Diet Fist

We saw the introduction of two rules in last night's NRL All Stars match. The power play and the ruck rule. The Power play was were one team was allowed to banish two players from the opponents team for a period of five minutes.

What did you think of the power play? Is this something you'd like to see introduced in the regular NRL season?

The City v Country demonstrated to me a few things. Firstly, just how dangerous Jennings looks when he gets decent service. Pearce has a sensational passing game when he gets decent dummy half service. Mullen has an excellent boot, but needs wingers who can catch. Soward can still play in mixed company. TLL actually wants to play. Simon Dwyer is going to be huge in a few years. Minichiello still has it after all these years. Tolman's stats are deceptive, he's a workhorse like Luke Douglas, but I'm not sure if he's the type of front rower for Origin. The media wants anyone for NSW hooker but Robbie Farah.

Based on the performances in the Test and City v Country matches, what does your Blues lineup look like?

There is a rumour going around that the Doggies are looking at mid season trade with Cronulla swapping five-eighth Ben Roberts for prop Jon Mannah, cancer survivor and brother of Origin Prop Tim Mannah.

WTF is it with the Doggies wrapping up all the quality props? Got Tandy mid season last year who proved to be the goods before the betting scandal, signed his Melbourne front row partner and former Australian school boy Kangaroo Aiden Tolman and just recently signed English juggernaut James Graham. Now they have their sights set on Mannah, who would be a starting front rower at the Sharkies next year with the imminent departure of Snowden and the Luke Douglas heading to the Titans.

Do you think this will happen?

NSW CITY ORIGIN:

1 Jarryd Hayne

2 William Hopoate

3 Michael Jennings

4 Beau Champion

5 Nathan Merritt

6 Kris Keating

7 Mitchell Pearce

8 Keith Galloway

9 Robbie Farah (c)

10 Tim Mannah

11 Mark Minichiello

12 Simon Dwyer

13 Liam Fulton

14 Tim Grant

15 Adam Cuthbertson

16 Tom Symonds

17 Shane Shackleton

NSW COUNTRY ORIGIN:

1 Josh Dugan

2 Michael Gordon

3 Josh Morris

4 Joel Thompson

5 Akuila Uate

6 Jamie Soward

7 Jarrod Mullen

8 Kade Snowden

9 Michael Ennis

10 Aiden Tolman

11 Beau Scott

12 Glenn Stewart

13 Chris Houston.

14 Tom Learoyd-Lahrs

15 Trent Merrin

16 Chris Heighington

17 Tim Moltzen

For mine, both tries to Dugan should have been disallowed. The first, while from a brilliant set move, was a blatant knock on and the second was from a forward pass.

Galloway completely ripped off too. There was nothing wrong with his try.

The Knights are 2 from 2 at the moment and from all reports Jarrod Mullen seems to be settling in comfortably at halfback and handling the responsibility well. So well in fact that people are starting to mention him as a possible Origin contender as the Pearce/Carney combo has lacked the verve in the early season.

Do you think Jarrod Mullen is ready for Origin this time or would he better focused on his club football?

Who was best on ground for you?

I thought James Tamou was exceptional. He seemed to be in everything.

How's Joey's form?

First those who didn't watch Channel Nine's coverage of the Rabbitohs v Roosters match tonight, you probably didn't get to here Johns mispronounce the word "Remarkable" as "Merarkable".

I know the guy was a great player, but seriously is there some gibberer quota that Channel Nine need to meet that's fulfilled by having Johns and Fittler on the commentary teams?

NSW really did put up a fight in this last game. With Trent Barrett retiring and Beau Scott moving back to the second row at a club level to accommodate Mark Gasnier, there's two positions that need to be filled. Given that Michael Ennis single-handedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, I'd be stamping his card with never to play Origin again. Other than a quiet Jason King and Brett Morris blowing a certain try, I was fairly happy with Origin side. With that in mind, this is what I would expect for next year.

1. Hayne

2. Morris

3. Lawrence

4. Jennings

5. Gordon

6. Carney

7. Pearce

8. Snowden

9. Farah

10. Galloway

11. Bird

12. Gallen

13. Lewis

14. Gidley

15. Mannah

16. Watmough

17. TLL

What would your NSW side look like?

Greg Bird has been dangerous everytime he's had the ball tonight, except when he coughed it up off the penalty restart. He's now scored what could be the match winner. I reckon Bird for MOTM at this point.

You all saw his kick last night. Made of awesome. Heaps better than Creagh's pathetic effort. Luke Lewis has played halfback before with Penrith. So let's put together a massive NSW side:

1. Hayne

2. Morris

3. O'Donnell

4. Tahu

5. Idris

6. Watmough

7. Lewis

8. Snowden

9. Hilder

10. Douglas

11. Creagh

12. Heighington

13. Bird

14. Galloway

15. Poore

16. Mason

17. TTL

You'll need your thinking caps for this one.

