St George and Brisbane were mid table last season. I reckon they'll comfortably make the 8 this time, but Souths and the Roosters are some way ahead of the chasing pack IMO.

I don't think St George or Brisbane will make it easily to be honest

I don't know whether to bring myself off about how good the bunnies were or chop it off about how poor we were.

Thankfully I've decided to do neither.

St George have quality in all the key positions and plenty of pace to test anyone but they lack the grunt up front to knock over the top teams. Brisbane have the opposite problem, but if their halves can click they'll improve on last year.

St George drew 12 all with Souths in the Charity Shield game a few weeks ago.



Hey but lets all pretend they are no good with a team with players like Dugan. Widdop and Marshall.

I'd continue with it.



Like has been pointed out, we lost by a record margin, but that record margin was only 1 point more than the previous record loss, which Saints also held.

That was in the days when the cap was closer and the SL players were better.



It would be a shame to scrap a concept because of one poor result.



Been to plenty of one sided affairs before and never came away thinking scrap the concept.



As for the ozzies only sending the 8th and 11th placed teams, well that's not true. We won't know how good the SL and NRL teams are until the end of the season. It could be the top 3 in the NRL having played 3 teams that did not make the Super 8's! (an exageration I know, but the point being, the teams that finished last year are not the teams that played this weekend).

What does 3 games a season against the NRL actually achieve? I get the WCC game is a big game and chance to be world champs but what do we achieve wirh the other games?

Brisbane looked very tidy in the pack. But they are desperately short in the backs. If that's their favoured halfback combination I wouldn't put money on them to achieve much this season.



Difficult to assess St. George.



From what little I've seen I think Souths, Canterbury and the Warriors will be very competitive.

Give over. Your pack was crushed like an empty beer can by half time. You could barely get out of your own half during golden point whilst they were making 10-15 yards per carry. If you were going to snatch victory you had to do it in normal time because there was no way in hell your forwards were gaining any advantage during extra time.

Marshall looks very ordinary since his return from Union.

One thing is for sure though, the let's scrap it (an expanded and meaningful competition) before it has been given a real chance lobby would be in a stronger position if it wasn't for the other two games....get that?

Wigan played 3 sets in the oppositon half in the 2nd half.



Dominant pack that isn't