THE DAILY MOJO by Adam Daniel

Another shocker week for me, with only 2 from 8 correct picks. I’ve finally recovered enough to write about the Friday night game which started my abominable weekend of tipping – had it been any other two teams playing I would have thought it was one of the best games of football with one of the most captivating endings I had seen in a long time; but the fact it was the Broncos gut-punching the Eels with a match winning try after the full time siren took the wind out of me.

One tackle. That’s all they needed. And Lockyer threaded the needle with a beautiful kick to the wing that just pulled our hearts out of our chests and waved it in front of our faces like the bad guy in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Here it is for those who can bear to watch it again:

The only good news out of that game for me is that Krisnan Inu is back and looking fantastic. Without his play, we never would have even had a chance to snatch defeat from (possible) victory.

It’s also brought about something that has been more than a few weeks coming – Eric Grothe getting dumped to NSW Cup. I mean, the stats speak for themselves, but you only had to watch a few of their recent matches to see the opposition coaches targeting his wing and just waiting for him to make a mental error (like he did twice against the Broncos by moving in and letting his man get outside him). A shame because of his talent and passion, but hopefully just a speed bump on the way to him becoming a better player. His replacement sounds very intriguing, looking forward to seeing him square off against the Raiders next weekend.

The only other game I caught the full replay of over the weekend was the Sunday arvo clash between Titans and Sharks, which the Sharks won convincingly. They really surprised me with their flair in attack, something that was desperately missing at the beginning of the season. Their defence was rock hard, as it always has been, but their ball movement and kicking attack was several notches above what I saw earlier in the season. Very impressive. Will be interesting to see if the Panthers can knock them off at CUA this weekend after Penrith only just scraped by North QLD (who totally destroyed my ‘bounce back with a new coach’ theory).

In Origin news, Big Willie has been stirring up the Maroons ahead of the upcoming Game 2 and dropped this explosive line in an interview today:

“I’m preparing myself for the hardest game I’m ever going to play because the ingredients are there. It’s just going to bean explosion.”

I like to think that’s not a typo and the ingredients he’s talking about are of the Mexican variety. I also love that he labelled the QLD supporters “nutbag rednecks”. Wow, they would be pissed if they could read and owned computers.