Everyone is very excited about the Dolphins’ sensational entry into the NRL and rightly so, but using it as justification to add another team to the competition – let alone three – is too much of a stretch.

Someone needs to sit Peter V’Landys and Andrew Abdo down in a quiet room and tell them to take a deep breath. Yes, the crowds at Suncorp Stadium for the first two rounds have been brilliant. Yes, the broadcast rights holders, sponsors and advertisers are grinning from ear to ear, and yes Wayne Bennett is looking like a genius, but could we just all remind ourselves of one small thing: it’s only been two weeks.

To start talking about knocking the AFL off its perch as Australia’s number one national football code with the addition of two new teams in Queensland and one in Perth is a trifle premature to say the least. Some would even say ridiculous.

The Dolphins successful start might have shown us that Wayne Bennett knows how to put a team together, but it hasn’t shown us that the game has the talent pool to support further expansion.

Look at how the injury-ravaged Melbourne Storm are struggling after Bennett plucked three of their most experienced forwards, and already the Broncos are facing next season without two of their best young players in Dolphins-bound Herbie Farnworth and Tom Flegler.

Multiply that talent drain by three and see how club depth and, more importantly, game quality, is affected. And don’t be fooled by talk of a Pasifika team unearthing a rich new vein of exciting talent. Do you really think a new Islander side would be made up of unknown players discovered in villages in Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and New Guinea? Of course not. They would be established internationals and up-and-coming juniors poached from NRL clubs.

As for basing them in Cairns, just wait to see how well that suggestion goes down with the Cowboys.

No, sorry boys. It looks like you’ve hit a jackpot with Bennett and the Dolphins but maybe you should just sit back and see how it all pans out before you start getting ahead of yourselves.

There are still 29 rounds to go.