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Heading into Round 24 of the 2008 NRL, and my tipping is good.

On vodafoneonetribe.co.nz I’m ranked 21 out of 3200.  Not sure how many are active tippers tho.

On the Sky TV tipping comp, I’m ranked 7 out of not many .. maybe a few hundred.

Just a few rounds to go, and maybe I can still win.  Nope, but it’s been fun/frustrating all the same.

No doubt about it, I can’t see anything topping the Sonny Bill Williams story this year.

Olympics  . . . nah
Deans V Henry . . . nah
Drysdale v Waddell . . . nah (a great story tho)

No, I confidently pick that come the end of the year, this will be THE biggest story of 2008

Surreal . . Sonny Bill William’s as been issued with a subpoena to appear in a NSW court.

Naturally he’s overseas at the moment - a bit busy you see.

The Aussie department of Immigration have also been subpoenaed.

Crazy stuff.

This is now a battle between the NRL/Bulldogs and the Toulon/SBW

Who’s gonna blink first?

Almost a surreal situation whereby Sonny Bill Williams has left Australia and the NRL already to get mega bucks playing in France.

It’s a messy situation, he’s in breach of contract (according to the Bulldogs) and may be headed to court.

But the real fault here lies with Australia and the way they have screwed up the game.

Nice one guys.

Of more concern to me is the fact that along with Frank Pritchard, the Kiwi’s have lost another superstar for this years Rugby League world cup.

I’ll be interested to see how this pans out, I’d suggest it won’t go to court, but SBW will no longer be a Bulldog

One of the key strike weapons for the Kiwi’s rugby league team, Frank Pritchard is out of the rugby league world cup later this year.

He’s going to have off season surgery on a shoulder or something . . .

I’d love to know if Penrith (his wage payer) pressured him into this, or weather he was comfortable missing the league world cup.

It’s a massive blow to the Kiwi’s chances, the bloke has the X factor required to carve up the opposition.

Let’s hope we don’t lose anyone else between now and the start of the rugby league world cup.

The All Blacks have played 5 or so test matches this year, and I’ve viewed about 20 minutes worth so far. This year more than any, I’ve become more bored with the game . .and a bit sick of the endless hype and diet of union.

But I did have an interesting chat with a mate the other day, who said the second test against South Africa was a great game, and that even though he was sick of rugby, he watched it and loved it.

So, up next we are taking on the Aussies, so maybe, just maybe I’ll totally be watching, to see if test match rugby at least is exciting and fun to watch again.

As an aside, wasn’t it great to see the AB’s get beaten last week?  I mean that in a good way of course. Learning how to bounce back from a loss is something we need to get better at.  This is why an injury to McCaw is a good thing as well :)

Ok, so this is a huge blow to the NRL and rugby league. Mark Gasnier has rightly accepted an offer to play Rugby in France for loads of cash. Good on him.

It should start ringing alarm bells at NRL HQ . . . actually the alarm bells have been ringing for a while, but HQ is staffed by deaf people only.

So, in any situation like this, an organisation has but two choices.

1. Do nothing
2. Do something

A monkey could tell you which option the NRL has taken.

The Gasnier situation is just a symptom of the huge problems rugby league is facing.

I’ll outline these, and try and come up with some solutions over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned NRL, sportsthought.com is here to clean up your mess.

Well, thanks to my other webmaster over at screengraffiti.com, I now have a favicon.

Brilliant.

Ahh .  .the sweet taste of humble pie . . .

I won’t be surprised to see Brent Tate’s rep career over. Quite simply he is not getting enough opportunities to shine now that he’s playing for the Warriors.

I blogged about Brent Tate when news broke that he had signed with the club - mainly around the pressure he would face being the marquee player in the backline.

No doubt the guy is a very good player, worthy of Queensland and Australia, but we now have a situation where we have a (reported) 400k marquee signing wasting away in the centres.

It’s rather obvious to everyone now that the Warriors needed to buy a decent half back instead.

For Tate’s rep teams, Queensland and Australia, there are no shortage of centres and wingers ready to step up - think of Slater, Hodges, Inglis, Folau, Bell, Tonga etc.

So what now for Brent Tate?

Well he looks frustrated, angry even at times, especially during the away game hidings they have had so far in 2008. In one respect, it’s probably going to develop his leadership skills - as there seems to be a lack of leaders on the field he is taking matters into his own hands and trying to fire up the side. That can only be good for the Warriors. Plus there’s not actually much else he can do anyway.

All he can do is hope things get better, and that coach Ivan Cleary picks a decent halfback.

We should also look at the bigger picture for the Warriors. It won’t go unnoticed in Australia that Tate is struggling, so the next time we attempt to purchase a big name, they will no doubt think twice about crossing the Tasman because of the impact it would have on their career.

Unfortunately they have lost Steve Price and Wade Mckinnon, and the team is stuttering as a result. Neither Tate nor the Warriors could foresee this situation arising.

It will be interesting month as the team becomes more desperate to gain form and confidence. If they do, then we may see Brent Tate show his skills.

Sadly for Tate it’s probably going to be too late to save his rep career.