Canberra Raiders 2014: Die Harder

My friend supports the Broncos. This automatically renders him incapable of understanding the slaughterhouse of the soul struggle of supporting a second-tier team. He is also a Queenslander. Frankly, seeing these sentiments strung together on a screen like this is making me question how we are friends at all. Thin ice!

Anyways, because no discussion of the Raiders is complete without reference to the astonishingly innovative ways in which they hemorrhage young talent, and because I still look back on said hemorrhaged talent with a honey-glazed glow I guess I was moaning some wretched sentiment regarding Carney or Monaghan or Ferguson or possibly, depending on the extent to which he had already inflamed me with his airy upper-echelon assuredness, Travis Waddell. I can’t remember the details exactly. It was only two days ago but my mind has a tendency to slip a gear when it comes to the Raiders. Mental health experts would have me believe that this, much like my night terrors, is a side effect from suffering under the sustained weight of terminal failure and disappointment.

 ‘Oh,’ he said, with the inane breeziness common to breakfast TV presenters, ‘you should be used to it by now.’ Of course, this is exactly the type of innately annoying and unsympathetic thing a Bronco supporter would say. Storm fans too, tenfold. The Gina Reinharts of the NRL. Totally out of touch.

Anyway. I told him it never stops hurting. Because it doesn’t. But I enjoyed the sound and sensation of saying something as arresting as this so I added an apocalyptic, cinema-trailer-narrator-type element to my delivery – IT NEVER. STOPS. HURTING.  

Because just like life in general, there is always another punishment, another casual outrage, another loss.
Well, so what. We die harder.

 

A Short History of Corn, via Rooty Hill

Say what you will about Furner (god knows I have), the man is a fucking innovator extraordinaire. Who knew the hamster wheel spun so sensationally inside his boof head? Fed up and frustrated with losing at home (eight from ten this year), he put the team up in a hotel and treated their game against Brisbane as an away game. He bussed them to a “modest four star” hotel on Saturday afternoon. They spent the night “playing cards”, and then caught the team bus to their own home ground. This cost the club $5000, and was, in short, a masterstroke. CheckMATE Furner you wily fuck. The Raiders beat the Broncos and….well, let’s not get excited. We know how this goes. Win in flamboyant fashion one week, lose spectacularly the next. You could set your watch to it.

Brian Smith orchestrated something similar (sort of) a few weeks ago when the Roosters had an away game at Penrith. He organised a Roosters camp. IN ROOTY HILL. They lost the game. Obviously. Everything Brian Smith does is an exercise in industrial scale pointlessness. See also: Brian Smith hiring a crane from which to loom over training sessions like some kind of scrawny-necked omnipotent chicken-God. What he saw from his lofty position is not important. It was a pointless undertaking. It’s like how Doritos are always trying to come up with new flavours. They’re forever maniacally adding new elements to what is essentially mechanically-masticated corn fashioned into triangular shapes and doused with cheese-flavoured emulsifiers. This too is pointless. The fundamental components are unchangeable. One or two top notes may be tweaked to make Mexican Fiesta over into Spicy Nacho Chilli or whatever, but a Dorito is a Dorito is a motherfucking Dorito. By the same token, or maybe by a different token, I don’t know much about tokens per say, Doritos are delicious. Making corn into a chip. That is innovation. Those Incas and Aztecs, Mexicans, whoever, they knew what was up.

In light of this I’m pausing here a moment to give corn some consideration. I think it’s warranted. Corn is amazing.

Corn is the world’s first fully engineered plant. Those Central and Southern Americans, they did amazing things with food. They were the greatest cultivators in history and manipulated corn so comprehensively that it is wholly dependent on humans for its survival.

Consider this: Corn kernels do not spontaneously disengage from their cobs, so unless they are deliberately stripped and planted CORN WILL NOT GROW AND THERE WOULD BE NO CORN.

People, good people, using their bare worker hands, have been tending it continuously for thousands of years. This was before everyone was immersed in the erotic publishing phenomenon, obviously. Also, nothing in the wild even remotely resembles corn. What did they breed corn from? It has no counterparts! I’m not the only person to ask this question. In 1969 food scientists from all over the world hoped to settle the matter once and for all and convened at ‘An Origin of Corn Conference’ at the University of Illinois, “but the debates grew so vituperative and bitter, and at times personal, that the conference broke up in confusion, and no papers from it were ever published.”* So basically, corn’s origins remain as much of a mystery as ever. As mysterious, say, as the giant squids of the deep, with eyes as big as dinner plates. 

And you know how the fourth season of Jersey Shore was filmed in Florence Italy? Of course you do. Here is a bit of an interview with The Situation:  

Q. Was there anything you didn’t like about Florence?

A. I missed a lot of the things I took for granted in America – like Doritos. They’re impossible to find in Italy.

That was in case anyone needed further confirmation of the good work that those toiling South and Central Americans did. Horticultural innovations aren’t what they used to be. Coaching innovations aren’t either. Square watermelons? Tricking pliant and partially-concussed minds into believing they are playing away games at home? Please.

