once I was right. No, you did. And I've also-- but I do have something that grinds my gears. Young Hoosh, who's a great supporter, long-term follower of Raise for You, like, in the book, and yourself, also coming up and guessing and announcing what pork smoky is going to be well in advance. That's-- that grinds my gears. Right. You're not allowed to do that. You've got to leave pork smoky alone, all right? Oh, it's smoking. Now, I do believe that Hoosh actually hacked into late in the pork and Matt database by guessing the question, guessing the password. Blake is an asshole, 01. Although he did seem to get onto the old one, which was arse clown, 01. I don't know. Good change that now. Yeah, arse clown. That's right. I don't like that at all. It didn't make me happy in the slightest people that you stole my thunder on that. And you're still going to get it anyway. So the South Game Review-- I mean, we've already talked on a fair few things about this. Things that I wanted to note in that particular match that stood out to me was that our reserve forwards, who we asked to lift, intramunium, and a mariot up lifted. They both just didn't lift it. Yeah, but like, I think it was a great performance. I loved every minute. But the-- going into the game, we said last week, up, we went through the team list. We went-- this South's team is pretty rubbish. You know, and that's something we've been saying all year, and we can go, ah, Adam, Marietta, and Trey Mooney, you know, looked so great when they came on the second stint. Well, they weren't coming up against Mitch Barnett and Adam Finno Blake, you know, two incredible 70-minute props. I mean, you know, Sean Keppy is one of the all-time plotters. And you take Keanu and Colma Tungi out of that pack with no Keanu and Marietta. There's not much there. Yeah, look, I thought Colma Tungi wasn't-- Colma Tungi wasn't good on the weekend. Well, he had to do too much work. They're missing Cam Murray, though. He ran for 300 meters, and look, you know, he played-- I don't know if he played every-- the whole game, but just about. He did. But yeah, he wasn't-- he wasn't his-- He wasn't able to do his, you know, edge hack work. As we play in the middle for last, you know, 10 weeks has been a revelation there, but-- That's right, and he's probably sitting there thinking, maybe I should have taken up the Raiders offer, you know, and we've really said how he gives us some hope, Keanu. Probably should have taken it up. Look, great, great moments in the match. Harvey here, once more, running down and contesting a kick, like for a try and getting it, was magnificent. That's the sort of-- and I hate to say it. That's the sort of X factor that he has the speed to get in and around and contest that ball and send, you know, the Katamungs, the pigeons. And on that occasion, I thought for sure it had not done in some way. So I was very surprised and pleased when the replay show did it actually regatta and was a try. But it's that sort of thing that marks you with, you know, when the other one was, they saw a weakness that was there. And twice, they, early on, they exposed it really, really well. And they constantly have sous on the back foot from that point. Those are the things that specifically-- Well, I mean, Michael Cheekham is a, you know, mate, bit part, journeyman, you know, manufactured center. And you got him and Cody Walker, you know, defending together. Again, Seth Chris, great game. But he's got to-- he's got to-- hopefully he can take confidence out of that, because it'll be a tougher assignment. He looked at a couple of tries, notably Seth Chris's try, and then Marietta's try. They were very soft. They were the sort of tries we normally see. Those are the sort of tries we normally see other teams scoring against us. And you go, how the hell did that-- No, no, no. Stop with the negativity there, young man. That was an amazing try by Seth Chris. And he's not young. This is-- this is not a Raiders podcast to shit on our team. This is a Raiders podcast. I'm not shooting on our team. But breach, Matt, breach. No, I put that more down to Seth's brilliance, rather than Cheek Ham and Cody Walker's in it. The line that he hit on the outside and then cut back into the inside shoulder, they clearly decided to attack that gap. Hudson Young did the same thing, you know, where he went. That's a incredible game. They went-- and to Tom Staling's credit, he was barking orders. He was one of his better games from the rock. He was attacking the short side when he wanted to. And Danny Levi looked pretty decent when he came back on. Maybe over played he's hand a little bit right at the end of the game, but-- I was pleased Danny got on the field. I was pleased Danny got on the field. Let that have his side. Starlight probably could have played 80 minutes. I was just trying to say, we clearly noticed that the short side and around the rock when we're going down the left was an important play. You know, one of the things that we won't get very often is Savage is not going to get a free run at the ball like that. On that side, Tani Milne and Alex Johnson gave Jai Gray no protection. And some teams they over protect. You watch Jesse Ramey and Crannuller. He basically cheats to keep people out of the game in the kick chase. And he protects his small, full back and more Kennedy. But that was one of the only chances, I think, in the entire second half, that actually led to what looked like Sauer's getting back into the game was our kick chase and Savage knocking it back. It landed in Jai's great hands two or three times. And there was once when he dropped the ball. He probably would have run 80 meters to score a try. So Jai Gray was tight. Was good. He was good. But I think as far as an attacking thing, we need to tighten that up. I don't know if batting it back is always the right option, you know? But Savage, obviously, like to Hawk's point, he has the pace to be able to get on the outside and actually can test. Because usually those blockers are trying to look for the runners on the inside. The one thing that they'll all talk about this week is diffusing a mid-side line kick. We don't do too well at that. So we've learned a couple of tries in the last couple of months where they kick to kind of