Paul Gallen and Violence

 

 

Fuck the impressionable soft-skulled children and their neurotic hovering parents.

(I’m proud of Paul Gallen. I’m proud of the fact that in a fortnight filled with nasty little incidents involving nasty little people he didn’t bow to the jungle blood-lust they call “public pressure” and offer up some excruciating contrition-speech as per current specifications.

I’m proud that he didn’t attempt to explain away the small matter of throwing a few punches in the general direction of some brute’s huge misshapen head as an unfortunate byproduct of being “tired”, or use some flaccid variation of the medically elusive brain fade/ brain snap excuse.

He stood staunch. Few do.)

Jarryd Hayne's Big Fat Booty

God. The Raiders’ self-destruction mission so inflamed me that I completely dropped the ball on this Origin business.

It didn’t take much to get me up to speed. Here’s what I learnt:

The Blues are in camp. They are ready to punch on. Bird (obviously), Jennings, the lot of them. I wish them every success (obviously). The end.

Now let’s look at some photos.

The Hayne Plane came out of the hangar on the weekend.

This got me thinking about the track listings on this mysterious tape that was found on the street in south-east Michigan. Y’know, because Hayne has huge hind-quarters? He’s stacked! See also: Sir Mixalot.

If you’re after someone who looks to have more tattoos than teeth and cares not for being cowed by authority of any kind, here’s Todd Carney, being as awesome as always:

Go Blues - seek & destroy. 

NO TRY! - The Inglis Incident, Origin 1

Ridiculous referee decisions usually aren’t reason enough for me to turn crimson and need a defibrillator. Origin is different, though. It’s fast and tight and brutal and it causes people tremendous amounts of excitement. They roam at large and wear wigs and bellow inane catchphrases (“QUEENSLANDER”, for example) and foam at the mouth and appear crazed and rabid. Emotions run high. Referees are required to adhere as closely as possible to what most of us would consider reality. In short, it is not the game in which they should play fast and loose with logic. The consequences are too great, right? Wrong. During the fifth or sixth replay of Greg Inglis knocking that ball forward a general sense of doom swelled inside of me. By the seventh? I could feel the artery on one side of my temple pulsing furiously, moments away from bursting into an aneurysm.

-Pause for protracted ‘mental health’ break and an unclenching of teeth hands toes and buttocks-

It is a hollow loss. This makes it a hollow victory. It was looking like it was going to be a loss anyway, but a legitimate one – brought about by that bizarre choice to kick for 2 and Todd Carney suffering from the yips on his debut and whatever else – but awarding that Inglis incident as a TRY???? That’s when the bottom fell out.       

Imagine if the situation were reversed. Jesus Christ; there would be mass hysteria. Burning effigies! Parliamentary enquiries! Widespread disintegration and missions of vengeance! Bob Katter! Things, according to W.B. Yeats’ take on dodgy 19^th

Century refereeing decisions (or those deranged enough to await the Second Coming of Christ - same same, really), would fall apart, the centre would not hold, mere anarchy would be loosed upon the world.

But that sound you hear? That’s the Queenslanders, collectively scoffing CRY ME A RIVER or other, less astute words to that effect, and, yeah, cunts, if your attitude towards logic and justice is a laissez faire one, by all means deride the inevitable NSW-based outcry as we engage in a few weeks of light existential angst, finger-pointing and recrimination. We down here know ya’ll are too deep into your sun-baked delirium, too lacking in moral fibre, too misshapen of head and too wasted on Bundy to care.

"CARN(ey) THE BLUES"

Blues! Finding it difficult to conjure up the requisite levels of State of Origin based excitement? Feeling like the whole thing will almost inevitably end up resembling a nightmare suffered after eating too much cheese? Already anticipating sitting in steely silence and staring into the middle distance while Queenslanders with demeanors that announce “I am on my way to rob a convenience store” and lesions that announce “I am also a crabs carrier” crow about passion and pride while meantime Michael Jennings is advised to seek work on a road gang? Me too.

These are unpromising circumstances for NSW. They are about as unpromising a circumstance as one could find oneself in.

Despite this, come Wednesday night I will no doubt be all up in game one’s business, and you know why? AS A DOG RETURNETH TO HIS VOMIT, SO A FOOL RETURNETH TO HIS FOLLY – proverbs 26, 11. It’s true. When it comes to Origin the Bible knows what is UP.

Ricky Stuart GOD LOVE HIM has been making his usual fairly spectacular and increasingly apocalyptic comments regarding New South Wales having no option other than to win this series OR ELSE. Yes, well spotted, Ricky, we are now at the “or else” part of the scenario.



Buffalo Bill - also familiar with the "or else" part of fraught scenarios.



Sam Thaiday made some crack to TV cameras about the buffet being their biggest problem during camp, the subtext being that the Maroons are such a finely tuned and highly functional team that lavish quantities of food being digested and pushed through coils of bowel is their primary occupation and concern throughout Origin camp. Maddeningly, the Blues are not in a strong position to argue against this belief.

Still, there is the very real possibility that Thaiday was just overwhelmed at being confronted, while dining, with menus that aren’t laminated and don’t have photographs of the food on it.  

