The Magic Sponge - Round 27 & Finals Health Check

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1:01I'm Brian and the guy behind all the NRL physio content you see on socials, my car host James, you are here around 27. The regular season is done and dusses. Good to have you on this wonderful Father's Day, mate. Start off by saying happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there of which you are one. Mate, I look, we can talk about Father's Day and I'm sure we'll get to the fins having the inaugural finals appearance, sorry, their first finals appearance, which is just fantastic news, but I cannot resist bringing up straight off the bat. Cobel Black, mate. What, how did you weekend go watching him run around? Because that was, it's one game, don't get me wrong, but boy, oh boy, the Queensland spirit was just oozing out of him on Saturday and, but yeah, mate, talk to me about it. Well, what about the combat with him and Owen Paddy to start with? I was salivating, I was like, I was cooling like a pigeon

2:03brawn, I was sitting there just cooling. But on his Broncos, no, my goodness. I mean, we saw him rip at Queensland under 19s. It wasn't that far fetch, just sort of thing. Maybe it's got a good play at NRL level one day. For him to leave unceremoniously at this year for whatever reason, I don't know why that is. I don't know if that's because Jonah Pes is coming on board and then they reupped Tom Duffy. But to lose someone like this in house for a team like that is not really very forgivable in my opinion, Brian, especially to keep position, especially someone who's homegrown, especially someone who's already repped Queensland under 19s and has been annoyed to this next big thing. I don't know what is going on with recruitment retention there because you look at what's coming on the books next year. It's a whole lot of not much. And there hasn't been any sort of junior development there for a long time. I know the Panthers were the production line. It's just Throbers after Throbers after Throbers. They're all young and hot ready to go. Boy, it's the Broncos. We are not in that place at all, which is crazy because the Finns are doing the same thing as well. They've just got this production line talent. Brian Ponyu, your cousin Brian, Brian and Brian,

3:05like he's ripping and he's 18, turning 19 and he's ready to go. We had a sort of consolation win to send off pain hearts. That's great, but the boys are having some of the great beers I would assume. The breakfast is in Bali with the boys. There's not a lot better than that combination, but forgettable season. They lost 13 of their last 15. And they might have only beaten the Panthers in there who may win the comp. So it just goes to show what on earth is wrong there. Could you get a hotter seat to start for management going on next year? I don't think it will be. It's going to be insane really to start. It's going to be an absolute circus all off season as it gets closer. But we live in hope for next year. Maybe Reese comes back and he rips again. I don't know if we can hold on to that, but for you, Brian, you've got a lot to look forward to, although a bit of a tough road trip for the Finns first up, going to NZ straight away. But does show that, you know, if you get the worries on their day, you might have a little bit of an opportunity there. I think a day game suits you guys as well. So I think there's a couple of things there

4:06that probably work in your favour. I think that's going to be the game of the week. To be honest as well. I'm looking forward to that game by far, the most out of any of them. Yeah, man. I think for the Bronx, you just got to put hand the keys to Tom Duffy and Blake Moser. Is my thoughts if you can give it to those two boys? They're the ones with the most potential. Go for gold there. Mate, halfway through the weekend, I wasn't sure kind of where I wanted to go. You know, do you want the wires in NZ? Do you want, and I kind of landed on a, wouldn't mind Penra at Conveying to be honest, which is a bit of a weird one. But I think it's a bit of coal, maybe a bit of coal and B, right? They're both absolute throbbing teams. So it's going to be tough. No matter where you go, but yeah, it's just, it'll be good to be in the finals. I broke the news to Isabelle today. We're talking to her. She goes, oh, what, you know, what happens if the dolphins win all the way through to the grand final? Like, will we be allowed to stay up? I'm like, oh, yeah, my mom will probably let you stay up. She's like, why do you say mom? I'm like, oh, because if the dolphins are in the grand final,

5:08dad might fly down to Sydney and she was just like, I'm coming with you. She's just like, there's no way your guy say, this is going to be, but this is, you know, the fun stuff. And I was saying to you off air, it was really good today. We sat down on Father's Day and watched the Titans girls play. And it's certainly previously one we've mucked around playing knee-footy and stuff like that, you know, over in Isabelle say, oh, you know, your hammer and I'm herbie or whatever where it's changing now, you know, it's, you know, one's one's center and one's teagant or something like that. So they're definitely their love and the W at the moment. And it shows you the power that the W is going to have, I think, moving forward if you can draw, draw people into the game, which is very, very exciting, mate. During the week we had a special episode with New South Wales Minister for Health Ryan Park on M&D. I'm sure you listened in. For me, I think, you know, you get a lot of and it was interesting.

6:11The DMs that I got, you know, as soon as you have a politician, people, politics, they hate it. But I think Ryan really showed like he genuinely cares for this cause, right? Like I don't say that tongue in cheek. It was really, really refreshing to kind of have someone who you could tell. Yeah, like really, Kenning loves his 42, which, yeah, anyone who loves their footies always welcome on our show of two bikes who just love footy. So yeah, what did you think of the chat, mate? Super impressive, Brian. It very polished, very good interviewing by yourself as well. Obviously throw that into the mix too. That goes without saying. But it's really, you know, I don't know, there's, you know, it was a bad day for the people that don't like politics in sport, but you know, guess what? Like those things are innately going to be intertwined forever and over moving forward. And I think Ryan's boat really quite eloquently to that point. It's really with the public health lens. So it's very interesting that, yeah, you, I guess you reiterate the point about getting the data set and making sure that this was a visible thing and a quantifiable thing.

7:12And I guess what that allows you to do with any disease that you're studying is you can do retrospective things where you get a population of people in your study, what has come before in their life? Or you do prospective things where you go, okay, what can we do to follow this person that gets diagnosed with this moving forward? And I guess in M&D's case, it's probably looking at retrospective sort of based things where you can get a group of people and go, okay, what are the commonalities here? What was the age of onset? What were the environments or the work factors they had, whether they're the recreational lifestyle factors? And that's how all diseases get funding. It's no coincidence that breast cancer gets a heap of funding in Australia because it's very prevalent. And we know a lot now to the specific medications around that. And breast cancer's got a much bigger profile than some of the other cancers because it's way more prevalent. It's way more known about. And there's way more funding allocated to it. So the treatment results in the outcomes are a lot better. And that's improved at a certain last few years. And I guess even, you know, you think about way, way, way further back. You want to try and identify, you know, risk factors. That's how we figured out that smoking was bad. We actually studied this ages and ages ago. I went boy with a minor issue.

8:13But effectively, there was like, oh, why do people keep dying from lung cancer? And they found out, oh, if you smoke, you've got like a five times higher rate of lung cancer. So they're like, ah, maybe there's a link between these things. And you draw the conclusions from there. And that's what the science reveals. So it's a really good one. I think, you know, with the reporting of that and the data set and the people that are working in those spaces, I think it's very, very exciting. I think it's really impressive. And, you know, the things you need to have government on board with these things, Brian, that's where the money comes from. That's where advocacy comes from. That's where all the big research comes from. And I think to Ryan's point, it's global. You know, this isn't just an Australian, you know, at the top of their game, this is, you know, a global research group just looking at these things can help people worldwide. And I think that's to be commended. I think there's a lot of impressive things. And it's a really nice chat. I really, really, really, really enjoyed it. I couldn't get on it. So I'm didn't line up with me from a scheduling point of view, but it was a really, really ripened conversation. I loved it. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, I mean, the scenes with Jai coming out over the weekend.

