The Burgess Rabbit - Another Pest from England

Because rugby league is a ravenous and constantly evolving organism you gotta keep up or be eaten up. In an effort to stay up to speed - it was Bob Dylan who said get out of the road if you can't lend a hand and truer words have never been spoken (Matt Orford take note) - here are some loose notes. This is what comes of me blathering on all day and still not being able to keep up; loose, unadulterated notes.

Burgess brothers are coming out of the woodwork like roaches. We now have three on our hands, and I think there's a fourth still in utero/England? I googled Burgess brothers and here's what I got:

From left to right: Sam, George, Luke....

These pictures satisfied my curiosity perfectly, but then I saw photos of Sam getting lubed up at Bondi and who am I to resist a cultural stereotype?

The latest one has been described as "leaner than Sam and darker than George", which sounds promising, albeit mysterious. They are the NRL's equivalent to the Daddo brothers, basically, and just as whorey I imagine. How long since we've had a three-strong brotherhood? The Walters brothers?

Wassup with the Panthers? Arana Taumata (I know, doesn't ring any bells for me either) was accused of stealing a Penrith club doctor's prescription pad and using it to buy valium at pharmacies all over Paramatta and Campsie. Taumata's name appeared on the prescription sheets but when confronted he denied any involvement and told Gus Gould a teammate from the Windsor Wolves was responsible.

Remember when Todd McKenney was found sprawled over a park bench at 5am with GBH in his pocket and said "BUT OFFICER THEY'RE NOT MY PANTS" and got off the charges? I think that was a watershed moment that changed Australia's legal landscape forever. I know I filed that ingenious excuse away for future reference, anyway.

I'm no legal eagle but I have had the Jay Z and R. Kelly - he of the "BUT OFFICER SHE LOOKED LEGAL" defense - song  Guilty Until Proven Innocent on high rotation for the last week, and as such I am loath to cast uninformed aspersions. Still, the miniscule amount of research I did on Taumata showed that he's already had controversy-plagued stints at the Bulldogs and the Roosters (show me a player who hasn't), as well as at the Broncos, Storm, Tigers and Cowboys. Christ. I don't know about fire but that's a hell of a lot of smoke.

Anyway, that flight the Windsor Wolves took to New Zealand? That sounded like an abolute hoot. Taumata got turned around at Auckland airport and flown straight back to face Gus' great venegance and furious anger regarding the valium. Dane Laurie got hammered on the flight and was promptly sacked after a teammate dobbed him in. Someone else was forced to go home after discovering his passport had been through the wash - this is almost as funny as when that kid whose name eludes me packed his passport for his first ever away game in Queensland. Bless. Finally, Michael Jennings was fined $10 000  for drinking while off with injury. Seems a bit extreme, but there you are.

I noted with interest that the Panthers all managed to pull it together and turn up to a group appearance at Hooters in a gallant effort to promote the chain's push into the west. Apparantly even players who weren't required to attend came along and many have returned since on a regular basis. Trent Waterhouse is totally up in that Hooters shit, I can just tell.

Gus Gould going all Mao Zedong with his cultural revolution at the foot of the mountain is taking a terrible toll on his appearance. Is it just me or has he aged about a dozen years in the last few months? It's alarming. I don't know what goes on out there at Penrith but unless Sandor Earl is involved it's not pretty. I called them one of the uglier teams in the league last week and can I just say a) Not that there's anything wrong with that, and b) Manly are much uglier. Either way, Gus now looks to be going the way of Brandy Alexander: i.e. to shit. Brandy is one of the more intruiging statesmen to me, in that he looks like nothing so much as a rapidly aging accountant. I look at Brandy and see scarcely any resemblance to the guy who made me go for the Panthers back in my babycake days. It's true, I did.

Here's what I found written on the back of a magazine from last weekend:

"Brandy. So much eye makeup - eyes, eyebrows. He is cadaverous. Scurvy, maybe. Or AIDS"

Way harsh? Maybe, BUT HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? A Weekend at Bernie's type situation unfolding while he's live on air is not outside the realm of possibility, trust.

There were two other fragments scrawled onto the magazine : "Soward = Prick", and "Mini barking orders from the back"

Yep. Nothing gets past me and my hawk eye.

