There and welcome into the Mad Monday Podcast, brought to you as always by four and twenty PI. Is a perfect at home snack for watching rugby league. My name is saw Monnayowe and joined by the injured Torhu Hurley. Get a ben here you getting on, mate.
Boneur Monsieur Stewart. I'm very French. I'm very Olympics focused at the moment, also obviously the rugby league focus, but I actually wanted to start out with the Olympic focused trivia question. See if you can get it. Who's the only current NRL player who is a former Olympian?
Oh, a former Olympian. I was going to say, Mark Nawanga need to is over there with the Ossie seventh Steam and then he's going to play for the Roosters. Who is Oh well warbrockh.
Well dan it out? Yes, I thought I thought I was gonna trick you there, but yes, well wall break Now that's the I was in the rugby union sevens team New Zealand last last time.
Yeah, and he's got the Olympic rings on the forearm there so you can see it whenever he's playing. I've always wanted to get the Olympic ring tattoo, just to show people that went to the Olympics, like, you know, you could just get that tattoo at any point out you.
Know, anyone can get it. Yeah. Absolutely, Imagine how annoyed annoyed they would be that you just went in and got a cheap tattoo at the back of a bloody bus stop or whatever.
Yeah, I know, I've got to mate. This is his second Olympics. Now. I imagine he would be absolutely for years if he saw me rock up to the pub with an Olympic tattoo. That's kind of why I want to do it. But anyway, we're not here to talk about Olympic tatoos. Were here to talk about the wires and they got up twenty eight sixteen over the Tigers. You and I commentated this one being are we the headlines this week? Of all the comments on social media and that have been like, oh jeez, relaxive R and
you beat the wooden Spooners. But I actually I don't see it that way. I'm more excited about it than I think those commenters are.
Well, look, you know we went down by sixty points to the Titans. Who are I think second to last. So you know, you've got to take the wins. You've got to enjoy the wins. And yeah, as you say, we commentated it, and it was a pretty scrappy game and not necessarily the prettiest win that the Warriors have ever had, but we'll take the two all day.
Yeah, And I've got to be honest, despite how scrappy it was, twenty eight to sixteen is sort of the score line that you would have predicted for this game. And I think it was just that there were massive stretches where it looked really messy. Then we let in
a few sort of soft tries. But like I was saying heading into the game, all I wanted was for the Warriors to win this one and then just for us to have a week of a Warrior's win, you know what I mean, Like just because let's be real, we've got to win every game now from here on out to the end of the season to make the playoffs. So let's just enjoy this week and knock it to ahead of ourselves because the dark times are coming.
Oh. Look, I've had lots of great street manner in the last couple of days from people who listen to our commentary, and you know, people just saying, you know, all it is is knowing more in a row, and that's you know, let's live in hope for a week. You're absolutely right. This is a very specific bubble of hope that we're in for the next five or so days. So just enjoy it. We're standing at the bottom of Everest.
We've taken about half a dozen steps up and there's and there's a lot more to do, but yeah, let's just enjoy it while it's here.
Yeah, it's we're talking about it in the commentary. If you didn't listen, you know that we are standing at the bottom of Everest. As you said earlier, we need to climb it. Ten games in a row, we need to win, and look, that does seem unlikely, but if it's going to happen, it has to start with a win. And that's exactly what happened on the weekend. So we need to really just take that one, don't we as
a country, and just really really basking it. And you know, I'm not sure away from the fact that yet we're going to need the oxygen tank very very shortly. But as it stands right now, we're full of hope and optimism.
Yeah, can we get any Nepalese players into the side. You know that seemed to help ed Hillary is he had, like, you know, probably the most famous Nipalese person ever with him. And yeah, maybe maybe that's an untapped market. The Catman do rugby league scene. I'm not sure how healthy it is.
Well, if they came down to sea level, you know, their voto capacity would just be through the roof. If I ever told you my Edmund Hillary.
Story, No, but let's let's do that right now.