9:13You know, you take what happened last weekend, just dialed it up, you know, another 50 times. It's, yeah, like I, command everyone involved in this whole thing. Hopefully out of it, we can have a lot of movement in the MND space in turn, particularly around treatment and finding a cure because that's obviously, yeah, where it's really, really lacking at the moment. So let's get into it, mate. We are your one-stop shop for everything, injury analysis in the NRL. Usually loop everything back to Super Coach and Fantasy to help you when your legs, hopefully there's a lot of people here who have won their leagues or maybe won the 50K, who knows. And we've got Final Super Coach coming up as well, which is pretty exciting. I think we've got a high lux online, mate. And we're big concrete cowboys over here. So I can do with a high lux. So I don't know about you. So yeah, we'll put that in the garage and see what we can do. But without further ado, we're going to do things a little bit differently this week. So we'll cover the injuries from around pretty quickly. Then we're going to do a finals health check on every team

10:16to sort of see how they're traveling into the finals, both for you at home to follow along and kind of know where teams are at, but also as we said with Super Coach finals coming up and might help you select your teams a little bit better. So let's get into the injury route for this week, which is brought to you by Painpod, Drug Free Pain Relief, anyone can use. And if you use the code NRLP at dpainpod.com, you get 12% off. I don't know exactly what he's done. I would have thought it was an ankle, but I'm just guessing. It shouldn't be out for long period of time. I mean, I'm the doctor. We have to wait for the scans, obviously, but that'd be more positive than negative. Last round of the regular season, Brian, we'll just go to the HIAs very quickly. The players we got listed here, Reese Foley was cat too and failed at HIA. Sue and Lungy, two might have browned from the Melbourne storm. There was a cat once, so obviously into the protocols there. Hamish, Stuart and Joensson running, the other ones listed here tonight, but obviously not playing next week for those two guys. So any other things you want to make a comment on on HIAs, we might sort of re-story this one, or isn't it quickly by looks? Yeah, I think, look, there was some concern

11:18with Tuumallata Brown. So he scans a cledium of any severe spinal cord injury, but he's still getting some numbness. I think some symptoms down to his arm or arms. So I had a few people asking what that could be. You know, potentially there's a bulging disc there or something like that. Potentially he's had a severe burner pinch in the brachial plexus, which is the nerves that run sort of through the shoulder. That's just going to take a while to settle down. You know, they want to check these things because you're worst case scenario is your things like your Tom Flegler's, you know, Simon Dwyer's, these kind of guys where it's a significant brachial plexus injury. So hopefully nothing there. Hamish Stewart, note where the obviously, you know, the dragon season is over, but he had, his season was ruled out, or sorry, ended early in August last year. See, suffered three concussions in five months. So, you know, this being four concussions, I didn't check whether he had another one earlier in the season, but I don't think he did, but it's just,

12:19yeah, worth monitoring heading into the world. Cup, hopefully nothing too crazy there. And then Reese Folly, yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of coverage on the lateral Mitchell hitmate. And certainly, I think I had a few people kind of messaging me that are saying, you know, do you think the trail should have been penalised? And I think it's the, he's dancing at the edge of between perfection and disaster, right? Because you look at Daniel Syfidi the week before, he was just that little bit higher, and he got sent off in four weeks' suspension. So the trail nailed it. He didn't, you know, hit him in the chest, and it wasn't, you know, he didn't contact his head directly. But where I feel like really, I don't know, that some of the coverage has been a bit gross for me, sort of the whole like welcome to first grade kind of sucked in. When this poor kid has a con, like he's a, has a concussion, right? And when we know what that, that side of it I don't love,

13:21and I know there's going to be people saying I'm soft, and you don't get what Fody's about and all that kind of stuff. And look, I, like I just, yeah, whenever it's to do with concussion, it just feels a little bit different for me. And I know once again, like, by the letter of the law, the trail didn't do anything illegal here, and I'm not trying to say that. But what I am saying is maybe just, yeah, have a little bit of empathy for a young guy who has a concussion. That's kind of my, I guess my thing, where it feels a little bit weird. But yeah, other than that, I, like, you know, you at the end of the day, you didn't hit him in the head. There was some whiplash, and as we know, whiplash can cause concussion even without, you know, direct contact to the head. It's the shifting of the brain inside the skull. But yeah, that was, yeah, that was the one component to it. As I just saw a few comments and a bit of coverage and stuff like that, where it put, I think we just have to remember that, yeah, there's a concussion involved in concussion. More often, not quick recovery overall,

14:21but, yeah, there can be some problems with them. So just keep it in mind. Yeah, I think that's good to sort of point out with regards to the coverage of that. So that's a nice comment. We'll go to round 27, Andrews, Brian. We'll launch through these reasonably quickly. You and Aikens listed here with a shoulder concern. Looks like an AC mechanism there. Owen Paddy with a leg concerned, Jerome Hughes with a hamstring injury pain heart. Obviously, well documented that he's having surgery on those fingers, on those sort of lateral two fingers, that'll meet you two fingers, I should say. And then we've got Val Holmes listed here with an ankle injury. Looks like a low ankle sort of type of sprain, doesn't it, Brian, for Val Holmes? Yeah, he was definitely, it looked like a bit of a hip drop. He tackled the one that caught him, but he was kind of feeling for the outer side of the ankle. So potentially a lateral ankle sprain, I would expect him to be fine. I don't think he's, oh, he might play for Cook Islands. Maybe in the World Cup. So yeah, I don't think his World Cup is at risk. One guy who isn't going to play the World Cup by the sounds of his pain heart, he's having surgery on some tendon issues in his fingers. Some people asking, you know, like, should he have had surgery earlier?

15:22I mean, surgery for that kind of injury, it's like two to four months out. So it is something where you strap him together. You can kind of, you're not at 100%, but you can still perform relatively well. And there's not necessarily provider. You don't do extra damage. I mean, if it gets far enough, you can have like an angus-crite and kind of thing, but that's very, very rare. Usually you can just kind of, you know, managers, best you can strap him up really, really well. And it doesn't matter whether you have surgery in round two or round, you know, after round 27. The, you know, the prospects for the prognosis is still pretty similar. So I mean, like before I go to the other ones, I mean, I'll throw you, but as a, as a Bronx fan and someone who's a physio, you, I don't see any issue with him playing through something like this. What about you? No, I don't think so. I think if that was decision made with him in the club consulting, I don't think that's a big drama. Like I think I'll play on from that point of view. Yes, we know I'm the same.

16:22I drumused his fourth hammy issue. Yeah. Like the last six, seven, eight, we are probably a bit longer than that, maybe 10 weeks. Yeah, another one. So mate, there's some concerns with him going into the World Cup, I think like World Cup doesn't kick off for another six weeks or so. But yeah, four hammies in six weeks, it's just not ideal. So I think going into the World Cup, maybe a bit of re-injury risk there. I'm patty had a leg issue that they cut away from really quickly. He did look like he was hopping up to stretch out like a cramp and we haven't heard anything since. Some hoping that's all it is. I didn't see much in the mechanism, to be honest. It wasn't the best video that I never replay, but hopefully nothing there. And then you and I can probably the most significant injury out of the weekend. It was a brutal contact mechanism and he's still in a sling. So usually when you look at a sling, fracture is the first one that comes to mind or a moderate to high grade AC joint injury that's causing a lot of pain and drama. So look, even if he is still in a sling,

17:24grade three, which would be worst case AC joint injury, you can still come back relatively quickly. Two to four weeks is the usual return to play. So usually you'd see him miss one week and potentially come back on the second week as best case. But he's just going to be a risk of, you know, aggravation moving forward. It will only take, you know, one big blow to that shoulder and it's gone again. So, yeah, I mean, South, I hope, you know, obviously going to be hoping to go on a bit of a run and give him a chance to be fit. But yeah, I just think his performance is definitely a question heading into the finals. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm going to go to the finals health check now. So like Brian mentioned earlier, we're going to go through things team by team just to give you a bit of an update on, I guess injuries that have been suffered in the past and what the prognosis for those things is looking forward, obviously from a finals lens perspective but also with the super coach finals sort of in mind as well. So I might give you a few little leans into guys you want to take a flyer on the things of that nature. We're going to go positions one through the positions eight.

18:24So we're not playing favorites here. It's just first in best stress as it sits on the ladder. So the team that finished with the minor premiership with the pen of Panthers, the names on the list here, Isaiah, yo, with a pet concern. We've talked about that ad rules him here over a few weeks now. So we're getting an update there. Paul Alamotti has that hamstring injury that he missed for this week. Mitch Kenny with that lead concerns been missing for quite a while. Then lastly, Isaac Tungo, near concern at the last week there, Brian. So not a huge casualty ward for the pen of Panthers but some pretty important players here, isn't it? Yeah, mate, I think I was actually quite impressed with Isaiah, yo, today. He looked quite good out there. He played, it was over 30 minutes. So yeah, really got through some work. I think the biggest thing here is it's just ranger, you're right. He will have lost a bit of strength with, we still don't know if it's a complete rupture or just a high grade partial tear. But I'm thinking it's a complete rupture. It's kind of where we're still at this point. So he's going to have lost some strength there. And then we used the example of Michael Gordon

19:25is the only other example that we've had in the past. And he spoke about after every game that he played, it was black and blue, it was swollen. So yeah, I think there's going to be some management there if I say, yo, over the finals. But I just, I can't believe he played today, to be honest. That's crazy to me. Yeah, I think they got to a point, what are the impression that I get from talking to some journals down there? Is they kind of will like, well, it's not going to get any better than it is now. We've kind of maxed it out in terms of his strength. So we just got to throw him out there and see if it's going to work or not. Because it's not going to work. We don't find out halfway through a finals game. We want to know whether it's going to work. And I'm like, yeah, it's probably fair enough if they've got heaps of strength into it. I think that's about as good as it's going to get. But yeah, just, you know, because you don't have that extra strength there, it can put pressure on other structures. Yeah, he's just not a guarantee to get through the final series. Healthy, unfortunately. Paul Alamode should be back next week of the week

20:27after with his Hammy. Mitch Kenny looked pretty good off the leg issue. I think the more that comes out about Mitch Kenny, the more amazed I am that, you know, he's even back now because yeah, he had to have a second surgical procedure. There were infections and all these kinds of things. So he's done well to time. He's run absolutely perfectly and be back, you know, round 27. And now Isaac Tunger, I think, has expected him as two to three weeks with his new issue. All right, well summed up there, mate. We go to the wires next. So Tana Boyd, obviously, ASTL concern that was from earlier in the year, Luke Meckock with that high grade hamstring injury. Like a Halicimus list is equal concern, DWZ with that collarbone fracture from two weeks ago, I think now Jackson Ford was a pet concern that was from early in the year. Luke Lally E was a concussion from that nasty hit last weekend and then we got TMM listed here in Chanel Harris to Vita. Both of those guys played this weekend though, didn't they Brian? So a bit of an update for the wires. Yeah, mate, I just included those two guys because they're obviously, they're not quite out of that two week, you know, return to play in a time frame.

