Seven Days in League: Why we'll be toasting the Knights' success this year

Bugger ... I mean great. You beauty. How exciting.

Just the 211 days ahead before our grand final edition. Not that I'll be keeping count, like a prisoner on his cell wall while awaiting parole, or anything like that.

It's been a largely uneventful summer, by rugba league standards. Just the usual half-dozen or so players arrested, but nobody charged with murder - yet - so by and large they've been on their best behaviour.

The off-season highlight, for mine, was the World Cup tournament in England.

You've got to hand it to the Poms. They're efficient. I mean they even had a plan just in case the Queen dropped off the royal twig mid-tournament. Conveniently, HRH was up there in the big grandstand in the sky well before the first game kicked off.

All the credit has to go to Pommy politician Nadine Dorries, who launched the World Cup in a blaze of publicity when she declared: "I've always quite liked the idea of rugby league. My long-standing memory is that 2003 drop goal.

"I'll let you into a secret. I think we were drinking Bloody Marys at the time. It was 11 o'clock in the morning but, wow, what a moment that was."

The 2003 drop goal was, of course, kicked by Jonny Wilkinson in the rugba union World Cup. But only a nark would pick up such a minor detail.

Anyway, it was with some surprise that I noted recently Nadine will be standing down as an MP at the next general election.

I can't imagine she'll have too much trouble finding a new career path. After all, she once ate an ostrich's anus, a camel's toe and lamb's testicles during the reality-TV show I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here, so she'll do anything for a quid.

THE other off-season highlight for this columnist was the revelation in a radio interview that Knights coach Adam O'Brien likes his toast to be burnt.

If it's not Vegemite on charcoal, AOB reckons, "you might as well be eating bread".

Some might think that's a bit weird, but I say each to their own.

It gets me wondering what the other coaches in the NRL have for breakfast.

I'm guessing Trent Robinson prefers croissants to toast. Craig Bellamy would no doubt eat a raw steak first thing in the morning, washed down with a bucket of blood.

As for the Old Fox and Ricky Stuart, I'd be surprised if they eat breakfast. They'd rather stay starving hungry until at least lunch-time, to maintain maximum crankiness.

THE Knights confirm they're investigating whether they can get a decent trade-in for winger Dominic Young, who has reportedly agreed to join the Roosters next season.

The theory goes that Newcastle need a back-rower and a prop and might be able to orchestrate a swap for their towering English import. A bit like the old Scanlens cards that came with a stick of bubble gum, only with real players.

Here's a better idea, I say. Pick him in the front row and play him for 80 minutes every week.

The Roosters can have whatever is left of him at the end of the season.

Meanwhile, in here at the Herald, we're all sweating bullets. We've already printed our annual Knights magazine, with big Dom on the cover. Here's hoping he doesn't go anywhere until at least after it's published.

BRONCOS winger Selwyn Cobbo sets up a grudge match to open the season when he labels Penrith five-eighth Jarome Luai "a grub".

Cobbo is apparently still fuming after he was knocked rotten in the opening exchanges of Origin III last year and Luai appeared to celebrate. His comments came in the same infamous podcast in which he labelled his Broncos boss Kevin Walters "a good bloke but not the best coach", before issuing a sheepish apology.

It raises one very obvious question. Would you rather be a grub, or a dumbo?

IT'S that time of year when all the so-called experts are tipping who will finish where on the competition ladder, and I can't help noticing on one website that of the 18 pundits, only one is predicting the Knights will make the top eight.

This strikes me as a masterstroke. Newcastle's opponents have already been lulled into a false sense of security and won't know what hit them.

Mark my words, it's the year of the Knights. You might think I'm crazy, but that's what they said back in 2015-16 when I picked Leicester City to win the English Premier League at the odds of 5000-1.

THE Old Fox raises eyebrows after brushing Anthony Milford from his squad for the season-opener against the Chooks.

Poor old Milf. If only he'd stayed at the Knights, where he was universally loved and respected. I wonder if Benny would be interested in swapping him for Dominic Young?

SO, here we are, the first seven days of the season done and dusted. Just 204 to go. And just one more sleep until rugba league, the self-proclaimed greatest game of all, is back up and running ... for the next eight months. I don't suppose these poor, underpaid players could hurry up and go on strike?

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