It took me all year but I eventually got the football tipping caper 100% correct, even if there were only two games and Geelong and Melbourne were the minor premiers and raging favourites.

But it was good to see the best teams all year actually won their respective premierships. One waited 44 years to do so, while the other had the monkey well and truly knocked off their back after looking like certainties in 2006 but getting rolled.

I was lucky enough to get to Sydney for the game, which was thoroughly enjoyable. But at times it lacked the skill level that is usual in the NRL, which is often the case on grand final day.

Now, I have a theory about why the kicking was so poor from both sides.

All the talk was about how bad Cameron Smith’s goal-kicking was.

But thinking back, the general-play punting from both halfbacks was ordinary and even the Inglis bombs probably didn’t go as high as he would have liked.

But they were the only effective kicks.

In my humble opinion the theory is that the balls were over-inflated, which would explain a lot. It would answer the question of why both halfbacks’ kicks ran dead nearly every time.

It would also explain the place-kicking debacle and even the mid-field bomb, because he was kicking across the ball, not the end of the ball. My research tells me that the NRL pays a guy to check the ball pressure before every game.

Maybe Manly got at him because it was the only thing that kept them in the game. But seriously, Manly tried hard and threw everything at the Storm but came up with nothing.

In a strange kind of way the clock was wound back in 2007. Melbourne won it by dominating the ruck with their big boppers before they threw it wide, which sort of fits the bill for 1970s and 1980s.

• The trip to Olympic Stadium is a yearly event with some friends and their kids and grandkids.

As mentioned last year, it has been going on for about six years so young kids have now got a bit older and our yearly game of touch in front of the casino has got a bit tougher.

Readers will be happy to know that one of the “children” has progressed from last year’s tripping to front-on defence. So to add to my gravel rash from last year, I ended up with a trip to the chiropractor with a sore neck and still ended up with gravel rash after falling over trying to avoid him after his first go.

I dead-set needed the video referee for protection.

My usual room-mate, who has previously had a fetish for talcum powder, has developed a couple more bad habits. Not only is he a Manly supporter, which was unbearable before the game, but after a night in the casino I came home to find him asleep, naked on top of the bed, dressed only in his NSW jumper and snoring like a hammer drill.

The next morning he mentioned how well he slept and it was good that I didn’t snore at all. I told him that was because I wasn’t asleep and he was lucky I never fed him a pillow sometime during the evening.

But there was a positive side. After old mate had every exotic bet going with Geelong and Manly, he ended up with 65 cents left in his Centrebet account.

By the way, there were two beds in our room.

• Actually it was a good trip and it all started well when I sat beside Grant Thorogood and his wife Myrtle on the way to Sydney.

Of course, Grant is a legend at the Nambour Crushers, a foundation player at the Broncos and a former Queensland Residents player.

Grant was telling me that he was 40 recently and his family played a terrible trick on him.

Being a bit of a male model of note, he recently received a phone call about doing an ad for a major takeaway chicken firm.

The deal was $5000 and had to turn up at the Big Pineapple in a Jackie Howe singlet in a pineapple patch, declaring that the pineapple on the burger is fresh from the farm.

Keen as mustard, with the money already spent, he turned up on the day, was guided by phone to position himself for the ad, only to find one of his mates filming him and his family up in the Big Pineapple with a banner wishing him happy birthday.

They must love you, old mate. Also, his lovely wife’s name is Sharlene, the Myrtle was his way of retribution.

I wonder what will happen to me?