Raiders Review With Blake & The Pork (Canberra Raiders NRL)
Raiders Review With Blake & The Pork Episode 153 - Never Feldt So Flat
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. Hello and welcome to Raiders review with Blake and the Pork and Matt. I'm the Pork. I'm Blake and I'm Matt and this is the podcast, formerly known as the third most popular Raiders podcast coming to you. Well, one of us is coming to you from the filthiest store and buried somewhere in the Bowser Civic, the location of which we will never reveal where we left. No, I will. I honestly will. Let me look at that now actually. Where is it? Okay. Mute is line. Mute is line. We've got so much going on this week. It's so much going on. I'm glad you all joined us here for this podcast because people have got things to say. People have got things to say. First off, I've probably got to acknowledge that my dream of a top four has probably gone now. I think we can accept that. Probably the best we can do is six. It's still home final there, people. Home final. This season starts now. That's what we're saying. What news have we got, Blarke? Yeah, look, my level enthusiasm for the podcast, the Raiders season, it was pretty much extinguished at four p.m. on Tuesday. But I'm here. I've showed up. I've got some news. I'm sure that's funny that we can talk about. I was pretty low Saturday afternoon and then, yeah, Thursday, four p.m. Team Tuesday. I was just like, don't know if I can do this anymore. But anyway, I'm here and I'll try and provide some balance and a counterpoint to Tim's blind zealotry. There is some news, age of 2 billion. I think you need to put blind in front of zealotry. I think zealotry just seems blind. I don't know if everyone, I don't know if everyone, sometimes I use terms on this podcast that some of the go over, some of the listeners heads, so I've just got to clarify. So you've started off talking about yourself in the news and now insulted our listeners. Not all right. That's very good. Not all. But Adrian Trevalion, poor Blake, he's out again for the season. He's done his shoulder. Ricky, he's unsigned for this for next year. Ricky said that he will, he's confidently will play first grade, but it was a bit ambiguous whether or not that would be at this club. What were your thoughts on that? I didn't think there was any ambiguity in that at all. I thought that was a very clear message that he felt bad for the kid, but that was up for us, for us and him. That's what I read into that. Yeah, possibly. What do you recommend? It's been a funny one, you know, like when he signed with Schneider, they were both such touted young juniors coming down from Queensland, and we really thought he might be the answer after Hodgson, and he just hasn't kicked on. And it's not for want of trying. He's obviously had some serious injuries that Ricky spoke to, but maybe also at training. It seems to be a weird one where we've all expected him to get his shot, and he just really hasn't had that opportunity, and it's been sad. You know, there's been chances. We've got two hookers that are pretty much aging out of their contracts. I don't think we're going to offer Wolford and Danny Levi an extra contract, so you'd think the natural progression was to offer, you know, Dr. Villian maybe applying roster next year or the year after, and he's been on a track, he's been on a developmental contract the entire time he's been at club. I thought he might have actually been top 30 the previous year, and he got sort of downgraded. I think I felt mental. I don't think he ever made it. I think think Matt's right. He never made it. You know, sir, and then we start to hear whispers from, you know, younger players, Owen Patti, who's playing in Cup this weekend, and you know, what's interesting is if we've got the media manager talking to us about him, then the entire club's talking about him, you know, so the kids off what, 17 or 18, and everyone in the media man is older. Does he think he's like 18? I think he's 20. So he's played, he's playing flag. What's flag? Under 20? Under 21? Yeah. Well, he's 14 in my book because I like a long story in a short bow, but you know, clearly they're being marked him and who knows, maybe they'll try and keep Levi next year as a one year progression, but we won't be offering Levi another contract. Who knows what's happening with Wolford, apart from maybe liking some posts that you might have put up last week. And then as he clicks under 21s, is it? I forgot about that. I forgot about that. You actually actually, right. He said, yeah, no, I believe this is coming up saying he's 21. Well, if he actually is not 14, he's not so he's not young. He's young maybe in terms of a hooking position. He's not he's not younger than a bunch of other players. He's younger than us. I just, you know, like it's one of those, that's obviously their earmarked him as the next step and and he's playing, he's getting bigger minutes and cut now. So look, I really would have liked to have sent you a million, get a chance, you know, multiple games. Obviously played a few at the beginning of last year. His pass is the best pass in the club. To me anyway, I haven't seen Patty play too much, but they're very similar size and you can mistake them too. They're both played with headgear. Yeah, it's probably made a bit more solid. Yeah, a bit more solid. Yeah. So we're just gonna see injuries with civilian. Adam Cook is hoping to get an extension of the club. Seems like logical that they will want to keep him around. I don't know if he's, you know, a lock for first grade next year, but you know, he's someone good to have as a backup, you know, you can fill a number of positions and yeah, you definitely think he's he's good enough to fit into a 30 somewhere. We've always had good club men. You know, Frawley, Sam Williams, you know, we've always had players that are happy to go back and play first grade, run the ship. I mean, play cup, sorry, and run and run the ship down there and then step up when needed. If you watch Cup this year, when he's playing, it's a different game. He's, he put, he gets them around the park. Mitch Henderson's been doing a great job, but I really like what I see with Adam Cook. I know obviously we can get to the team list later and that that poses a lot of questions and probably some raised eyebrows or some fans of the Raiders, but look, this kid's come back and he's had a shot and he's played really well on the side. He's come from nowhere. Yeah, when he's celebrating him, I think we should actually be celebrating those sort of stories I reckon. Oh, yeah, it's great to animal for him re-signing. Yeah, but yeah, we can talk about this week's team and what his best role is in our opinion. Moving forward. Did you guys see the photo? Just had he see the 20 or 2021 because he was playing for the under four teams back in July, 2018. He was playing for the under 14 boys for the central crows it was back in July, 2018. And he was playing nine then as well. So I think he's 20 or 21. Fantastic. I think he's probably 21, but he's still eligible for Jersey flag because he was, you know, what age you are at the start of the season for most junior football competitions. Big red. There's a photo playing around on social media. I'm not convinced that it's him, but I'm so black with red hair and a goatee. He's looking pretty miserable, sitting at a table at Bulldog's Lakes Cup. I'm convinced that Tim, bro. The percentage of redheads in society is pretty slim and it's getting slimmer every year genetically. They're actually on their way out. But the fact that there's a big red rugby league at Bulldog's on the day off on a Monday, I reckon he was there having a chat. You'd have to think so. I mean, he's gone. He's gone. Yeah, no, no, we know. He said he was gone. He pulled the pin. It makes me sad. But, you know, I think we just got to move on at this point. Like I said, last week, so I think it'll come down to how much freight we're willing to carry on our cap, you know, because he's got multiple years at Big Bucks. Here's a question. I'll