21:29So there is that increased risk of aggravation or ring injury just over the next couple of weeks at high. It's still present for the entire finals series. Don't get me wrong, but yeah, it's just it is present for sure. Now Luke Lally obviously concussion, you'd hope he'll be back, you know, within the next or available in the next week or two, ton of boyd ACL season over. Luke Meckkaff is looking at mid finals for his hamstring, but once again, he's going to be an increased risk of injury there. I think unless anything happens to Tomade or Chanel Harris, I don't think you're seeing Luke Meckkaff start in the finals would be my, just because of the risk with his hamstring injury history, you don't want to set him in there and kind of have that go. Lecala Seymour was by all accounts just a precautionary ankle issue. Dalin Watanese, Les Niaq is probably looking at a prelim best case, but grand final more likely. The big one for me, mate, Jackson Ford,

22:30he's been a bit of a forgotten man, I reckon, particularly in circles kind of outside of the warriors, but he, his pec injury has been around 16, so it's now around 27, so 11 weeks post, the usual return to place 10 to 14 weeks post surgery for him. I have read reports that he is looking at some time over the first three weeks of the finals. Now, I think he's a red hot chance to be named next week, but it's really going back. I don't have any specific examples off the top of my head, but I know there's been a few in previous seasons where there's someone who's in the top four, they've got a guy they're bringing back, and they kind of go, well, let's just see if we can go without them this week. And if we win, we buy them two weeks, I think maybe it was maybe it was Jerome Luai, came back for a prelim, a couple of a couple of seasons ago, and they were kind of talking about, you know, do we bring him back? What do we do? And they're like, oh, let's just back ourselves to win that first week and try and wait.

23:33And they ended up doing it. And then I think it was Luai, came back. So I wonder whether they do the same with Jackson Ford, because maybe Jackson Ford coming back into that pack. Yeah, their pack is absolutely foralbing at the moment. It's like a luxury of riches. So yeah, I think that's probably the big one for me is Jackson Ford coming back potentially as soon as next week. I mean, as a Fin's fan, I might be not, but yeah, I think it's a red hot chance. In terms of performance, I think he's coming back to a stacked pack from like a Super Coach final perspective. I know he was so good in the season. He's just not someone who I'd be taking a flyer on this point. What about you? I don't think so. Like, I mean, I respect people that would take a flyer on it, because he doesn't seem to mop up minutes. If there's an in-game injury, if there's someone that goes down, he tends to be the one that absorbs a minute. But, you know, it's a big risk to take. So probably not for me, but if you did it, I would respect the shit out of you. I'd love it. I've got it, mate. All right. We'll go to the Dolphins next Brian. So the names on list tonight, Selwyn Cobbo,

24:33Connolly or with an April Concern before we talk about Connolly Lemo-Elloo, who has a hamstring injury. Cognitive Carema was rested this week with the hamstring concern. And then lastly, Kilikafu Finifiliaki was the rest of that knee concern this week as well. But pretty good bill of health here for the Finns, mate. I must say, like, there's no one here that really looks like alarm bells to me. So, Finns up is what I can sort of take from this. What are you thinking? Mate, is crazy how healthy they are. It's crazy. Yeah, like this. It's like a lot of optimism into me, genuinely. I'll speak for you. So, yeah, that's crazy good. Mate, the only major injury they're dealing with at the moment is the, and look, to be fair, Brian Pony has been good. But the injury is the brain explosion they had when they let Aron Killy go. That's the only injury that we've got at the moment. Because other than that, the team is looking very, very healthy. So, you know, the guys who are rested this week, Cobbo, Nicorima, Finifuiaki, no major concerns there. Lemo LLU came back early from that hamstring or earlier than expected from that hamstring injury.

25:37So, maybe a touch of concern there for injury risk. But, as I said, Brian Pony, you're looking really, really good. Yeah, mate. I mean, we've got a question later about injury later and kind of the changes and stuff like that. But spoiler alert, the Finns are the biggest improvers by country mile in terms of where they've been on the injury later the last couple of years to this year. And I mean, look, I felt like I sat on this pod for two years going on. Like, we just cannot, you know, there were times where we were starting, all-blicks, Tafar and Mark Nichols in the front row. And they were our two best front rowers. And then we were bringing on two cute cup guys as well. So, it's just, yeah, I mean, maybe Old Jingsis now, and there might be a few injuries coming our way in the finals. But, yeah, it's been really good to see the team stay healthy and perform, you know, perform as such. So, hopefully they can keep it going and fins up, baby. Yeah, very much a close watch on the Finns there. So, let me know who played 29 minutes today from what I can tell there.

26:39So, I didn't watch the game in a lot of detail there, but I wasn't paying attention to him coming on the field. But that's really encouraging. If he was able to get through at least a little half-hour stint there for the Finns and with him and Finney Fowl, I'll give back. That's really good news to see them back on an edge respectively. And then that will see Max Plath in the middle, and that's very ripped. So, all signs pointing very, very positively there. So, that's really good news. We'll go to the Roosts next. So, not as good news as the Dolphins here. So, Sammy Walker with that ankle concern, we spoke to that a couple of weeks ago. James Dadesco with that ankle concern that was spoken about, Adnaurs him on the Magic Sponsor. Still precautionary moon boot, that one with Tadesco, obviously. Reese Foley with concussion. Blake Steep has been missing for the entire year with an ACL concern. Angus Crioton had that foot injury, which he was ruled out quite some time ago. I don't know about where that's up to, sorry, Brian. And then Dan Tupo with his shoulder concern. That's an instability type thing for his shoulder. And then Victor Radley with concussion as well, though. So, there's a few big names here for the Roosters. And it seems like there's just a bit of a late season fade out here, Brian, isn't there to be worried about if you're a Rooster's fan? Yeah, mate. There's definitely some concern there. I mean, Victor Radley with the concussion,

27:41he's got to be a history with the concussions there. They're hoping that he can be back for the first week of finals. But, I mean, as we know with concussions, there's no guarantees. It's very, very, you know, here and there. So, yeah, I've just got, you know, fingers crossed there. Daniel Tupo, it's mainly just that ongoing risk that that shoulder is going to need a reconstruction by all reports postseason. So ticking time by may be, you know, it could just be one wrong move. And the shoulder gives away again. But for now, he's looking pretty good. Angus Crioton is in the final stages. It's coming back from a nevicular fracture that needed surgery. Nevicular is a bone in the foot with a pre-pore blood supply. But by all the counties, he's right on the precipice of returning. So he could be a nice little injection for them in the first week of finals, though, tough to expect him to be back to his best that first week, just because it's an injury that's very hard to load in that rehab process. So, yeah, maybe potentially a little bit underdone, match fitness wise. Apology on the podcast to Blake Steepmate.

