The Grand Final

Grand? Hardly. Final? Very.

Two teams:  the Warriors, who offend no one and endear themselves to many, and Manly. Manly are a team only a mother could love. Granted, there are plenty of Manly mothers, but still. Their very presence in the final soured my festive spirit and I'm not even talking about Brett Stewart specifically. Not yet, anyway. That bitch will get his later. I mean, Tony Abbott supports Manly. Hugh Jackman too, and I bet Baz Luhman does as well and I hate all three of these men and thus rest my case. Manly blow, in a word. Need I say more? No. But I will anyway.

The Highlight  

'Sup Steve Matai! Outstanding. His bloodied head, leaking profusely and later wrapped in bandages was a stirring sight and the standout image of the afternoon. Matai is a simple man. He is programed for violence and he delivers the goods. He plays with authority. I like this. He also plays like a creature accustomed to hunting down its meals. I love this.

Jamie Lyon also delivers the goods. He hunts pigs, did you know? In his down-time? He also has a face like a dropped pie. On grand final day it looked like a dropped pie all squirted with sauce because he too got all dinged up. I feel like I should find him really distasteful but find it impossible to do so. He may be about as interesting as a coffee table but I cannot hate a man who drives to training in a late 1980s Holden Rodeo ute with a rusted out tray. Impossible. Rough edges and extracurricular activities of the redneck variety are GO. Also, it amuses me to know that Manly has a redneck captain. The biggest redneck I can think of off the top of my head is Phil Anselmo from Pantera, so Lyon has a ways to go, but, still...

Oh yeah. Matai stuck two fingers up behind Joe Galuvao's head during the national anthem - you know, the bunny ears? Oh my god. This is proof that if you look like a bison you can get away with anything. A striking set of cornrows don't hurt the cause either. Unless of course you've been in Bali, in which case you're tragic and quite clearly fucked.

Now. After applying that creamy layer of approval to proceedings thus far it is with a heavy heart (this is bullshit, I clearly love it) that I turn my jaundiced eye to:

The Lowlight

- cue crashing cymbals and jeers and the hurling of soft food stuffs - because this is the part where I get to thunder BAD TIMING, BRETT and pretend through those three words that this is a real newspaper headline and not a two-bit blog. Maybe one day. In the meantime, MY GOD was that bad timing! My god! Fancy winning a grand final and only minutes later being unable or just dead-set unwilling to muster up the basic good manners to be gracious to David Gallop on a podium on a national stage. My god! Anyone else would have happily worn Gallop as a hat at that moment. Not Brett Stewart though, no. This makes the fact that he is a total fuckwit official.

I say fuckwit but I think if  I were limited to having only one word to describe Stewart in light of this latest episode it would be 'dick'. It's monosyballic nature endows it with a certain blunt irrefutability, and it's suitably broad while still being closely affiliated with generalised arrogance and stupidity and both pedestrian and specialised idiocy. Okay good. Now that I've settled that, let's review the situation.

Manly win the grand final. Mass celebration and flagrant emoting ensues. Confetti rains like Agent Orange. The world is a place of golden splendour, ANZ Stadium it's enormous racing heart. As the hysteria is taking hold, and moments before he gets a giant bucket of Gatorade dumped over his head coach Des Hasler, referring to Stewart's tumultuous few years, says happily "I think he's finally got some closure". Moments later again and there's Stewart up on the dais responding to the congratulations he receives by asking David Gallop if he had a daughter. Or words to that effect. Maybe. In any case, whatever was said may never be publically known because the NRL moved swiftly to have those who were within earshot banned from talking to the media. Call me cynical, but, smoke, fire, all that shit?

Apparently this much is clear. Stewart, in part, is said to have exclaimed "David, you owe me an apology" and Gallop, god love him, remained gloriously stony faced and responded "Well done". Gallop, goddamn! Later he said 'I'm being really careful with all this", which seems a classy and tactful way of saying "I think Brett Stewart's mind is malfunctioning and that he is on a fast track to becoming a drained, deluded and hollow husk of a man so let's all sit back and watch him unravel shall we, AND PASS THE PIZZA-SHAPES".

