Take your pick: Sharks prop Andrew Fifita thought he would be playing for Tonga, but has now been picked for Australia after round nine injuries. Credit:Getty Images There is a precedent for "big three" countries marching into minnow squad training before World Cups and nicking dual-qualified stars, but what the events of the weekend make clear is that if Australia, New Zealand and England suffer injuries immediately before or during this year's RLWC, their stocks of replacements will be rather thin – because the would-be call-ups will be already playing against them. A slap in the face for logic Twitter was always going to blow up when the first player was sent to the sin bin for slapping. As it is, no one could match the fury of the man involved, Parramatta's Kenny Edwards, who propelled a chair across the dressingroom at 1300SMILES Stadium.

Where to look: Injury complications ahead of the representative round highlights the potential for problems with dual-eligibility players. Credit:Getty Images But what do people actually want? An all-in slap? There was no alternative after they banned punching and sure, pushing might be next and … eventually it WILL be tackling or tickling. But not for a while yet…. Meanwhile, "culture" in rugby league is often derided as a cliche but on Saturday night Canterbury and Wests Tigers each lost two stars to injury in the first half of matches. Could the response of those left have been more different? Beavering out a theory Why does Des Hasler "hate country rugby league"? Former Australia star Steve Menzies provided a hilarious theory late last week on Fox Sports.

Menzies recounted how, when he was at Manly, players "kidnapped" an RM Williams shoe owned by the coach and asked for $300 towards the players fund to get it back. Hasler never paid up; when the shoe was finally returned to the coach by Nik Kosef at Menzies' wedding 15 years later, the coach decried that he had just thrown out the other one the previous week! "Nik Kosef was born in Cobar … he's from the country. That's why Des hates Country rugby league." Samoan musical chairs Once Josh Papalii was stood down by Australia, what was to stop Samoa coach Matt Parish tapping him up? The problem with representative bans like those handed out to Anthony Milford and Valentine Holmes last year is that they are local and notional. It's another side to the item above – once players can represent more than one country in a given year, why should one respect the disciplinary sanctions of another?

Parish did leave a spot in his squad open, but not for Papalii. He has a surprise standby in mind and he's not telling anyone who it is. Whose commentary is more better? This item is not an opinion as much as a survey. Murdering the English language is part of the job of sports commentators; a badge of honour. But it was pointed out to me over the weekend that in rugby league sometimes the same faulty grammar comes from the same callers – which begs two questions: does anyone tell them, and does anyone care? I think it was colleague Roy Masters who once wrote that rugby union people in Sydney would often snigger "rugby league is more better", a phrase once heard from an apocryphal fan. So, does "them penalties" and "they done some bad things in the first half" hurt the game in any way? Does it reinforce negative stereotypes about the game or do you not care what outsiders think? Hashtag #RLgrammar on social media.