Hi to all you wonderful tipsters! Last game for the year and as much as I would love to tip Raiders, I have to go Roosters to take home the silverware. If it were a Raiders home game..? I might be more tempted to go the other way but as it's not, I will be joining the masses with my tip. I hope everyone enjoys this final game and has a great off season!!

Just about to kick off! I'm expecting a truly great game 😁

Where you been Baggy? Haven't heard from you since your Eels bowed out.

Congrats to the Roosters fans (surely there are more here than Newbie?) for a back to back win. Roosters fought hard against a very tough Raiders side tonight.

Raiders lost because of the refs

Evenin NuLife - yes mate Thinker is one, I am certain.
Plus Pabdul who once existed here.

I took Chooks in tipping at work and here, so I guess The Feathers join ranks tonight.

Cheers - Big Pete

Good evening bigpete 🙂

Good evenin to you again NuLife.
Close game - I took Chooks with a margin of 7, as I was certain one of them would be giving a field goal, an attempt.
Cheers - Big Pete

Upskilling Pete, turning experience into a piece of paper to get a job. It's just my week to have to struggles, next week it'll all turn around and be golden. As to the paper, business and a bit of law.

Best wishes with it all BG and good luck.
In some of my away from work duties, I get to rub shoulders with a few in that sector. Some are business managers, practice managers or office managers. Go for it mate and I hope you get into the field that you profess or desire.

Keep the little ladies (daughters) and your wife interested here, as we have a lovely combination of people. May our clubs go the extra next year and best of all, may the players stay out of the media, for all the wrong reasons.

Cheers and keep well - Big Pete

Congrats to Footy Chick (the most mentioned name on the Honours Board) and to Big Pete (hopefully not forever the bridesmaid) and newcomer Jack Starky. Grand tipping from all three off you!!

Thanks to The Thinker and TLH for another fun season. No doubt it takes a bit of time and effort to provide us with this awesome site. Great to converse with so many people who love the great game as much as I do and contribute to this site in their own unique way.

To my new "friend for life" Mark Ashford...I'll see you in a couple of weeks where I hope to meet another Thinker poster the lovely Manyana.

Best wishes to all
SP

Congratulations to our three top tipsters :D Bring on 2020!!

@BigPete I too chose a margin of 7! No field goal in a grand final? Though I guess the win was controversial enough?

I look forward to catching up with everyone next season, and seeing what kind of footy we end up getting to watch. Thanks to all that make this site such an interesting read week in week out. GO COWBOYS!

So in continuation NuLife - Hey Bro there are field goals in grand finals.
Give JT a call and ask him.

Cheers and keep well
Big Pete in Bx

Great to hear back from you NuLife - 2015 was a good year and it wasn't car tyres either.
She's Action Jackson over this way (more than car tyres) these next couple of days.
Plenty of peoples around. Wife met an elderly couple who have come/driven all the way from West Aust. The hubby said "if his wife didn't come with him, he'd have ridden his bike over".
That's keen mate and keener than mustard!

Cheers and keep well - Big Pete in Bx Country (vroom,vroom).

ONCE UPON A TIME

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago there were two tribes that decided to go into battle to determine once and for all, who should receive the blessings of the gods for their heroic deeds of the year just passed.

The gods decided these 34 warriors should meet on the battlefield known as the ANZ Stadium at a pre-appointed hour and engage each other in gladiatorial contest to see who would gain the gods’ favour. To the victor go the spoils. This is the tale of that epic battle. Read on if you dare…

It was Sunday the 6th October 2019 and the Sydney Roosters lived the fairytale and became the first team to win back-to-back premierships in 26 years in an engrossing grand final in front of nearly 83,000 fans at ANZ Stadium. Showing their typical grit and defensive effort, the Roosters withstood an enormous amount of pressure from a tenacious Raiders side and somehow survived. They basically defended their way to the ultimate 14-6 triumph. It might’ve been more had Latrell Mitchell not missed those 2 penalties in the 40th and 69th minutes.

The Roosters started (very) well and raced to a 6-nil lead after only 6 minutes. Then Aubusson does his knee in the 14th minute which throws the Roosters’ interchange plans into semi-disarray. Shortly after Aubusson goes off, Victor Radley goes off for HIA. The Raiders start to get back into the game, momentum shifts and it’s all Raiders for the rest of the first half. That dominance continues on for 30 minutes into the second half as well.

OK, so Cooper Cronk gets binned in the 50th minute. That was a harsh call. He tackles one millisecond before Papalii receives the pass but seriously, you’re gonna call that as a professional foul? I suppose in the context of the rules it was correct but really, what’s a little fella to do against a big fella in that situation? Meh! It could possibly be very easy to counter that “six-again” argument (more on that below) with that borderline ludicrous sin binning. Down to 12 blokes and the Raiders still couldn’t get through the Roosters’ resolute defence. I know what that tells me. What does it tell you?