post you to you guys. I'd like to know your answer because I've got a couple that I can think of, but I'd love to hear your voice. Who are players you reckon that we've cut in the past? And we can say forwards that have gone on to bigger and better things. Mitch Barnett? That's one. Yep. Paul Vaughn. Oh, I was going to say Ben Kennedy, but we didn't cut him. He just left. No, no, we want to keep him. Lazarus was the same. Yeah. Yeah, Leo Thompson. Leo Thompson's available. We cut him or did you just get a better deal? You got a better deal. He was younger. Mitch Barnett was, you know, as a bit of a situation. Yeah, we cut him. We just cut him. We cut him. And we definitely, we definitely, Ricky, definitely booted or worn out the door. Mick Wayman. Definitely. Not so recent, but. There's a few that we're getting more. You get, I thought I had a feeling he got a better deal. I was trying to put a thing up for Ricky. You're like, we don't cut any while they get better. And it's like, state of origin play. No, I mean, Mitch Barnett, because he's obviously had a great, he's obviously had a great year this year, but play priests. It'd be interesting to see how big red goes because, you know, other coaches and your voice in his head might actually get the best out of him because clearly something's happened at the club. I think the problem with this thing is with with Ricky, we've seen relationships. They're really good up to the point that they're not. And with the exception of Joe Tarpany, who, you know, obviously they sort of had some reconciliation. Once someone is on Ricky's bad side, they generally stay on his, on his bad side. I mean, we've seen it with, you know, a lower, we've seen it with, you know, it's the old, you're dead to me factor. So yeah, I think that, you know, and this is in the first time that he and Big Red have had a major falling out. And this isn't the first club that Big Red's had a falling out with. No, true. Yeah, that's true. That's really true. See, that's, that's the other thing, too. Everyone will find it very easy to blame Ricky for whatever they want because Ricky is, you know, the club's blame hound, you know, if there's a bad smell around everyone's too happy to blame him. But, you know, there is this thing where he might just be right, you know, because it's not the first person he's fallen out with. And, you know, I love Big Red, and he's had some great impact. But again, he's been off the field a lot. You know, going forward, you've actually got to think to yourself, well, he's going to kick up a stinking. He's not going to come back to the table. Well, then he called himself, in my opinion. Yeah, it's sad. It's sad. All right. I think that covers the news. Anything else you guys want to cover? N.O.L.W. Unfortunately, he gives me down. Look, no, and look, and what was bad about it was how well they started. Like, they were so good. They looked imperious. They were, they were running good movements. They were, Grace Kent was fantastic in, in the front row. She was making great meters. Doing the, the Joe Tarp and I stand and drag. It was really nice because they had some big units, the sharks, right? And they were making impacts, but she really was doing well against them. And then the back line was looking really good. Then came her mom where Sahara Tamara went off because she had a head injury assessment that she actually passed. But we lost so much momentum in that point. And as soon as they came out in the second half, it was like the team didn't leave the change rooms and chronology just ran over them. It was just so disappointing. I don't know whether it's fitness, they get shaken. I don't know what it is, but it looked just like last year where they looked so good, getting out in front, and they just were unable to go on with the game. It was really disappointing. I was quite sad about it. And just review with Blake. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. The old man in technology. Listen to him. He's slowing down, like, this is, this is, this is about as thrilling as listening to the old man. This is going to be a great day. It's going to be a great day. And then it just all fell off. He's back. He's gone. He's back. What happened? So this is, this, listening to you there, it's like on par with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, it's about as thrilling. That's slurry, too. But there's so many people listening to us right now. There's like 6 million people listening to us right now. 60 million live on the live stream. Yeah, it's impressive stuff. Patreons. Yes. This is, this is about BTE. Look, I don't want to talk. What have you said? RLW, it was depressing. It was depressing. I was a bit like, I guess, the men's first grade as well. And that, you know, the first half was pretty good, but then the second half. Oh my god. Do we want to go into a match review or do we want to do ask clown of the week first? I think it's probably important that we're going to ask clown off the week. All right. I say that because there's so many things to choose from. Now, first and foremost, I think there is a clear ask clown of the week this week, and it's not to do with the match. But this person could also be asked clown of the year because he's having such a shocker. And that is none other than the mole. I'm now ashamed to say I helped get his current position. His tweet coming out during the Xbox Dragon's match. Did you really get in this position? Did you hear it out, man? He certainly helped. With you, with you. I just want to apologize. When he was cut from rugby league week, we went down. I raised my friend at 10 or 9, and I said, you might want to have a look at this guy. He's got a text following on Twitter. And he's interesting. I don't actually know what he does in the state. He has like one column a week or something, and then he gets blown to like Vegas. And he's always just getting around the way. I've done, and I don't get it at all. I don't get it anyway. The offending tweet is tweet saying, "The dragons are on fire." No, no, no. Bulldog's drama unhappy. Bulldog's drama on fire. Raiders drama unhappy. Yes. He sort of made a correlation between the dogs were doing well, and that therefore would make Simon the drama unhappy. Which, you know, is it pretty long? It's just stupid. It's really, it's trivializing a shit incident. For a professional journalist in the media to be able to put such a perverse light on an assault, it's just disgusting. Yeah. And also, Simon, probably what's happy his wife goes for the bulldogs? Yeah, I know. But it's just, you know, Simon was clearly scared, and that, and what it does is it trivializes that whole incident. That if you look at some of the comments afterwards, you know, there's a whole pile on about, he was lying, he's doing it for attention, all of his bullshit around that situation. When it steps over that thing of just, you know, social media kind of like having a joke to talking about people when they're getting assaulted, because the last plan of the year, you think the mole would, you think the mole would realize that was a shit tweet, and it'd take it down, because you got absolutely dislodded. Yeah, but also- Yeah, that's what I couldn't understand why he didn't take it down. I would have, as soon as- I'm assuming he'd had a few, because he'd have to have had a few to do a tweet that dumb. I'm not convinced- I'm not convinced that he doesn't- I'm assuming he was- I'm just trying. Yeah, it's engagement. I'm pretty sure he can- he tweets stuff now just to get clicks, because you don't say "tomoco" for state of origin. You know what I mean? Being a gentleman. You don't say shit like that without knowing you- Unless you've hit a certain point in life, like someone else we may know, and you've just lost touch with reality a little bit, and you're sort of just yelling, "Is this your name? Is it a power plant? Is it?" He slept into his pillow. He slept into his pillow with his headset. Just an update on the pork self, you know, as we move into our 60s. The body starts breaking down now, and