Greetings football fans.

A tipping comp for all our registered tipsters. This is only open to the registered tipsters on this site (that is, people participating in the NRL season tipping comp). The prize for the outright winner is $50 cash. In the event of a draw/draws the prizes will be split evenly among the winners. The Thinker (and Wally Lewis) cannot win, and The Thinker will determine the final winner/s. The Thinker will contact winners directly by email to organise prizes.

The competition is named in honour of what Ms Thinker regularly tells me is the most under-rated Elton John album of all time. I'm not so sure, but I don't like to get into arguments about such things with Ms Thinker, so here we are.

The idea is to score the lowest score possible. The perfect score is zero. The lower your score, the better you've done.

How to play

Tipsters will need to add their competition entries in the comments section on this page before the start of each Origin game. You will need to provide the following in your entry:

• How many points you think NSW will score in game two
• How many points you think QLD will score in game two
• How many tries you think the back three from both teams will score in game two. That is, the fullbacks and wingers for both teams. In the event of injuries, sin bins, interchanges, HIAs etc, players slotted into those positions during the course of the game will be included in the tally. The Thinker will make the final judgement on the final tally for this element of the competition. I'll be fair and reasonable.

As an example, let's say I think the score will be NSW 20 - QLD 18, and I think the fullbacks and wingers will score 4 tries in the match. Let's say the actual result is NSW 24 - QLD 16, and the fullbacks and wingers scored 5 tries in the match. My score will be as follows: +4 (NSW score prediction) plus +2 (QLD score prediction) plus +1 (try tally prediction) equals 7 points. As you can see, the lower your total, the closer your prediction was to the final result. Hopefully I've made that complicated enough but not too complicated to be annoying. But if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Entires must be submitted before each Origin game commences. I will provide a competition update after each game so you can see how you are travelling. Below are our results after the first game of the 2026 series:

Too Low for Zero - final scores for the 2026 Origin Series