Speaking of that 72nd minute “six-again” drama … here’s my 2c for what it’s worth.

As it turned out, Cummins got the call from Gerard Sutton (and the linesman) letting him know the ball had actually bounced off a Raiders’ player and he immediately changed the call and apparently yelled out “last tackle” 4 or 5 times. Yeah, I understand Wighton saw Cummins waving his arm for six again but that’s no excuse for him (and players around him) ignoring the ref’s calls. A better option would’ve been to have a little chip kick instead maybe. Whatever.

On the live broadcast, Ray “Rabs” Warren called it as off a Canberra player straightaway. Post-match, Peter Sterling reckons it didn’t cost them the game. I’ve seen it countless times and it did indeed come off the Canberra player. I suppose it’s not the deflection off the Raiders’ player that’s got everyone hot under the collar but moreso the gaffe from Cummins in getting it wrong and waving his arm for six again.

Yeah, it was heartbreaking for the Raiders and their fans, especially considering the winning try from the Roosters came shortly after, but that’s life. As I said last week, someone has to win and someone has to lose. That’s just how it is.

As some pundits have mentioned, this grand final will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. And that’s a real shame I reckon. Seriously, if anyone thinks for one moment the Raiders were “robbed” of a grand final win because of that “six-again” debacle, they’re deluding themselves. And I’m not being one-eyed here either. You just need to take an honest overview of the game you watched. No doubt this will be hotly debated for many years to come but I will feel very comfortable in myself believing the Roosters won the grand final fair and square.

I reckon a lot of people will be wondering how the Raiders managed to lose the grand final actually. For the majority of the match they did indeed look like the better team. For obvious reasons (to me at least) they couldn’t find the “knockout punch”. Sort of reminds me of Apollo Creed trying to knock out Rocky in their 2nd fight 💪.

Look, if the Raiders were good enough they would’ve got up but they didn’t so they weren’t. It’s as simple as that I’m afraid. As much as I feel for them with that “6-again” debacle, the truth of the matter is that it wasn’t the thing that lost them the game. Hopefully the Raiders will look back on this over the break and come to realise they let themselves down just a bit and that their inability to make the most of their opportunities (and possession) more than likely was the reason they lost and not because of that one isolated “6-again” drama.

Maybe losing this grand final will spur them on next year and instil some desire to prove to the rugby league world that they are indeed good enough. Jack Wighton was a deserved winner of the Clive Churchill medal. It was an absolutely awesome effort from him. To his credit, Jack was reported as saying … "But we're definitely not going to blame a ref for our loss, we had more than enough opportunities."

The best part of the game for me (obviously) was when Tedesco scored. Keary passes to Mitchell. Beautiful flick pass from Mitchell to Tupou. Daniel then passes to Tedesco. Tedesco runs in and scores. When the roar from the (greatly outnumbered) Sydney fans went up another level when Tedesco got the ball and they realised he was gonna score, it got me so “pumped” it’s almost impossible to describe. Joy? Relief? Happiness? I suppose you could say all three of those actually. I’m sure all my neighbours heard me at that point yelling out a primal scream of “you-rude word starting with an F-beauty”. Man I was pumped! 💪 I still get goosebumps every time I watch that try. Yeah sad I know, but I’ve watched it maybe 10 times so far 😃.

At the end of the day, it was the Roosters’ defence that proved the difference (just like it did against the Storm the previous week) and again, it was when they were up against it in the second half. Their defence was just too strong for the Raiders. They simply stood up and copped everything the Raiders threw at them and survived. One piece of brilliance (luck) in the 72nd minute and bam! 💥

Stats-wise, it was close in a lot of areas but there were quite a few that surprised me and one in particular. Roosters (obviously) had less possession (46%-54%), less tackle breaks (30-39), less offloads (1-19), less effective tackles (82.3%-91.8%), more missed tackles (39-30) and the one that surprised me … the number of ineffective tackles. The Roosters had 38 and the Raiders had 1. Yeah, the Raiders had just one (1) ineffective tackle. At first I thought that was a typo but I checked it on the NRL website and it’s correct. Sheesh!

Anyways, that’s my take on the “big dance” of 2019. I know (for a fact) there will be people who disagree with what I’ve just served up and that’s fine with me. We all have our own opinions and I’m cool with that. All I know is I’ve been as unbiased and honest as I can be and that my BBB have gone back-to-back and I’m very happy indeed. Begurk! 🐔 Begurk! 🐔

OK kids, stay well, keep safe and enjoy life 😍 Cheers…