They tell me the NRL season starts in Las Vegas this weekend? Four teams have flown over, together with a lot of fans, apparently? And I think I read somewhere it is the greatest sporting triumph and extravaganza in the history of the world? If only the media would do a little more on it, we could all be up to date.

More seriously, good luck to them. As expensive as the whole thing is, as overblown is the hype, the pay-off is indeed in “the vibe”. I think the carry-on is over-the-top absurd. You think the carry-on is over-the top absurd. But there is no doubt that that very carry-on flows into the start of the season as both ratings and attendances lift.

Paul Gallen interviews Dragons fans in Las Vegas.Credit: Getty Images

This year, though, the thing I don’t get is the teams they selected. Right now, the most interesting teams to watch in the NRL are the likes of the Broncos, the Raiders, Parramatta and Penrith. None have made the cut. Instead, they’ve chosen the modern-day “Never-the-groom-always-the-groomsman” teams: Knights v Cowboys and Dragons v Bulldogs. Of those four, only the Bulldogs are a “lean-forward, let’s see what they’ve got this year” side. The other three will simply make up the numbers, and we already know that before the season starts.

I’ll be in my trailer.

Iongi’s photo fail a real pen-and-inker

“The stupidest stupid,” my Hungarian-born maths teacher Steve Koroknay used to say to me with some vigour, “is that stupid, who does not know he is stupid.” A case in point is the rising Eels star Isaiah Iongi, who suffered when an image purportedly showing him preparing to smoke an unknown substance began circulating on social media this week. Exactly what that substance was – though it looked to be a long way from a Winnie Blue – I neither know, nor care. It’s his damn business, not mine.

And we have previously seen people facing catastrophic consequences because, while doing dubious things, they have posed for photos. One way out has been to claim that it is all a case of mistaken identity.

Parramatta fullback Isaiah Iongi.Credit: Instagram

In the case of Iongi, the first stupid part was not yelling at whoever had a camera before him to put the damn thing down and delete the photo. The stupidest stupid part though is even beginning to do something like that, when denials that it was him were always going to be difficult when his own name is tattooed in large letters on his chest ...

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