Okay, my stepmother is a chef and back in the day she worked in restaurants in christ Church and one day Edmund Hillary came through and she got to cook for him. And so when she was finished cooking the meal, she said to the you know whoever, the waiter or whatever, I'd like to take this one out to eat if I could. So she takes it out to him, this meal, and she takes a five dollar note with her and a pin and she gets Edmund Hillary to sign a
five dollar note. And her mother was staying with her this weekend, so she took the five dollar note home, showed everyone, put it on the table. She goes back to work. Day. After she comes back, it must have been like a Sunday or something. The five dollar note's gone and she goes, mom, have you seen that five dollar note that I left on the table. She goes, oh, yeah, I put that into the pokes last night.
Oh wow.
So somewhere in circulation there is a probably at the christ Church Casino, there is a five dollars signed Edmund Hillary note.
I guess. Yeah, there's not too many other people that can sign the notes. I mean, obviously Queen Elizabeth could have at the time, but everyone else is dead. So yeah, that's pretty rare. That is pretty rare.
With doesn't even win either, don't even have to feature, you.
Know, look, just to slightly get back into rugby league, no excuses. But there was a late try there to the Tigers, which probably made the score line slightly flattering. And the other the other thing I would say is that back line had only two players in it that are probably first choice players of position.
Were ours our Yeah, oh, speaking of that one player that was playing at a position though, hey, Roger looks phenomenal, didn't he did?
He really? Did? You know? We've got two first class fullbacks and whatever. You do with them. You can't have two fullbacks, so someone's going to be playing out a position, and weirdly, the combination that seemed to work best was when Chance went into number six.
I know it's just, but it's been so weaby to just stick with the players that he's got. He said from the start, you know, Chance is our fullback and he's not going to waiver from that. He doesn't waver from any of the decisions that he makes. You know, he sticks with them, even right down to the to the reserves, which we'll get into it in a second. But there's been a lot of talk this week, as it has all season, Roger has to be our starting fullback. And I've got to be honest, I'm in that camp.
I think Roger has to be our starting fullback. And I know everyone says old than what about Chance. I don't know. I think we need to figure that part out, but I think Roger has to be our fullback both defensively and offensively. He was excellent.
So here's what you do. You put Chance back into six and Chanel Harris Devita into the fourteen. Jersy coming off the bench. He had a vastly improved game, by the way. Yeah, ninety eight points on super Coach, of which he has certainly not achieved any other time this season.
No, absolutely not. Yeah, Roger had a few great runs. Obviously, the two try saving I don't know if they tackles or got to the ball first sort of situation. I just think, I don't know, particularly if we drop one of these next few games and then our season is over, we can't make the eight anymore. Just give us something to cheer for, you know. And I think Roger at fallback is that. But like I said, he sticks with
his decisions and he doesn't play. How many games this season have we seen where we've only played like three subs and one dude's just sat on the bench entire game. Diver was in the group chat straight after the game on Saturday morning morning, pouring over stats, and he said that Liquor Halasima only played eight minutes and Jazz only played seventeen.
Now.
I know Jazz is coming off a hamstring injury, which I asked him about last week, But why, why, why does where we stick with these They seem bizarre, don't they?
The rotations, I mean, I think the most damaging injury in all of sort of Warriors law. Is your broken heart that that Jazz caused you when you asked him about that fake injury.
The thing is, and I've addressed it. I've addressed it since then. I think I'll come to terms with it. The thing is that I commentated all those fucking games that he played like this. What it was was I over prepared. They swapped the guests at the last minute, and I did. I did bump into the girl that looks after the partnerships with the Warriors, so she's our contact there, and she goes, I said, oh, did you see that video? She goes, yeah, I approved it. I said,
I sort of wish you didn't. I said, if it makes fee any better, I've lost a lot of sleep this week, she said, so have I.
So look, I know we're getting on very off track. But a few years ago I interviewed members of the rock band Weezer, including the leitza at Rivers Como and the keyboardist in bass player Scott someone I can't remember his last name anyway. I said to him, so, Scott, you've only been in the band for the last three albums and he went no, And I went, oh, sorry, four albums. He went no, and I went the other way and went two albums and he went five albums. Oh.