again, it hasn't come back for a while. That's good. Neither is the beside us, but unfortunately I do have two herniated discs in my lowered back, which isn't- isn't serving the the pork very well at the moment, so I'm under orders to be lying down. Speaking of our other arse clowns, and up until recently the standout arse clown of the year, contender Corey Jay Parker, he was back at the G.O. for the first time. He was back at a boot. Yeah, no one tuned him, was very disciplined. No, I said I- I said I stood right next to him. Yeah, I sent a message to Ben Pollock, time to get the Corey's wanker chant happening on the mic, but he didn't do it. Very disappointed. No, he just let- That's the crowd would be- The crowd would love it. The crowd would love it. I was waiting for Rick while he was doing the interview with Fox, and he was standing next to me, and so Rick and I went off, but he might have been waiting to speak to Rick, I don't know, but he didn't get in fast enough, so off we went. It's got to be an honorable mention for Grand Atkins, and all of them mention for Graeme Annasley, he's a few honorable mentions this week. Graeme Annasley is a very honorable mention, because if anyone watched the presser yesterday or Monday about him trying to justify the Grand Atkins pulling up the cook try, which was a try, rather than playing on and then checking it into the review, Graeme Annasley, like Atkins has made a mistake. He's gone off early, right, and it grinds my gears. Do you know that grinds my gears? That's what grinds my gears. Grant, why did you go off half-cocked? Why did you go off half-cocked? It grinds my gears. You could have let it go through. You could have said I've sent it up as no try, and then it would have come down as a try, and the match hinged on that moment, but Annasley, going back to the arse clown, comes in and starts trying to justify it and saying he couldn't. The journalists that are in that presser picked him to absolute pieces and made him look like the arse clown that he is. It was almost like you've now talked to yourself and convinced everyone in this room, you're an idiot and no one should believe anything that comes out of your head, because we'd put you on the third grader, and you're going to lose magnitude of logic at this stage. It was pathetic. But the other one coming into the arse clown, whoever was in the bunker, I know who it was, deciding that it wasn't a lifting tackle. Before we go into that one, just a couple of things I want to say on the cook knock on. Look, I thought the moment it happened, I thought it was a knock on, and I was fine with him blowing the whistle. In hindsight, so did I. Sure, he should have played on it, but at the time I thought, oh my god, Hudson Young's butchered the pass, and it's only when they challenged, he said, "No, I've got a foot to it." Because, and also too, we saw that happen quite a few times over the weekend. There was one with Kellen Paul onto a try, because it used to be sort of, you could kind of say, "Oh, I dropped it, and then I kicked off my foot." They used to say, unless you've consciously made an effort to kick it, we're not going to, we're not going to call it as a, as a kick, unless you've consciously, you know what I mean? And they said, "Oh, yeah, always put, did sort of look out to it." But he dropped it, and he managed to get this foot to it, which is what you always used to do when you're a kid, playing football. You go, "Oh, no, I kicked it." But that's right, because the reason he is, they have to call it a kick, is because the way they're doing knock ons now, when players can testing the ball, it comes into a tackle. If it just leaves them for a second and touches the other player, it's considered a knock on. And they have made the knock on contingent on the ball, either hitting the ground or hitting another player, or an offside player that's your own, right? And because they've done that, it all of a sudden brings in, I got a foot to it, so it means I could turn it into a kick, because it's not a knock on until it hits the ground or another player. You guys remember the Cooper-Cronk one must have been about five or six years ago, where he dropped it, actually hit the ground, and then kicked out, "No, no, that's a drop kick." Wasn't that really Slater? Oh, was it? I can't remember. It was one of them. It was like, "It might have been really strong." They got away with it. That was shocking. That was absolutely shocking, as it did touch the ground. The issue is, I mean, we live in a game where interpretation is such a big part of it, and we're dealing with referees that it's not like a black and white thing, half the game, and it's really frustrating to be fans of rugby like half the time. And we could even, we'll talk about some of the calls later. But the playing on, the playing advantage, it's a get out of jail free card for referee for five seconds. You can just play on for split second, you know what I mean? And in any try-scoring situation, they're always going to go back and look at it, so there's nothing wrong with letting it play out. It's a pork's point. That was an incredibly pivotal moment in the game. We would have gone in 18-12 up. It would have been 18-6. No, it was 12 all at the time, wasn't it? And then the game changes, because we obviously had our bench forwards on, and if they had scored first and second half, we would have brought... We probably saw it a lot. I don't want to say that's the reason why we lost the game. We probably saw it a lot, and there were some other referee. Oh yeah, and we fell apart in the second half. Oh, diabolical, diabolical. I mean, in the end, look at that game, right? We're actually lucky that they took their foot off the accelerator bit towards the end, because I thought for a while that they're going to hit 60, you know, and they kind of eased up a bit, and we scored a couple tries to make it look a bit more respectable. Me too, and if you listen to the Fox broadcast, they said that Seabold's half-time speeches, you know, they hang onto the ball because you got more in attack, and they did. They're actually making bigger metres than us in the first half, but it's just frustrating to be in that position, and then, you know, Atkins compounded it by making a couple of glaring mistakes in the second half. Like, there was two ones that were just ridiculous. The lifting tackle. We can go in the left here. Well, so here's the thing about the lifting tackle. Well, the lifting tackle's on the bunker. That's on the bunker. No, no, no, but actually, if you look at... I mean, there's two things, right? There's our understanding of the rules, right? Which is, you can't lift above horizontal, and we look at that tackle in the context, and this is the way I saw it, in the context of the one we'd previously been penalised for. Carl Lawton, yeah. And that's why the players were so frustrated. That's why targeting was so frustrated. But actually, lifting beyond horizontal isn't a rule. There's no... I've actually... No, back... Tapping the lifting between your legs is. No, it's not either. I've actually referred back to the NIL rules pamphlet at the time, and I looked at a few of the different things. And the stuff on lifting, like, you know, saying as soon as you lift the leg, it's a penalty. Now, that only applies if there's already two one or two players already holding a player. And then the third man comes in and lifts the leg, and then puts the person in potentially in a dangerous position. But the horizontal thing in itself isn't a black and white rule, there's no reaction. Yeah, fair enough. But we've seen 1,000 of those tackles in 999 of them have been penalty. Of course, and it should have been a penalty. And have you ever heard the bunker say, in the history of Rokbili, he landed on his backside, or his bum, so he was really fine. And also, he loses the ball because he's worried about how he's going to land. Land, yeah. That's why we lost position there. So it sucked. It should have been a penalty. Conventions says it should have been a penalty. But if