One other fantastic weekend of NRL has rolled by, and one other main milestone was celebrated.

Congratulations to Jarrod Croker on enjoying his three hundredth NRL match. It’s a particular milestone that only some (46) have reached, and Canberra did an awesome job of producing a way of event for this necessary match.

It was much more important as a result of he’s solely the thirteenth participant of the trendy period to carry out the feat with a single membership. I began to surprise what kind of stellar crew may very well be shaped within the creativeness by that elite group.

There could be loads of choice dilemmas. Would you set Darren Lockyer or Billy Slater at fullback? Andrew Ettingshausen could be one of many centres, however which Croker, Jason or Jarrod, will get to fill the opposite spot? Would you appoint Cameron Smith or Sam Backo as captain?

The hardest choice could be who to place within the second row. There’s a variety of plodding second rowers on the checklist, and who would you select if the one choices had been Luke Ricketson, Simon Mannering, Mitch Aubusson, Nathan Hindmarsh, Corey Parker or Paul Gallen?

This should be how NSW selectors are feeling as they scramble to get a squad collectively for Origin 2.

Sadly for many of those gamers after they mirror on their lengthy careers, the milestone video games should not all the time their happiest recollections. We’re all fairly used to studying headlines resembling “No magic in match 300 for Parramatta Mr Good Man”, or “Broncos spoil Paul Gallen’s three hundredth Sharks match”.

An excessive amount of strain is positioned on these gamers within the twilight of their profession to someway encourage their teammates to realize milestone victories.The present system merely isn’t working. It’s not honest and one thing must be executed about it.

Particularly when we have now the farcical scenario of a participant sitting out a match so that they play their milestone match at residence. What genius considered that?

My proposal is to have a Milestone Spherical. This may be a particular spherical the place the achievements of all gamers celebrating milestones throughout that season may very well be correctly celebrated.

The video games would all be held at one venue, and each participant celebrating main milestone throughout the season, for instance, first match, final match, beginning of a kid, three hundredth recreation, they might all be positioned on the again of a ute and pushed slowly across the floor whereas being interviewed by Phil Gould with ‘Merely the Greatest’ enjoying loudly within the background.

Between each groups in any specific match you would most likely discover 15 or 20 gamers with some form of worthwhile milestone, and this sharing of the highlight would assist scale back the strain on anyone participant.

I’ve stolen the concept for holding all of the video games at one venue from Magic Spherical, which I attended for the primary time this yr. There was a big crowd and folks appeared to take pleasure in it, so why not do it extra typically?

Brisbane appears eager to carry on to Magic Spherical, and so maybe Milestone Spherical may very well be rotated by means of a number of the much less glamorous corners of the NRL universe, resembling Canberra or Penrith or Las Vegas, places which have historically struggled to draw vacationers.

Couldn’t we not less than strive?