Look, while we're off in the weeds, I had celebrity shift Josh Emmitt come into the studio one day when I was on Hodak. You had no idea who he was, and he'd made a yogurt for skin cancer and that was all the information I had. And he walked there and he said and I was like, so, like, do you put it on your skin or do you eat it? Like what's the go And he goes, well, no, you eat it. And I said, so have you what's your experience of skincareer He's like, no, I don't. I haven't
had any. I was like, I could not figure out in real time who this guy was or why he had a yogurt. And it wasn't until he walked out in someone went is a celebrity chef and it's a fundraisers.
Like, oh, okay, look, you can tell that this was not necessarily the most exciting game in rugby league that we've ever witnessed. Because we've covered Edmund, Hillary Weezer, and Josh Emmont so far on this podcast. But look, just to slightly wrap things up, Yeah, it is weird that Web's use of the bench. He has been weird all season. And look, I'm not sure who's coming back from injuries next week, but it seems to be just an ever increasingly difficult puzzle to solve.
Yeah, it is. It's out of control. Our injury waters is ridiculous. So the team that they named tomorrow tomorrow will be very interesting to check out. Just quickly before we do go to a break, how do you think we'll go against the Eels this weekend? It's Friday night game again.
Well, the Eels have had a very similar season to us. Like, you know, if you look at the Eels team on paper, it looks incredible, and you know, at times they've played some great football, and you know, two seasons ago they were in the Grand Final, so they've kind of been relatively unlucky a little bit like there are. So I actually think it's a really good matchup. I'd love to take those two points, but unfortunately I see a close loss in our future.
Sad And so all right, we're going to take one quick break just before we do the four and twenty four pack price pack each month the Mad Monday team of giving away four tickets to Warriors games and four and twenty five vouches. If you want to enter that, just text the monthly keyword to three two three six. Just a couple of days left in this month, and the text keyword is spit, So text spit to three
two three six to be in to win. We'll be right back all right now it is time for the Stonker of the ram and the Stalker of the round ended up being a bit of a blow up, but we're decided by halftime in this game that this was already going to be the stonker and it was the
Broncos the Bulldogs. Over the weekend, that game was out of control basically from the outset and throughout that game forty one points to sixteen in the end in favor of the Bulldogs, basically putting a line through the Broncos. But being that game was just end to end, from whistle to whistle, was it.
Yeah, So the commentary kept talking about the fact that it was a real strategic move to move the ball wide by the Dogs because apparently the Broncos bunch up on defense early in the early in the tackle count and I just love that. I love that there's that level of strategy going into these games and it really worked.
And there were times there was comparisons to late nineties canber Raiders sides and things like that, like the Dogs were just playing fantastic looking football and yeah, they look are there? Are they a real chance this year? That's what we're gonna ask us about the Dogs.
Well, we do, because if you look at the table so far, the Dogs of War, they are on twenty six points. They are in fifth, so they're just a shade outside of the top eight. Broncos all the way down in thirteenth. I still thought that the Broncos were going to win this. I think partly because of you know, recency bias from watching them last year, partly because the TB had them as favorites, partly because I didn't believe
in this Bulldogs team. But then what I watched on the weekend was the team that was just like, fuck it, we're going to have a crack. They sort of played like the Fiji and Drew and Rugby Union with it. It's like we're going to run this from everywhere, whether it's a coach killer or not. And obviously it wasn't because Sereraldo was, you know, saying at halftime that's exactly what they wanted to do. And what it did was it forced the Broncos into trying that shit as well.