Suffice to say that if his intention all this time has been to recruit others to his version of rality then he is in need of urgent and intensive psychological attention. Or a series of beatings.

Such is my distaste for all things Stewart that his brother Glenn's theatrics left me cold. I mean, I suppose an audacious grubber from inside his own 20 that was scooped up by Michael Robinson to set up Daly Cherry-Evans' quickstepping series of dummies and sensational try in the next play only moments before halftime was something to behold, if you like that sort of thing. I don't. The piece of play that resulted in Cherry-Evans' pants being pulled down? Much more to my taste, as was the admiring accompanying commentary from either Gus or Rabbits: "They pants him AND THEY KEEP HIM DOWN!" It was probably Rabbits, now that I think of it. He has that lovely way of switching seamlessly from soft, tender admiration to overwrought bellowing and back again just as suddenly in a way that creates a lovely, edgy tension for the listener.

Now. Manu Vatuvei. He came, he bulldozed, he scored a try - we can ask nothing more of the Beast. He manages to be one of the most formidable bitches out there and at the same time always looks like he's getting great joy out of proceedings too. He has a 'Life of the party' vibe about him; none of this 'I'm only here for the free food and drinks' attitude that some players appear to have *cough - John Sutton - cough*...
 Anyway, I managed to lay my hands on a copy of Manu's daily schedule. Here it is.

David Williams, who seems to have carved a successful career out of being as charming and welcoming as a pie cooling on a windowsill dismissed talk of his disappointment at not being able to play due to that horrendous neck injury by saying he was just relieved not to be the one having to shape up against Manu. He seems a very sweet-tempered and glass-half-full type, doesn't he? As opposed to the egotistical and morally muddy type? Also, he's a bandit for a photo shoot. Let's review the evidence to take us out.

The Battle of Brookvale - Let's Get It On

The key to having happy and satisfactory times is in keeping your expectations low.
This was driven home to me with a certain potency this weekend, when I approached the Manly Storm game with a modest amount of anticipation after being in a 2 week long football void, and a hearty dollop of cold, weary distaste.

Well, shit.
Was that a game or was that a GAME?!
Astonishing. I have never seen anything better (or worse, depending on how you choose to view it or whether or not you're David Gallop). It was vigorous and aggressive as all get out  -and this was before the brawl. We really didn't need the brawl to demonstrate the intensity of emotion out there but wasn't it a lovely extra? Like free prawn crackers with your Chinese takeaway, only infinitely more entertaining. A little more brutal, too. Prawn crackers are a kind of passive. Also, they're pink.

The second phase of that brawl was deadset incredible. There are few things I enjoy more than a vigorous, muscular display of hegemonic masculnity. Buttered white bread is about the only thing that springs to mind to trump it. Anyway, those Sea Eagles flying 30 metres Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style to hurl themselves at Adam Blair was a glorious and blatantly destructive act and I just adored it. What a way to be welcomed home and enfolded once again into Australia's wantonly violent bosom.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Adam Blair and Glenn Stewart

"unleashed on each other after the Storm forward said to Stewart 'let's get it on' as they left the field"

"LET'S GET IT ON"???!! I die. I die of awesome. What marvellous use of a marvellous, no-frills phrase. And entirely by the way, don't those Stewart brothers have faces that would frighten babies?




who knew "let's get it on" could lead to the most vicious sideline brawl in league history? Blair did, bitch!


Additionally, I appreciated the confirmation that Manly truly are the embodiment of a fundamentally rotten and brutal team. I adore this, too. It's a lovely, soothing feeling; having your prejudices confirmed and justified. The refreshing rush of truth really adds to your sense of general well-being. Try it.