just usually where the center's defending. Because Savage isn't that confident running in hard. And KO Weeks obviously defends in the line. So to Cody Walker's credit, you put a kick into the perfect spot where Sev Chris put up a great block and Savage should have caught it. And the last thing you can do is half come in and let it get behind you. If you're not going to catch it, then get in front of it. So I think that one tried. It was really awkward. And it could have led to back-to-back tries there. It could have got them back in the game, especially considering we're on top for the first 20 or 30 minutes. But I love seeing Fogarty straighten up our left-side attack. It's two weeks in a row now. We've scored tries through the hands on the left-hand side. One to Hudson Young running a great line. And then one, this one, that try, it was off a scrum. And we went quick to Ethan Strange and rather than-- and he looked like he was going to try and get the outside ball to attack Cody Walker. And he cut back in. And we just reset to the right post. And we went again on the fourth tackle. It was a fantastic four tackles from the Raiders for that Sev Chris try. And we're going to need that this weekend. And we're playing against arguably the second best defensive side. But we can attack them around that Villiami kick-out spot. So there's going to be a very, very, very different game this weekend. But I thought it's so exciting to see us start, well, two weeks in a row. I feel like we learned more in this game than the week before. The week before we let them get back into the game. And it almost blew apart in this game. You know when the game kind of opened up, kind of went out, our bench forwards were getting a bit tired. And it looked like we were going to go play for play. And like a real chaotic game again. Fogarty shut that down. And he got back into the strategy. And then we defended really well in that second half to keep him out. So I think that will get a lot of confidence from that. And if you weren't at the game and you got to see the Fox broadcast, they interviewed Fogarty when he came off. And he was filthy with himself for that midfield ball. That led to them getting filthy for the try. That was the only kick he did. Yeah. I mean, every other kick he does is fantastic, including his conversions. He hasn't missed a kick-out. His golf kicking was incredible. His golf, it's on a strength. Yeah. And look, and we have to note, there's something in the water where the opposition are not scoring their conversions very well, because they had three missed conversions. Now, the third one was the worst. The third one was the Chaka. If they had got those, because Jamal was posting them from the outline, right? So we were getting our ones, and they were missing theirs from the similar thing. The other thing that you guys-- They got those three conversions. And at six points closer, at that end, it's much more nervous than it actually ended up being. There's another thing that you guys wouldn't have seen is in the pregame, they interviewed Cody Walker. And they said to Cody, how do you feel about this game? And he kind of had this smile coming off six wins in seven games. And he said, I don't want to give away any of our plans. But we know where their weaknesses are, and we know where we can attack them. And we know we can win this game. And then 20 minutes later, the rate is just shoved it down his throat. Yeah, I wonder what I wonder where he thought. Jack didn't have a bad game. But he wasn't incredible, it was a typical sort of Jack game. I thought his bombs actually were pretty good. They were pretty high, pretty threatening. Probably not as accurate as Jamal's. But yeah, I thought he was the one that looked like he was trying the hardest, really, out there consistently. He looked-- I don't know whether it was just something that he was wearing in White Jersey. He looked kind of less cut than he used to at the Raiders. Is this something I imagine? A jersey's terrible. Yeah. A jersey with the Big M, G's a terrible jersey. And how good was it for us to see that they put up these huge bombs, and our back three diffused them? Think about the Balmain game, the West Tigers game. We couldn't catch a ball. And they scored three of their tries in the first half-off kicks. Yeah. Just to have that confidence getting into our back three more and more every week. It's weird how special as well. Stavage aside how many uncontested kicks there are now in that era, though. How many have this been a real trend this year of players just letting-- they just wait. Let you catch it, and then try and just absolutely cream you, and get a good pin you down your end, get a dominant tackle. Yeah. It goes to show you to how gassed everybody is. There's a moment in that game on the weekend. I'd like to go back and maybe put a clock on it. The ball was in play for like seven minutes straight. And it's all about who's going to break first. And I wonder letting the uncontested kicks is probably part of that. So you just like pin him down, pin him down, pin him down. Let them crack first. Yeah. But yeah, I thought everyone played really well. And it's another one of those weeks where styling was fantastic. Yeah, he was brilliant. When he goes to-- When he goes to-- we'll say, was he playing 13? Or was he playing proper or was Whitehead? I think Whitehead was playing 13. And Tommy Darling was playing proper there for 10 minutes there. But still to have that much energy to run that hard. After he's just played 60 minutes, 70 minutes straight. So long bow. Long bow. Can you just, as you've done in other places, that there was a decent period during that game, where Elliott Wrighthead was where? Where was he? He was in the middle. Where was he? I thought he was in the front row rotation. I thought he looks good. I thought he-- I actually quite like when he comes back on and plays. He's a little cameo. He's 13. Came out at the end of games. I think he does quite well. [INTERPOSING VOICES] He does quite well. He does quite well there. And you pigger there before I even did. You went into the front row. Oh, of course I did. Of course, if I get for you. I'll tell you something else I did. And I wasn't playing or doing. But there was a moment