You've been hired by Bears CEO Greg Florimo to setup guidelines for salary payments for their squad of 30 NRL players. He doesn't like the Cowboys model, where one player is soaking up most of the cap, he would prefer to have a list of positions with an upper limit on what they can spend for that position and use that to drive recruitment. He has said not to worry about Toyota Cup limits or third party payments and he has asked that you consult with the coach on what he wants from his squad.

Coach David Fairleigh tells you he wants two 13 man squads, the first grade squad for NRL and a reserve squad of 13, who will be filling for injuries and playing some NSW Cup with other players who won't be in the NRL side for this season. He wants to build a side around a specialist hooker, a specialist halfback and specialist fullback, with a four prop bench rotation for his starting 17, but he'd also like to create some competition for spots in the first grade squad in the forwards and backs.

The NRL Salary Cap for 2011 is $4.1m for the 25 highest paid players at each club. In addition to the $4.1m Salary Cap for top 25 players, each club may spend up to an additional $350,000 on players outside the top 25 who play in the NRL competition. The minimum wage for NRL players is $55,000.

Can you produce the first grade squad including four interchange players and the reserve grade squad, named by position, filling both the requirements of the coach and the salary cap?

Check this out. Irrespective of how you rank them, the top three halfbacks for Queensland and arguably Australia, are Jonathan Thurston, Scott Prince and Cooper Cronk. Here are their club hookers.

Halfback - Hooker

Cooper Cronk - Cameron Smith

Jonathan Thurston - Aaron Payne

Scott Prince - Nathan Friend

So in order to preserve club combinations, if Cam Smith is out, Payne should slot in. If Thurston is out, Cronk should slot in. If both Smith and Thurston are out, Prince and Friend should slot in. The only way I see Ballin slotting in is if both Smith and Payne are out and Thurston is in.

What do you think? Are club combinations that important in rep sides?

Keith Galloway has been struck down by a hand injury that he has apparently been carrying since round three. According to reports he will miss between 2 weeks and a month, but based on poor injury projections in the past, Keith could be out till at least Round 19.

This comes at a bad time, just like last year, when Galloway was slated as a sure Origin starter alongside Michael Weyman. With other up and coming props like Luke Douglas, Kade Snowden, Tim Mannah and Tim Grant starting to make a name for themselves, this comes at a bad time for Galloway who would be looking to establish himself as an Origin level prop for the next few years.

Do you think Galloway can be ready in time for Origin? If not, will he be able to maintain the form that has seen him named as an Origin Bolter from the City side two years running? Will the selectors be interested with a new crop of props popping up?

The Panthers have found a brilliant replacement for Peter Wallace in Knights cast off Luke Walsh. He seems to be just what the Pennies need, with 13 of his kicks leading to tries and distributing the ball around the team enough so that 13 lines breaks have been setup by other players.

Although Uate's tryscoring would dull the pain somewhat, I reckon Novocastrians would be wishing Mullen or Dureau was going that well this season.

What do you think of Luke Walsh? Future Origin halfback or just playing well in a Pennies side flying under the radar?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/nrls-mo...

I was considering starting a Head to Head League for this section on the Fox Sports Fantasy NRL site. For people currently in the existing Y!A Classic League on Fox Sports, it would be simply a case of joining it once it was created. It would also allow new players to join and not be at a disadvantage due to starting late.

Would anybody be interested in being a part of this?

How good was it to see Shannon Gallant back in first grade? This guy is the genuine article, a fullback in the purest terms. Watch the replay of the Titans match and he's always hovering near the ball carrier, providing support and another option in attack. He also linked up really well, playing like a second five eighth in attack as most coaches want from their fullbacks. Can't wait for the Cowboys v Tigers match this weekend. It'll be the match of the round.

BQ: Blake Ayshford is out for four weeks and the Tigers really need to contain Willie Tonga, the man has been in scintillating form. Who would you play at centre to keep a lid on this bloke?

Despite his hilarious off field antics, normally I don't have a lot of time for Ryan. He has been diabolical in attack on the wing, forcing Blake Ayshford to go it alone when normally you'd expect the centre to setup his outside man. Last week when the team lists were named, the media reports had Moltzen at halfback (YAY!) and Mitch Brown at fullback. When the game started however, Brown was on the wing and Beau Ryan was playing fullback. I thought he had a solid match, but I was shocked to find out that he made 248 metres. This is more than any other player in any game last round.

I've been pretty vocal about Moltzen needing to get out of the #1 jersey and into the #7, but with Gallant gone north, I wasn't sure who should be fullback. After his performance last week, I think Ryan could be the answer.

What do you reckon?

Should clubs be compensated when a player sacked for misconduct signs with another club?

If so, who should compensate them? If the new club should pay, should these payments be counted under the salary cap?

Here are the Dally M votes for Round 1.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/dally-m...

If last year's debacle of Ennis winning Hooker of the Year despite being outpointed by Farah wasn't bad enough, Laurie Daley has given out Dally M honours this round to a bloke who barely played any minutes and who was sin binned for a cheap high shot. This further undermines the credibility of the Dally M awards.

Is anyone else concerned about the Dally M Awards losing their prestige?