On the other hand, I had one of my pet irrational-hatreds shaken and challenged in the same game - i.e. Billy Slater came across as likeable. Again. Goddamn it Billy this has to stop happening. People will start to talk. But Billy ending up in an inadvertant Mills and Boon style full-body embrace with a floppy-necked and screaming in savage agony David Williams after tackling him was too too much, even for my rag and bone shop heart. He didn't so much hold him still, it was more like an intimate, post-coital snuggle while wearing a look so tender it was almost unseemly. I mean, there wasn't a trace of the shitlicking expression that he wears by default, and definitely no sign of the shitlicking grin.

Okay, so he's not a wholly repellant human being, well what of it? The truth of it is that every time I see a glimmer of humanity in Billy Slater I come out somehow diminished, slightly less sure of my identity. I was grateful when the medics arrived and allowed Billy to extract himself from Williams and the macabre embrace because had it gone on for much longer I could see myself having to stagger from the building to be sick in the bushes and I try not to do that so much nowadays. Billy Slater: positively destabilising.

I understand, by the way, that this says far more about the balance of my mind - and that it may be a tad skew-iff - than it does about Billy, who is by all accounts a stand-up bloke. Whatever. Let me have this orright?

Anyway, what is up with David Williams - why so flimsy? He's more fragile than Josh Dugan for chrissakes. Word to David - pioneers were made of strong stuff, so lose the bushman beard or toughen up. Alternatively, you could just lose the beard, although I kinda appreciate you hiding your hot under it - way to make us work for it, bitch! As for Dugan, well, he had Bambi legs. It's biological.

May or may not be the actual David Williams

Ditto for Josh Dugan

So. there was that fabulous game of flaming intensity that I watched pie-eyed, mopping my fevered brow with one hand and tipping clinkers into my mouth with the other. Then there was the Raiders playing the Panthers, to flaccid effect, and it was midway through this flabby non-event that I realised, with a barking laugh, that I was truly back and truly home. Mazel tov, bitches. LET'S GET IT ON.

"Get in the Ring Motherfucka": Gallop Challenges Stewart / Hassler



...patron saint and coiner of the 'get in the ring motherfucka' invitation, also my fashion icon



Dear Brett Stewart,
                            
Stop being a whiny bitch. Everyone knows you've had two years of hell. I sympathise, really I do, but you're starting to come over all bitter. No one likes a bitter fullback, THEY'RE THE WORST. Even Billy Slater seems to understand this.

And why you wanna bitch out David Gallop at every oppurtunity? I get that you're all damaged and distrustful but I think you also may be more than a little bit deranged. It wasn't Gallop dragging you through the courts on all manner of sexual assault charges now was it? All he did was suspend your drunk ass, and fair play to him. No one wants to see the newly minted Face of the Game staggering into street furniture.

Now, nobody wanted to see anything like the unpleasantness that unfolded next happen to you either, believe you me. I wouldn't even wish that shit on a Bronco. But, seriously, you really wanna hijack your own 100th try celebration moment and forevever associate it with your beef with Gallop? Really?This is one battle THAT YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WIN.

Pull your head in. Enjoy these last few years you have with all your hair. If you must, take that massively oversized axe you have to grind out onto the field with you and unleash some hell that way - it's socially accepted violence! Know that you're in a totally privileged position - most of us only get to release our inner turmoil by way of screaming into pillows and quietly weeping in the shower or car - you get to knock people down each week and are payed handsomely for it.

Brett, for the love of god and league, come down off your cross already*.

A little perspective, please.

kay thanx.

P.s. Purely for the purposes of improving your poor public image, I'm sure you won't object to my publishing some semi-gratuitous pictures of you from back when you seemed to enjoy life....

*yikes. There's a sentence you don't want to have to say too often if you can possibly help it.



Brett Stewart at NRL launch party*.
*may not actually be Brett Stewart at NRL launch Party.