Connor Watson has waited 11 years for his first NRL grand final – and on Sunday he'll (hopefully) line up against the Knights and his old housemate Kalyn Ponga.

It's the last Sportscafe of 2026, and Marc Ellis joins the crew for the season finale. Connor talks grand final week and facing Ponga's Knights, while the panel debates the hip-drop that cost Newcastle Phoenix Crossland, and whether the NRL needs an orange card. Lenny relives the Lions' four-minute grand final comeback from the MCG, Wharfie Time and all, along with the Norm Smith debate. Tayla hands out our end-of-season awards, Macca shares his hard-earned advice for a big night out, and two of the year's fan favourites return: the back-fence king and the Talbot Bay Birdwatching Club.

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It's finals season across both codes, and we've got the perfect guests for it.
Brownlow Medallist and three-time Brisbane Lions premiership player Simon Black joins us to gives us insights into AFL Grand Final, where he has the honour of presenting the premiership cup. He talks through what grand final week is really like, what he got wrong in his first one, the Lions' shot at three in a row, and why premierships are built over years, not a single season.

Knights great Kurt Gidley breaks down Newcastle's rise from last year's wooden spoon to a preliminary final, the Justin Holbrook effect, and what finals footy means to the town.

Plus: Connor on the semi-final win and Sam Walker's return, Chur Ma Bro demands an apology for Warriors fans, Joey's legendary 40-nil road graffiti, and the panel picks their AFL Grand Final winners.

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Connor breaks down the Roosters' qualifying final loss to Penrith, what has to change against Cronulla on Saturday night, and where Sam Walker's recovery is at.

Plus the crew debates the Sydney Sweeney betting ad, meets a 17-year-old who kicked the winner two weeks running, and our debate about the greatest sports movie of all time goes off the rails.

Timestamps:

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Teaser
• 00:00:59 Connor Watson on the Panthers loss
• 00:04:54 Do-or-die against the Sharks
• 00:08:46 That pregame praying video on the NRL account
• 00:10:28 Joey on the Warriors: "I'm fine"
• 00:14:38 The Sydney Sweeney betting ad debate
• 00:20:10 Riley Carter: two clutch kicks, two weeks
• 00:26:24 Who'd you pick for the grand final pregame?
• 00:30:18 Greatest sports movie of all time
• 00:39:11 Chris Lynn on Cricket Australia's privatisation push

Laurie Daley joins us three days out from finals week, with a read on the premiership race, the Blues' Origin decider, and an answer on whether he'd ever take an NRL head coaching job.

Then Joey lays out an officiating theory about Mt Smart and The Warriors that's going to cost him a few friends in Auckland. Fair question or sour grapes?

Connor Watson on captaining the Roosters for the first time, the hospital pass that flattened his own halfback, and the off-season dinner he now owes him. Sharni Layton on Australian Survivor, the Commonwealth Games campaign she gave up to film it, and what happens to an athlete's identity after retirement.

Plus the Aussie squad for South Africa, the NFL landing in Melbourne, and three clips from the depths of the internet.

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck joins Marc Ellis and Ric Salizzo on Herbie for Sportscafe Legends.

He's played for the Roosters, the Warriors, the Kiwis, Toa Samoa, the Blues and the All Blacks. This is his last NRL season before a two-year deal at Wakefield Trinity - and with a knee reconstruction behind him, he's watching the Warriors' run from the sideline rather than the field.

Roger talks about growing up in Otara, being coached as a kid by Eric Rush, ringing Rushy to tell him he was leaving rugby for league, and why he picked 12 when he came back to union.

Timestamps:

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Cold open
• 00:00:43 Welcome to Herbie
• 00:02:11 League fitness vs rugby fitness
• 00:02:53 Why he chose 12
• 00:04:31 Learning the game at first receiver
• 00:05:29 Eric Rush the junior coach
• 00:07:58 The phone call to Rushy
• 00:08:44 Why league suited him
• 00:09:53 Community and 40 memberships
• 00:10:59 The pathway out of school
• 00:12:05 A premiership in his second year
• 00:12:40 When he knew he had a gift
• 00:14:15 Getting knocked back
• 00:15:06 Blazers, kit and choosing union
• 00:17:32 Coming home to the Warriors
• 00:18:11 Saying no to mum and dad
• 00:21:39 Heroes: Rushy, Carlos, Benji
• 00:22:11 Eric Rush and the water slide
• 00:23:37 Watching this Warriors season injured
• 00:24:45 Two ACLs and the next surgery
• 00:25:36 All Black 1204
• 00:27:11 Wakefield, and letting go of the plan
• 00:30:41 His brother, LeBron and a PlayStation launch
• 00:34:15 The Herbie project
• 00:34:52 Otara was a village
• 00:36:42 What the travel cost him
• 00:39:15 What's changed at the Warriors
• 00:41:23 What it takes to win a premiership

On Friday night at Allianz, Connor Watson runs out against South Sydney in Jai Arrow's 100th and final game for the club - an appearance the NRL changed its interchange rules to allow after Arrow's MND diagnosis forced him to retire in May.

Connor, Tayla and Lynny break down the scenes on the Gold Coast last weekend and what Friday is going to feel like from the other side of the field.

Then Craig Wing joins us. He came through as a South Sydney junior, debuted for the Bunnies in '97, and ended up building most of his career at the Roosters after Souths were thrown out of the competition.

Nobody is better placed to explain this rivalry - and we asked him which one he'd actually pick. Plus: Neil Townley is 69 years old and still playing local footy every weekend. He gives the Sportscafe team a rev-up they will not forget.

In episode three of Sportscafe Legends, Marc Ellis and Ric Salizzo sit down on Herbie the housebus with Lucy Lawless - Xena: Warrior Princess herself.

