NRL: Brisbane beats Roosters to advance to grand final

After Andrew Johns declared on the Sunday Footy Show that “there is no way in the world he can miss a grand final for that”.

TALKING POINT: Is Queensland the new heartland of rugby league? You can’t ask for any more than that.

“I think common sense will prevail on that tackle”, he said after the match on Friday.

But if the last two decades can be used as a guide, it’s just as unlikely that one of the Broncos or Storm will be knocked out this weekend. I’m also surprised the Cowboys are slight favourites against the Broncos, but I accept the circumstances are much different.

So when the Broncos and Cowboys won their respective preliminary finals at the weekend, ruling out a NSW team claiming the trophy, Queensland as a whole can celebrate. Not even Bennett could have predicted a grand final appearance when he first made his return to Brisbane.

The Broncos and Cowboys have, of course, already played once in this finals series – in the opening week – and produced a magnificent contest that is among the contenders for best game of the season.

A grade-one unsafe throw charge carries a 125-point base penalty.

All the protests have so far been in vain with the match review committee deeming it worthy of going to the judiciary.

But that doesn’t mean Hodges doesn’t have a decent chance of getting off.

“He jumps. He’s on one leg, he jumps up”, Johns said of Guerra. But what he has delivered is the ideal structure, allowing his attacking players to play with the ball.

“I’ll be fine mate – it’s one of those things”.

Whether it’s Wayne Bennett’s men or Paul Green’s, there will few TVs tuned to anything but the NRL grand final on Sunday, and we can’t wait for the game. They were positively terrible.

The Broncos are a juggernaut and everything about them is better than any of the Sydney clubs.

Many of these mistakes the opposition is pressured into by the fact the Broncos are so good in the other departments.

Brisbane and Melbourne can strike a blow for the positives of the oft-debated week off, but they will need to overcome the ghosts of high-ranking preliminary final losers past and the disruption of a fortnight’s break – not to mention two outstanding opponents – to capitalise on their supposed advantage.