THE BIG 5 - NRL Round 6
Chris Walker, Willie Mason, Cronulla, Brisbane’s tough draw and Manly’s unbeaten start. These are the 5 big topics of NRL Round 6
5. Does Chris Walker deserve another chance?
Chances are the Titans will not put the knife through his career, this time. It’s difficult to comprehend why we are hearing about Walker’s apparent anxiety condition now and not two or three indiscretions ago. His saving grace is the fact he is a hell of a nice guy. When he’s not boozing. He probably doesn’t deserve another go, buy at least he’ll have no-one to blame but himself if he blows it again.
4. Is Manly as good as the ladder suggests?
Their draw has been kind, but Manly’s defence has been superb. 52 points in six games. Is this 2007? Considering Orford, Menzies and Matai have missed the majority of 2007 to date, the Eagles have got by with limited attack. They’ll only get better. A hit list of Canberra, Wests Tigers, Gold Coast and the Roosters is hardly a premiership threatening crew, but what we have ascertained in this run is the Eagles can win games, tight games, without Ben Kennedy. That was the question mark.
3. Is two games in five days unfair on the Broncos?
When the dates were allocated weeks ago for this round and next, the Broncos immediately complained that playing the grand final rematch on Friday on the back of a Sunday night in Newcastle was grossly unfair. With a late finish and a long bus trip, Brisbane were made to endure an overnight stay before heading home. Basically the equivalent of playing a Monday game. They have four days to recover. Yes, unfair, but in an age where teams play when television demands, it is simply of hazard of the job. Short turnarounds are par for the course nowadays, although this turnaround would seem ambitious, even for the Broncos.
While Brisbane management have every right to complain about their fate this fortnight, they will have the coziest draw of any team this season. Channel Nine has almost put a lock on the Broncos playing Friday nights so they can go live into Queensland, which means a steady diet of seven day preparations and a comfortable monotony. A fate other teams can only dream of.
2. Is Cronulla a contender?
This is certainly not the Sharks of old. A rock solid defensive unit, conceding just over ten points per match, Cronulla will grind it out with many teams and win in 2007. They are 3 and 3, a mediocre mark. They’ve been better than that. A dubious video referee’s decision cost them victory against Gold Coast, while a bit of luck against the Tigers would have them 5 and 1. Like the Sea Eagles, the draw hasn’t been all that demanding. It will be fascinating to see Cronulla against the Melbourne’s and Manly’s and Bulldogs. If the opposition is off, any opposition, the Sharks will exploit it.
1. Can Willie Mason reform?
He is certainly saying the right things. In an interview with 2GB’s Ray Hadley, he appeared genuine and contrite. Right now it’s all good PR, nothing more. We need to see a long stretch of maturity. Willie’s greatest attribute is teammates, coaches and opponents who constantly vouch for him. The Willie we see is not the real Willie. We forget he is still a relatively young man, so he deserves to be given room to grow up.
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Couldn’t find NRL complaints section so I sent it to this one. I have also sent this story to A Current Affair and Today Tonight.
09.05.2007
On the 21.03.2007 State of Origin tickets became available to the public. It stated each person could only purchase 6 tickets. I was at work so my sister and her friend met at Ticketek at Carindale shopping centre where they were given a ticket to line up. They were issued with ticket number 135. They waited there for about 20 minutes but the first customer was still being served so they then decided to go to the food court where they could log onto the internet and possibly buy tickets with a faster process. My sisters’ friend logged on without any problems but my sister had problems getting into the site so they both used the same login. We needed nine tickets so, my sisters’ friend bought 4 tickets on her credit card and my sister bought 5 tickets on hers. Both lots of tickets being under the 6 tickets allowable per person.
On the 13th of April my sisters friend received a letter from Ticketek stating that we had breached the conditions of the sale by purchasing more that 6 tickets and that any tickets we purchased over the 6 ticket maximum have been cancelled . We phoned Ticketek regarding this and when speaking to Karina she said the tickets won’t be cancelled, Ticketek will call and say they are going to cancel the tickets but to just explain to them that they were purchased on two separate credit cards and it will be fine and they won’t be cancelled.
My sister received her bank statement last week and she realised the cost of 3 tickets had been refunded back into her account. We made another call to Ticketek and we were informed that the NRL had changed the Terms and Conditions. We assume the condition that has been changed is this: “A Ticketek account or a Debit or Credit card which has already been used to acquire the maximum allocation of six (6) Tickets cannot be used to order any further tickets. When the tickets were first purchased my sister and friend do not recall seeing this stated in the terms and conditions. From what we can gather this is the section that was changed after we had purchased our tickets and received confirmation that the tickets had been accepted and the money had been debited from the accounts. No phone call was made to us at any stage, informing us that the tickets were going to be cancelled.
The tickets we purchased were number 36-40 Row 69 Section S711 and 27-30 Row 73 Section S717 for State of Origin 1. However, so far the only tickets we have received in the mail are, ticket numbers 78 and 19 Row 51 Aisle 506 for State of Origin number 3. How they figure that, I don’t know.
Another call to Ticketek to advise them they have sent to wrong tickets. We were informed the tickets would have to be brought back into Ticketek into the city or sent in by registered post. We then informed Ticketek, if that was the case we will be compensated for costs of fuel and parking or be refunded for the cost of registered post. We were then advised that normal post would be accepted. We also asked about our nine State of Origin tickets and were told a complaint would have to be put in writing to them and the NRL which is what we intend on doing. We also asked about the tickets we were supposed to receive and were informed we would not receive them until the others have been returned. We also asked why we hadn’t received our other tickets and they weren’t sure and we would have to go in and sought it out as they are not sure what has happened with out tickets.
09.05.2007
It is now one week after the 2 tickets for State Of Origin 3 have been returned to Ticketek. Today in the mail our friend received 2 tickets. Would you believe it, they are both for State Of Origin 3. Yet again they have stuffed up and sent us the wrong tickets and we are only 2 weeks away from the game. Another call to Ticketek to find out what is happening with out tickets. We were told the supervisor would try and locate our tickets and give us a call tomorrow.
It really shits me because they are such a big company they don’t give a shit about the smaller people in the world. Each time we have contacted Ticketek we get put in the too hard basket and no-one really wants to deal with the problem they created. They just hope that eventually you will accept their stuff up and go away. We are not going to. As expected there is not a group of 5 seats together available. My suggestion to them is to make room in a corporate box or down near the side line. You made the mistake so you fix it.
Basically what it boils down to is that we bought the tickets correctly and have the confirmation receipt. NRL changed the Terms and conditions and cancelled the tickets. No-one at any stage contacted us inform us of what had happened. They then re-sold our tickets that we had bought.
Thanks
Trish Mayes