in the first half, where I don't know if you saw it on TV, Matt, where Jack's got the ball. And he's kind of dodging and weaving towards our line. There was right in front of us and just everyone around me started booing him. And I just instinctively just got caught up in the moment. And I booed Jack. You booed Jack? I'm not-- I'm not a part of him. But it was a good-natured booing. And it was like booing the pantomime villain. No one was there saying, oh, we hope you die. We want to rip you out off. It just when he was attacking our line and he had the ball, he got a little bit of a razz. The fans, I thought that was fine. And look, he ended up actually leaning into the heel roll, the villain-- I know. --by doing the facial. Yeah, that wasn't a penalty. It's him and his mate mucking around. The ref should know better than Barna penalty there. That was two mates. Well, you could see that. He's not doing him. Yeah, you could see that Hudson got up and he did actually have a smile on his face. Yeah, no screwing around. And then the next tackle, the next tackle popular, he took a hit up. And Jack grabbed you around with his elbow, kind of gave him a bit of a bear hug, you know? It was a good nature fun. He didn't need to blow the penalty there, nah. But what I also thought was interesting is if you look at the minutes of the game, when you think back to Ricky Stewart's presser in the game before, about which bench need to lift. And Adam Adiata only played 19, 18 minutes. And Trey Murnie played 38. So I think it was, Marietta was probably the one in the presser there that he was having to go at. And for him to come out and score a try, that's going to be fantastic. And I just goes to show you the response. - Is that key? - Yeah. - Like I say, he was probably under the gun at training all week, and then he runs that hard line. And yeah, you can say, you can say, all you want to pass out. - It was an Easter Wales Cup pack. - Yeah, but he's still better. Yeah, but we're lost to a new South Wales Cup pack. - Exactly, that's exactly right. - We're against the sharks. - We're against the sharks. - I guess the shark, they need to be lost to the new cat pack. - Yeah, that's right. - So when it comes down to who wins, though, a race review of Blake and the Pork and Matt, ten-dollar land speed records, man on the match voucher. - Hudson Young, by country mile, I thought Hudson Young, that was one of the best games I've ever seen him play. Like just everything that he did in his intensity and energy, like until the 80th minute was incredible. - Yeah. - He's such like, when he's on, when he's on there, he can do everything. Like he's fast, he's got good footwork. He can throw a pass like he did, you know, to help set up that the first try. - And then that pass he kicked to, he wasn't looking. Did you see that? - Yeah, it was incredible. - He opened his mouth and kind of screams and laughs, goes, "Ah!" - Yeah. - But here, who did he get dropped, who did he get dropped for last year in a New South Wales state of origin side? - Colin Metangi. - Yes. And who did he basically bash all weekend? If you watch that game, every time Colin Metangi took a run, Young's in his face, even though Metangi was in the middle. Young was all over the part of it. - Yeah, he's everywhere. - He wasn't staying on his edge. And yeah, he had a point to prove, to match and to Ricky, that I'm better than Colin Metangi. He went out there and maybe Young needs that, you know, like he needs to have that kind of anger in him. And he had a point to prove in that game. And he was the best player in the field by, like, it wasn't even close. - No, that's true. Look, talking about other things that I want to shout out before we move on to looking at the next match, met a lovely lady by the name of Mel who was in a Raiders by 56 Beanie. And they had a nice chat seat. She sent out her thanks for us doing the podcast, which I felt well, thank you for listening to it. Also, met finally for the first time in The Flesh Lampus Troutman, which was very exciting. - Not at all. - He didn't have a Raiders by 56 Beanie. - She did not. - And there's some in the family, though, too, as well. - Yeah, no, I've got an upper about it. Obviously Veronica was there again, and she was wearing her- - With Andrew Perron. So I actually did watch the replay of the game as well. And in the first shot, you could see Veronica, who, you know, we love all our listeners, when there's a special place in our heart for Veronica. She's up with the highest tier of beloved listeners. And yeah, you can see if you watch the game coverage, first shot that she's there in her Raiders by 56 Beanie, which is great to see. - That is fantastic, and it's very good. So shout out to all you guys. - Before we just close off on the gaming at South, and, you know, it's just quite a long episode, Ricky's press conference, he was asked about Xavier Savage, and he had some pretty interesting comments on Xavier, which I think are worth just sort of briefly touching on. I mean, we've always tried to sort of, you know, big thing about this podcast and Raiders fans' chat and all the rest of it, we kind of get the odd glimpse of how things are going. But a lot of it's trying to interpret, you know, what's said and- - Yeah. - What's happening. - And we fall in love with a new shiny toy as well, you know, like we think that the newest young thing is the best-dung thing as well, which is not always the case. - But what Ricky said about Xavier was that, you know, and this is something I didn't realize at this, just before Christmas, he was ready. He said I was ready to pack his bags and tell him to find a new club. And post Christmas- - That one, yeah. - He turned it around, you know, and he just started like training hard, working hard. And it's incredible, like, what a beast he is now. The aggression that he plays with. - And that, I was gonna say that press is actually on the NIRL website, the Raiders website, if you wanna go look at it, 'cause that's like the third answer about Savage, 'cause that journalist was asking quite a number of questions about Savage, like Savage had played the greatest game of any game, you know, it was a little loaded to try and get Ricky to answer. And Ricky answered all of it incredibly