The Armchair Expert - NRL Finals Week 1

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In this weekly feature for LeagueUnlimited, our Armchair Expert runs his lazy eye over the weekend that was. Each round he'll look at the happenings of the previous weekend, and keep you up to date with the big issues like refereeing, social media and the current controversies.

This week, our Guru looks at ... all those, plus ref watch, and a wrap up of all the injuries and suspensions from the weekend. Let's get into it....

Performance of the Round

Penrith Panthers take a bow. Never said die against the reigning premiers on Saturday night at Allianz and it paid off in spades - the Mountain Men straight through to a Preliminary Final showdown with the winner of the Manly-Canterbury Semi Final.

The Panthers were down by six inside the final ten minutes but somehow found the resolve firstly to level the scores through some Watene-Zelezniak acrobatics, before a sneaky Moylan diversion created space for Jamie Soward to knock over one of the lowest and ugliest field goals in recent memories. All of this now has the rabid fanbase out west daring to dream, and so it should!

Further north, the Cowboys put on an early show to have Brisbane on the ropes, and not even a spirited second half could save the six-time premiers being eliminated by a side perfectly led by it's halves in Johnathan Thurston and Robert Lui. The Townsville side will fancy it's chances on Friday against the reigning premiers, who are still reeling from that heartbreaking loss to Penrith.

The Paul Carige Award for the Worst Performance of the Round

Manly and Melbourne have been powerhouses over a long time but both sides saved some pretty insipid performances for the big stage over the first weekend of the finals. While Manly were never expected to beat the Rabbitohs, they were down 40-0 before they could blink, and only saved face through four late tries. Compounding this are injury and suspension, and the men from the Northern Beaches will be pushing shit uphill on Saturday night when they "host" the Bulldogs at Allianz on Saturday night.

Speaking of the Bulldogs, they barely let the usually clinical Storm have a sniff of the contest in the southern capital on Sunday - begging the now common question - is the Storm's era of dominance finally coming to an end? Canterbury raced out of the blocks and Melbourne simply had no answers... even allowing for a brief second half comeback cruelled by a contentious video referee decision. Will the Storm still fire in 2015?

Surprise Packet

Um, where's the "Dogs of War" spirit been the last few weeks? The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs roared back into premiership contention with a quality display over the Storm, and now look to be the men in purple's bogie team - Melbourne haven't beaten the 'Dogs since Round 4 last year across four contests.

The Bulldogs now face a weakened Manly side and start favourite in a match that nobody was expected to take place. A win could put the Bulldogs just 80 minutes away from their second grand final in three years - and stranger things have happened...

Ref Watch

Plenty of conjecture about refereeing across the weekend as always, but there was one stand-out moment that had plenty of people talking - from the Storm-Bulldogs clash. The Bulldogs led 24-4 early in the second half, and the Storm were in the midst of what appeared to be a mini comeback. A hot-potato play from Melbourne saw a good twenty passes thrown, including two "six-again" calls after touches from the Bulldogs, before Sisa Waqa crossed under the posts. The on-field referees sent it upstairs to check the whole thing, including those "six-again" calls.

The video referee uncovered a knock-on from the Storm in one of those calls, which led to the try being denied and the purple faithful blowing up deluxe. Opinion was divided between the host broadcasters, with the live free-to-air commentators whipping up a frenzy about how far back the review had gone to find an incident that had already been ruled on. By comparison the delayed subscription television broadcasters widely agreed the correct decision - what did you think?

Bumps and Bruises

Pat O'Hanlon (Bulldogs) - fractured ankle - indefinite

The Naughty Chair

5 matches
Tariq Sims (Cowboys) - Grade 3 Shoulder Charge

1 match
Anthony Watmough (Sea Eagles) - Grade 1 Dangerous Throw

0 matches
Jamie Lyon (Sea Eagles) - Grade 1 Dangerous Throw
Ben Barba (Broncos) - Grade 1 Dangerous Contact - Unnecessary Leg Pressure

Around the Social Media Traps

After Tariq Sims was slammed with a huge 5 week suspension for his shoulder charge on Justin Hodges at the weekend, it drew comparisons to a more deliberate act in the Holden Cup. Twitter user "Boom Town McGhee" compared the NYC hit with John Hopoate's infamous elbow to Keith Galloway in 2005.

As always, come back next time for more analysis from the seat of my pants.

- The Armchair Expert

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