28:42I was going through today to try and have a look for something on him. And I totally forgot to post about him back when he tore his ACL in May. I usually pride myself on if I miss some injuries here or there, but I don't miss an ACL. Is she all we'd in post? I thought we'd talk about him tearing it in. We spoke, sorry, we spoke about it on here. And I posted about it in the draw cast channel. But I didn't put a post out on socials because I used like the Twitter search thing to go back through my post sometimes. And I couldn't find anything on Blake Steep. I'm like, oh, what happened? And yeah, just missed it, which is, yeah, and narrow on my part. Reese Folly had that concussion. Hey, the two big ones, James Deskow. So, yeah, like obviously Teddy came out this week or it got released this week. He was on Mark Boros' podcast. And he confirmed that it is that introsiest membrane. As we spoke about, also said that, you know, the, the syndromosis tightrope protected his ankle, which is, you know, something that we've, we've gone through many times on the pod. So it's, yeah, it's something that I'm definitely building

29:44into, I guess my expectations now about those ankles with previous syndromosis injury history is they can cop those big mechanisms and hold up pretty, pretty well. But it's like, where does that force them yet transferred? If the, if the tightrope is holding things together, where does it go from there? So that was a really interesting chat. So he looked a bit underdone against the fins last week. Hopefully the week off this week has allowed him, allowed him to get more kind of build more performance metrics, a bit of explosivity and those kind of things. So I'm not too down on him heading into the finals. I think he should be a lot better. Mate, the Sammy Walker is an interesting one. He told Joey he's aiming for the prelim that is doable. We've seen it done before with Tristan Sala, a four week return. Someone was messaging me saying that he wasn't in a moon boot at the game on the weekend. So post surgery, look, I mean, one week post would be quick. But also, if you're trying to get him back at four weeks post,

30:44you've got to get things moving pretty quick. And this is, you hear me say all the time, this time of year, the usual recovery time frames get thrown out the window a little bit. And where usually even with a six week return, that might be in a boot for 10 to 14 days. Maybe now they're in a boot, you know, Sammy Walker's in a boot for six days because they're trying to accelerate things. So yeah, this is, I'm so, I don't know, from like a physio nerd perspective, mate, I'm so keen between this one and I say, yo, this is like physio porn for me at this point to see like how these boys are going to get back and, and, and, yeah, and perform. That's the biggest thing is not only get back, but how good are they going to be? So I actually, and you won't hear me say this about, you know, any other team very often, but I hope that the roosters make a prelim so we can see whether, you know, Sammy walks can make a back that would be super, super cool. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's, you know, not groundbreaking,

31:45but it would just be one of those things that just reassesses what we know and reassesses, he look at things when you sort of get a diagnosis and get an injury update. So I think that's really, really interesting. And I'll be watching along in great hope as well as you see me walk again, Brian. What I wouldn't give. We'll go to the cranial sharks next on the list here, Brian. So not many names, but probably pretty important for their finals chances. Braden Trindle, he obviously had that shoulder subluxation dislocation mechanism a few weeks back. So we'll probably get a bit of an update there on him. Jesse Raymond has been ruled out for the year without pet concern. And then more, when he or Roddy's been listed as a rib injury here. So obviously Raymond gone for the year, but Trindle is a really key part of this. The wheels have absolutely fallen off for the sharks towards the end of the year. They've been playing terrible without him. What are we looking at here with Trindle and is he one possibly that they take the risk on coming into week one of the finals? Yeah, he'll be playing next week. Every everything out of the sharks is that he'll be, he'll be chomping in the bit. They probably would have played in this week if it was an important game that they needed to win. So he'll be back, but it's just, it's your Jesse Raymond.

32:48Sorry, it's your Daniel Tupo situation where it's just sticking to Imbom. Could go at any point, but you absolutely provided that there's not a crazy fracture there and all the reports are it was a clean dislocation. So not too much damage there, but that doesn't, it doesn't absolve him of the risk. Unfortunately, it does give him a slightly better chance, but when you're talking about a slightly better chance from a 50 to 80% re dislocation rate, you're still not, you know, it's still not fantastic. So yeah, I mean, you just, you play him and you hope he can get through four games. And there's plenty of players who've done it. Nathan Cleary did it. Jerome Lewai did it. There's been guys who've done it during final series and they got through. I mean, Jerome, I think re dislocated his right at the end of that Broncos grand final. But yeah, you just got to hit and hope and that's what they're going to do with Trennell. His performance should be fine. Being a half, it's just the aggravation or the re dislocation risk, just your aim in season over and her body. It's a rib issue. So pain

33:52management, he'll heal more than likely be back next week, but he cops a blow in the wrong spot. He could need needles or potentially an early shower as well. This episode is brought to you by Chat GPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about Chat GPT work? It's the new way to use Chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give Chat GPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides and structured reports. Get started at chat GPT dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like

34:52Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability. Very 16 plus. Yeah, big trouble there as well. Really, rabbit, I was an excellent list here Brian. So let's talk them. You and I can we talked about earlier with that shoulder concerns. He might be touching go for this week, depending on the grading of that injury. Keo Koma Tung, we've got listed here with me in back concerns. I guess the things that he's been managing for a lot of the year. Latrial Mitchell, the well documented back injury there. Pretty good this week, Brian. I was pretty happy with what I saw there. Latrial this week. So that's really exciting for the rabbit eyes and their fans. And then tell us something listed here. Probably just a little bit of arrests on the hamstring front. I don't think they're expecting him to be missing next week at all. Are they Brian is more just giving him a rest this week and gearing up for next week. They've got a really it's a dual die thing against the Knights there at home though. So you know with all the stuff going on with Jiro and the team. I hope they put on a really good performance there against the Knights. It's not a place you'd want to be. Is Newcastle fan is it really running to rabbit eyes first week? No, definitely not. So yeah, I mean, I'd love to see Rooster's rabbits next next week. I don't

35:55know whether that can happen or I assume it can, but then there might have to be ups and upset somewhere in there. But yeah, I think Tell us Duncan absolutely plays next week. You know, hamstring tightness nothing too crazy. A Keon has been playing with Ne and back issues. Bit of a discushionies back that PCL issue that apparently will need off season surgery. And he's got some decisions coming up for him in terms of whether he gets that to be ready for Dragon's preseason or he plays the World Cup. There's a few guys like that like your pain haurs and these kind of guys. So that will be interesting to see what he does there. He's probably hasn't hasn't been it is very best the last month or so Keon. I think aggravated that near a couple of times. We're spoken about you and I can and then Latrial mate. Yeah, look, he looked great. My biggest thing I've spoken a lot and I know a lot of people probably the main thing they've heard from me is, you know, he's a risk. You can't trust him to last, you know, a month let alone a game.

36:55Absolutely still true. He looked great on the weekend, but with someone who has had back issues, which has caused nerve problems, which has then caused calf strains or weakness. Yeah, there's some red flags floating around for sure in terms of longevity, particularly over the final series. But what I am going to say is from a final super coach perspective, you just absolutely lock a mode with him every single week that he is playing because in a competition light and we'll talk about it later, but you're talking game by game, you just back him to be an absolute monster. Yeah, I like I'm less confident about him getting through say four games in a row without anything aggravating, but if you're talking to me game by game, I'm taking that risk every day of the week. What about you? Yeah, 100% is probably my first peak to be fair. I think there's just absolute ceiling there with the trail that no one else offers. He is a gun and I love what he's

37:58about and coming up against the Knights, I think he's going to be one of the first picked for your sub coach finals teams. The Knights elect next team will talk through Brian. So Dylan Brown, obviously, really out for the year with that ACL concern earlier, Sam and Dylan Lucas, were there with ankle injury from earlier in the season, Train Mooney, going to be missing for probably this game with that shoulder concern. I think it was going to be more than a single week there missing. Finish Crosson's going to be, I guess, racing the clock to be fit for this one, coming off the arthroscopic knee surgery that he had. Brody Jones listed here with the hamstring injury and then Frances Mano, Laila Lua, he is another one that's probably going to be racing the clock for this one as well. So a few people up in the air here for the Knights. Yeah, man, I suppose, but 100% it's going to be tight. 100%. I think the easy one's Dylan Brown, Dylan Lucas, Train Mooney, all season over with their injuries. Brody Jones, I'm not really sure they've been a bit KG on when he's back there too. And we talk about interesting, probably not quite as high profile as year Sammy Walker's and Isaiah Yoz, but Phoenix, Ross and Mano Laila Lua, Laila Lua, sorry, super

39:02fascinating how this is going to go because three weeks from an arthroscopic knee surgery to, you know, fix up a miniskiss is quick. That's quick and for a guy who they will want big minutes out of in the middle, I'm going to be really interested to see how well he's, yeah, he's going to perform this weekend because I'm not so like I'm not 100% confident in it, but I like, yeah, it has been done before. So that's that's going to be one that I'm really closely watching. And then Mano Laila Lua, he just took out his elbow, no fracture. We've seen Sean Fenson miss zero weeks and play through that like an absolute maniac. Now, obviously Mano Laila Lua did not need to do that because they had the boy, but we've seen other players return as quickly as two weeks as well. Their, their ligaments tendons around their elbow are nowhere near healed after two weeks, but they just strapped the living shit out of it and get him back out there and, yeah, hope for the best. So that's going