well and spoke about that. He actually brought him on too soon, you know, like last, like two years ago. And that you gotta be very careful with certain players. And he spoke about how he's a young indigenous player and he probably had to be a bit more careful with him. And, you know, clearly coming in a grade with such talent, you know, you need to take ownership of that opportunity. And that's why he said he was willing to let him go and look what he's done. Like it's- - Yeah. The other interesting thing the club said was that he had a good understanding with his manager and sort of good sort of line of communication with his manager, 'cause it's something that we've really seen as a trend in the end of last, this year and last year is a lot of managers, in particular Isaac Moses, in relation to, in regards to Blaze to Lungi and Locky Galvin, really pushing, you know, are they gonna be playing or are they gonna be doing this? And if you don't do this, so I'm gonna take him away, we're gonna leave by, you know what I mean? It's a disturbing trend. I don't know who Xavier Savage has managed. He's actually tried to look it up and I couldn't, I couldn't find a Google search, wouldn't provide any clues. So I don't think he's with one of the big name agencies. But yeah, those three- - No, he can't be with Moses. - No. - Sorry, I cut you off. - We don't have anyone- - We don't have anyone with Moses. - I'd like to hear what, no, I'd like to hear what you want to say about this, too, Jim. - Well, I felt- - Was really- - I felt the same way about Ricky. And I think I said the thing in this year, I was ready for him to go. And thought, right, well, it was a pity, it's failed. He gets ragged old, he gets pushed back too much. He's not safe on me, he's not quite big enough. Sand up this year, he's beefed up, he's just as fast, he's playing with an intensity of the purpose. But I'd hoped he would do, but I didn't believe he would. And he's absolutely made me play a four-comple pipe. I am absolutely happy to be eating it. I'm so happy with his form. And you know, so happy to the point I was thinking, "Geez, he might look good at full back." You know, that was the next day, so I went to, he might look good at full back, which I had not thought before, and I certainly thought it now. - No, no, he's not a weak. - No, no, no, no. - No, no, no, no, no, he's not a weak. - No, no, no, no. - The whole reason he's thriving, the whole reason he's thriving is because they've simplified his role, they've put him- - Exactly. - To wing. And he doesn't have to worry about 50 million things anymore. He's happy on the wing. - I'm running the defensive line. - Exactly. - Exactly. So Ricky sort of said, look, he wasn't doing the extras, he wasn't doing the work. And one of the things that we had sort of heard in the past was that he wasn't doing, you know, you gotta play full back, you're setting the line, you gotta do video on your opposition every single week, you know, and apparently- - And he wasn't doing all of that stuff. - He wasn't doing that, he wasn't doing that stuff, and that's why they decided. And when they first decided they're gonna move into the wing, I thought it's not gonna work, he's too small, he's gonna get ragged old. Well, he's bulked up, he's kind of, his mentality's almost changed, past he looks- - Like bashing people in there. - Yeah, it's amazing. - And he's loving it. He's loving the physical side now, whereas you could see before he was avoiding it, you know? Someone, when he was at full back, there were times, it was a bit like Reese Robinson. There were times, or, you know, we've seen Sloane at the Bulldogs who met Duffy, where they're actually shirking the contact, you know, they're avoiding, you know, someone's made a break and they're actually kind of letting them get past them, or they're going for the intercept or whatever it is. - Well, the great thing is he's on a trajectory now to probably playing state of origin, some stage of his career sooner rather than later. And what was interesting in that presser that Ricky spoke about was not only the relationship that Ricky in the club has with the manager, but also with his family carers that were down in Canberra, the family that he's losing with, and also his family up north. So it just goes to show you that what you see on the field in this 80 minutes is just the tip, it's just the tip of the iceberg of a good culture at the Raiders, where we've got kids that are happy at home, happy at training, happy with their mates, and their good play is coming off the back of that. You know, if you're not happy at home, you start agitating to leave the club if you've played a whole season of first grade and then you get dropped. If you're not happy at home, you're not engaged with the players in half the social media, like Zach Wolford is, and he can't even start. So the club has clearly got a really good culture. You know, Tom Starling would have been looking to leave, that leave I would be upset right now. Zach Wolford has every reason to be upset this year, you know, there are fans of this podcast that think he's the best hooker at the club. And I'm sure Zach, he's a professional athlete, he has to believe that he's the best hooker there. - Yeah. - So, you know, he would be agitating to get out, but we're not hearing it because there's a good culture there. So I just feel like, you know, we see this 80 minute display of these kids every weekend. And honestly, it's the sign of all of this hard work that behind the scenes, Don, Ricky, Ben, all of the assistants are putting in not just to their players when they're playing, but their players when they're at home with their friends. You know, you think about the stuff Ricky spoke about with Elliot Whitehead. He didn't just talk about Elliot Whitehead on the field. He spoke about Elliot Whitehead as a social conduit for the players, how he goes to all of the stuff and he brings them together. Every Raiders fan knows that our players like, who do you, I can ask you, who likes golf? Wrap it up, you know what I mean? You know all of these aspects of these players because they're happy and I just, I just, I just, oh, so we're probably super fans, but I just think there's a lot of things right. There's a lot