On today’s episode you can listen to me carry on like a pork chop over the plethora of squads that Cricket Australia’s selectin panel has announced for the tour of Sri Lanka coming up in June and July. Four separate teams have been announced, including squads for all three formats of the international game, as well as an A team squad to help give some upcoming contenders a chance to show their wares. We’ll take a look at the surprise choices, the obvious losers, and whether we can work out what it shows in regards to their future selection policy. I’ll also discuss the appointment of the new England Test captain, along with the other shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic, and discuss if it will help as they approach that iceberg in the distance. Thanks for tuning in, and welcome back, to The Casual Mankadder, on the barest minimal podcast on the web, Thoughts From the Metal Cavern.

On today’s episode you can listen to my dulcet tones as I bring forth five points arising from round 7 of the NRL, and offer up discussion points for you all to consider as a result. Have Penrith and Melbourne already done enough to lock in a Grand Final match up come the first Sunday in October? The Dragons and the Tigers have found a way to win, but will that be enough going forward? The Knights and the Titans played finals last season, so what’s gone wrong in 2022, and can they reverse the trend? Is Ricky Stuart quickly coming to a sticky end in his coaching term at the Raiders? And what the hell is going on with the high tackle rule in the NRL? Coming up you’ll be able to hear my ideas, and maybe they will correspond with a few of your own, on a sort of new segment I like to call "5th and Last! NRL Talking Points", on the least listened to podcast on the net, Thoughts from the Metal Cavern.

So we’ve reached the end of round four of the NRL season, and things are starting to settle into place. Have there been some surprise packets? Yes there have. Have there been some obvious points as well. My word there has. Would you say the season is over for some teams already? That’s a soft yes at this stage.

On today’s program we’ll take a look back at the results for round four and how the teams stack up their start to the season. Our Talking Point today has a look at forward passes, and whether this part of the game is ignored for some teams and not so much for others. And then we’ll check out the road ahead into Round five and see if we can’t pick a few winners for a change. All that coming up on this episode of In League With the NRL, right here on Thoughts From the Metal Cavern.

As we have begun to come out of weeks and months of covid lockdowns and isolating for days or weeks on end because family has caught the virus, we have all slowly come around to realising that it would be nice to have get togethers. Do you remember them? They were events that you may have organised to celebrate a family member’s milestone, such as a birthday or anniversary, or to invite some friends over just to see them in person again, and converse with them face to face rather than over facetime or zoom. Yes, these things used to occur.

But you know what? There are some things about those events that I didn’t miss, and to be fair I had sort of forgotten about, and one of those was the preparation that goes on for several hours before the event begins, and then the aftermath that evening and into the next day.

And that will be the basis of today’s conversation. The pros and cons of what goes on before and after home gatherings, on today’s episode of Thoughts From the Metal Cavern.

Super Saturday in the NRL is here again, with three games of varying quality and interest to get you through the day. So before you head to the fridge and grab a beer and one of your daughters Kristen Keene donuts, why not check in with Peters & Peters as they give you the good oil on all of todays matches. First up it's the Warriors and the Broncos, followed by the Sea Eagles and the Raiders, and then the Cowboys and the Roosters.

#NRL #PetersAndPeters

Thursday night NRL is here, and to bring your their thoughts on the Clash of the Year between the Titans and the Tigers, here is league’s most knowledgeable duo Peters & Peters! 

Note: 'knowledgeable' could have been used for the purposes of humour.

Is it time to just take the follow on out of cricket? For all of the lack of good it is, certainly at the international level, where it looks as though enforcing the follow on is a thing of the past. Teams rarely use it, wanting to retain the advantage they believe they have in bowling to the opposition last on a day five pitch, no matter what type of lead they have following the completion of the first innings of the match. Case in point is Australia in the recent series in Pakistan, when after the first innings of the 2nd Test, Australia led by 408 runs, more than 200 runs more than the point the follow on can be applied, and they refused to do so.

Obviously, there are different circumstances to each match, but given the lack of any ambition of any Test team to utilise it, could it indeed be stricken from the laws of cricket, and perhaps then open other avenues of forcing teams to find a way for victories?

That’s today’s talking point on this episode of the podcast where one person’s opinion CAN make a difference, here on Thoughts from the Metal Cavern.

Has the game of rugby league evolved to the point that the law makers have to start thinking about the integrity of the competition when it comes to sin binning and sending off players during a game? We are only three rounds into the competition, and yet we have seen several matches that it could be said have been unfairly influenced by the fact that a team has been reduced to 12 players for a ten minute period, or in Newcastle's case last weekend, the majority of the match.

Now some will argue that’s the penalty a team must face for illegal play, but in the 2020’s is it time to re-evaluate those thoughts, in a sport that prides itself on being the hardest and most exciting of the winter sports, on ensuring that both teams have an equal chance of winning the match rather than handing one of them a huge numerical advantage.

That’s today’s Talking Point on another largely opinionated without knowledge episode of Thoughts from the Metal Cavern.

It's the final day of the second round of the NRL for 2022, and there are two tough matches to negotiate within it. So why not leave it to your favourite duo Peters & Peters to get to the nitty gritty of the matches to offer you the reasons why two teams will win and two teams will walk away as complete losers.

Today's matches will be between the Knights and the Tigers, and the Bulldogs and the Broncos.

#PetersAndPeters #NRL2022