we're actually going to argue the black and white laws and saying, by the laws that should have been a penalty, not necessarily, but in the conventions of how the game's been refereeed this year, especially, yes, 100% should have been a penalty. And that's why Rokbili has interpretations of the laws. It's not necessarily. And that's why I think the rules are actually deliberately vague, right? So they can have these interpretations and they can change their interpretation, yeah, and so they can protect them. And also, the other problem is too, when you send that up to the bunker, right? The thing about the bunker does not independently judge over the events and come up with an objective interpretation. Usually what they try and do, and we saw in that case, they try and justify the decision of the referee. They try and back up the referee and interpret the events and the rules to back up what the referee, they don't want to overturn referee's decisions. More often than not, they want to back the referee. But if it's obviously the referee got it wrong, then they'll change it. For the most part, I reckon they go, they're trying to like, as a prosecutor, they're trying to make the case of the referee and say, and here's the evidence that supports. Yeah, it was ridiculous. It should have, it should have been, you know, a penalty to us. I know, but it should have been, it should have been put on a report. It should have been sent to us in many, none of those things, because look at what Jamal got put on a report for, right? He didn't get charged. He didn't find it was, it was nothing. Yeah, well, that one had been penalty as long as it's consistent analysis. That's about as weak as we've seen a penalty. Carl Lawton literally dropped his shoulder to try and I think maybe he can get the penalty where Fogarty tried to do the opposite thing. He tried to not drop his head towards the ground. But you could see, you could tell that the crowd was getting frustrated with some of those interpretations. Obviously, you know, what happened in the first half with Cookie's try compounded with to prove it's setting up that try on half time. Then, then just before that Fogarty lifting, we were returning a kick and it might have been Kyle Weeks or Tomoko spun out of a tackle, was on the ground and there wasn't a hand on him and they called him back to play the ball. Oh, I see him in the crowd. Yeah, there's just a bunch of situations. And this is the thing. So we might not have won the match had the calls correctly gone towards us, right? We might not have won the match. But what I will tell you is if Cookie plays on, we get the try. And if the try, the penalty goes to us for Fogarty and in the Luke Brooks tackle, Joe Tarponay does not get sinned bin because he doesn't lose his patience and do it. Now, he shouldn't have. He should have kept his mouth shut. It was bad. But the instant he got sinned bins, that game was utterly gone. Now, and this is the thing I love. We're already up right now. Down 28 to 12, whatever at that point. 12. That's right. But at that stage, the next try that went through. Paseka went straight through the gap that Tarponay should have been in. That's where he went straight through. And from that point, we were utterly gone and all shaped left in the side. So I don't think Tarponay should have lost his temper the way he did and got sinned bin. Had we even got just one of those calls in our favour. So while we might not have won the match, we might still have won the match. We were still a chance for it. Those things conspired to actually put us out of it completely. So, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of there's a lot of arse plans to work over there. And as Lee, the bunker, Atkins grinding my gears, there's no question. There's a lot of shit there to be taken. But when we go back over the match, what was good about it? That first half until such point, as we let that try and just for half time, until that point, that's some of the bet like they continued on from the ball goals match. Their intensity was good, their organisation was good. It was a simple game plan, but it was good. There was a couple of players I thought were really good, two in particular. One was Hudson Young, who I think is back in his best form. He was dangerous the entire time. And the other one was Kyle Weeks. He scored a great try, but he did everything right with the exception. And I said last week and got ridiculed. He needs to get behind the player attempting to take the ball faster than he does. Because if he gets behind the other year when he loses that contest, he might stop the player who took it off loading if he's there. And he's not there quite there fast enough. And that's, you know, he's not a natural number one. So he's still learning his craft. He needs to get across faster. Well, the issue that I had wasn't necessarily where Savage was placed. It was where Tamako was placed. Tamako wasn't shielding, not Savage, when you said weak, sorry, Tamako wasn't shielding or blocking any of the catches. They had a free run at Savage in a couple of games in a row. As a centre, your job should be to protect the catcher. You should be turning and trying to get in opposition as legally as you can to give you catch at the best chance. And Tamako not only allowed the free run onto Savage, then he then the extra player to get the ball away. And certain players do it more than others. Jesse Raimi is probably the most aggressive when it comes to protecting his wing is catching the ball. And he does get penalised sometimes, but he'll get penalised on the seventh occasion. And he does it, and he does it, and he does it. And I just, you know, it's such an easy, like it's happened in the Tigers game when they scored off a bunch of kicks. And it happened again. I think we need to be protecting our catches a bit more and forcing the referee to blow, blow a penalty. Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't ever. Look, there was some good stuff there. I thought he wasn't seen being off the field. It was great again. He was great. He was really, really good. One of the reasons we were doing so well in that first half was he was dominant. And we really have to look at the bench and taps went off as well in that last 10 minutes. And we lost completely any momentum. Yeah, they did try they did try and you could actually see that you try and mix up the rotations a bit more to avoid that. But yeah, it's because Papa came up early and then came back on earlier. So they tried. You got to wonder if Saulo was not injured, how much better this to be looking? Yeah, I don't know. We've looked so much punch. But everyone's dealing with injuries at this time of the year. And it's become an issue. Manly actually had that was their strongest team that had all year, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Obviously, you know, they came right at the right time for them. Yeah. What do we want to talk about? Yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, you lost the will to leave. Like, you've killed him. Ladies and gentlemen, the writers have killed him. Can we tell you how they stay out the will? Now, I'll tell you, I'll tell you who's found the will to live. And that's the shock. All right. What's up, everyone? Yep. I'm back for this week. I had to chime in on this one. Pardon the background noise. I'm just, you know, doing the rounds. I'm here at Tugernung in the Hyperdome. I refuse to call it South Point. If you call it South Point, you're a nerd or an officer of the law. Yeah, so Saturday, huh? So I'm sitting in the southern end like I do every week or every home game, whatever. And, you know, the Raiders are just getting put over a barrel once again. I mean, let's not even mention that it's a milestone game, whatever. It's really his hunt, yeah, 301 games. So we'll try to, we'll leave that for the other lazy pundits to talk about. No, but I just couldn't help but look over once again at the full awaystand, like completely full of just yapping, embarrassing, arrogant, prick manly fans and none of