The short round deserves a short recap. Melbourne and St George Illawarra played out a defence-less try-fest that was extremely entertaining, although not a game for the purists, and the Dragons left Melbourne with another loss. Penrith demolished the Warriors at home with the New Zealanders not being offered a look in against their Origin depleted opponents. Canberra pulled off a miraculous last minute win over Canterbury, instead of being the victim of one for a change. Brisbane secured their biggest win of the season over the Gold Coast and only their third from ten with a margin of more than six points.

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I don’t even know why we bother playing the full eighty minutes (and by “we play” I mean “I watch, you do”). Most of the games this weekend were decided in the last fifteen to twenty minutes, negating the previous hour of play. And in most of those cases, the previous hour did little to build suspense, as much as it did disgust and frustration. I guess what I’m saying is that it wasn’t a great round of footy. Cronulla and Melbourne got hard fought wins against decent opponents. Scrappy wins for the Dragons, Broncos and Rabbitohs won’t leave those fanbases satisfied. The Bulldogs, Sea Eagles and Titans, on the other hand, won against the odds so maybe their fans will be happy.

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It wasn’t a particularly close round with a number of teams stamping their authority on the opposition. I don’t actually have a lot to say about it other than repeating “x team was in control against y team but may have let in a few late tries”. It wasn’t the greatest advertisement for rugby league – Corey Oates’ miracle try aside – but with the rep weekend coming up, all clubs will take stock and re-assess their run into the finish.

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We had a delayed start to round 14, with play between Penrith and Canberra not getting underway until the Friday pub slot. The Raiders faded, as they are wont to do, and let Nathan Cleary slot the winning field goal in the closing minutes, securing two wins in the week for the young halfback. Souths were run a lot closer by the Gold Coast than anyone anticipated with the rain making play difficult and the game degenerating into a mess. The Warriors got home comfortably against the Sea Eagles in Christchurch, only letting in tries in garbage time.

Sydney, despite their high dollar roster, made a meal of yet another game against lowly opponents. A late try to Kalyn Ponga almost snagged the Knights the win but it was too little, too late. The Eels jagged a surprise win against the overcooked Knights in Darwin while the Sharks gagged the Tigers and continue to smother opponents out of games. The Broncos played well for about sixty minutes against the Storm before being blown off the park once again by the Melbourne side after weakly defended tries were conceded.

With the long weekend in Sydney, the final game wasn’t played until Monday afternoon while I was cruelly at work, hating on life. The Dragons apparently won that but I also used the delay recap to publish a long form piece about failed rugby league clubs. If you haven’t already, you should read it.

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A shortened round 13 began on Thursday and reminded me what life was like outside the NRL bubble. The Cowboys looked a little like their old selves on their way to beating the Sea Eagles. Souths, despite losing their top four players to Origin prep, managed to keep a lack lustre Cronulla side at bay and take an important win. Newcastle thrashed Parramatta and put the final nail in the coffin of the Eels’ season. The weekend was capped off with an exciting but extremely chaotic bout between the Roosters and Tigers, with some desperate defence in the dying minutes sealing the win for Sydney.

Given it’s a half round, this recap will be, as they say, an “express” post.

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The Broncos kicked off round 12 with an extremely flat win over the Eels in a game that excited no one. Canberra managed to avoid fading away in the dying minutes by taking the lead only in the dying seconds of the game over Manly. The Storm kept the Cowboys at bay with a single try and a field goal, despite fumbling away most of the game. Sydney smashed the Gold Coast, as Cronulla smashed Newcastle. Souths and Penrith won the two games featuring top four teams to cement their credentials as potential premiership winners in 2018. The Tigers won a scrappy affair over the Bulldogs on Sunday afternoon, riding an injection of Josh Reynolds enthusiasm to victory.

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I spent the weekend in Melbourne – drinking beer at GABS Festival, which Sydney peeps should get around when it comes to town – so I didn’t watch a whole lot of rugby league compared to a usual weekend. Look, it was probably not quite four games with the second half of Toronto-Toulouse thrown in from the Magic Weekend at St James in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Which, on paper, is still an insanely large amount of rugby league.

I won’t go through the results, which are below, but the obvious talking point was the sheer number of sin binnings. While the weekend saw some genuinely bad calls (players let back on the field without serving a full sin binning, conversions given when the ball missed…), it is good to see the refs continue with their crackdown and re-establishing some authority over the game. Eventually, the players and coaches will respond and the game will be better for it.

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