of things going on with that club at the moment. And we don't need to be bashing the club for not picking certain players at certain times. You need to be trusting them that they're doing the right thing. - Doing that good club culture though. And I had to wait for him because I was doing a baby for a friend and getting a signature of a jersey up to the match, which I wasn't able to get before the match. Ethan Strange, Dr. Strange. I swear to God, did a Josh Reynolds. He signed and took photos with every single fan around the boundary that wanted to do it. He was the last player, official, anything on that field after full time. He was there, the lights were starting to go out and he was still taking photos and signing things. I mean, it was freezing cold out there. He was in a sweat cover shirt and shorts. Literally, 30 minutes after full time, he's still going around taking photos and signing anything. And when I finally got the thing, he was such a polite young man, you know, just absolutely wonderful. So, you know, huge double thumbs up to Dr. Strange for making that effort with all those people out there and wanting to see him. 'Cause that's what builds club culture, connection with the fans. And he was out there doing it. - I'll be furious if he doesn't get rookie of the year. - If they give it to Galvin, it's a... - Oh, I don't think Galvin can't get it. He got suspended. - And he got suspended. He got suspended on the wake or whatever it is. - Good. - But he took him out. - He's played some games last year, didn't he? - No, I won Galvin's center, which you can play up to for or something. Savage, interestingly enough though, is off contract at the end of next year still. So he can re-sign, well, as of November 30, he's on the open market. So, I would like to think we've got something in the works. And something will be announced soon. 'Cause I'd rather, you know, he didn't go to, we didn't let it run to November 30. But who knows, maybe, you know, the old, have a look at what's out there on the market. We'll wait and see. - Oh, I think he's shown the backbone now where everything we've just been saying that he deserves to be talked to in advance to make sure that doesn't come in. - Oh, absolutely. I don't mean that's a question. - He's put in the hard yards. You can see that he's shown the character that you're looking for in a footballer. I want him to secure it. - Now, we really do need to get onto the Bulldogs match, which is that no more, I can fulfill. I cannot apply ticket on ticketing. This is on Wednesday, I cannot apply one. - Right. - Is that because you're not very good with phones and devices. - It could be that, it could be that. There is definitely a possibility, but. - Before we go talk about the Bulldogs game, we've actually got a message. He's back in touch. Let's hear from Danny Stewart. (clears throat) - Yeah, this is Danny Stewart. The, uh, brother of a, uh, game for right, his coach, Ricky Stewart. (clears throat) - I'm in regards to the last fortnight of footing there. A couple of weeks, it was a long time in rugby league. Last time I was on, we had that, uh, uh, unlucky loss to the north there. And, uh, two weeks on, uh, way back is, uh, permission favorites. And, uh, looking, uh, certain needs to, uh, break that 30 year drought. (clears throat) - I'm not in regards to the, uh, clinical win over the Warriors, uh, uh, a couple of weeks ago. Fuck me, what are we in that? Well, the Warriors, whenever we're in that game of footy, uh, we absolutely playin' off the park. They're in that, uh, crushing footy-dwaiter. And we, and, uh, it was, uh, great to back that up against the, uh, Bunnies, uh, Sunday night. (clears throat) Yeah, and they're in regards to the, uh, uh, Clay Priest, uh, Cup coming up on, uh, Sunday at Billmore, uh, Sports Green, uh, uh, kinda wait for that one. Uh, there's been some great plays from both clubs over the last few years. You play for both, uh, footy clubs. There, uh, uh, uh, the aforementioned Clay Priest, uh, the likes of Jake Foster, and, uh, then you got, uh, the great Brad Abby. So we've had, uh, uh, some great plays from both teams. They're gonna shoot me an absolute ball tier. (clears throat) Uh, we've run our last two, uh, games at Billmore, uh, 2016, uh, '22, eight. We're in there in, uh, '22, eight, uh, in, uh, uh, that was the, uh, famous game, uh, with Blake Yeltsin coming around amongst the last ten minutes, and then, uh, Joey, like, little school on the bill, and, uh, I gave Joshy Moore a little bit of what, four in the ground there. So, uh, happy memories as a team at Billmore, uh, but not so happy memories of Billmore, uh, for, uh, then he should do it. (clears throat) Uh, I was at that, uh, 2018 game. I, uh, was walking up and down Billmore Station, uh, after the game, uh, singing, uh, with great glee, uh, we just kicked the ball to exhaust. (clears throat) Uh, over and over again, uh, often, uh, riding the faces of, uh, doggies fans, and, uh, that didn't take too kindly to it, and I, uh, ended up in Canterbury Hospital. (clears throat) Yeah, but also, well, it ends well. We got the two points, but, uh, personally, you're not a great memory for me, you still. (clears throat) But, uh, looking forward to the, uh, uh, game on Sunday, uh, the doggies have been reading their own press all week. Uh, they're not used to being the favourite, so we'll go in underdogs, and, uh, hopefully do what they did to the Bronx up at Sankorp, uh, last week, uh, should be one-way traffic, and I'm, uh, anticipating, uh, comfortable riders victory. (clears throat) So, uh, when was it upwards, uh, and got you, uh, green micheling? - Having beats Belmo and myself, and to, to Bulldog's games, um, yeah, take Danny's advice, if we do get the win, um, just, you know, celebrate humbling. - Very humbling. - Don't try and rub it in anyone's face, Joe, you know? - Jeff, it's yourself. Okay, but to yourself, you know, just be happy you got the win, be humble, present as humble, maybe. - And get out of there as quickly as possible. Maybe camouflage yourself, you know? Do something like that. It can be difficult. Look, um, and Belmo is a particularly imposing ground. - And the atmosphere, I'm looking for a demon just watching this game on TV, though. The atmosphere