2026 Season

This is why including byes in the ladder calculation is complete nonsense. The Cows are still 2 wins ahead of any of the teams behind them with 3 games to go.
 
It still amazes me how surprised players and commentators are when a penalty is awarded when a player gets hit in the face after falling. Been a penalty for years now
I think it upset the Cowboys that he had already knocked the ball on and it wasn't a deliberate act of foul play after the ball was dead. Still got him in the face though.
 
Let's not forget that the rule is there not only to punish high contact but also to encourage players to avoid potential high contact.

The best place to see this in action is the crusher tackle rule. In the old days, players didn't give a rats about players in potential crusher situations; now they actively try to avoid pressure on the neck, you see it numerous times in every game.

Rules can't be subjective; they have to be black-and-white (someone please tell Phil "spirit of the game" Gould & Todd Payten). Otherwise, sometimes high contact is a penalty, and sometimes it isn't. And that doesn't work as a deterrent and can become blatantly unfair very quickly.
 
Luai Hater Island real estate prices went gangbusters this year.

He was not one of Penrith's ten best players in even a single one of those premiership teams, and I'm being kind to him to not interrogate whether he was even top 15.
Yeah Penrith had his market value $750k - $800k when he was last off contract around right (without the gift of hindsight). He's probably more like a $500-600k player now on $1.3m by the time 2028 rolls around.
Unless it's like a Munster/Hughes combo where both are worth keeping around the $1m mark, and for us eventually keeping Sharpe with Dylan Brown, it probably wasn't a tough decision for the Panthers.
 
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