40:03to be a really interesting one as well. If he does come back after two weeks, you just would think that the team opposite should just run all their traffic at that arm because he might be a little bit, yeah, a little bit property on the, on the grouping and kind of making tackles on that side of his body. But yeah, there is a chance that he's back as soon as next week. If you look at the percentages, it's way higher percentage around week four. So the average is kind of around between week three and week four, but being final, say, might try and accelerate a little bit. Yeah, that's going to be very interesting as well. That's a good pick up. Cowboys last on list here, Brian. So Murray Tellung and you rule out for the season with concussion, Zach Leibart also listed as concussion here. General Mano with a knee concern and grit and knee with a toe concern here, Brian. So I don't know how much damage to care was going to do coming from eighth. They run to the sharks the first week, Brian, but not too bad on the injury front here is it? Yeah, tellung is gone for the season. I was just spoke about last week, but the other three should be back next week is what we've been, you know, been told so far. Mate, just was really disappointed. They were the disappointment of the weekend

41:07for me. Like, you know, I know it was big poppers last game and, you know, the future of Mortal Kobe Black had his way with them. But yeah, I just, I really expected something from the cows leading into the finals. And that was, yeah, not ideal. I don't think. No, pretty, pretty trippy wasn't it really from the Cowboys. Lastly, we're at the NRLW Tegan Leibart is listed here with that nose or facial fracture concern, Brian. Pretty brutal mechanism that one wasn't the head to head. Faith in Manera was a knee concern and Kesey apps listed here with a leg injury there, Brian. So not a lot of talking points here in the W. Yeah, look, I'll give myself a bit of criticism, but then also the wider media because the the coverage on the NRLW injuries has been, yeah, quite poor. And I like myself included because I just haven't been able to get much info on a lot of injuries. It's just been really, really lacking both coming out of clubs and kind of from the media as well. I get that they probably don't get as many clicks those kind of things. But,

42:09you know, I mean, I'm not one to watch my analytics on social media, but I'm sure, you know, a friend of the show Edwin, if he the social sandwich who looks at all that stuff for me, I'm sure the W injury still get pretty high, you know, clicks and engagement rate from that side. So hopefully we can continue to get improved coverage there for sure. Tegan Leibhoy looks like a broken nose, you know, at the time it looked pretty brutal and I was I was a bit worried she's holding up a bit high. So I was wondering whether she kind of fractured up above her nose kind of in a forward, but then yeah, all the photos post match, she the poor girls got, yeah, the old Cooper-Cronk nose coming out of the not quite the not quite the Blake Ferguson, but yeah, definitely a bit of crookedness. I think a system Maddie commented on on my post saying like, I'll check out that nose or something like that. So yeah, she's she's going to have a bit of cosmetic issues, but other than that, I mean, she'll miss next week with the concussion, but then it'll be finals for them the week after. Yeah, next week is that. Yeah, no, I think next week is

43:15the following story. Yeah, yeah, I think it's the week after. So she should be fine, she should be fine for finals either way. Yep. So Faith Manera, she had a knee injury, it was non-contact, mate, it screams ACL as unfortunate as it is. The replay I was going to do a post on it, but the replay on it was vlog average, unfortunately. So yeah, it didn't get much there and Kaziyab's had a leg issue, but nothing, she said post match, she was fine. So let's get into the muscle and nation recovery room for some questions. So we're answering your questions in the muscle nation recovery room. We'll get to the questions you have on the biggest NREL injuries, but also on sports performance and recovery. We always get questions about the layers play injuries, but we get so many on general sports medicine and performance topics. We love diving into them, thanks to muscle nation. They are the best in the game when it comes to gym apparel and supplements. Mate, I've been speaking all year about the ringing up, dads are ringing up, it's been a good

44:16year for that muscle nation driving the return of the rigs. When did we last see our rigs make me? Be high school, primary school, that was probably when we peaked. I had to film some stuff for at Rebel Sport this week for a little thing that I've got going on and had to put myself through some paces with some sporting equipment. So doing some kicking, there was a basketball court, there I was doing it and mate, it's not good signs for the dad Olympics because boy, was I rusty, real rusty, especially with a cricket bat in hand, that was the one I made. I can't remember the last time I seriously swung a cricket bat and it was, I mean, yeah, the form was just not there, it felt a bit foreign. So I feel like I still do play a lot of tennis, so I was fine with the tennis side of things, but especially leading into the dad Olympics, obviously with muscle nation

45:18assisting me via the CREATINE, I'm going to, I'm going to need to brush up on my sporting skills to get in good shape for these sporting activities come the dad Olympics, but it's been great to have muscle nation on board. I fully agree, but we need the repetitions brine, we need the gross motor task, we need to get a 10,000 hours in, sometimes between now and January, whatever it is that we're going on holiday. So it was going to be working hard and getting the reps under the belt, trying to skill a choir as best as we can. There might be some skills which can't acquire, I think that's the other thing is it might just be like, well, I can't acquire that skill because I'm just hopeless of this thing. So I might have to just lean into the things that I'm a good shot into. So it might be some strategy with the dad Olympics mate, we might have to make sure that people aren't thrown in the towel for events that they're not suited for. It's going to be a case of like, I want to see you struggle at something. That's one of the great cathartic things amongst friends isn't it? When you see, you know what I see your friends doing really well all the time. Like I'm always happy for people to do well and you know, in your situation obviously rig up with muscle nation, but I always want to, I do want to see you be uncoordinated with a

46:18cricket bat. That's something that grows to be great joy because then I'm going to be toxicly, just toxic to you in general, I suppose you could say, even though the rig will be looking good, I'll just choose to pick on something else. And if your technique deficiencies the thing I pick on, then that'll be what it is. And that's okay because that's the joy of getting together for these things, Brian isn't it? I did have a good idea this week though. One of the events has to be the infamous and it's going to give Patty some PTSD for sure, but the high tennis ball catches from a standing start when he, I think it was either a turfto or a hammy or something. He yeah, really, really struggled with that. So I just want to like play a bit of mind games, get the get back going again, bring that event back because I remember that. I think that was post one of the infamous Australia parties the next day we kind of went down and we're having some fun there. Hopefully there's like some trees or some sort of setup that we can manufacture into a set of footy posts for some conversion kicking because I think that would, you know, that's that was a suggestion I got from a lot of listeners as well. So we'll have to have to bring that in

47:23but head on over to muslination.org the code to enter office here will get you 10% off and it stacks with any other codes that you have. Let's get into the questions for this week mate. Very good Brian. First question comes from DJ. He says who surprised you most this year performance was coming off an injury. Mate, for me, this isn't fairly easy. I don't mean there's been a lot. There's been a lot of surprises both both positive and negative, but Brian Couchman season has been insane. Like the old rule of, you know, players aren't back to their second season post ACL surgery that that rule for some is just getting thrown out the window because, you know, I couldn't even believe he played. I had a look. So he played 11 games coming into the 2025 season. It's a lot off the bench. He then tears his ACL round one 2025. Has his 12 month recovery round one this year he starts off the bench. And as we know, I think any super coach owners out there fantasy owners out there know he was just an absolute monstaff from the get go. But even he'd only took him till like

48:24three games in. He's locked down a starting role and he has just been a starter for the rest of the year and one of their highest performers in a pretty ball-gathering side. He 44 tackles per game at 96% efficiency ran for over 120 meters per game. Couple of offloads per game as well. Mate, like I know a lot of people have spoken about it, but I think he wouldn't look at a place in any rep jersey at moment. And I include Australia with that. Like he got picked for Australia at the end of the year. I wouldn't go. I'll bolt up. Like that. That I just go like. Oh yeah. Yes, we like he's been one of the better middles. And he may 22, 22 and he's pulling that out off the back of an ACL. And I think the cool thing about this is we've spoken about guys like, you know, a paddy carigan, Tino, these kind of guys. And the rule I always used is like throbers. Like if you've got a throber who is like a, you know, an elite player in the game. We said it with Tino being injury by

49:24the start of last year. We were like, look, he's an elite player. He has that pedigree. We're back in him to come back really, really well. Ryan Katchman didn't have that right. He wasn't a throber coming into last season. I mean, obviously he performed really well at New South last cup, but it wasn't like he was a mainstay in first grade. So yeah, mate, I, I, Ryan Katchman absolutely by the link to the straight for me in terms of positive from a negative perspective. I mean, I expected and this is a bit outside of injury related, but I was massive on reswalsh this year. I just thought over the PCL, his PCL really helped him, like, sorry, held him back at stage as last year. We saw what he did at the back in the last year. Now, obviously there's, there's something in the water at the Bronx. Don't get me wrong, but that was the first name that came to mind for me because I was all in on Walsh even when we had, because I remember we started with Walsh and that was even when we had that bad, you know, we were heavy on forwards and we were, you know,