They had to because all of the stuff was being thrown at them. Bronson Sherry was doing chip and chases that fell a skeleton out on the and on the right wing was causing absolute mayhem. And then all of a sudden, the Broncos got sucked into a game that that wasn't really their game. They had that chip and chase with Catoni Stags that was incredible where he ran the link basically the length of the field off like the third or fourth kick. Reece Walsh kicked the forty
twenty from about thirty meters out. It was just incredible. But I think it just I think they hurried the Broncos up a little bit, and I think that teams sort of take on the personality of their best player, and the Broncos' best player is Reece Walsh, and he is prone to doing his nut every now and then. You know, he'll lose his head from time to time, and I think hurrying them up, they sort of showed
the blueprint there. Not that the team in thirteenth needs a blueprint to beat them, but I just think that it really dictated the way that they're going to play. I would love to see the Warriors player a bit more like that. Just have a crack.
Well, that's what the That's what they used to be known for, right, the Warriors. But you know, like moving the ball and big physical presence and yeah, I certainly haven't seen much of that this yet. But what has
happened to the Broncos? Like, I know there's very little sympathy amongst our mad Monday Crow for the Broncos, but it's just something to be said that they're like slightly unfairly disadvantage because of the origin period, Like it's not only the weeks that the games are and yes they do get by rounds because of the split rounds during those weeks, but it's the week before and it's the week after as well. So I don't know, is that that they lose you know, six seven players.
Yeah, potentially you could argue that because the Cowboys have been in the worst position of being not that great despite being in the top eight, but also losing a lot of players to Origin, so they've had a bit of a dip to But then what would you do, like not not let their players play in Origin.
I honestly don't have the solution, but it is, yeah, it does. It's sort of it started with Origin, didn't it. The Bronco slide and also you know, and some key injuries as well, but they've never recovered and I think their season's over there.
Well, I would say that they've had again a similar season to the Warriors, who were great last year, and then for just various minor little reasons, haven't fulfilled their potential this year. I won't make you guess I was going to, but I won't. Their points differential the Broncos is exactly zero, so that, yeah, they're the only team in the camp with exactly zero's the points stuff, So
it's obviously they're not actually that bad. They just haven't been able to finish those games, very similar to the Warriors.
Ours is only negative twenty two, isn't it? It is just which is bagger all across you know, nineteen games or whatever.
No, exactly the teams above us, the Knights minus ninety seven, the Dragons minus ninety two, the Raiders minus seventy one. But unfortunately it's very tough for the Warriors because of the draw and obviously the ten losses. But we're on twenty one competition points so far. You've got to be on twenty four this round to be in the top eight, and so the best we can do if we win this weekend, the best we can do is leap frog
the Knights, which puts us into eleventh position. So it is a very very steep climb to base camp for the Wires going forward. Not really too many surprises in the top eight as we look at it. I think the Cowboys are probably the only one that surprises me in there at the moment.
Yeah, they've had a couple of close wins in the last two weeks which have kept them in there. I mean they were I think they were unbeaten up to four rounds and then had a massive dip and yeah, but there were a couple of blowouts on Sunday, Whilch just show how good Penrith is by the.
Way, Oh my god. Yeah, absolutely, the Storm still on first, Panthers and second, but arguably the best team in the comp at the moment. Rooster's Shark's still in top four, which I find just because Nico has been out a little bit. Surprising Dogs, Cowboys, Seagulls, Dolphins and a long way back the Warriors in twelfth. All right, we're gonna take one more quick break. When we come back, it's time for another episode of Hurley's Heroes. Right now, It's time for Hurley's Heroes.
Okay, welcome to Hurley's Heroes. And I've gone with a French theme this week because, of course the Paris Olympics going on at the moment. Rugby league not featured in the Olympics. But of course France is a proud rugby league nation. I think they've been at every single Rugby
League World Cup. They don't necessarily do that well, but they do have a professional team, the Catalan Dragons, that play in the Super League, so you know, arguably a little similar to New Zealand, and they've got one professional team. So what I thought i'd do today is talk about a French player who's played in the NRL. I was
born in Nabon, France. I played over three hundred games for the Catalan Dragons and twenty five tests for France, many as captain, but also twelve games for the Sydney Roosters in the twenty fourteen season, and I scored two tries. I play front row or edge ford and I am the current assistant coach for the Toulouse Olympic team. Am I number one? Dimitri Pello, two Bevan French? Three Remi Casti for Jerome Gasse or number five Lee where we didn't Raian.