would be great, you know? Those suburban ground games on TV, you know, you'd think of like out over, you'd think of Belmo, it doesn't get any better than that. - No. Well, it'd be good to have a win. So, Kyle Weeks, uh, is at the back, we're unchanged. We're up and we're on one week's, uh, Javier Savaggio, the other, Timmy Coe, and Chris in the center. Strange and Fogarty in the heart. Papa Lee, he's paying his 300th, and Joe Tarpere, the front row with Tom Starling. Between them, Hudson Young got hit wide head in the second row, Morgan Smith, he's at 13, who's notably getting more of a rest. Danny Levi for-- - Well, he can, he can now because of the whole - Quasking. - The way they're moving around. - Quasking, right there. - Adam married out of 16, and Zach Hoskins. - Hoskins. - Yeah, Hoskins, Tom in 17, sorry, yes. - Hoskins. - Hoskins. - Zach Hoskins, and Hoskins in there. For them, they've got a couple of big ins coming back. So, they've got Connor Tracy. They had a bit of a barrier against us last time, and it's got a lot of tries on the weekend. It's gonna be lovely. - Yeah, how'd it, how'd it, how'd it go? He's, you know, people now saying that he's-- - Yeah, sure, Drew. - Oh, I got a lot of tries. - People now saying that he's the signing of the year. - Yeah, well, he looked really good against the Broncos. Marjorie, the Broncos also look crap. But, then they got Kim Carras, who got out of that, got a try on one wing. They got Josh out of Carras back in. In number five, he's coming straight back into the side on the other wing. Bronson Zerey and Stephen Criten in the center with Criten returning the side up, being out. In the half, he got Matt Burton, and he got Toby Sexton, who actually is looking pretty good at the half roll, and was up. Josh Current's gone into the front row. It's been a bit of a journey man now, but front row with Sam Hughes on the other side. Reid Marnie, who you can guarantee, will be looking to stir people up in the nine jersey. Kick out in the 11 jersey. He'll be looking to terrorize our right-hand side defense. Jacob Princeton knows how to get his try on the right-hand side, doesn't he? And then Curt Mann, also a journey man, in the number 13 jersey on defense. They've got Bailey Haywood in the 14. They've got, I don't know how to say his name. I will spell it for you. L-I-P-O-I, first name, and second name, H-O-P-O-I, in the 15 jersey. Don't know how to pronounce the H, and I'm not gonna be insulting by trying it. - I'm gonna have a look, I'm gonna have a go. - I'll tell ya, let me have a look, and I'll tell ya. - Yeah. - I don't know. Curt Mann's in 16. - It'll be lipoey, lipoey, lipoey. - I think so, but I'm not certain. - Lipoey, lipoey, lipoey, lipoey, lipoey. - Yeah. - I just went straight to Kath and Kim, and I'm not gonna insult him like that, because to get into first grade, you got to be damned good players. I'm not meant to insult people today. Number 17 is Harry Hayes in there. So, look, they're back to full strength. That side, they're on a run. They're in the final, you know, in the finals chase, and they look pretty good for it. If they've got a weakness, if they've got a weakness, I'm not convinced they do, it would be their front row, isn't your traditional front row. - Yeah. - It's not just that, they've been playing with the smallest pack in the comp, and they've won a few games straight, and because both the nastas, the hosts of NRL 360, all they could talk about right now is the bloody Bulldogs, but they're missing a little bit of punch in the middle, and their bench is not as good as our bench. Now, they've got the second best defensive side on the competition, they've got some attacking weapons back and out of car, Steven Creighton. But, you know, I'm not afraid of attacking out of car. He's not the best defensive winger, and they're missing Max King, they're missing James Salmon, and Ryan Sutton, three, I mean, I know they haven't had Sutton all year, but that's three potential middles that they would have had, you know. James Salmon's been playing 13 for much of this year, and Max King is probably their best prop, so they are vulnerable if we can dominate the rock. - Yeah, but again, it's like a thing that we always say, you always say, mate, it'll come down to the referee's interpretation of the rock, we'll want a slow rock, they'll want a fast rock. They have flipped the script on the forward pack though, and that's one of the reasons why they're the second best defensive team this year, is they've got a very small mobile pack, you know, their line speed's been really good, and they've just been really good at containing teams defensively, you know, and they haven't had big-- - Which is interesting, good. - They can make big meters, but they've got-- - Yeah, but they miss a lot of tackles. They miss a lot of tackles, but they're-- - But I guess they got my wild guys like, yeah, like man and stuff like that, you know, can cover Preston, they're a good at covering that stuff. - The kick matches tight, they've won quite a number of matches this year by six and under, coupled by one point, where they've just edged out and done really well, because they're looking really good at tight finishes, they keep their strict sides down there, they're not necessarily scoring all the points on the back of that, but they stick to their game plan, and they're, you know, really quite disciplined. - We do, we do get-- - And that's really gonna challenge us. - We got a stat, though, from Lord Funketon, came in, the late, great Lord Funketon, well, not ladies still around, but we haven't, he hasn't been on the show in a while. - 'Cause we seem to like it. - Yeah, well, it's mutual. The Bulldogs-- - Don't know why, you've never been as easily as one of the best likes you'll ever meet. - The Bulldogs haven't beat this. - He's also a cat supporter like you. - The Bulldogs haven't beat this since 2017, so we've won, how many, we've won like 10 games there. I was like, and we've beaten them at Belmore as Danny Stewart said a couple of times. - Yeah. - Last time was in 2018, so. - I've been there for a couple of victory when I was going. But look, last weekend, it should be noted that we had a double, double milestone game here. Tommy Stalin playing his 100th match, and