50:27going so forward, heavy and forwards, forwards, forwards. We still started with Walsh because we were like, yeah, Walsh is going to have a robbing year and he just really battled, really battled. And so yeah, that was one that probably went the other way and whether there was injury related stuff, I don't really know, but just coming off an injury I expected more from him. Any, outside of that that spring to your mind either positive or negative. I just couldn't remember the timeline where Jackie Boast or coming off the ACL. Did he miss the later end of last year? Or did he come back at the later end of last year? Just, you know, he came back and started this year. Yeah, so that's the thing I really was impressed with how he came back and just how good he looks bright and he was fast, he was lean, he was helpful running good lines, culminated with a birth for New South Wales, which I think everyone was, you know, certainly I was like that's a bit of a smokey from Leithfield, but he played pretty well in game three, you know, got to give him his flowers there as well and he's been great for the Finns for the rest of this year and I think he could be a really big part of you guys doing some damage in this finals run. So I thought Jack Boast took his worth of mention given that he's an outside back coming off ACR. I thought that was a

51:28really, really impressive return to play. It's impressive as I can remember anyway. The other one's K-Yano Keeney. I think that's low hanging fruit because obviously he had this really serious neck surgery and he came back to the later end of last year, played great in the pack champs. And then he's been really good for the Titans this year. So I was really impressed with how he's been able to deliver in what often is a badly beaten team there as well, Brian. So they'll probably the two main ones. I can't look in terms of guys that have probably underperformed. I can't really think of anyone off the top of my head because I'm just trying to think through Supercode for 11 things, but there wasn't really anyone that jumps out sort of to mine. They're coming off Hinger who was really, really, really under. You know, I think a lot of times it sort of goes into change of roles or change your teams with players and things like that. So I can't think of anyone to stop my head there. So we might just leave that and go to the next question that that's wrong with you. Next one's from Lionel, friend of the show, Lionel. Thanks for standing this one in again. Is there any standards from the injury later this year and has compared to 2024 and 2025? So a bit more global of a look here, Brian. Yeah, mate. I have been doing the run

52:30down on this. There's there's some big posts to come. Lionel loved love the questions and he's got one of the all time banging questions upcoming very shortly, but this is a great one too. What I will say while I've got some very detailed posts coming up, but just to give you a little taste. So there were 8% fewer games lost this season. So for anyone asking, is this the worst season ever? It's definitely not. So less games missed this year than last year. Same number of players injured, but time out per injury was a little bit shorter. It was the most games missed you to concussion this year over the last three years. So it was 98 this year, 75 last year, 88 year before. So not like a major increase, but still notable. One of the definitely the notable stats is South's Roth, the top of the injury ladder for the first time in three years, James. They were still right up there. I mean, middle of the season, they were still on top, but they pulled it back. Power had a bit of a bad run, so they came over the top of them there. Yes, still there,

53:362025 with 275 games missed for South is easily the worst for a club across those three seasons, because I think power will win at this year with around 200 or so. So 275 last year is insane. So by far the Finns are the biggest in Proovers. From last year to this year, they're down in second last in the latter, behind Shockora, Penroth, still the best. Here we go again, there's Grandhog Day, but yeah, Penroth's still the best there. And one of the coolest ones, I made the number one thing I have people say whenever they come up with, whenever I put the injury ladder out there, is they're like, oh, compared to Celery, it doesn't, you know, these numbers mean nothing. Tell me about Celery. I'm like, well, you go and get me the salary of every player in the game. Well, that's the biggest question, Brian, is the NREL doesn't publish player Celery's. So I'm like, I'm like champion. Oh, I mean, every time there's a comment, I'm like, no, you do it.

54:37You go and you do it. You've got the stats there. You go, like, I've given you the stats. You go find the salaries and do it for me. But what I will say is James, I've finally found, and it's not perfect, right? It's definitely not perfect. But this web, this page popped up on my Twitter the other day. It is called, or give it a shout out, capdramas.com. And it, I'm going there now. Yep, go there right now, because it has, it records every published salary. So in other words, you know, when it's reported in a, you know, in a news article or something like that. But then it also uses estimates, you know, of the salary cap left and, you know, where, where the players are in their performance and all that kind of thing. And it fills out the, the 13, well, whatever the salary cap is like 13 million or whatever it is, it fills it out. And all the salaries, look, it's about as close as we're going to get is what I'm saying. But it is a very

55:38impressive website. It's actually, the NFL version is called over the cap. And it is super detailed. It's fully reported. It's fully publicly available. And it talks about, you know, the structures of NFL, there's a little bit different because they set up with guaranteed money versus non-guantied money, cap-carried Ford and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a lot more nuanced there versus the NRL. But yeah, that's an interesting little one there, Brian. So capdramas.com. Yeah, it's not loading. It's not loading for me at the moment, fun. Yeah, it's loading for me. It looks like there's a little menu option there. Nice. But yeah, it's got like for every, for every player, it's got underneath it, like whether it's a published report or whether it's, you know, an estimate or, you know, what they've done with it. There's actually a lot more published, published reports, but like Ethan Stranger, example, it's a capdramas estimate. And they're, and they're range, I assume they're using some sort of AI or, you know, some sort of, you know, thing. And they're like, the range is 495 K to 850 K. So he's 675 K. So look, it's not going to be perfect is

56:40what I'm saying. But I finally got a website that has some form of salary cap indication. Which is great. So on the back of that, I'm doing up a post for the cost of injury per club. So in other words, you know, the salary cap is x amount. How much did it cost you? Once again, I won't give it all away here, but the eels are the top. They are the top of the injury ladder, and they are the top of the salary to injury as well at $3 million. Lost to injury this year. And the lowest James surprise surprise, it is the Penra Panthers. They lost $1 million to, and the Finns aren't much more than that. They're like 1.12, I think, million as well. So all the other clubs are kind of in that range. But I'm sure once that post comes out, there'll be someone with more problems that I didn't, you know, just only post starting 13 players or something. Yeah, it's going to be fun, but anyway, it's coming. That's an interesting one for sure.

57:44Yeah, it's really neat. And I think that's in my, you know, I ram a lot about this to you, off at all the time, about how is the NRL, the only competition that doesn't have a published player salary is compared to every other professional sporting league in the world. It doesn't make sense to me. It also seems to me why a lot of these salary cap dramas come up there. So good one, salary cap dramas. I like that. Brian, I'm going to be hot on that as we move forward. Next question comes in from Reg, they type in say with Lajfi Farni's history of injuries, is there anything to indicate it's going to be a recurring issue for the rest of his career or other and related, are they unfortunate injuries? What are we talking here with Lajfi Farni? The ones where he has like a broken thumb or something like that, definitely unrelated. But he has had that many, how many's now that they're definitely not, yeah, then they're definitely not unrelated. So it could be a recurring issue. Look at your, you know, your worst case scenario is like a Tom Treboi, which something like that. But as we've said with young players, Mitch Woods, they've got time to figure it out. They've got time. They're still developing, still growing. So yeah, I'm not writing off Lajfi Farni at this

58:46point in time, but he's definitely an increased risk of hamstring injury moving forward. Yep. Well, summarized last question comes in from Lajfi Farni, this is an absolute banger. Why did Link's Apollo get cancel Brian? What is the best link sense of all time to the boys on the Magic Span? This is epic conversation. Let's dive into this Brian. This is great chart, great nostalgia. Mate, I love your comment off air when this, when we were organizing this, you're like, geez, I think we mentioned Link's more than our actual sponsors. And I'm like, yeah, I'd probably agree with that. So shout out links once again, we're sliding into your dams. I'll do it again, because we need you. We need, we need you on the sponge officially. We'll cut up a montage. And they can't say no to that seriously. So when I was doing my research for this question, because I took this question as seriously as I took any of the other questions tonight, there are some banger Reddit threads from boys who grew up in the 90s and the thousands, which we did as well. And just for me, the photos of the lineup

59:51of links cans like up it up against your, you know, your bedside table and you had like five or six of them in a row, because you got them every time there was a present available, whether it's birthday Christmas, whatever. And you just had a line of different links cans. And the comments, like the top comment on one of them was like, oh, me and the boys used to get together and mix and match to create signature sense. And I'm like, oh man, that is just like, it's just that that is what it was like, because you thought if I can get that sent right, then then chicks will dig it. And if I can, if I can nail it, I'll be okay. And what great times and links definitely dominated, dominated late primary school, early high school for me, big time. For me, the Apexes links Africa. It's stood the test of time. It's still there. It's still going. It's one of the only ones are still going. I think the Apex for me or the top three are Africa, Java and Inca. They were

