2025 NRL Grand Final Preview – Prop by the Sea: You gotta love footy!

 

 

First of all, I must give a big thank you do The Prospector for his work whilst I was away touring. I must say it was the only information I could get on league and I enjoyed the read each week. But now on to the more serious stuff.

I have really missed the Courier Mail Bronco headline, but I thought Monday’s ‘Golden Boot’ was quite appropriate given Reynolds’ fantastic sideline kick. No doubt about the Courier, they have stayed solid with the Broncos for most of the season and it now has come to fruition as both the men’s and women’s teams have made the grand finals. The women’s headline back in Page 44 was ‘Brisbane On Brink of 4th Crown!’

I will add this from my Round 1 report:

‘the Courier Mail goes into rapture around the Brisbane Broncos. Front and back pages where we have read so much about Madge and the boys, redemption, shirts on at training, Carrigan losing the VC, Hunt the buy of the year (of course I agree with that) and how they have never been more together as a playing group (new term for team). Even how many hookers they have! It’s been never ending but you gotta love it when the game gets back closer to the first round. Even more today as I meet my Editor’s timeline – ‘Staggs in Doubt’, ‘Fight to Retain No. 9’ and finally ‘Madge’s Broncs Can Win The Lot!’

 

Preliminary Final (now this is where you have really gotta luv footy):

3,00pm Thursday AEDT – Board plane at CDG Paris

5:00 pm Friday AEDT – arrive Brisbane airport.

7:45 pm Friday AEDT – sit down in room to watch Cronulla versus Melbourne. This was a game of great interest even though I was incredibly tired whilst I was watching it. Melbourne, as is their way, made very few mistakes and Cronulla just couldn’t seem to get past them. The game went try for try in the first half until Papenhuyzen scored a sensational try off a Munster kick. It brings back memories of Cronk to Slater. Hynes inability to kick goals did not help. In the second half, Cronulla certainly had their chances but the double whammy of Hynes knocking on when a try was almost certain, followed up five tackles later by a Trindlall strip that made no sense, and Melbourne were able to score and put the game away to enter their 11th Grand Final in 23 years of Bellamy’s tutelage. I wasn’t able to watch the press conferences after the match because I was tired but I did watch the next day and I thought Fitzgibbon gave a good lesson in how a losing coach should respond. The question remains around Cronulla as to whether they can go the next step and get into a Grand Final. They certainly played well enough but Melbourne just had too many aces. The return of Hughes and Papenhuyzen certainly made a difference, and they will be very hard to beat.

3.45 am Saturday AEDT – Wide awake watching RL replays.

9:00 am Saturday AEDT – I jumped in my car and drove out to Redcliffe where I watched four games of rugby league. The two Queensland rugby league community matches where men and women played in the City versus Country games, followed by the BMD women’s final and the Host Cup Men’s final. it was a tremendous day of rugby league and thoroughly enjoyable with City running out the winners in the two City/Country matches and the East’s women side running out victors over Burleigh in the women’s BMD final. The final game of the day saw Burleigh take on Norths in the Host Cup final where Burleigh ran out winners over Norths 22-8 in a high quality game. Burleigh took control late in the second half and were the better side. They now go on to play the Warriors on Grand Final day.

7.00pm Saturday AEDT– Sound asleep at home (finally)

4.45 am Sunday AEDT- What the hell? I should be asleep!

2:00 PM Sunday AEDT – I left home to travel up to Brisbane along with 54,000 other people to watch the Broncos up against Penrith, and what a game it proved to be. Penrith led 14-nil at halftime and I felt were a little unlucky given Willison could have been binned for 10 minutes for his cannonball tackle just before half-time. Most people knew that if the Broncos were to win the game they would have to be dominant early in the second half. Clearly the shifting of Mam to 5/8 and Hunt to hooker made a massive difference to the way the Broncos played. They scored two tries that were rather freakish in the second half before Walsh missed a very easy conversion, but from that point Brisbane looked the winners. Penrith simply ran out of gas to thunderous applause as the Broncos, through Reynolds’ golden boot, are now into their first Grand Final in Maguire’s first year. (I feel a bit for Kevvie.)