She grew up in Mount Albert with no fences and no curfew, was nicknamed "uncoordinated" at school, and then spent six years and 24-episode seasons swinging a sword nine months a year. Xena big in New Zealand, but it was enormous in Italy, Turkey, the Philippines and Iran - and somewhere around episode eight, Lucy found out her character had become a global gay icon, via a stack of faxes from New York while she was standing on the side of set.

These days she'd rather direct than act, and keeps turning down offers from America to do it.

She also has a hobby that comes up about twenty-five minutes in, and it's not what you'd expect.

Marc and Ric get into what Xena did for the New Zealand screen industry, knowing Russell Crowe when he was running an underage nightclub, the first time in her life she felt proud of herself, and what Herbie is actually being used for.

CHAPTERS

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Welcome to Herbie
• 00:01:27 A slow start to the day
• 00:02:20 Growing up in Mount Albert
• 00:04:34 Slightly delinquent
• 00:05:49 How the acting started
• 00:08:28 Becoming a gay icon by accident
• 00:09:19 Marc was an extra on Xena
• 00:10:16 Russell Crowe before Russell Crowe
• 00:11:35 "My nickname at school was uncoordinated"
• 00:12:31 Nine months a year, 14-hour days
• 00:13:13 What Xena did for the NZ industry
• 00:14:55 Watching a film a day
• 00:18:50 Why she's directing now
• 00:21:43 New Zealand needs to feed itself
• 00:24:01 When kids were allowed to disappear
• 00:24:42 The murder trials
• 00:25:33 The hearing
• 00:26:10 Why she goes
• 00:28:30 Pizza etiquette
• 00:29:30 Star Wars, Tom Selleck and the Ewok problem
• 00:32:29 The proudest she's ever been
• 00:34:48 Never Look Away
• 00:35:31 Working with Marc Ellis
• 00:38:44 What Herbie is actually for

Sportscafe Legends is presented by Sal's Authentic New York Pizza and Southern Alps Lager. Herbie is fuelled by Gull.

In episode two of Sportscafe Legends, Marc Ellis and Ric Salizzo sit down on Herbie the housebus with La'auli Sir Michael Jones: 1987 World Cup winner, 55 tests, and the man John Hart once called almost the perfect rugby player.

He takes us back to West Auckland, where he grew up with 15 people under one roof after losing his father at four. He tells the full story of the 1989 knee injury that doctors compared to being hit by a car - and the eighteen-month road back that nobody thought was possible. And he explains why, twenty-six years after he retired, his food bank matters more to him than the rugby ever did.

Plus: where "Iceman" actually came from, cheating at Pictionary with Zinzan Brooke, and the gift that started a two-hour argument at a marae up north.

Legends is brought to you by Sal's Authentic New York Pizza and Southern Alps Brewing Co.

Welcome to LEGENDS - a new show from Sportscafe Media, hosted by Ric Salizzo and Marc Ellis, filmed on board Herbie, the 1971 Bedford bus.

Episode one: Manly Sea Eagles and New Zealand Warriors legend Matthew Ridge.

Fresh off travelling the length and breadth of New Zealand - Ridgey joins the boys from Bali for a conversation that starts with missing teeth and a flax backpack, and ends up somewhere none of us expected.

He opens up on the healer who put his family back together when his marriage was falling apart on the other side of the world, standing up in front of 150 people at a marae to talk about being on the receiving end of DV, why ego is the only thing that will ever ruin you, and what it actually takes to change without losing the bloke everyone fell in love with.

Plus: Marc gives Herbie away to Kiwi families doing it tough, the boys weigh up whether a Marc & Matthew show could work in 2026, and much more.
Two blokes who spent their careers trying to beat each other, now trying to work out how to be good men. It's funnier than that sounds.

⚠️ This episode contains discussion of family harm. If it brings anything up for you, the Family Violence Information Line is 0800 456 450 - free, 24/7.

🍕 Proudly presented by Sal's Authentic New York Pizza
🍺 With Southern Alps Lager
⛽ Herbie fuelled by Gull

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Teaser
• 00:00:57 Welcome to Legends
• 00:02:08 The tooth, the flax bag
• 00:03:03 Could a Marc & Matthew show work again?
• 00:06:07 Herbie: giving the bus to families doing it tough
• 00:06:45 On the road with Herbie
• 00:08:38 The great Kiwi roadie
• 00:09:56 Life is short and nobody remembers you
• 00:11:06 "Does the average Kiwi still think you're a...?"
• 00:12:02 France, the phone call, and the distant healing
• 00:14:37 The marriage that nearly ended
• 00:16:16 150 people at the marae
• 00:17:04 Ridge on domestic violence: "I was the one getting beaten up"
• 00:21:02 What Ridge learned about his own ego
• 00:28:03 Why France didn't work and Bali did
• 00:34:36 India: kids with nothing and the biggest smiles
• 00:35:33 The flax bag everyone asks about
• 00:37:29 "Why has the world become like this?"
• 00:39:48 "Swim, mate"

Alofiana Khan-Pereira has been at the Warriors for five months, but the star winger joins us to talk about standing in the V at Go Media Stadium for the first pre-match haka in NRL history - the goosebumps, the noise when it finished, and what it meant to a kid born in Lismore who only reconnected with his Māori side after moving to New Zealand.

Connor Watson is in studio the week Brian To'o joined the PNG Chiefs, and he's honest about what it's like watching a super club get built around you.

Tayla Montoya ambushes the boys with a round of questions, and Chris Lynn previews the first Test in Darwin in 23 years. Plus a Cathy Freeman classic from the archive, the bird watchers' return, and Joey's very expensive way of getting into his own house.

Cathy joins the Sportscafe chaos and cricket legends Merv Hughes and the late great Dean Jones in the madness.