The Offseason Octopus
Have to get this week's Offseason Octopus (there's only a few more left cheeehoooo!) off to a flying start with a massive shout out to Manu Vatuvei for his selection in the NRL All Stars. Regular Nichey Niche Cache faithful will know that Manu is one of our favourite athletes, let alone NRL players and any recognition he gets is thoroughly deserved.
The rest of the NRL All Stars squad makes for pretty interesting reading. A few standout selections are Matt Moylan at fullback which is a huge nod of approval, as is the selection of other young guns Dylan Walker and Luke Brooks. The rest of the squad is highlighted by a who's who of seasoned NRL troopers but for me the halves pairing of homies Kieran Foran and Mitchell Pearce will provide plenty of excitement. It'll be one of the first times we get to see Foran and Pearce play together after hearing so much about them playing footy growing up in the same teams so hopefully we'll see some razzle dazzle.
To be honest though the NRL All Stars team isn't as exciting as the Indigenous All Stars, which has once again shown how important Australia's Indigenous folk are to Australian sport. A back line of Greg Inglis, Alex Johnston, Will Chambers, Justin Hodges, Josh Hoffman, Ben Barba and Jonathan Thurston just makes me foam at the mouth.
Two things - Barba at six, we'll get our first chance to see how Barba might play this season. We'll also see Tyrone Peachey start in the second row which is huge for the young Panther who has only impressed at Penrith and this All Stars game could take him to another level.
From the 'He's Indigenous?' files we have Kyle Turner from the Rabbitohs and Jack Wighton from the Raiders. They're two young players with plenty of talent who you wouldn't really automatically assume are Indigenous but they must have some of that good blood in their systems. Shout out to George Rose as well who will start at prop.
Things are still very much unsettled at the Manly Sea Eagles with word filtering out of the pipes that Steve Matai has once again asked for a release. The more we hear about it and yeah, well the more spin reporters put on it, it makes sense as Matai has taken some heavy pay cuts to stay at Manly and now is the perfect time to cash in on his ability. It's hard to argue that Matai is one of the best centres in the game which encompasses his skill as well as the way he plays footy which could easily push him up around the milly dollar mark.
Obviously we can't talk about Manly without spinning the yarn about Foran and Daly Cherry-Evans. I've changed my mind as often as my I change my undies, which is much more than some might expect and everything that I'm reading points to Foran leaving Manly. However, this is far less important as Foran will still play out this season with the Sea Eagles whereas Matai's departure would be more immediate.
Foran's likely suitor for me right now are the Eels, with the Eels able to draw on some Jarryd Hayne dosh as well as having former Manly assistant coach Brad Arthur as their leader and Anthony Watmough in the blue and gold.
Where do the Warriors sit in all of this considering they would love to grab Matai and Foran? Well with Trent Merrin also in the mix it's hard to see them getting all three, even two out of the three as they're all worth a fair chunk of the salary cap. The other thing here is that all three of these players are highly sought after, unlike say, Sam Tomkins who was only going to come to the NRL with the Warriors. But if the Warriors want to be serious contenders in the NRL, which they kind of already are with their squad, they'll need to snatch one of these fellas.
Lastly, I'm going to have to finish on a shitty note as another young NRL player is in trouble with the law. Dragons prop, or Under 20's prop who has been training with the firsty's, Addin Fonua-Blake is heading to the courts for assault, should I say common assault, no puns included there as shit like this is far too common in the NRL. What's worse is the Fonua-Blake was a Junior Kiwi and joins Joseph Tapine from the Knights as Junior Kiwi players to have been in trouble in the past 6 months. But while the young kiwi player aspect is bad, the fact that there's so many young NRL players that find themselves in hot water for their actions should be a huge cause for concern.
For some reason young NRL and Holden Cup lads are assaulting fellow human beings, as well as their female partners on a consistent basis and when you throw in all the alcohol related charges, shit gets worse. It's not a case of these guys giving the NRL a bit of a headache and some bad press, the NRL should see it as a major problem which needs to be solved as the common factor is the age of the guys who are in trouble.
The NRL Nines? I'll get to that bridge when all the squads have been named yo.
Love, peace and chicken grease.