Lockyer Breaks His Face, Nightingale Breaks His Shorts, I Break Down

When you don't believe in anything much it can be tough to find yourself a moving spectacle to indulge in. Emotional kicks? You learn to seize them wherever you can, and you learn to forget the source. Sometimes you cheapen yourself doing it. You learn not to care.

Darren Lockyer running out of the tunnel for the last time ever at Suncorp stadium to be greeted by 50,000 rabid Queenslanders dead-set losing their motherfucking MINDS? Yep, that'll do it.


Football! The direct emotional payoff! People pay good money for emotional explosions of this calibre!

So Locky fanned the flames of my emotional fires - made me cry, in other words. So, this was to be the first sign of trouble. I recognise this now.

As for Locky; well, you know that guy Jesus? And how he's rumoured to be returning any day now? Well that stadium full of people were going apeshit on a level that not even Jesus' much-talked-about return would garner. My mind is still subject to haunting, anueristic flashes of dozens of strobe-like images from the third Origin game and I expect they will stay with me for a good while yet - pain's funny like that - so I was unprepared for having my stuffing spilt all over the place and raked over by one Queenslander, let alone by 50,000 of the bastards going fucking bananas. The entire stadium was one big, heaving human seizure, such was their rapture. Obviously, since I enjoy the sight of of free and unadulterated public outpourings of football-based emotion, I found it to be a highly enjoyable and altogether satisfying spectacle. So much so that I joined in, as it were. From my couch. At 6:30 in the morning. And what a fine morning it was.

As the game wore on I grew terribly tense. This was curious. I have no emotional attachment to either team - unless you count actually disliking them both as emotional attachment, and I suppose there's a strong case for that - but in any case I was verging on the kind of mounting hysteria that causes good people to do bad things -  set fire to their bedrooms, for instance, or hurl a car battery through their neighbour's window - that kind of thing. Curious.

In terms of the actual game, three things happened.

The first was that Jason Nightingale lost his shorts. Like, had the elastic ripped clean out of them. When he recovered from the tackle he realised this soon enough - by which I mean he tried to gather them up only for them to fall straight down. It was very vaudeville; moreso even when he stepped out of them and discarded them - just tossed them over the sideline and stood there free and easy in his navy jocks. It was fabulous. The crowd certainly thought so, because they went fucking ballistic for it. If it had been Ben Hornby in those nasty-ass flesh coloured Spanx; or anyone else who considers modesty and/or the possibility of chaff to be of greater concern that we the public's amusement and/or perviness it wouldn't have been nearly as notable. As it was the whole incident was highly notable. The channel Nine camera crew obviously concured because we were treated to several lingering replays while a trainer scurried over with a fresh pair of fully-elasticised shorts. The whole incident was as refreshing as an autumnal walk in the countryside and left me considering compiling an index - a dossier if you will - of players who still wear jocks.

The second thing that happened was that towards the end of the game, when it was getting very intense and fierce, Justin Hodges ran in and put a tackle on Josh Morris as he lay inert and twitching on the grass with a broken ankle, surrounded by a posse of concerned Dragons who had gathered to bear witness to his pain. Morris had folded like a lawn chair, in other words. Nevermind. Hodges cares not for small matters of injury and decency. Which is nice.

The third thing was that Locky done did got his face all broked up about fifteen minutes out from the end and PAYED ON - INTO GOLDEN POINT NO LESS - AND BOOTED THE FIELD GOAL THAT WON THE BRONCOS THE GAME. Astonishing. I believe that it was a potent demonstration of those things they call guts and courage, although I can't be sure since terminal overuse of such terms has rendered them kind of null and void.

I've never received a flying knee to the face, but this one time I stubbed my toe and found the pain to be so great that I promptly passed out, which was foolish of me because if it was relief that my body was seeking it was unlikely to be found by striking the back of my head against a floor paved with river-rocks. In light of my inherent wimpiness I find the fact that Locky came to, waved away the trainers gathered over him with no small amount of irritation, clambered to his feet and kept playing - pausing periodically to push his loosely flapping and rapidly swelling jaw back up in the general direction of THE REST OF HIS FACE to be all the more astonishing.

More so afterwards; when I find out that he was whisked away to have three titanium plates put into his face, which by all accounts currently mirrors the appearance of a smashed crab. And even more so when I read that he has already pooh-poohed the medical advice warning him of the possibility of losing his eyesight by taking the field on Friday by declaring quote "I WILL PLAY" unquote.

That sound you hear right now, like an opera overture? That's Locky's performance gaining mythical proportions and going straight down into NRL folklore.  And that swelling in your throat? That's that direct emotional payoff I was talking about earlier - not bad, huh?

Josh Dugan= Bambi

A weekend without football is like food without salt: shithouse.

Strictly speaking, this is not entirely true, because I actually had a very nice weekend. Garage sales and my best friend and vegie burgers and Bendigo and kittens and the twinkling lights of Castlemaine by night and riding around in a stylin' Statesman all featured heavily.

Still, there was a void.

There always is, of course, but there is definately a space in my subconscious allocated to football of a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, just like, in my mind at least, the seven o'clock weeknight slot on Channel Ten belongs to Seinfeld, always and forever.

