Broncos, Titans and Cowboys should be playing for an annual derby trophy
THE Broncos, Titans and Cowboys should be playing for an annual trophy, writes PAUL MALONE in his Four Points column.
Opinion
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PAST NRL administrators didn’t liked it when the proposal because they didn’t like the idea of a competition within a competition.
But the concept of a Queensland derby trophy is one vastly overdue because the emergence of a declared Queensland winner in the six derby games each season would stimulate rivalries between the state’s three NRL sides.
Wally Lewis said this week there is not the same spite between the Broncos and Titans as there once was between the Broncos and the Giants/Seagulls, but he hopes the results of the two clubs this year would bring on a classic derby tonight.
RATE THE TITANS, BRONCOS AND COWBOYS
Given the dislike evident between the teams during and after a couple of big upsets by the Giants in 1988 and the Seagulls in 1994, it’s surprising the most recent incarnation of the southeast debry does not make hackles rise more.
Had there been a trophy on offer, the Broncos would have won it last year, being undefeated in four games against Queensland teams, with Gold Coast and the Cowboys winning one game each.
PRINT YOUR FREE ROUND 6 TIPPING SHEET
The Titans would have been the leading Queensland club in 2012, having had three wins that year, Brisbane two and North Queensland one.
Sell the naming rights to the trophy to a sponsor. Give the sponsorship money to grassroots football in each of the three club regions.
The trends of recent years suggest the Broncos will win tonight’s southeast Queensland derby.
WHAT THE TIPSTERS ARE SAYING ABOUT ROUND 6
And if there is a year when one Queensland team wins the derby trophy and another goes on to win the premiership? Who cares _ it would not diminish either honour.
The trend of this year with Friday night football indicates strongly the Titans will win bragging rights.
Wests Tigers are this year’s best example of a team winning the week after a bad loss, accounting for the Titans and Sea Eagles after a heavy defeat.
BARBA COULD HAVE BEEN A BRONCO
Brisbane were not good in losing at home to Parramatta and the sounds coming out of the players at Red Hill this week suggested a determined outfit went down the M1 to Robina.
Brisbane have eight wins from their past nine clashes with the Titans and the Broncos have been well backed. Brisbane’s two days extra rest going into this match is probably looming large in the minds of punters.
The record in Friday night football games is that favourites have won one of 10 games (Roosters v Brisbane in Round 3).
Sixteen of 40 favourites in TattsBet markets have won NRL matches after five rounds.
WALLY REMEMBERS THE DERBY CLASHES
2 SEEING the NSW’s media debate over their playmakers for Origin I took me back to a conversation with Darren Lockyer.
Lockyer was just into retirement and the form of one of the Maroons stalwarts was in the news a week or so out from the first team selection of that year.
I suggested player so-and-so wasn’t going too well.
“Doesn’t matter,’’ the former Maroons skipper said.
Some other forward wasn’t going much better, I added.
“Doesn’t matter either. They’ll pick ’em both and they know what it takes in Origin,’’ he shot back.
Queensland’s mentality about Origin selections contrasts sharply with NSW’s, even in the years before the Maroons won eight series straight.
Knowing how the NSW brains trust work at this time of year, there was a significant slap with the whip applied to incumbent NSW No.6 James Maloney this week.
Maloney reportedly is in danger of losing his spot for Game One if he can’t improve on club form which has produced no line-break assists in five rounds.
Shark Todd Carney, who made a good fist of his 2012 Origin series in that he went better than halves cohort Mitchell Pearce, and untried Bulldog Josh Reynolds were the two alternatives mentioned.
Maloney looked more comfortable at Origin level than his Blues and Roosters playmaking partner Pearce. But Pearce is the playmaker Blues coach Laurie Daley has championed as a preferred retention for 2014.
Sometimes all this NSW agonising about selections is more fun than the games themselves.
3 IS that all? The $20,000 fine handed out by the NRL, with $10,000 suspended, pending a second breach, to Canterbury for inadequate policing of the concussion policy was not what I was anticipating.
The clubs know that is the precedent for a first offence, so the punishment of the Bulldogs will not give much pause for thought for other clubs, especially in the win-or-else atmosphere of a game later in the season.
One media organisation wrote that the NRL could issue a big fine or even strip competition points from Canterbury in the event of a second offence.
Loss of premiership points was touted by the NRL as a deterrent back in the off-season.
The concussion issue is not going away and the NRL’s handling of their duty of care to players should be closely monitored.
4 TEN members of the Storm starting 13 who won the 2012 grand final turned out for Melbourne’s two-point loss to Gold Coast last Sunday.
It’s a good reason not to get off the Storm bandwagon after their consecutive losses to Canterbury and Gold Coast brought them back to the field at a 3-2 win-loss record.
It was not only the disputed stripping penalty against the Storm against Gold Coast which was a factor in their loss … it was the skilful, buoyant attack of the Titans which deserves credit from that game.
The clash on Monday with St George Illawarra brings the prospect of a big impact of former Storm No.6 Gareth Widdop.
But Widdop is carrying a weight of history when his Dragons play at AAMI Park.
St George Illawarra has lost 12 consecutive matches in Melbourne starting, with a 70-10 thumping in 2000. The Dragons have been outscored 324 to 116 in those 12 games and five of the defeats have been by 20 points or more.
Since Craig Bellamy became Melbourne coach in 2003, the Storm have lost three or more consecutive matches only twice.
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