The Grand Final replay, the Broncos return to the winners’ circle as the Raiders and Knights crash out of contention. And, can you believe we already have our 2nd winner for 2025.
GF Replay
The round started off with the Storm taking on the Panthers in the 2024 GF replay. The Storm got their revenge, well if winning a regular season match vs the title is a form of one-upmanship.
The game itself was great with both teams showing they are premiership contenders. The stats at one point were almost identical.
The Storm hit an early 14-0 lead which included Panthers’ playmaker Nathan Cleary being ruled out with an HIA after a sickening collision with Storm halfback Jahrome Hughes. The Panthers did hit back to go down 30-24 which makes you think they probably would have won if Nathan stayed on the field. Panthers’ half Jack Cole stood tall in what would be his best game for the club.
The aftermath of the collision is Nathan is automatically stood down for next week’s match against the Bunnies while Jahrome will miss at least 2 weeks with a broken hand.
Battle Of God’s Country
When you speak to both Cronulla and Manly supporters, they both claim their home territory is ‘God’s Country’.
More like ‘Blacktown by the sea’ but that is not where their comparisons end.
Both teams are constantly penciled in as the 4th team to make up the Top 4 to have any chance to win the Premiership.
Both teams ran up big scores in the 1st half and that was it. The Rabbitohs and Raiders won the 2nd half and neither of the beach teams will trouble the likes of the Panthers, Storm or Broncos.
But we’re only three weeks in. Who will make up the all-important Top 4 finals spots?
Best Penalty of the Round
This video says it all.
In Other Games
- The Warriors were too good against the Roosters in Wah Town.
- The Broncos won the ‘Battle of Queensland’ over the Cowboys.
- The Wests Tigers jump into that all important 4th spot on the ladder with a come from behind win over the Dolphins. Cheer on Tigers fans.
- The Eels won every stat except the most important one, being the scoreboard, going down to the Doggies. Zac Lomax carried the Eels.
- The Titans open their account for 2025 against the Knights
- The yet to win Dragons move up to 13th on the ladder courtesy of a bye
Round 3 Results
Round 3 Stats
| Standouts Correct | 48 |
| Standouts Wrong | 2 – Chunka & blakey94 |
| Round High Score | 12 – Craig Young’s Love Child |
| Round Low Score | 1 – blakey94 |
| Average Score | 4.5 |
| Biggest Mover | Craig Young’s Love Child (up 26 places) |
| Biggest Drop | Bart Simpson (down 35 places) |
The Standout
What a difference a week makes!
Last week four correct. This week just the two were wrong.
Congratulations to Chunka & blakey94 for this honour. There is always next week (well, until Round 27).
Main Competition
Well, well, well, we have another perfect round that sees Craig Young’s Love Child rocket to 2nd spot with Robert Cook’s reign of terror reduced to four points.
MB and Panthers29 hold steady in 3rd and 4th places respectively with Runner doing a runner into $60 at the expense of gdadisho.
Bart Simpson Weekly Jackpot
If you haven’t worked it out already, we have another winner.
Congratulations Craig Young’s Love Child for being the smartest Tipster in Round 3.
Craig Young’s Love Child is also officially the longest handle/alias in Footy Tipper history. I know because I had to resize the fields on the Tipsheet and Stats. C.Y.LC. has also been known by other aliases including one when he won the competition. But I will let him add that in the comments below.
Finally, please make sure you submit/email/sms your tips in before cutoff. There is nothing worse from our point of view than to see you miss out.
24 rounds to go!
Good luck with your team and selections this week.
-Rob
The Creator
Image(s) courtesy of: NRL on Nine, Fox League, NRL.com