them live in manly because manly fans don't travel. So that's even worse because they're all from Canberra, which is like tantamount to like Dallas Cowboy fan from New Jersey. It's disgusting. But anyway, they're having a good time waving their little flags around, you know, because, you know, the Raiders are losing by 600 or something again at home this year. And all I could think was, so they're all in this like one little area. And yet there's a full section above them with like, I don't know, maybe like a quarter of the seats filled. And I can't think, and I've thought this before, but if this was Philadelphia and you had all the away fans, like sitting ducks under like a full section of empty seats, it would I mean, honestly, there like there would be many people in jail because of this, you know, it would just be for 80 minutes, a constant stream of urine and beer and beer cans and stray bullets and anything that like wasn't tied down. And I don't know if that's that says something about Canberra, like maybe we have evolved as a society or maybe Philadelphiaans are devolved. I don't know. That's for you to decide. But I don't know. I'm just going to put that thought out there for everybody. And now I'm going to go into where am I? I'm going to go into JB High-Fi and put my record in the front of the pile. Okay, I love everyone. Goodbye. Maybe you'll see me next week. Maybe you won't. Well, it's not going to be Johnny back. Yeah, I'll get a message from the Green Machine podcast last week. Can we can we borrow the shark? They're down on troops. I said, have him. Oh, he's yours. Take him, please. It's not how I feel. I love the shark. I don't think we should have been leasing the shark. Anyway, look, the shark can do what he wants. He's a free spirit. No one can no one can hold him down. You know, don't try and chain him down. He'll just break blissless chains. But it's great to hear him back. Great to hear him back because what we did here was there was a major falling out the tunnel after the match between Ricky Stewart and his half brother, Danny Stewart. And as a result, Danny's been locked down. He's been gagged. So we've got no Danny Stewart this week because he's been gagged. You know, he's there was a big falling out there. Might have even been fierce. I didn't see it, but it was pretty nasty. We'll see. We'll see if Ricky appears at press conference with like a band-aid with his eyebrow again. Like he did last year. Remember that? Yeah, yeah. It was great. He had he had butted someone awesome. You should have seen the other guys more of the story. Look, look, it's a bit like David Beckham with it with the after Alex Ferguson. Kick the boot and hit him in the face. Yeah, yeah. That was cool. Okay. So this moving on this Saturday, we go up and our season starts now, 5.30pm. We go up to Townsville. We play the Cowboys. They're in seventh. We're in eleventh. We can jump all the way up. I think tonight, if we win this match, it would be fantastic. You wait for it to happen. And we haven't had a great record against them up there. I think since Todd Carney kicked a field goal back in 2007. We beat them in like 2020 with Curtis Scott doing this. Told you this before. We've been up there four years ago. Curtis Scott's got to try and hit that fish. You remember that? What a great man. That was probably his highlight of his rate at his time. I was going to say green, but I'm pretty sure I was white at that game. It was probably white. It was dreadful. Look, the teams are as follows. And look, there's been a lot of disturbance about this during the week since it came out on Tuesday evening. A lot of people were very upset. Personally, I'm fine. I could. Of course you are not Tim. Of course you're not. That's right. We got Kyle Weeks at one. We got Sebastian Chris at two because Jordan Raffen is out. Yes. He's out. Then we got Timico in the three. Ethan Strange in the four jersey, Harvey Savage in the five jersey. Then Cookie, the comeback kid, he's in the six jersey with Jamal Foger in the seven. In the fours, we have Papa Lee and Tarpone in nine and eight and ten. And Tommy Starling in the nine jersey, Hudson Young, Elliott Whitehead for second row. And Morgan Smith is at 13. On the bench. Now, I think this is where most scrutiny came from the people who came. You have Danny Levi at 14. Emre Gala, Turkish flight back at 15. Adam Marietta at 16. And Simee Sasagi in 17. All the Cowboys we have. Drinkwater at one felt. Everyone loves felt. In the number two, we got Murray Tulagi in the five jersey Valentine homes. Just signed for the dragons, I believe, in the three jersey. We got Vallea in the four jersey. Didn't in the six. And Lego heads been dropped. For Jake Clifford has come back in the seven. So there is no Lego head there. Jordan McLean in the eight. Sam McIntyre in the 10 Reese Robson in the nine jersey. You heal him, Luke, in the 11. Finna Fuyiaki in the 12. Ruben Cotter in the 13. Just biting his time until, you know, horse takes his spot in the Queen's side. Yeah. No, you know. That's right. Harris Lays. Rob for Queen's only one yet. Yeah. Harrison was 14. Michaeli in the 15. Jackson Purdoo in the 16 and Griffin name in the seven to 14. Okay. Right. Can I say, can I still give you my thoughts on the team? I don't know, man. I was really, this team came out and I was really despondent about it. I think that really now is the point in the season. We're not going to make the top four. We're not going to make the top six. We're not going to make the top eight. We should really be looking to the future. And this team that Rick selected does not say, look to the future, it says, this is a team he thinks that can possibly get a job done up in Townsville. But I don't know, like Danny Levi's, you know, wants out. Emory Guller wants out. Simi Sasagi is his defense from what I've seen this year is not up to first grade standard. He's got to work on a lot. I mean, he wasn't playing back row until this year, but he had a shocker against the Sharks where he missed something like 12 tackles, depending on the edge. And then on the weekend, man, he got steamrolled by Lick Brooks. He got steamrolled by Lick Brooks. He didn't beat and buy and buy by speed, guile or swiftness. Lick Brooks literally ran over the top of him. That was embarrassing. You know, surely Ethan Strange is our six moving forward. You know, he should be playing six. Jamal Fogarty does his best work. We've seen this year once he's been given free reign, I think having him and Cook to organizing halves doesn't necessarily work. Obviously, Rick said he really likes Cook's defense, but like nothing against Adam Cook, I think he's great. I wouldn't have him. I'd have him at 14, you know, covering the opportunities. I'd have, I'd have Ethan Strange at six. I'd have, I'd have said Chris still in the centers and I would have brought him Cottrick or Hopawati. But yeah, this whole team, I don't get it. Mooney's been dropped with resuming because, you know, defensively, he's obviously not performing the way that one of them didn't miss that many tackles. I mean, there were crucial tackles. I think Mooney's more out because of the lack of impact, as opposed to anything else. Mooney's been having some really good games whereas impact's been great. But last week was not one of them, you know, where he's had, he didn't truck the ball up as well. If we were looking to the future though, like that bench, like, you know, throw one of the Martins on there. Are we looking at the future? Okay. Throw a throw, hope, hope, hope, hope at the start of the year, right? We all thought that he would play a lot of first grade this year. Not necessarily in round one, but, you know, injuries, things would happen. He'd, he'd be brought in a sighted off or a point of difference, you know, something off the bench. Danny, Danny Lee by off the bench just doesn't, has no impact. I just, I don't know, I mean, I was just really struggling with this team list. Really, like, like I said, I was pretty down after the game. And then when this team came out, I was like, I have no