Interesting that Parra are second favourites for the Premiership. Obviously a lot of people out there willing to part with their money on the hope that Parra can find the same afterburners two years in a row.
It's not so much about repeating last season's script but about two other elements:
1. Ability to make the finals. Parra are still in the 8 after 2 straight losses. They'll probably make the 8.
2. Ability to win in the finals. Despite having a fairly average team overall, we also have a few bona fide game-breakers. And come finals time, average players lift which cancels out a lot of the disadvantage they offer during the regular season.
I would have thought on form Manly, the Gold Coast, and Penrith would have received a bit more love from the punters.
Form's a deceptive thing. It's a bit like sequences of red or black on the pokies - if the machine's showing 12 reds in a row do you push red or black? The answer is it doesn't matter.
Obviously the performances of footy teams aren't completely random but they're a lot more random than most people expect. Especially in the middle of the table, and at finals time.
Personally I think Golf Coast should be Premiership favourites with either Manly or St George second favourites. Parra should be behind them.
I don't base this on form, I base it on relative playing rosters - the Dragons, although they have less game breakers than the other three sides, do have better depth. That means that losing a few players won't hurt them the way it will hurt the Titans, Eagles or Eels.
Come finals time, if the Titans are without Prince or Campbell or Bailey they're no chance. Likewise with Manly and their reliance on Lyon or Stewart. Parra are nothing without Hayne (obviously) and they'll struggle if Mateo or Moimoi are injured (or just playing bad).
Who could the Dragons miss that would kill their chances? The only one that comes to mind is Soward and he never plays well in the finals anyway.
All four teams are a decent chance of winning the comp
if they make the finals but of the four only Parra aren't guaranteed to get there in the first place.
Penrith will probably finish around the middle of the table and won't go far in the finals if they do make it. Especially with Civoniceva or Jennings injured.
I'm glad someone else picked this up. Burt was standing offside when the pass was thrown.
He certainly was. I don't know if the official rule says "deliberate forward pass" and if it does it's geniused. Like they said on the commentary, nobody throws a deliberate forward pass because they all know they'll have to turn over possession.
The penalty is for a pass thrown to a player in an offside position, as opposed to the scrum awarded when the forward pass is thrown to a player who is onside when the pass is thrown.
As for the Boyd pass to Morris, yes it was forward, but given we've had two tries robbed from us due to bullsh*t forward pass calls this year (vs the Titans and Manly), we're still 1 down. Of course the most important thing is that if all 3 of these calls had gone the other way, all 3 games would have still had the same end result.
It all comes out in the wash.
Even if a forward pass didn't appear to change the result, very few people notice the forward pass from dummy half that allows a team to get a roll-on that leads to a holding down penalty that leads to a try.
You can't say any forward pass did or didn't affect the result because everything affects everything else.