Compare Brandy Alexander to the man I believe to be the best-preserved and altogether most attractive statesman in league: Laurie Daly. He is the dead set Dorian Gray of the NRL, he looks fucking BOSS. I also think he's lovely. Brandy can tell a good yarn and he has a sort of hair-trigger twitchiness that I like but he seems a bit of a twit, frankly. Loz is the real deal. He says "Gorrrrn" for 'gone'. Plus I find his unwavering support for the Raiders and his absolute, steadfast refusal to ever tip against them to be beyond charming.

And that post I wrote on Matt Elliot being all elusive and enigmatic? That all came crashing down with the revelation that he was seen lunching at Gloria Jeans with Luke Lewis and Lachlan Coote. Way to ruin my cred, Elliot.

Speaking of credibility, I died a little when I heard that Gus Gould peppers his text messages with 'lol'. That is all shades of wrong and is akin to Laurie Daly weraing this Ed Hardy shirt:

On the opposite end of the scale, I fell a little more in love with JT when he said he listens to hip hop and rap. I mean, the writing  is on the wall, this pretty much makes us soulmates. We may as well have a Mickey and Mallory type hand-cutting, blood-mingling-for-all-eternity ceremony right now and be done with it, seriously. JT, call me.

Word is that last week post-game - in the showers, no less - an admiring Nathan Gardner told Paul Gallan "you're a modern day warrior". Gal's response? "You're an idiot".

Adorable. Bitch is real. He cares not for ice baths, dressing room physio and the compression garments that everyone is trussed up in like Christmas hams these days, AND his drink of choice is bourbon and coke. Word.

Let's all take a moment to reflect again on just how adorable Gal is:

Meanwhile, Chris Sandow continues to solidify his position as the game's biggest Grub. I still think he has a way to go before he strips Jamie Soward of the Grub King crown but damn if he isn't giving it a red hot go. Sandow needs to come to terms with the fact that Dave Coal Train Taylor he 'aint, and behave accordingly. Give up those ill-advised shoulder charges before you get flattened - or keep them up and get flattened, see if I care - but cut it out with the cannonball tackles already, they are unwarranted and filthy. We are hip to you and your carefully timed tactic of hurling yourself at a held up players unprotected legs and we find it and you very unpleasant. Cease and desist, bitch.

Those who pay close attention know that I don't like fouling my pristine posts with pictures of undesirables. You don't shit where you eat, people! So in the interests of keeping We Need To Talk About Todd nice I'm substituting Courtney Love and Lil Wayne for Chris Sandow.

In closing, I wish to make just one passing remark. It regards jerseys. If there is any group of men who should not be seen in round necked jerseys, it's NRL players. Not to put too fine a point on it but they're not exactly known for their swan-like necks, y'know. This is the reason they all look so good come international rep time - because the jerseys are V-neck. Not only that, but they have a natty collar. Even Billy Slater looks bitchin in such a garment, and trust me, I can  scarcely believe this myself.  See the comparisons below as evidence. Anyway, I'm all for improving aesthetics in the NRL and I don't understand why anyone would dress men already challenged in the neck stakes in jerseys that give the impression of almost total necklessness. It's very odd; and it doesn't seem right. Tell me something in this world that does, though.




Willie Mason. My brother calls him a "refrigerator with eyes", for obvious reasons.



Paul Gallan: WITNESS THE FITNESS. Fierce.

And the good ol days of V-Neck jerseys:

Some footnotes.

1) Once I said the notorious Arana Taumata's name out loud I realised he did ring a few bells -  none particularly positive.

2) On R. Kelly: I'd been listening to M.I.A.'s Arular for many a month before I picked i up on the choice gem of a line:

'Could it be/that me and he/are tighter than J.Lo in her jeans/and could it be/that me and he/are tighter than R. Kelly in his teens'. 

That just takes the biscuit in terms of awesome bad taste.

3) Chris Sandow's emergence as a grub-to-watch had me hastening to check the playing schedule in the hope that there are no upcoming Raider Rabbitohs gane. There is. Cue creeping dread. Of the apparently many thousand things Josh Dugan's precious Bambi legs do not need right now, Sandow throwing himself at them at knee height would have to be top of the list. Do not try it, Sandow. Seriously. Push me and I will push back.