enthusiasm now for this game or the rest of the season, like this is the point of the season that we, you want to start seeing, you know, and I do the future, some, some young players, given a chance, see what they can do. This just, I mean, I wouldn't write off the season just here. And if anything, if you know Ricky, the one thing that you do know is that he's going to try and do everything he can to send off Elliot Whitehead, who's one of his favorites, you know, with a finals run. And this is probably the last throw of the dice. I still don't think, I think every, every single game of rugby league that he plays, he wants to win. I understand you look to the future. And that's one of the reasons why he set plays in the past. But I also think if, if we're going down your narrative about, you know, players for the future, he might want to see strange in the centers. Like one of the things that strange is great at his running. And I don't think that's a really different task in, in the centers. This is a five eight. If anything, he's probably going to be running it slightly weaker defenders. He, he, the, the attack does struggle a little bit going down the left hand side with him at six. It's not as fluid as it has been in the past. And that could be an experienced thing. But I'm also not, I'm not 100% sure that he won't end up in the centers in the future with KO weeks playing six and Chevy Stewart at one. You know, there's that, there's that potential, you know, and then you bring Sanders in and we've actually got a young spine that way. And we've squeezed everybody in. You know, it's, it's funny with Chris, right? Like he has a great week of bad week, a good week of bad week. One of the best things that we've noticed with serve Chris is when he went to fullback, some of his carries out of dirty, dirty yardage was fantastic. He can do that. Obviously that's what he can do. I know that's the thing. You know, this is something you think strange, you know, Danny Levi scored two trials on the weekend. Levi Island is open for business again. We're just built a new resort. It's half price because he might only last about one week, but you know, that was his pop up. It's a pop up. It's not a time share anymore. And it's sandwiches available. Yeah, but you know, like he played well without, you know, it was just backing up up the middle. It's going to be interesting because we haven't had a side with that many utilities in it, but, and, you know, some, he's not a big body. So Gala coming back in, I see Gala as one of our bench rotation forwards that can play bigger minutes than some of the others. Yeah. So maybe that's the reason why. And you know, I look at the Cowboys pack and it doesn't scare me one bit. We can win this game. If we can shut down the relationship that Scotty Drinkwater has with his outside edges, and he's got one of the best passes of a fullback in the comp, we could definitely win. We're bigger than them, which is another thing, especially the outside backs, like he's picked this side. And it's pretty obvious what the game plan is going to be. Yeah, we're much bigger than them, you know, I really, I'd love to see strange play in the centers. We would have spoken about it earlier in the year that I wasn't sure he was a six or a three. And maybe Ricky wants to have another look. You know, he scored three tries in the South Wales state of origin at three. And we haven't, well, we haven't beaten the Cowboys in six games in a row. It's been, it's just one of our longest, this is one of our longest streaks. So, look, I would hate to say this, but I agree with a lot of what Blake said. And that, that really hurts me to say I wouldn't have moved teeth in strange out of six. I wouldn't have moved down. I would have brought someone else in and left, left seven in the centers. And I wouldn't have put Sasagi in there. I just think one of the great things about Hosking was he was able to spell whitehead. And that was making whiteheads impact on the game so much bigger because you could have that rare. That's why he's doing it. He's doing it. No, that's why he's there. He can't do it. Yeah. But that's why he's there. I wouldn't have Sasagi there and I would have Adam as, as someone that could go to the edge. You know, we've, we've seen Adam can play on the edge and do a good job there. I would have had, I would have had Mooney or someone still on the, or I would have had. But if you think about, if you think about Ricky in the history that we know with him, he doesn't usually drop a player without giving him a warning and giving him one more shot. So he obviously after the, after our bench rotation, our bench forwards, haven't gone good for a couple of weeks in a row. Yeah, you must have had a chat with Mooney. They were better against the dogs. They were better. The week before they weren't great. But then suddenly, you know, so he's, he's probably thought are these young guys probably need to learn that you don't just, you know, you don't just get a spot in first grade. So he's, he's dropped them knowing that they'll probably come back stronger. You know, there's a lot going on there. It's just, you know, off the back of that second half, changes needed to be made. There's no way going in 12 all at half time, Ricky would have given him a rare up speech. And then to get beaten by that many points, you can't do nothing, you know. So, yeah, that's true. I was all for doing stuff, but the stuff that he did wasn't the stuff that I would have. What are you doing? Well, I'm done. Just for my, I've just got me a totally off guard. Yeah, go to it. But maybe just flowing into that, it's time to look at the extended bads who's on the extended bads. Now, we have the worst ever box, Mikey. Albert Hoppler in the 18s, Zach Wilford, 19, Trey Mooney, 20, Hepapuru in 21, and Hawesprint 22. For them, they got Chester in the 18, Chad Townsend in the 19s, Shiba Saki, 20, Valame. There's the semi. Someone's got a semi in the 21. And a man called Marley Betongan in the 22 jersey, who's obviously an absolute stellar look. Just given that, Chad Townsend is, I believe, a premiership winning player. Premiership say, look, you've got to give the bench to the Cowboys because they've got an international team. They've got an international World Cup, World Cup player. And they've got a premiership winner. We can't compete with that. So, unfortunately, this way. I mean, Matt, how many hardwigs is semi? He's not even on scales. He's got to be a list couple. I trolled a bunch of Cowboys fans on Twitter during the week saying that Kyle felt needs to be dropped and semi-Valame needs to come into the team. What'd they say? Yeah, outraged. They thought on low-round rise. You trolling, who would have thought so? But this does lead us to pork smokey. This week, pork smokey is this. Albert Hoppelate will come off the bench onto the wing, said, Chris, we'll go back into the centers. We will then see, strange to go back to six, we will see Adam Cook go on to the 14th, into the 14th spot. And Danny Levi will exit the side. If I only pork smokey with some pork smokey, if a pork smokey comes true, you should ride as a viewer with Blake and the pork by every listener, a McRib, when they come back out. Could be years. It's not currently available. It's also smokey. It's not pork. That's the weird thing. Yeah, it's not ribs. It's like moulded. It's a moulded patty. But McDonald's, that is the best. The saddest thing that I speak about is McDonald's, great sponsor of these. It's like a tick. It's like a tick. The saddest thing about this week's matchup is we had the opportunity, right? This was probably the final chance we were going to see in the NRL. Kyle felt and Jordan Rapp and I were going to be going head to head because previously, when we played the Cowboys, Savage has been on the left wing and Kyle felt has been right winger for the Cowboys. But, you know, Rapp and I just moved to that swap side. So this was finally a chance for them to go head to head and we don't get said. And that's the match up that the fans would have just loved. That