Ah three hundred games for the Catalan Dragons, that's incredible and twenty five tests for France. It's funny when NRL players just pop up over there there in that French competition. I don't know. I'm all at sea. I don't think it's Leeui We than Ryan Bevan French seems too obvious. So now I'm down to Dimitri, Remy and Jerome. I'm going to I cannot remember a man playing for the twenty fourteen Roosters that fits that description. I will go.
Remy Gusty, Well, you've got a bang on the on the head there, well done. Yes, there's actually a bit of a tradition between France and the Roosters. I think the only connection I can see is that they have the same logo, A Rooster. But there's been a couple of players that have played for France and for Sydney City. But of those other ones on the Dmitriy Pillow played five games I think for the Dragons and Jerome. See, he played a handful of games for Canberra Bevan French.
I just threw that at one in there for a laugh. He's indigenous Australian, so he's got nothing to do with France whatsoever. But yeah, no, Remy Castein's one of the greats of French rugby league.
Actually yeah, it was just an absolute out now, I guess from me, But yeah, three hundred games of Calin and Dragon's powerful, powerful stuff in.
Two stints, so he played like one hundred and forty games, then came and did that one season at the Roosters and obviously didn't play the whole season because he only played twelve games, and then went back and played another one hundred and sixty odd games for Catlan.
Rugby league legend in France. I guess if you were going to come over from France, the only place you'd want to players in BONDI to be fair, only place you'd want to love at least just before we go. There was a post that went out this morning that really caught my eye that I wanted to discuss, and that was from the Warrior's actual Instagram page, and it's a photo of Narni Mappy with the quote I came back and watched Captain's run and it definitely lit a
little fire to finish off what I started. So we'll never know what will happen. Hopefully my agent can get some stuff sorted. I'd like to come back now. Usually where there's smoke this fire, but if the club itself is posting.
This, yeah, that's I think that's a pretty good indication that he's on his way.
Yeah, obviously could always do with some more players. But Narne lo MAPI, what are the all time hard done by by the All Blacks sort of players? You know? I think he was basically basically told you're probably not going to be you know, you'll be in and out of the team for the rest of your career. So he's like, bugger, I'm going to go over to France
and make millions And now, I don't know. Do you think that players are still coming back because of the success from last year, like James Fisher Harris and the players that we've been able to get.
I think there's something to be said for that. But I also just think, you know, we play in front of sold out crowds every single week, and you know what, are we fourteenth on the table? You know? I just think, no matter what the results are this year, we are still riding high on that very good season, and I think, yeah, the Warriors brand is still on the app despite you know, this less than successful season so far.
And just finally before we knocked this thing on the head, Saturday afternoon, I went down and watched our very own notorious pants band, Joel Harrison playing for the Mount Albert mad Dogs. They played against the Seattle two Roosters and they won. Did you see the video of the Pantsman getting up to score a try?
No? But I have talked to Pantsman quite a lot about that competition, and let's just say, there's no bunker and so there's there's a lot of a lot of physical stuff that goes unseen by the reef in that comp So he's a proper hard man. Is the is the pants Man?
Yeah? No, he well he's about six foot seven. He latched onto a bomb and just dotted down for a try there ended up blowing out the Chatter two roosters and then they're into the final next week. Pants Man's buggering off to Europe with the family, though for a holiday for like six weeks. He won't be there for the game.
Oh wow, leave your team in the latch, pants Man.
I know what a lovely leads. But anyway, shout out to the Mad Dogs, shout out to the Pantsman, and shout out to you being early for joining us again on the Mad Monday Podcast. Enjoy the rest of your week, mate.
Yeah you too, and yeah, look forward to you guys calling on Friday night.
I believe I think it's Die and Chris and I think they may even be out there at the game as well, so yeah, keep an eye out for that one. We'll put the coms out later on this week. Thank you very much, and we'll see you on Thursday for another episode of the Mad Monday Podcast.
And Australia without Rugby League, He's not Australia.
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