Roy: In the old days, we'd call a player like Todd a ''personality player''. Every club used to have one. Or two. Or 13, if you're lucky.

H.G.: Johnny Elias played as a personality player at a number of clubs.

ANTHONY WATMOUGH

H.G.: We were at the jumping castle at Fortress Brookie the other day. And we were standing there and quizzing people while they went in. Most of them didn't have a player [to watch], but they wanted to see the bloke who did the window cleaning. They'd heard all about him from other sources - how stupid he was, what he got up to on the weekend, could he really clean a whole office building with one drizzle? That's what got them in.

THE STORM'S CONTENTIOUS TACKLING TECHNIQUE

Roy: I think they're really good at it. People looooove watching a bloke get turtled, put on their back. They're the best at it. I don't know how they do it, but they do it every time. Wrestling has been great for rugby league. To see these techniques. The grapple, sure, we had to get rid of that because people were dying on the field through being choked. But turtling a bloke - I just love that. You hear the crowds, like when we were at Brookie the other night: ''Great turtle, Watmough!!'' I love that. I often think of the Greg ''Turtle'' Conescu as a result of that. Poor old Turtle. The one thing he couldn't do was turtle anyone. It was one of those ironic nicknames.

WAYNE BENNETT

Roy: We were in Newcastle during the week. There's a slow despond going through the town. They feel they've got a dud.

H.G.: It's very grim up there. Thank goodness people have jobs. Especially in mining …

Roy: Mining and tourism …

H.G.: Tourism? You're saying they're going out to Kooragang Island?

Roy: A top-10 destination for Newcastle, according to Lonely Planet. There's so much to do. Kooragang Island - you could spend a lifetime there and only scratch the surface.

MARK GASNIER

Roy: I wonder whether we saw the best of Gaz.

H.G.: Hmm, they were the French years …

Roy: I don't think they saw the best of Gaz either. It's hard to imagine he was shimmy woosh. Isn't it? How long since we've seen a shimmy woosh? I dunno. There are kids now, looking for jobs, who don't know what shimmy woosh means.

POKER MACHINE TAXES

H.G.: This impost, where people have to license themselves to punt. Now how is rugby league going to cope with this? Rugby league seems to have survived because there's enough idiots prepared to put a house or their wage packets through poker machines every week.

Roy: And go into enormous debt just for rugby league. It's a wonderful sacrifice. They're heroes.

TIGER WOODS COMING TO SYDNEY

Roy: People are going to want to have a look at Tiger Woods to see …

H.G.: A dud!

Roy: To see a dud. Absolutely. To see a bloke who doesn't know the difference any more between, say, a driver and a nine iron. A nine and a pitching wedge. HE DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE. He's an absolute basketcase. That's what happens when your game relies on constant roots. I have dealt with a lot of rugby league players who, if they didn't get a root, they'd be absolutely hopeless. Ball handling. Execution. All of these things fell apart. Ball security disappeared. You knew.

THE HYBRID GAME

Roy: A hybrid game between rugby league and rugby union? Oil and water. They're never going to meet. The only intersection I can see is Brad Thorn. [Muffled laughter]. While I see a tremendous amount of respect for Brad Thorn, do we want to see a lot more of Brad Thorn?

STATE OF ORIGIN

H.G.: The one thing we don't do in NSW is [unlike Queensland], on the day of the game everyone gets dressed in their colours on the day of the match. Noticeably, here, hardly anything. Even at rugby league central, like here at Triple M, they don't turn up with their blue jumpers on.

Roy: I know. The sad thing is, often even the police force, you don't see them in blue. And you think, God Almighty, why not …

H.G.: Can I ask whether you think the full-time coach is working. What do you think Stick is doing today about getting a win next year? Watching tapes?

Roy: I'd like to think he's going to see Group 10, Group 9, Group 8 final series. See if there are any kids who could wear the blue.

H.G.: What do you think about this idea that all NSW players know what Sticky wants, as I pointed out in an article during the year, so that when someone shouts out ''The Hinu Shuffle'', you know the calls. There's a weakness in this, isn't there?

Roy: A little bit. With communications the way they are today, the message can go north of the border.

H.G.: Do you mean on social media? Twitter? [Muffled laughter]

Roy: That's the only downside as I see it.

THE STATE OF AUSTRALIAN CRICKET

H.G.: The Argus report. What a complete waste of time! What's the point in pointing the finger at [Andrew] Hilditch and [Greg] Chappell when, as you point out, all you need is better cricketers.

Roy: That should be the Argus Report. One sentence: GET BETTER CRICKETERS. Full stop. Thank you very much. [Here's your] $100,000. Perfect.

THE FOOTY WAR IN WESTERN SYDNEY

Roy: I see that very simple legislation could solve this problem if the O'Farrell government steps in.

H.G.: If it had the guts. The rugby league guts …

Roy: Very simply, if you allow your child to play AFL, you will have to pay an extra 70 per cent tax on top. Simple as that.

H.G.: You've solved the problem right there and then. It goes as an issue.

Roy: The issue disappears. Disappears.

H.G.: Would the leader of the federal opposition label that a toxic tax?

Roy: Well, of course. But you've got to ignore that. It's up to AFL to take the lead. He has so much goodwill going his way at the moment, this would be the time. It wouldn't be an unpopular tax. A 70 per cent increase.

H.G.: Isn't that fantastic. In the tax bill? Not something like the GST?

Roy: No, that would be too hard to administer. I think it's got to be personal tax. Your income tax. There's a state impost, an AFL impost. [Although] you wouldn't call it that.

H.G.: Of course you wouldn't.

Roy: O'Farrell would be cunning. He'd call it something like a Stupidity Tax …

H.G.: … The whole way that GWS has been set up, nobody realised people lived west of the Anzac Bridge until Kevin Sheedy found them …