No Lomax, no worries? Eels look good, but Henson Park steals the show in pre-season spree

Reed Mahoney still doesn’t know why the Bulldogs released him, but the slender hooker has given new meaning to the phrase “tell me if you find out” with his first statement for his new club in North Queensland. If there was a point to prove, Mahoney did it through two try assists, two line-break assists and 18 tackles during an active first half against Penrith’s reserves; This shows Reece Robson’s shoes are already filled, with Tom Dearden and Scott Drinkwater completing the new-look backbone.

Masculine life isn’t so bad after DCE

Daly Cherry-Evans may have left for a latte back east but 19-year-old Joey Walsh and 18-year-old Onitoni Large took control to manage Manly’s 33-18 win over the Warriors in Napier. It turns out that DCE’s launch may not be the apocalyptic event some predicted. Playing their first senior game together, the young halves looked like old hands among a group of other youngsters and part-time players (and could still benefit from an expanded interchange squad behind Luke Brooks and new signing Jamal Fogarty). However, they made a more experienced Warriors collective look soulless in comparison. Yes, they missed seven in Sunday’s Maori-Indigenous All Stars match, but coach Andrew Webster was still stumped in that first game and Morgan Gannon didn’t exactly set the field on fire.

In a bright moment for the Sea Eagles, it has been revealed that Keith Titmuss’ family are taking legal action against the club “more likely than not inappropriate” after the former player died of heatstroke during training.

Latrell is out of the spotlight

There was a lot going on in the centers during the Charity Shield upset to the Dragons in South Sydney and Mitchell wasn’t even on the field. The reformed left centre-back watched from the WIN Stadium Stands (along with most of the other senior Rabbitohs) as Talanoa Penitani and Latrell Siegwalt did their thing and even scored a try each in the 28-24 scoreline, which was marred by Jonah Glover’s broken jaw in the third minute. Jack Wighton, David Fifita, Cameron Murray and Cody Walker also took part in pre-season and kicked the ass of a hard-fought St George-Illawarra team to beat the Bulldogs in Vegas.

Aside from Souths being slightly better in 2026, the other glaring issue is Mitchell’s lack of headlines in the new NRL season. While the surprise recruitment of Payne Haas from Brisbane attracted attention, a calf niggle ruled him out of Indigenous All Stars representation for the second year in a row and who knows what that might do for a talent sometimes hampered by intense public scrutiny.

Let Vegas teams play Vegas teams

If the Vegas experiment is to continue, it seems logical and prudent for the four teams involved to play each other in preseason tryouts. North Queensland’s 66-24 march on the park against a pack of Panthers boys was nothing more than a reliable barometer for each team’s place in the first round and does not provide the Cowboys with quality preparation for a high-profile overseas game with championship points at stake. The risk of a lopsided clash like this is possible injuries to unlucky players. The Knights played the Bulldogs, which was great (not for the Knights, who completed just 27 of 43 sets en route to a 28-0 rout without Kalyn Ponga), so why couldn’t the Dragons get a shot at the Cowboys?

Maori team retains All Stars title

The Indigenous All Stars came close to scoring a match-winning try in what would have been a memorable moment when Jayden Campbell, son of All Stars creator Preston Campbell, unexpectedly picked up a Braydon Trindall chip and scored, only to be tipped over at one stroke. The score was 16-16 with six minutes to go and that was the end of the match, with referee Adam Gee injured and sent off, leaving Belinda Sharpe to officiate the closing stages of Sunday afternoon’s thriller in Hamilton. The Indigenous women’s team, meanwhile, went on to concede three tries after 23 minutes to ambush their Maori counterparts and win their third successive All Stars match.