Brad Fittler believes Bradman Best should be called up to Blues side 06:42

Can we bring in our great mate Brad Fittler, please, from Channel 9's Wide World of Sports? He does a bit of walking on the beach from time to time, and I'm sure he's got a view on this. Hello, Freddie. G'day, gents. Mate, we're talking about an old bloke taking a leaf blower down to the beach, and when the kids are finished on the beach, he just stands there and leaf blows the sand off them. Your thoughts? It's not appropriate. Thank you. Thank you. Why is it not appropriate? Mate.

Old blokes and leaf blowers, they're not in the same sentence. LAUGHTER

Have you got a leaf blower? Yes. Of course you do. Leaf blower's my best. I love a leaf blower. That's pretty powered. Freddie, this afternoon, the game on nine, the game with us as well on the radio, Raiders and Knights. These two teams sort of, one went outside the top eight, so it's an important one. Bit of origin speculation around a few players as well. How do you see this one panning out?

Yeah, well, from a club point of view, there's 10 teams at the moment within four points, and that's fourth position to 13th. So you want to stay in amongst that group or get to the top of that group as quick as possible. It's becoming very tight, and these wins, you know, against those teams in the same area become crucial. So...

And, you know, obviously Newcastle getting Caelan back is a huge boost. They lose Adam Elliott, which is a bit of a loss. But I feel like it's theirs to lose the Knights. Hey, Freddie, do you like Will Price at six? He's finally getting his opportunity.

Yeah, he was great last week. I think, you know, apart from the fact, obviously, he just brings a little bit of spark. I like the way he sort of dished off the ball. So between him and Fletcher Sharp, I thought, I don't think I've seen a game where the centre's got so much early ball. And I think it was no surprise Bradman played so well this year.

I don't think I've ever seen a centre get as much good ball as Bradman got last week. I think it's just the fact that you've got a young full-back and a young 5'8 who are quite happy to give them the sort of more superior player, I suppose, from a point of view of experience, giving them the ball and supporting. So hopefully Caelan noticed that because I thought it was a real bonus for the Knights that their centre's got early ball and gave them good opportunity.

It makes a big difference when they play a bit more ad lib, unstructured. Fred, what about the Raiders? Gutsy effort last week against the Storm, but then they've had some shockers in between. What have you made of their season so far? I've never seen a game last week where a team made so many...

They just made errors, unbelievably. They couldn't catch a bomb. A couple of times they saved tries, but they were penalised for high tackles on the tackle prior. Like, you know, they couldn't have made it any harder for themselves to win that game last week. And then, you know, they're playing Melbourne and defend their line. I think, well, they give up 16 points. Is that all? Yeah, 16 points. It was incredible. So, you know, if they come with that same attitude towards defence but improve their discipline, then it looks like they could beat any team.

Mate, you would have heard about this, and I don't know whether you made any comment on it, Ricky blowing up the other week about the referees and the six again calls. I'm paraphrasing this, but I think he basically said, I think they're guessing.

I actually agree with him. I've got no idea what half I'm a fool. What do you think? Well, it's hard because I think the idea is that we don't slow the game down. And the idea is that we don't allow teams. What was happening there for a while, I think, through the, you know, let's say the five years prior to that, teams just got very good at defending sets, right?

So, you know, sides like Melbourne and Penrith, you know, just got so good at defending lines and, you know, slowing the game down so it wasn't as Gaz was talking about, just off-the-cuff style of play. And then the game got terribly boring, so...

I feel like what they're doing, they're just keeping the game as quick as possible. It's a shame you can't stop the game to see sometimes what they'll do on the six again for because I think that's the frustrating part is they just, you know, you don't know actually, you haven't got time to digest what the penalty was for but, you know,

In the times I've watched the game and sat in reviews at the league and sat in the bunker, most of them are legitimate. And if they weren't a six again, they'd be a penalty, which would mean slowing the game down and stopping the game again. So I've got to say, obviously, coaches are under a lot of pressure. And when they see things like that happen, and especially against their team, I think it's quite easy to throw around comments like that. But at the end of the day, I think we all agree that the footy is pretty exciting at the moment. And if...

I think everyone focused on their own jobs, then I think their team would do better. It's a good point, isn't it? Because I think it decides... From my opinion, it's the most important thing moving forward with Rugby League, whether you try... Because Freddie's spot on. It was a boring game. It was dominated by wrestle. It was predictable. But...

when we try and manufacture and bring in more rules, I think we put more problems on the referee that create split decisions. Whereas I still don't think we've experimented enough with the fatigue factor to go back to a bit more limited interchange and then the space will naturally open up. But I think if we keep manufacturing the game, I think we're in for some trouble. Because exactly like this, like Rick...

the big thing when the game changed a little bit, they didn't give the teams enough time to practice. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're getting so many injuries. They're talking about, you know, the amount of efforts, high-speed efforts players are making now. Those rules, there was a lot of rule changes that were made in January that affected that part of the game. And

What's happened is clubs weren't able to train that over the pre-season. Yeah, because it changes body shapes. I'm assuming that will change over the next couple of pre-seasons. Clubs will change the way they actually train and they'll train more towards how the game is. Yeah, fair enough. One last one. Freddie on Origin, in your view, who should replace Luttrell in the centres for the Blues Wednesday week? I'd bring in Bradman. I think I spoke before.

He's been giving a lot of ball lately, some great ball last week. I thought he was fantastic. He did a great job last year. Coming into Game 3, I just feel like he most surely was going to be the centre. He was injured before the first game. So I feel like Bradman most surely. I'd love to pick Tommy. I just didn't think that one game mightn't be enough. Yep, fair enough too. All right, mate, we'll see you on the telly this afternoon, buddy. We'll catch you soon.

Have a great day, lads. See you, Fred. There he is, Brad Fittler, one of the good guys of the game. Freddie will be on Channel 9 this afternoon covering the clash between the Raiders and the Knights to wrap up round number 18 of the National Rugby League.