was one of the biggest 20 points on the weekend, wasn't it? When he hit his head, because, you know, obviously his eyes lit up and he's like, "I'm going to score." And then you just see the slow motion Rapp and I was like, "No, not going to get there." And then he gets smashed on the head. He tried. That's why he got hurt because he tried so hard to get there. He always tries so hard. That's all we love him, right? But this is the battle of the two teams with the terrible second half. So I would that game on the weekend, the Cowboys could be chill out. I mean, Katoni Stacks on his day, and it only happens a couple of times a year. On his day, he can be incredible. Yeah, he just wants to be destroyed them. He was popping up on both sides of the field, you know, he was doing a, he's doing a gay go. Oh, God, don't remind me. But we can beat these guys on. I'm not too nervous about Clifford. You know, he's busy. He doesn't calm them down, like Townsend. He's probably a better defender than Chad Townsend. But, you know, they're very small. He's actually pretty solid. He's pretty solid Clifford. Yeah. Well, no, when he went down at night, so they brought him back up. I personally, obviously, a lot's going to go through with Clifford there. A lot's going to go through Diddin'. And they're missing, is it Nanai is not playing? So they've got Finipiwaki and Heilam Leakey. And they don't have Telmalo either. No, and he's not much less these days. I reckon, you know, when they line up at the beginning of the year, and they think about who, what's the center that's playing opposite them, I reckon Matty Tomoko loves looking up playing Valentine Holmes. Oh, Valentine Holmes, his defense this year has been atrocious. And usually it's Matty Tomoko, that's actually the one schooling him up, like it's one of his best match-ups. You didn't say that. You didn't say that he owned him. Yeah, so it's, I mean, you know, I don't necessarily fear this team, but I don't think we're going to win. You know, I think we're going to win. Yeah, I was in '56. I think we might win, but I still think it's a bridge too far. We go in to play the Penrith, the Roosters, and the Dragons. Yeah, we need to finish on 30 minimum, and then we'll probably be tied with about three other sides on 30, and therefore it gets sucked. Yeah, a couple of those sides actually have some pretty bad runs, and there's every chance that they could finish on 28. But, you know, right now certain teams are winning and beating other teams. And then what actually happens is a couple of the teams that we're hoping finish on 28 and not 30, they actually end up playing some sides. That might be resting at the end of the year. So, you know, Tommy Starling came out in the interview today and said that we need to get 32 points, which is four wins. That's not going to happen. But we could definitely win three, but, you know, it means we have to beat Penrith or the Roosters, dragons, and then this game. This is a must win. If we don't show up in this, I mean, it's too late in the season, and Ricky obviously has the backing of the club. But this is one of those games that if the players don't show up, then the meeting would be, you know, sort of saying, the players have lost Ricky's, you know, like-- But, you know, you're speaking of Ricky's position, right? Ricky is uniquely positioned of just about any NRL coach is in the competition that he could be looking to the future with this game. You go, OK, you know what, we're probably not going to win this. Let's-- Let's see what no amount can do. Let's give no amount in that position, that best position. No, look, I talk to Joe Carbone about exactly this. So we liked the scene. We said, "Look, it could happen, but we're not rushing players in. We're not sending players up, you know, before they ready, before we've done it." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I got that confirmed by someone who actually knows what they're talking about as opposed to you. I went to the source and he did that. Because that's what I want to see. I want to see no amount. Let's take him that for a run. That's a good one. That's a good one. That particular side too that they're playing right now, they have finals run coming up. So you want to try and keep them together. Winning Cup's also important. We've got a flagside that's on top of the ladder. I-- You know, it's not-- It's not let's give up and just start throwing, you know, first grade jerseys at everyone. And that's one of the things that I know Ricky has definitely put a lot of pride in. Is that you were-- Work the Bay Raiders. Well, yeah, that was different. It's Kobe, it was crazy time. Adam Cook, Adam Cook. Adam Cook and Sam Williams. But I actually, I don't know, it's going to be-- What is interesting from a fan's point of view, if we do want to talk about the future, we do want to think about some of our players, is the way that Emre Guller, Corey Hawesborough, reacts-- Danny Levi and Danny Levi-- We all react. No, Danny Levi wants a longer contract. Emre Guller doesn't want any more supposedly we've been told. Yeah, I reckon what's happened is good after you got-- Yeah, I don't think Emre does want to. I think Emre's, you know, that might have fallen off a cliff, I have a feeling we're keeping Emre, which I think is good. Yeah, because he wasn't sighted at the Bulldogs cafeteria. Emre's my new guy. I'm going to-- he's going to be my new crush next year. He always was one of yours. I'm going to go to his parents. What are they? They're in a store, don't they? Yeah, suck kebabs. Yeah, still it. I think it's a chain. I don't think it's one store. I think they're just across the West Mate. Get out there and just play it out there. If you're in West and Sydney right now, go get a kebab and then-- Just say, what's up? What's up, suck kebabs? On to the chase. We're going to kick take out from McDonald's. We did mention the officials, right? Referee for this game, Todd Smith, who I said a couple weeks ago, we have our worst winning percentage under. And as we've said, he likes a quick runk. Yeah, he's the one that's good. Yeah, it's-- And he's one of the referees that especially can-- if a side gets on top, they can put three, four tries on real quick. Yeah, and which the cowboys can do in the humid, clammy conditions of whatever it's called. Toyota Cup. What is it supposed to stay in Colton? I don't know what it's called out there anymore. Toyota Stadium. It's-- but they also can lead in points very quickly as well. They're one of the songs we can. Yeah. Yeah. It's Country Bank Stadium, isn't it? Something like that? All right, yeah. Queensland Country Bank Stadium, yeah. Yeah. It's just-- That's what happens when you live in a swing seat. You get-- North Queensland Stadium. You get a spanking new stadium because your politicians need to get the election. Exactly. Exactly. I can't believe you'd say such a thing. No, no one needs Bob Ketter. Uh, Touch Jones, Phil Hennison, and Tyson Bro. Brow. And video referee Tim's Facebook mate himself. Ashley Killer Client. Ashley The Killer. He's a lovely bloke, Outrash. Yeah, there was some talk. Switch out, Brian and Smith, and we win that game. I'm telling you. Client refereeed the game against the dogs, and it was actually a fantastically ref game. Best referee in the business. As they say. Yeah, well, let's watch us get some calls this week. We didn't get calls last week. So when it's all too late, we'll get them this week. You watch us. Square ups. But amongst all the things, there are reasons to be cheerful. Reasons to be cheerful, pathway. Go on, Blake, you can lead off. You've got to keep going. I'm going to lead this up. I've got none. I've got it. Like I say, I'll hit rock bottom. I'm just waiting for the season to end. Put me out of my misery. Look, reasons to be cheerful. This is the start of the season. Right. We're going to win four in a row. We're going to stall them in. We're going to get our home final, and we're going to go on our way to lay on final flooring. Reasons to be cheerful. That's absolutely fantastic. Another