Is a shellless turtle homeless or just naked?

Well its another year and the Dragons are once again looking like the snow in Thredbo - all gone by the end of September. But could the dragons just be like the September snow ie seasonal. could this just be a coaching tactic to bring forward their usual slump so that it doesn't happen on the October long weekend.

Their defence is still rock solid but the dragons attack has faded away from four trys a game to a mere two these days.

Maybe its time for the Dragons to have a long hard look at themselves and start to swallow some painful medicine - but what sort. Personally I would recommend Viagra as I hear that it will can get you past a semi.

But if the Dragons are no longer favourites who is, Panthers, Easts and Tigers both can't string together 3 good games in a row so how will they survive the fours weeks of the finals. Parra - well we all know whats happening there, they spent all their salary cap on Jarrod but he only fires every second game. Its not all bad for the the Eels but, apparently the new board of the Eels have opened a new special phone line for their many international fans to talk about their teams successes since the league went to the 10 meter rule - and that's 9861 0101. So if you are ringing from overseas dont forget to add the international code, so thats 1986 -then one nothing, one nothing, one nothing.....

Manly well they might be alright if it doesn't rain - so far this year they have lost every match they have played in the wet - never a good sign in a la Nina year. Still they should be a reasonable chance to win but provided they can finish 8th as so far this year they only seem to be able to beat teams higher on the ladder than themselves.

Titans - they are pretty much there by default and some good field goal shooters.

The Panthers may be a chance but they better hope that its not a windy day that will affect their kicking game as all their points come from high kicks, but it will be interesting if they win the comp as matt Elliott can shout the bar, then since he is so fond of high kicks he can tell the story about the Giraffe who liked long Island ice teas the Giraffe walked into the bar and shouts hey everybody the high balls are on me.

Anyway as you can tell I have no idea where this series will end, although I can certainly see a pattern forming in some clubs. So thus I end this rave with two of the more complex questions of our generation, why can't the Dragons win Semi finals? and do they give discounts to burns victims at the crematorium. basically no one knows we will just have to wait which teams have the least injuries leading into September.

What do you call a cow with two legs?

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else but, on Sunday I was watching the Manly Vs Tigers game while doing the ironing and I was left wondering how the hell did the Tigers make it into the top eight. Each time Manly got the ball within range of the Tigers line they scored, only once did they sucessfully manage to defend their own line. Is that the defence of a top eight side - clearly not. So how is it that the Tigers and the roosters have both managed to get top four ladder spots with for and against records that barely break even (or zero in fact for the tigers).

The answer to this mystery resolved itself when I heard about the Roosters playing Brisbane. You might think that with the draw the way it has two sides where strong sides play each otehr twice during the year once at home once away then they play the weak sides once. So in theory the maximum amount of time it should take to play teams in the stronger\weaker side of the draw at their home ground is two year... Makes sense doesn't it.

But thats not the case at all - thanks to the roosters game I managed to find out that not only do the weaker teams get an advantage of not having to play the stronger sides twice that the draw is structured to allow those weaker sides to play the stronger sides at their home grounds. This week the roosters played the broncos at Brisbane, when was the last time they played there - 2005 - five years ago.

So basically its no wonder teams like the roosters and the tigers are in the eight without having outscored their oppostion, while souths struggle to make headway.

A : Lean Beef