Watch: Etene Nanai-Seturo leaves Southland prop empty-handed in Counties debut

“The competition is tough, because you’ve got to spit out performances every week, and to be able to do that consistently you’ve got to have good depth.”

You’ve got to look forward to next weekend more than anything too.

The bonus points view is a good one. The majority of bonus points earned in the first three rounds last season were for scoring three tries more than the opposition, while three quarters of bonus points in 2025 have gone to the losing side getting to within seven points of the victors.

They really use this sorta system? Much smaller pool of bonus points available, that would mean they have far less impact. Interestingly you must be withen winning range/chance in France’s Top 14 league, rather that just draw territory, so 6 points instead of 7. Fairly arbitrary and pointless (something the NRL would do to try and look cool), but kinda cool.

I said it Nick’s and other articles, I’m not sure about the fixed nature of matchups in these opening rounds. For instance, I would be interested in seeing an improved ranking/prediction/reflection ladder to what we had last year, were some author here game so rejigged list of teams purely based of ‘who had played who’ so far in the competition. It was designed to analyze the ladder and better predict what the real order would be after the full round robin had completed. It needed some improvement, like factoring in historical data as well, as it was a bit skiwif, but it is the sort of thing that would give a better depiction of what sort of contests weve had so far, because just using my intuition, the matchups have been very ‘level appropriate’ so far, and were jet to get the other end of the spectrum, season ranked bottom sides v top sides etc.

As a former rugby player, I spent 20 years as a specialist tackling coach in the AFL, SANFL, and Southern Football League. During this time, I was fortunate to be part of teams winning seven premierships. I believe there is a valuable place for cross-code coaching in these sports. I made many lifelong friends and enjoyed sharing knowledge and skills from different sporting backgrounds, which is encouraged at many elite levels.