6.45pm Sunday AEDT- asleep!

 

Grand Final

As always, we are about to go on our annual Grand Final Tour and this year we have named it the ‘B2B Tour’ because we are heading from Bimbi in central NSW to Bondi to watch the game. The usual association of characters are in attendance with the Crabman, the Prospector and the Mahjong Hand all looking to apply their attributes over the weekend. The Mahjong Hand has a bit of dirt in central NSW and he has killed the fatted lamb and pig for us to eat on Thursday before we head to Bondi. I’m not sure if RITV will be in Bondi but if he comes across 4 gents in BRL jerseys from Brisbane Brothers, Wests and Redcliffe and Wests in Sydney he will have seen us again.

On Saturday we are off to the races and armed with my international racing skills picked up from Leopardstown recently, I expect to clean up. The Epsom is always a tremendous day before the Grand Final where Queenslanders should be everywhere and we are looking forward to our usual run of ifs, buts and maybes!

The Grand Final shapes as a very interesting clash as Brisbane attempt to overcome an incredible record that Melbourne hold over them. For me, I think of only one word – redemption – and I’m not talking about Brisbane making up for their loss in the 2023 Grand Final. I’m referring to the redemption of the Blackwater Junior Crushers greatest ever player, Ben Hunt, making amends for his 2015 Grand Final where he is unfortunately remembered for one mistake. I’m looking forward to seeing Ben receiving the Clive Churchill Medal at the end of the game as redemption is delivered.

I have looked over the line-ups and it seems to be miraculous that Brisbane is there. They played both finals at less than full strength and came from behind both times. In fact, against Canberra, we were on the SS Ulysses heading for Holyhead (don’t visit unless you have to) when we both got a text message as a wireless spot was hit. One said, ‘what a game, Canberra have won’. The other said, ‘What a game, Broncos are home’. We had to wait another 10 minutes to see the drama that had unfolded.

I can’t believe that Mam is not in the Brisbane starting line-up. I’m sure that as we get close to the game, Maguire will name Mam as he is an exciting player and Hunt offers a lot more from dummy half, especially in big games, than Paix does. Paix has not let the Broncos down with his efforts over the last four or five weeks but in big games, and Hunt has proved it on numerous occasions, and at Origin level, that he can deliver what is required. The battle of the two former Central Queensland schoolboys at hooker – Grant and Hunt – may well determine the match.

Carrigan back is a major plus and that will give Haas a lot more support I thought Haas was a little quiet in the first half last week but certainly in the second half when Brisbane needed him he grabbed the ball and took his team forward. Walsh of course is the enigma who on his day can beat any side, but the reverse is also true. He needs to be diamonds if the Broncos are to win and his positional play has to be spot on. If I can pick periods where his positional play is poor, I’m pretty sure Bellamy will be all over it. For Melbourne of course, their big 4 hold the key to the game. If they can get control of match early then it’s going to be a long afternoon for the Broncos. Melbourne has a hard working back row and their big front rower played his best game of the season last week, so the clash with Haas up front should be worth the entry fee. It is shaping as a great game and, as a Queenslander, we really can’t lose but I’m taking the Broncos to cause an upset of sorts.

 

Top Eight (Two left)

 Melbourne, Broncos

 

Fact / Stat for the day – Tale of the Coaching Tape

Bellamy 66 from Portland and Maguire 51 from Canberra, both played at the Raiders. Bellamy played 150 games (he came off the bench in the 1990 GF) and Maguire played 13 games. Bellamy was an assistant coach at the Broncos and Maguire was an assistant coach at the Storm. Bellamy has won 5 GFs and Maguire has won 1 GF. Bellamy has never been sacked, Maguire has been sacked twice. Bellamy was a plumber and Maguire was a school teacher before Rugby League. By my count, Bellamy has a 16-2 record against Maguire, with losses in 2013 and 2025; Broncos v Melbourne overall 15 wins, 43 losses, 1 draw. Over the last 18 games, Melbourne 15 Brisbane 2. Grand Finals Brisbane 1 Melbourne 0! Take what you like from that!!

 

You gotta love footy!

 

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