Bradley will play first grade sooner rather than later I think. He’s got “boom rookie” written all over him. Aupouri has been a nice surprise. What’s his story?

Haha thanks. Worked hard on her.

He said that he went to Balmain High but he grew up a Magpies fan but because everyone else he knew supported Balmain he always liked them too. The merger is like mana from heaven for him haha.

All I want from him is quick passing when he’s the link man. Tedesco used to set up tries with the quick hands all the time. Mbye did it last year a lot. This year he isn’t throwing the last passes and getting caught with the ball too much. Not that the defense is getting up quicker, he is just not throwing the passes.

Interesting stat I just read that in Luke Brooks’s career he has ran for over 110 metres 9 times and we have won 8 of them and gone into golden point once.

Obviously there is an element to the fact that he has big running metres in games we’re generally playing well but with numbers like this you’d want Brooks to be running over 110 metres a game every damn time even if he has to force it a bit. It likely causes defenders to hold onto him in the defensive line allowing him to unlock the guys outside and inside him.

I’ve made the point before that good backrowers outside him are key to his success and I think it’s no surprise that Lawrence having a career year last year and Garner/Matterson both performing well this year is helping him but I’d say Brooks running also helps them.

If Mbye and Reynolds can get into the habit of trailing on the inside when Brooks does run so that he has outside and inside options (that aren’t props or Farah) I think our attack will improve a lot.

Personally I would love to see what having a big hard running fast backrower like Kikau outside Brooks would be like. I’d say it would be magnificent. Garner/Lawrence/Matterson is nice but someone genuinely destructive. Maybe Mikaele can do this?

I have now been to Wests Tigers vs. Broncos in Brisbane 4 times.

2008 - We lost 19-18
2010 - We won 16-14
2016 - We won 19-18
2019 - We won 22-16

Also worth mentioning Simon Cook is a dead set die hard tragic. He loves the Tigers. We had a real good chat.

It was out of this world. I couldn’t have scripted the game better.

This is a pic of the TV the missus got of me in the postgame chinwagging with Barry O’Farrell haha.

So I got an amazing experience tonight courtesy of a friend who is responsible for organising one of the major sponsors of the Tigers. Some amazing seats and dressing room passes post game.

I was in a sea of Broncos fans and gave it to them all night. At one point when they were behind in the second half the ground announces tried to rally a Broncos chant and I felt like I single handedly shut them up by counter chanting Tigers.

I was only a few feet from the Tigers bench all game and was able to shout direct instructions at the boys all night. I told MCK to make a difference when he replaced Jennings. I am sure that my word were ringing in his ears when he made that last run haha!

After the game I got to meet a few people including Anthony Field, Simon Cook, Kelly Egan, Michael Maguire, Brett Hodgson, Simon Dwyer and Barry O’Farrell who I ended up getting caught on camera in the post game chinwagging with on the Nine cameras. But the coolest was Alex Twal. I told him he was gonna play Origin this year and he talked it down but he was super unbelievably genuine. After I told him he was awesome and gave him props for that awesome offload he actually introduced himself by name (like I didn’t know who he was) and thanked me for my support. Alex’s parents have a ton to proud of.

That was the freaking best ever. Thanks for reading my waffle.