we had Elliot Whitehead playing his 200th for the club, and we won. So maybe-- - But Souths were wearing the white jerseys. But Bulldogs can't have their white, so. - We have to, we have to be wearing the green. - Souths chose to wear. Souths chose to wear in a Pauling white novelty jersey. And you know. - It's gross. - That jersey is gross. - It was reversed. - It was reversed. It was reversed, Juju. - Look, one thing I really don't know about the idea-- - This game is going to be it. - Well, I don't like the idea of is Stephen Crichton winning. I think he's a good player. I admire his play. I think he keeps it together. I think he's grown as players. Captain, I think he's done really good things at the Bulldogs after a dodgy move there. But I don't want to see it win, because I just don't. He's just done nasty things to us in the past. And I don't like him. - If we can keep them set for set for the first 20 minutes of the game, we can get over the top of them. You know, they're going to want to play fast. They've got an incredible ability to play kind of Tracy can sleep in and play both sides. And actually, they try and go around us. They'll try and go. They went around the Broncos on both edges. Adokar's going to help them on one side of the rock. But I think we could probably put some kick pressure on both their wingers and their full back. You know, they're not the most notable under the ball. Adokar, Kharaz, Kharaz has got a couple of errors in him. And Connor Tracy is not a very big guy. So I have the feeling, Fog of his kicking game is going to be very important. The fact that it's a day game is really important. If it's close, I think we win. If we were doing tips, I think we have to win and I don't know if we can. You know, I thought that was an incredible performance last week, but I would rather play the dogs after a great performance than them after a loss. But looking at the ladder with our bad four and again, so we probably have to get to 32 points. So we probably have to win four of our next six. And knowing that we've got the roosters in 10. What I thought was really interesting in that press conference last week is when one of the journalists put it to Ricky, I think it was one of them the second last question, that you've got a really hard run. How do you feel? Elliot Whitehead scoffed and looked pissed. I don't talk to us like that's a hard run. We're a hard team to beat, you know? You look like that. Remember that attitude that we had running in at the end of 2019? Well, we wanted to play the tough games. We wanted to play Melbourne. We wanted to prove everyone wrong. Whitehead looked like he had a bit of that in him in that interview. And I wouldn't be shocked if we come out and put on one of our better performances of the year. Although don't get me wrong, I'm very nervous about this game. I think it's going to be very hard to win. There is a big amount. 300 is there. Yeah. It's funny when they had Tom starring and interviewing the players in the dressing room. He's like, we finally won the milestone game. It's true. Look, maybe it's time to look at the extended bench. Who's on the extended bench? Well, we've got Cookie in 18, who played half of the match last week in Reggie's and then was still 18 and was up for it. Then you've got Albert Hopperwate, 19, Zach Wolfen, 21, Emery Gordon in 22. And in the jersey number 20, you have big red Corey Horsborough who came back and played last week. And of course, as it's been already muted already by everybody, Paul Smoky is that big red is going to come in and Papa's going to go out. All big reds are going to come in. Yeah. That's what I would love to see is big red come in and maybe Danny Levi come out and just unleash the big red at the ball. It's like 20 minutes. It just counts. Awesome. Just biting Reed Marnie's head off. That gets him in for the rest of it. You hear that people? Matt, as officially, he's just a man and lever island. It's close down. It's going to be one of the most featured things where you say abandoned things. They show you this shopping center and that whole round. He just called for Danny Lever to be dropped. It's finally happened. It's finally happened. Mark is in the calendar. You should be hoping Danny Levi gets dropped. We don't need to say any more. Look, look. Okay. For the bulldog. They've got giraffe skeleton. They've got Liam Knight. Skeleton killed him. Yeah. I'm spraying the fly spray in his mouth for the RV. The skeleton ran forever 300 meters last week. You're right. Incredible. It's hard done by the drop. Blake Wilson in 21. Obama Sootaly in 22. Andrew Hutcherson, who was the half in 23. Look. I tell you, your mate Toby Sexton got the nod. And actually, you know. I'm giving the extended bench to the Raiders. They're just on the basis. Yeah, we have a state of origin. And Hawesborough and Hopwell are they are in that side. Yeah. There's one state of origin game experience on that bench. How many of the bulldog's got? None. No grand finals. Oh, Hutcherson's probably. Hutcherson's probably. No, yeah. But to your point, you're just about to say. Like, I think a lot of Canterbury's good run is time with Toby Sexton. Come in here, actually. Yes. That's going to turn around. Straighten them up. Yeah. But the one thing that we do need to be aware of with Sexton is his short kicking game. His short kicking game is probably the second best in the comp. Or maybe third best in the comp behind Sam Walker is probably got the best in the comp at the moment. But Sexton, he tends to score. Like a lot of those. Trap and strapping. Trap and scrapping. Trap and scrapping, say. Trap and scrapping. Yeah, I'm still, I'm still like flustered from the old Benny Levi. Yeah. It was a big moment. The daggers out of his heart. It's a big moment, you know. It's out of my back. Out of my back. Out of my back. Oh, they're everywhere. They're everywhere. Look, it had to happen. It had to. You're stuck by him. You've been so long. You've been so long. You've been so long. And I bought a timeshare. It's now worthless. I've done my cash. But you should buy him and look, he does have stuff that he still has to offer. There's the defensive royalties. It's the defensive royalties people that, you know, that are just letting down in