Along with the football shaped void, I was also feeling a little down after the carnage of last week. What's that, you don't remember what happened last week and you want to be reminded? Sweet Jesus. Okay; if you must know, it was the game that the Telegraph recapped in an article entitled 'Wheels Fall Off The Green Machine'.

Enough said, right? Wrong. That headline in no way captures all that was weird and cruel about that game.

Canberra led the Cowboys 22-0 after as many minutes.
Anyone who knows the Raiders know that they can taste blood and whip themselves into a try-scoring frenzy like no other team. They slaughtered the Cowboys in round 25 last year in this way and it was truly a sight to behold. I was there with my brother and in between telling his girlfriend that she smelt like cheap wine/a cheap hooker he spent the entire game frothing at the mouth and probably barred-up over the sight of David Shillington running right over the top of every Cowboy out there. Bear in mind that this was back when Shilly was playing like a fucking demon. You know, when the Raiders forward pack actually went forward and not only made metres but munched them up like big hungry pac-men, remember those days? Good times.

Anyway, back to last week.

First, that massive and angry looking young Cowboy from Gerringong Tariq Sims tackled Dugan - who'd already set up two tries and was looking to be at his most dangerous and destructive best - and ended his afternoon by way of an ankle injury.

I know there's some bad shit to be seen in the world but is there anything worse than seeing Dugan being led off the field clutching at some part of himself and wincing in pain? I think not. Not unless it's Terry Campese being led off seven minutes later, also wincing in pain, and grabbing at his groin. After that the Raiders went all to pieces and it ended up being their blood in the water at Bruce because the Cowboys took it to 40-24.

It was a cruel, cruel day that saw me thank the universe that I no longer lived in Canberra and so was spared the anguish of actually being at the game and having to walk along that bike path out the back of the stadium afterwards feeling shell-shocked and shattered and then driving home in the dark without my lights on, or conversely, with my handbrake on because I was so rattled. Neither of these outcomes were unfamiliar to me after a loss.

Also; as a quick aside, am I the only one who thinks that Josh Dugan's legs may be a tiny bit too thin to take all the trauma that big lumpy bastards like Sims dish out? I mean, his thighs don't even look like they rub together and chaff and rash-up when he walks, what the hell? I am of the understanding that for the modern day footballer this is almost unacceptable. Compared to most players he's basically Bambi out there. Still, we all know that his willowy frame is a big part of why he's so hot, uh, I mean fast, so it's kinda Catch-22. It's a similar dilema to the one faced when he was hiding his Hot under headgear: risk brain damage or release the Hot?

My advice? Stay nimble. Everybody loves Bambi.

So I was in a dim frame of mind ragarding the Broncos Raiders game, frankly. I thought maybe I could do with the break of being away from football, although I always think that after a bad loss and I'm always back on the horse and all over that saddle come the following week with all the enthusiasm of a chronic amnesiac. IT'S WHAT FANS DO, RIGHT?

Unable to watch, I instead received a series of texts  - man texts; the unembellished and unemotional kind - from my Bronco hating, Knights loving mate who was at the game. This is how they went:

-14 nil mate. Half time. Broncs up.
-Close finish here. 24-22, 6 mins to go.
-Extra time. 24 all.
-Broncs won.
-Was great to be there. Tension + LOLs was outta control.
-In pub gettin shitfaced. Lata mate. x

I got these all at once when I stepped out of a reception black hole for a minute, so I had what was essentially an eighty plus minute game condensced into a thirty-second rollercoaster ride of high emotion, at the end of which I felt like falling to the ground and gasping like a fish flopping around dying on the end of a line. All this and I hadn't even watched the game? Fuck therapy, football releases pent up emotion like nothing else. Five stars!

Yesterday I got home and saw the second half of the game, which was convienient because by all accounts the first forty was riddled with Raiders' mistakes and was an all-round bad time to be a Raider or a Raider fan. It's okay though babies, we're used to it and we still love you. Also, there's nothing like some silly school-boy errors to make whatever follows it look really shit-hot good, so even if all they'd managed to do was hold Brisbane scoreless for the second half I would have felt my heart go BangBang for the boys. I'm easy like that.

Still, despite everything, this game will hereby be referred to as THE MOST COURAGEOUS AND UNEXPECTED COMEBACK OF THE SEASON THUS FAR.

-Raiders behind 24 nil with fifteen minutes to go? Check.
-Raiders all of a sudden run in four unanswered tries in nine minutes? Check.
-Awesome rookie Josh Papali scores his first and then his second first-grade try? Check.
-Blake Ferguson inexplicably takes over the role of goal kicker for the first time in his career and casually kicks four from four with those long and froggy legs of his? Check.
-Bronco fans sit like stunned mullets in the stands after sixty minutes of shit-eating smugness? Check.
-Raiders lock it up at 24 all and take it into golden point ? Check.
-Don't want to talk about what happened next? CHECK.

Let's just say that Peter Wallace booted a tidy field goal and snatched victory for the bastard Broncos and left the Raiders looking bereft and leave it at that shall we? Okay good.