reason to be cheerful. Adam Cook, what a comeback story. I mean, you know, when we let him go a few seasons ago, I didn't think we'd ever see him again playing first grade anywhere. Now I'm like, I'm happy. I love him. But I and and there is a score of thought that like, you know, Jamal does better when Jamal is left to steer the ship on his own. And when we've seen. Jamal at his best, he's playing both sides of the right. You know, I mean, and we've and it's worked well because Strange isn't an organizing half. He is more of a running half. But now we've gone to two more dominant organizing halves. You know, I think I think it's a mistake. Yeah, personally, I don't know quite. I don't know quite Fogarty's form with Cook being narrow or not. I think I think Fogarty's probably responsible for his own form. And I think, you know, game situations lead a certain way. That particular game, you know, we had a concussion in the first half that forced our hand. I don't think Cook would have come on. But he did, you know, and and now Ricky also likes to lean on his on his senior leadership group and talk to them. And maybe they're the ones who have asked for for cook to play, you know, it could also be something like a small injury that he's basically had to step up and play. So it's really hard to know. Another reason to be cheerful, I think New South Wales cups doing fantastic. And, you know, we think about some of the players that we're missing in first grade. They're also missing a huge amount of players down in Cup that a massive win on the weekend. And they're going to be lining up to play finals in South Jersey flag. So, you know, if you were to look at the at the Raiders at the beginning of the year, most of us that were sensible unlike the pork sort of thought, I think I thought 7th to 10th was currently sitting 11th Chevy Stewart came back on the weekend and was fantastic. You know, it's probably the best game I've seen in play. Most of the year, you know, where there were conversations that we were having, whether he, I mean, I know you said like that you thought maybe even he wasn't going to be a further, you weren't sure about the impact he would have in first grade. So to know that he's come back and played that well, the Martin brothers are playing great. And, you know, I think we can win this game. I still don't think we'll make the finals, but I'd like to, I really do want to see what strangers like in the centers. I think he could be an incredible center. He moves like a center and really out of all of the games that he's played this year, there's been one or two where his combination with Hudson Young's been fantastic, you know. But ultimately, he, I think it's kind of hard playing outside of him because half the time, he doesn't know what he's going to do. You know, he looks up at the, who's defending him and he might try and cut back in and jig this way, jink that way, trying to run off him would be a bloody nightmare, you know. So because he's just so dynamic where, you know, you get him in the centers, it's just a different story. He's often done his best work when he's outside on an edge. If you think about some of the long runs that he's done, it's not always through the middle. It's often out and attacking that two and three defender. So it's going to be interesting to see how he goes. I know Adam Cook will probably give him early ball. Yeah. So he's probably still going to get enough space. It's just, it's, it's, it's fascinating to watch. And like we said earlier, you know, I, I still, I still see a future where maybe he's in the centers, Kyle Weeks is at six and Chevy Stewart's in the one. So we'll see. We'll see. Who knows? I just hope they bash the shit out of it. We will. I think you're wrong. Both. Yeah, I mean, I usually am wrong. So let's, let's just start there. I'm alone on Danny Lebron and. Hawks. The only one you can do. Always right. That's right. I'm always right. That's everywhere. But pork smoky is a special, absolute special. So coming, coming up, of course, next Saturday, 24th 3pm, we've got the Panthers. You know, so that's an easy win win, totally. That's at home. Fantastic. And we do so well at home. So that's good. Then the next Sunday, we've actually got an eight. Oh my God. Let's talk about that in a record. Yeah. The only teams we've beaten at home is the bottom three teams. Oh, that's shit. And there's the rest of the bottom three, because we beat them. Because they suck. Yeah. Oh, hang on. No, we've got. Titans might be off. Titans might be off the bottom. Hang on. I think they are. Oh, so we beat tigers at home. We beat eels at home. We beat the rabbit's home. You'll beat the bottom three teams at home. And then... Didn't we beat the warriors at home? And the tides. We did. Yeah. So we've beaten all our boys at home to come into the bottom five teams. But we couldn't beat the Broncos. Yeah, yeah. So then we've got the... Oh, that was away. We're up in Sydney on Sunday 1st September at 4.05pm against the Roosters. They're easy beat aside, obviously. We counted for them easily a couple of seasons ago. And then on Saturday the 7th September, we go to Nettstrada, Jubilee Stadium, Saturday 3pm against the Dragons. We've just lost Kyle Flanagan for having Stephen Criten stick his nose in his mouth. It was interesting. But you know, whatever you do. So obviously there's four wins there, storming into the finals. So that'll see us finishing quite comfortably with 32 points, and 32 points is going to, you know, I'd say quite comfortably to take six position, maybe only 7th, but into the finals. And from there, we can, you know, our season starts now, people. We've got merch, don't we, Blarke? We do. Do you know, there's literally now only two Raiders by 56. Do we? Left yet. So grab one and you can have like... Mm-hmm. So what's our next biggest... What's going to our next beat? You're going to beat it. Uh... I've thought about it. Maybe it's going to have that on the front, and then it wasn't us on the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's actually good. That wasn't us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not good. That's pretty good. That wasn't us. And if speaking of that wasn't us, you can get you that wasn't us. Shirt from rugbyleaguemerge.com. And you can get you if you hate Jordan Rapinor. I hate you, shirt. And I saw a photo actually on social media from some people at the ground. And there was a whole bunch of Raiders of you with Blake and the Pork merchandise in one photo. It was very impressive. It was a good stuff, guys. It was very good. Yeah, very good. Very good. And maybe next season, we'll bring back the place of your pork. Or, you know, where's your balarco, you know? So we can actually, you know, give people out prizes. Which would be very, very good. So we've had the coming up. Look, I think everyone should cheer up a little bit, right? Everyone should cheer up a bit, not come down to it. And I just want to say this last thing here. Yeah, it hasn't been great. Some things out there have been a bit strange at times. But the idea that some people came out and still coming out of Ricky's supply, and it's like, dude, everything could just happen in the last 10 years to come as a role to him. A few bad things as well. People tell you that as well. But, gee, you know. Oh, look, I come on this show every week. And I try and justify some of his decisions. I find more odd. And I try and see the reasoning behind it. And this week's been a bit hard to do that, I gotta say. I'm struggling a bit more. Yeah, I'm struggling more. But, you know. Up, look, we'll go away. We'll have a win this weekend. And then we'll be cheerful next weekend, won't we? Next week. It'll be great. Anyway, you have been listening to the podcast formally known as the third most popular rate is podcast on the internet rate. As we would like. And the port. And Matt, I'm the port. I'm Blake. I'm formally known as Matt. And we'll talk you again soon. Yeah, whatever. We'll talk to you again soon. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] You