that regard. And he'll be working as hard as he can. And look, if he needs to come in, if we need to bring him in, he'll do a job. You know, he'll try his very heart. He's no shirker. So, you know, he's got a character for them. I've got a semi for Danny. Yeah. That's all right. I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, talking about things, it's time for, oh, it's got to lift. Well, for me, it's the same as last week. It's trying to add up. If they improved last week, they got to go up again. Yeah. Because if we've got to have. I didn't realize. They've got to have not just hold their own. They're going to have impact. I didn't realize that or any played 18 minutes. But I guess there was, there was that period where, you know, Starla was, was, Whitehead and Starla were both in the proper rotation. So that took up about 10 minutes of, of his time. One's the bunker. The bunker's got to lift. It's terrible. The bunker. You got to lift. You're not all right. Why don't you see Zack? Expect. I see Zack Hosking go back to his form at the beginning of the year actually. Yeah. He's easing his way back in. But obviously he's just getting his mass fitness. Yeah. He's talking about the referee. I think refereeing. I'm expecting some rough calls. Bill Moore. Very focused. Yeah. Expect some rough calls. It's my main ash. He doesn't listen too much to the crowd. He does his own thing. Whether that ends up as good or bad for you. Send him a damn Tim. Send him a message on Facebook. He's passed the point of giving a crap with the crowd. So that's the thing. He knows everyone hates him already. I'm in Haiti. I should actually, I should have actually checked and seen who the Bulldogs best and worse referees could be relevant. Yeah, you probably should have been a researcher. Would have been good. Who have you got to lift? Oh, I've got no one. I actually, I couldn't think of anyone who needs to lift. We should talk about merch. No, no, no. You've got to have reasons to be cheerful. Reasons to be cheerful. Part three. Look, big red. He's back on the pitch. That's a reason to be cheerful. How do those fall? That's a reason to be cheerful. The return of Jamal, you know, has had the instant effect, you know, that we sort of thought that it would, and it's, he's been incredible. Yeah, yeah. So there's lots of reasons. No, you don't have to think if Jamal was around all year, we'd probably be in the intention of the eight. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Someone asked me if there were more Raiders by 56. I think we would have been. If there was more Raiders by 56, then he's left. And I said, I didn't know it's going to be touch and go now. It's going to be touch and go. They're still, they're still about four left. So jump on land speed, Dr. Comba, a year and grab one and, you know, you can be one of the cool kids. We're not, we're not bringing any more of those. Well, when we do another beanie, it'll be something else. But right now we've got merch. You got a rugby league.com. You can get that if you hate Jordan Ruppner. I hate you T-shirt. You can get that. That was an us T-shirt. That's fantastic. Still the old favorites. The pork, the Blake, the mat. The T-shirts are all there. You can get them as T-shirts. You can get them as woodies. It's all there, isn't it? Absolutely. rugbyleading.com. And while you're there, go on to whichever format you're going on. Are you going through Santa Clara? Are you going through Apple? Pods? Whichever one you're going in. Go in and give us a rating. You can give us a garbage rating if you want, don't. But you could. Just give us a, you know, give us a comment. Actually, no, give us a really good rating and give us a garbage comment for life. Yeah. Say something funny. But don't also fail as though you have to say something funny. Just give us a rating, a review, subscribe, you won't miss an episode. Coming up, Tim. What's after this game? Oh, we've got so many things now. We've got the Manly and it's the old boys game. We've got Manly on Saturday, the 10th of August at 3 p.m. So it's a day match. Let's get out there and make that big. Because if there's one thing we all agree on is that we hate Manly. I think we can agree on that. Yes, we can. After that, when we go away up to Townsville on Saturday, the 17th of August, at 5.30 p.m. to play the Cowboys. That's a four-point match there as well. So the Seagulls four-point match, this is a four-point match and that's four-point match. So in the next three matches, all wins. All of the sudden, top fours looking on. There's 12 people on Saturday. Then, of course, we come home on Saturday. The issue that I have been the by-man, saying I've got to jump in, been the by-man. The issue that I have with being the by-man is that Manly are coming off the by against us. That helped me fresh. Yeah, that helped us last time. Well, it's not helping us. Well, you didn't get pumped by the targets. I'm just pumped. No. Pumped. Violated. It was horrible people. Well, I put in a police report. Missing sign. Those that aren't missing were violated. Then, easy match, home match against some side called Panthers. 3 p.m. on Saturday. I think we're due a win against the Panthers. Yeah, you think so. And then, of course, then Sunday 1st of September, 4.05 p.m. Another easy beat side, the roosters, just up in Sydney. So that'll be easy. And then, to end it off, we go to... Where do we go to? Matt? It's in Sydney. It's near San Suci. We go to Cogara over that way. Cogara. Cogara. We played the Dragoons. We played the Dragoons. The Darlons. The Darlons. Hey. Cogora. It's Cogora, mate. It's Cogora. It's Cogora. It's spelled Cogora. It's pronounced Cogora. Cogora, do you believe, my friend? That is what it's called. Cogora. And that we've finished up. Anyway, you have been listening to the podcast formally known as the most popular writer's podcast on the internet. Raise your view with Blake and the Port and Matt. I am the Port. I'm Blake. I'm Matt. I'm Matt. He's Matt. He's Matt. He's sort of still there. He's Matt. And we'll speak at you again soon. I said Matt. Did it not come true? I said Matt. No, we didn't hear it. We thought we'd bring Rachael Citroen. Blake and the Port. Blake and the Port. Blake and the Port. [music] [ Silence ]