1:00:54kind of the three that I remember having every time. That was my signature sense, you know, a little path of those three. And I, you know, obviously you can tell James just was obviously a big attraction for the ladies back in year six, seven, eight, nine, ten, like yeah, they're only human at the time. But yeah, definitely Africa for me made 30 and I know, you know, I mean, in discussing it off air, you're exactly the same with this link stuff. It's so good. Yeah, Brian, we need to pay to picture here from what was happening at a societal level as well, that this was before, really before mobile phones, this was pre internet, pre social media. The only chance you had to impress a woman was to make your own signature sent from a links can. That was really all you had going for you had, you had a terrible chat. You had terrible looks at that stage of your life. So you had to like compensate with scent. And that's what we tried to do. And obviously, failed far, far more than succeeded. Let's put that out there as well. But yeah, what good reminiscing times and that's great. She out from my whole here. That's been my favorite question,

1:01:57nearly all year again. And I think to your point, the whole neutrinity were links Africa, links Java and links in car. They were by far the most popular sense getting around. There were other ones like links marine, Phoenix, accelerate, there's gravity and voodoo in there and I think as well, but they'll probably some of the lesser known ones. But I love your shout of like, oh, yeah, I had all my cans on my like beds or a drawer. I had them up and like, and I just would choose depending on the day, the way what I was feeling. And like, because the thing is, this is the best thing about it is they all smell pretty much the same. They weren't really that different, but you're just like, nah, nah, they're definitely different. And also, like no antiperspirant benefit at all. It was purely just like, drown out the body odor with just as much centers you can handle. The opposite for the girls at the same time, Brian, what was the impulse impulse impulse in pulse cans of deodorant, which was like, there was like impulse vanilla and then impulse like something else. And it was just a combination of that through high school. It was like cherry, maybe. Yeah, that's great pull. Actually, that's great pull by you. So there

1:03:00was boys wearing bulk links to the point where you could barely breathe anywhere in and around, like the lock the lockers and things like that. And then the girls would be just smashing impulse. And it was just probably just a just a bombardment on the sensors. But what a great share, Brian, what a good time. Thanks a lot for that question. That's really made me reminisce hard and just give people a bit of context to the difficulties of the teenage experience that me and Brian would have had respectively. Made I can guarantee you just in talking about it and thinking about it. Because I'm pretty serviced dishes when it comes to sports. So you know, if I wear a certain set of shoes and I, you know, scored 100, I'm like, well, I'm wearing those shoes now. Like, forever that was kind of, you know, how I, because I scored many hundreds, James. So that was a real thing that happened. But I can guarantee you and I like, I can remember a like an actual event where I wore a certain combo of like links to it. And like one of the chicks I liked spoke to me more than I was like, it's cause of the scent. Like I feel cracked the code. I know

1:04:07what it is. And so like for six months then, it was that was the combo that I had to wear. Because on that one day or whatever it was, blue light disco, she talked to me more than normal. And I was like, yeah, I figured it out. I've done it. I've finally done it. So mate, you're still dining out on it. So it must have worked. That's a thing. All these years later, you're still dining out. What a great story. That's epic. Yeah, mate. I did, that man. Good times for our tummy back. How good. Look, super coach, super coach corner. Mate, this is going to be really interesting. I want you to hit me with your score because it is an absolute behemoth. Yeah. What I also want you to do, you might chase me down with this score potentially. There is a, there's a very good score, mate. So you are a great bloke in round 27. About the only time you are a good bloke at the right at the end of the year. Hit me with your score. Hit me with where, you know, where you ranked. And then what are you going

1:05:08to do? Super coach, what's your approach? Yeah, I'd like to cover off this week, Brian, but yeah, pretty, beautiful as a prize and finish to the season for me to be honest. I was ranked 2481 going into the week. So again, same old story. I've been, I looked at on my phone and I can't remember when I was. I think I've been in between 2002, 2005, 100 since round seven. And I haven't moved up or down or sideways. It just, I should show that super coach is such a front running type of competition doesn't. If you can get to the lead early, you can hold on to things and you can just do some things. Well, but it also goes, show, Brian, you don't need to trade after round 22 because things like this can happen. So for everyone being like, oh, say if you trade till the end, I'm stupid proof that that doesn't have to happen. So don't listen to all those people that have been a self-control than me and Brian. So this week, I did score well. So I feel like I can really, really just get a bit arrogant here. It's the only time I've been able to be arrogant all year in from a Broncos lens, but from a super coach point of view, 1632. So one of those big weeks, I looped pain hearts. I had no halfbacks. So I didn't want to wait for the rest of the

1:06:09round because I was like, you know, what are people? Rest? What are people? I was just happy to lock in the loop because I was one short anyway. So I was like, well, look, 110. You'll have to do well to beat that. Who knows what's going to happen for the rest of the week. I was just locking the points to see what happens. So I landed with Brent Smith is my auto emergency. He scored me 64. So that was nice. So I had case of McLean and Cody Ramsay as the nice surprises for me on Father's Day Brian. So yeah, bit of a stomper of a score to round off the year. And again, I had the bare minimum in terms of numbers. I ended up being one short for the week, but just had a week where, yeah, case of McLean was the massive outlive for me who put up just a huge as week this week. So that was really exciting. So again, you know, I'll definitely get green arrows, but I don't think I'll be chasing you down to be fair mate. Like you were at sea. What's your total points? Can you figure that out? Let me just look now. Just humanly for you. So while you figure that out, I'll give mine. So I was 1343. I played with 15 this week. So I was pretty happy with 1343 with only 15 to be perfectly honest. I VC looped Kirby. I was ranked 658 coming into the week. So maybe I

1:07:14scraped into the top one K the one thing, which I'm very glad to shout out is that I finished as at the moment just in front about 13 points in front of Maddie of SC baller fame and maybe not much more than that. I bet 50 points ahead of the spy from SC playbook. So sucked in boys. Yeah, take that one. I won't mention all the people who beat me just those two boys can, yeah, can take it because yep, got one over them. Where did you, where did you finish total points? Yeah, so my total points was 36 080 was the one man. So you are, you're literally 40 points off me. You're going to jump right up. Oh, mate. Well, you ideal would be the the the the the Smunge boys both in the top one K James. Okay. That would be a little, you know, we can we can dine out on that. Yeah, then we're both super coach experts, mate. You're usually our super coach expert. Maybe we both can be next year. Yeah, we'll talk about it at our annual

1:08:18general meeting and just discuss our rankings because you know, like we always say you are, but your rankings, that's the measure of how good you are as a person and how good you are as a bloke. So what about the finals, Brian? What are we talking about with the finals? Can I hit you? Yes, with the worst thing in super coach that I've seen this week. And we, I know we've spoken about this, but the carry on about the baller kids haven't. Oh, yes. Yes. Is there a and look, I'm going to preface this by saying I am a massive nerd and also a massive loser, James, like granted, absolutely. But I've never seen bigger loser behavior than then the carry on with this. People like quoting terms and conditions for a fantasy football game. What are we doing? What, like what type of boot liquor society are we doing like quoting the rules for a fantasy football game

1:09:22because two kids and like, like, like, maybe people are going to say that, you know, we have worked with the baller boys before. So we're bias and blah, blah. But like, I could, I'm biased because I'm a dad, I reckon. I wouldn't care who this is. Like, and the context of this is we met Owen at Magic Brown. Hey, the little kid frickin love super coach like like, like, like, what's wrong? He bowed you up. I can't. What do you think about this? And this is like, I'm pretty well. You're like, mate, don't take advice on me. Just do your own thing. Yeah. Cause Matt, Matt Tommy's like, oh, yeah, my son's in first. I'm like, no, he's fucking not like what, like, what do you mean? He's like, no, no, no, like, rounds, rebels in first, like, show me thing. I'm like, what the hell? And this little kid, frost super coach. And am I biggest thing with it, which I cannot get over is this whole Albert is dad helped him with his side. Like, doesn't everyone get help with their sides? Do we not, like, do you not listen to podcasts every week and so and so tells you this guy's a good trade-in?

1:10:24Like, if I ring you up every week and I say, James, what, what, what play should I be looking to trade in? Is it no longer my team anymore? Cause you've helped me check. Like, what are we talking about? If there is a human being that is attached to an email address that wins super coach and it is so impossible to win super coach, get out of here for this whole like, poor clutching of like, oh, no, we like, we can't, but these got two teams involved in two teams. Well, what are you doing? I think, yeah, I like, probably, and Maddie would admit it, they like, they, I think they changed the name of the account at the last minute to try and win the 50k, which fucking anyone will, James, like, I would, I would do anything I can to try and win the 50k, but also you can, like, come on, you, you cannot be angry at anyone winning super coach for me. The, I reckon the only reason I would ever be pissed off at someone winning super coach is if they did, like, what they do in daily fantasy over in the US where they run like

1:11:27computer systems and they enter like, thousands of teams with all different iterations and blah, I'm like, yeah, if someone did that, I'd be like, your kid me. But even from a super coach, like the super coach, the company, I know they've done the right thing by their terms and conditions and all that kind of stuff. But is there a better story than two kids playing with their dad and winning super coach? I don't think there is. Because for me, I said to Maddie at the time, I'm like, mate, I'm infinitely jealous of you. If my kids ever show this much interest in super coach, heaven, the best. So how, like, that's my question is how are you supposed to play super coach with your kids and and because they're not going to do well because they're my kids and I'm shit. But like, if you are good and like Maddie is and how do you play with your kids? It is absolutely moronic. I just, yeah, I've gone on around. Yeah, yeah. I sort of, yeah, this

1:12:27very simplest form like it is, it's just a hobby and it's not a cool one. That's the thing is like, hey, we're losers. I said it. We're nerds and losers. I'm fine with that. It's the niche loser hobby that you just do to watch foodie and get along with foodie. Like, that's as hard as it is for me. Like when someone was like, oh, yeah, Maddie and these kids are in first, I was like, okay, that's epic. Field story. Love that. And I understand if there's like terms and conditions that news limited say you got to be this old to win this prize. Sure. Like, that's fine. And that's all I'll give. I'll just just blink at it and be like, okay, that's fine. Like, you know, that's the decision has been made. That's that's just what it is. Like, I wouldn't sort of have any arguments to or from. I do think it would be nice if they did in that winning the overall to say, okay, you did get the highest over all score. That's all fair and good, but you can't win the prize because you're fine. I'd be like, that's great. Just given like just a novelty trophy. I can't believe they removed them off the high. Yeah, I agree. That's average. Yeah, I agree. Like, I think there's still

1:13:29just a nice story to be made from this to go, okay, this is the team that scored the most points, but because they are this age, they are not eligible for the major prize, major prizes to this person. Oh, good. I can totally with it. But to be like, I know they're totally dispired from it and we're deep-registered to our count. I'm like, wow, it just seems a bit petty now. It seems seems just like a bit of a pedantic punish for the sake of just a hobby. And name me. I can hear the argument of, you know, shouldn't change the team name and stuff like that because there's money up for grabs. I just tend to think, like, news limited is good for it. If you can get that across the line and do it, or all fair or good, what I would say I would do, and this is me being very petty. This probably speaks to my sort of psychology and my internal sort of structural issues in my brain, Brian. But if I was maddy, I would probably, this and this probably can't happen. This is just a fantasy that I've been suppressing my head was like, I would probably do whatever I could to dispute the outcome of this. It would ever legally,

1:14:29legally geared ways I could ultimately bankrupt supercoach and then get ball to get out a bigger and better product and then take over the whole thing. That would be the ultimate, right? Like if you can just be like, well, if you're not going to let my kids win supercoach, I'm going to just lawyer up and derail this whole thing, ruin it for everyone. And then they everyone go over to his platform. That would be funny. That would be really funny. I mean, I'd still be there. I'm still going to play the hobby because I'm just like, oh, I don't have a model train set. I've got a supercoach app on my phone. That's just what that's the way I'm wide. But imagine that if you could be like, oh, if you're going to let my kids win, then I'll just lawyer up and do blah blah blah. I don't think there's any legal grants for any of that stuff. But it would be funny if you just like, okay, well, if you don't let me do this thing or this is just injustice or unjust, I'm just going to set the whole thing on fire. And that's what I'm going to do. Just burn the bridge on my way out and then bring it over and across the ball. And that would be really funny. I'll be like, that would be hilarious. What are you reckon about that? Sort of tinfoil-y sort of type thing, Ron? Bad behavior? Loose a behavior? At the end of the day, we've always been fans of shit hasry on the stage. Like always fans of it. Whatever you can do to get an edge, I'm all about it.

1:15:34So play on, yeah, I just think, I just think the fair enough supercoach came out and the like, yeah, they can't win it. And you just, and even I think Maddie has been on records and yeah, like we said, we probably couldn't win. But then yeah, everyone getting on their high horses have been like, oh, yeah, holy of them now. I'm like, you can, I can almost guarantee you, 90% of those people have entered a wife's team to try and win the weekly prize on a by-week million to like, yeah, it's, oh, it's been the worst. It's been the worst. Because I think I, you feel it more because I, I, I see my kids in that position, not the first, but the position of a one-of-place supercoach with my kids. And yeah, it's, I mean, it's been a nightmare. But anyway, supercoach finals, we just ran to for 10 minutes. Maddie, I'm sure you're the only one still listening after that big rant, but I hope you enjoyed it. My big thing is, mate, you just, because you're making a different team week by week, you don't have any trades to worry about. You do not stress risk,

1:16:37you chase upside. So for me, like, you don't go off the reservation with every pick, but like, for example, the trail, you just pick him every week. Here's a name to start. You just pick him, because even though there's an injury risk, if you get injured, you're trading out and you get someone else the next week and it's unlimited trades. I, I just think he's my number one option. And probably my captaincy option for next week. I think the, the rabbits are looking good against the knights. My hot takes are, I'm looking at like a Matt Duffty or to a picky over your more popular to desco drinky edwards. Potentially, particularly to desco and drinky who are not favorites in their games. I wouldn't mind, I think Matt Duffty's where I'm going to land. If they pick him, I don't know whether he's rested this week or not. But I think overall just with final super coach, you chase upside, chase upside. Don't go crazy. Maybe you go crazy in one position, but yeah, don't be afraid because of injury stuff. You just chase that upside. How would you feel

1:17:39about that approach? I like it. It's always the way Brian isn't, you always want to chase the upside. I'm just looking at the matchups and the bunnies scream out the team to sort of target. Don't they? I think the sharks as well. I think the sharks could handsomely dispose of the Cowboys too. I look at the worries and the dolphins as a little bit more of an unpredictable game. I think they could go a lot of different ways depending on probably conditions. I suppose it could be a bit of a groin-y type one. It could be a really high scoring one just giving it a later in the day game. Then they're against the Panthers with the Roosters. I think the Panthers will win that quite handsomely as well to be fairly honest. But the Roosters did rest this week. There is a possibility there. There's a few guys that are ready to lock and load. I think the obvious ones look to me like the rabbit-oats given the knights and I'd sort of humping. I think the sharks will do the same to the Cowboys down it. All they're at Aliens Stadium, not Ocean Protect Stadium. That probably makes me a bit less keen on the sharks. They have to play the biggest stadiums for the games. Do they? I'm assuming they can't do the finals there. Maybe that sort of

1:18:39turns out around a bit. Tell you what, sharks and Cowboys always have good finals games. How many good finals has there been with those two teams involved? There's been some awesome games, some awesome Tommy did in moments as well by the way. I wouldn't mind a bit of Tommy did. In that action just in case you're leaning into the still-consented Nicos or Nathan Clearies. Tommy did and could be ready for action for that one in the finals game. Love to be game Tommy did and so chasing upside. Dolphins outside backs probably the ones aren't they? I think there's some big upside there in a bad match-up so they may not be very attractive for people to sort of bring in because they might think, well, the wires are a good team. Maybe I avoid the Dolphins outside backs, but the Dolphins outside backs pretty much up proof. I think they can turn it on against anyone. They're going to be pretty much full strength next week. I kind of like a sneakers sell one on a left wing. If I'm honest, Brian, there could be a little bit of a little bit of a dabble there on someone. Yeah, I think something like that. We've seen Germaine Asako score 200 points this year. I even saw Greg Mars you score 200 points this year. So they're the kind of guys that I'm like, don't. I wouldn't just pick, you know,

1:19:42like even an AKP, you know, and this might come back to bite me as a, as a, um, a, uh, fins fan, but even if he scores three, what's he scoring like one? 100, maybe 110. Whereas I'm like, if Germaine Asako scores three, who knows what the hell he's scoring like there. Greg Mars, you know, Caleb Pongam might start going left, left, left, left, left, and all of a sudden he scores 150 or something like that. So chasing the upside would be our approach. Mate, that will probably do us for this week. We will have one more podcast for sure next week off the back of the finals games just to kind of update. And then we are off on two weeks holiday. We don't tend to do podcasts over that kind of period anyway. There's probably not enough content with found a way to rent and rave ourselves during our 20 minutes tonight, which is a pretty good effort. But yeah, any, and then we'll have them go on spongebob wards in the off season. But mate, well done. We finished very, very close in Super Coach,

1:20:46you know, hopefully both top one K and then we can both claim to be Super Coach experts. But yeah, mate, I'll talk to you during the week. And as always, everyone up, the mighty, mighty red cliff dolphin. This episode is brought to you by chat GPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about chat GPT work? It's the new way to use chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give chat GPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chat GPT dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plants. I see. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney Plus. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. A true epic and completely jaw-dropping. This is the only pure thing in this world. Return to Pandora on Disney Plus. It will be an adventure for the whole fam

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