Hopefully - and I say this with a sizeable serving of skepticism - the Blues are cultivating other, more impressive ways of spending their time. Like, say, figuring out how to shut down the unnatural might of Queensland’s right side-loving combination of Smith, Slater and Cronk. That’d be nice.  

As it is, I can barely bring myself to think about those three. JT either. Well, maybe JT a little, but only because he is a man of sleek allure with powerful loins and an idiot’s laugh, and if you look closely you will see that he sometimes bears fabulous, fleeting resemblance to Nick Nolte’s mug shot.

I just kind of feel like Origin is going to be some sort of Discovery Channel nature-based nightmare. Hyenas tearing open a gazelle carcass and the like. I saw something on life under the sea recently. I thought: “this is a lifestyle worth thinking about”. Take cleaning stations, for example. Apparently, these are a common feature of undersea life, places where large fish pull in to be nibbled at by smaller fish for the purposes of health and hygiene for the big fish and dinner for the little fish. Maybe Origin will be something like that, only with a bit more ultra-violence?

Oh, my God. My mind is choosing to think about obscure aquatic social customs rather than, say, the broiling majesty of Cameron Smith with his deep, concentrated, Sphinx-like intensity and hairy bunyip-like body. It’s self-preservation. The alternative is being besieged by a debilitating bout of neurosis and inhaling raw cookie dough.

Praise the Daily Telegraph then and their slew of redemptive, Todd Carney rebooted stories. “CARN THE BLUES!”, “The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Todd Carney”, etc. Right now these stories, along with my orphan lambs BooBoo and BabyCakes demanding milk, are essentially my reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

Is it just me or does he seem like the loveliest and most sweetly-natured person who is purported to have an ‘image problem’ ever? I ask you! When I take over the world (note the ‘when’ there, not ‘if’) I will redress the criteria for all this ‘image problem’ shit, and those afflicted with an affiliation to liquor of the malt variety and a propensity for setting fire to the nutsacks of close friends will rise to the top. Like cream. Just you wait. In the meantime, I understand (just barely) that some people are not fans of menfolk like Todd Carney or Tommy Lee – men who don’t subscribe to the notion that laws are supposed to apply to all people equally. Whatever. Plenty of Robbie Farah/Buster Bluth from Arrested Development types to go round for the likes of them.  

Judgement Day Q&A.

Origin Morning!
So much excitement, so many questions.

Q. Will my jangled nerves be able to hold up over the duration of what is to be a long and tension-filled day?
A. Will they fucking ever! Bring it on!

Q. Will the mighty Blues be adequately prepared for the onslaught of underhanded Queensland tactics including grapples, stomps, facials, and other unspecified niggles and cheap shots?
A. As above.

Q. Will Michael Ennis manage to maintain his composure?
A. Not sure. He's likely to unleash on Nate Myles at some stage. And yes, it may well be at a crucial stage of the game. It's Michael Ennis, remember.

Q. Will Darius Boyd make Mark Gasnier his bitch a'la Origin 1?
A. Highly likely. Darius is fierce.

Q. Will Paul Gallen absolutely own the game again merely by way of his unadulterated, gladiatorial awesomeness?
A. Yes. Yes he will.

Q. Will Johnathan Thurston a) Call a Blue a spastic, b) Call a ref a spastic, c) Call Locky a spastic, d) Cry?

Q. Will Gus Gould's pre kick-off speech rival only Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in terms of the hair-raisingly raw emotional power and passion of the spoken word?
A. Totally. If this speech doesn't rouse you and make you either start swallowing hard and blinking rapidly (if you're staunch), or tearing up and emoting freely (if you're me) then you have have absolutely no business watching this game. Or reading this blog. Or, quite possibly, living.

Q. Will any Blues miss the bus to Suncorp stadium this year?
A. Not on Sticky's watch they won't.

Q. Will there be biff?
A. Absofuckinlutely! Does a bear shit in the woods?

Q. Will Sam Thaiday take any and every oppurtunity to create and/or insinuate himself into any and every bit of biff?
A. As above.

Finally, here's two alternate versions of my favouite moment in recent Origin history, or, as I like to call it, the moment where Brett White responds to Justin Hodges' taunting snake eye gesture by grinning through a mouthful of blood and busted teeth, LAUGHING, AND LICKING HIS LIPS.

The hottest and nastiest thing I have ever seen on a football field thus far, in other words.

Whiskey Oscar Whiskey = Origin.. Part II

Now that the dust has settled and I can think about it without trembling, it has to be said:

What a win.

Also, thankchrist the Blues got up, because I really needed a good cry.

My last one was during the Royal Wedding, and since occasions of such magnitude are few and far between I really have to take any oppurtunity to indulge in 'event tears' that I can get. In real life I hardly cry. I think I'm over medicated. But this is neither here nor there, because we have Origin ashes to pick through.




Were Queensland on the backfoot or what? Those bitches were scrambling out there, sometimes literally. They even started making mistakes and everything. Incredible. Cameron Smith probably didn't make any mistakes, because he is Golden Boy; 1348 touches in 13 games for 0 errors, in case you missed last week's 'Mr Perfect' headlines, but he still lost, and he was still totally peeved in the post-game on-field interview.

Even though he restrained himself from making his usual bitchy and ungracious "they didn't win the game, we lost the game" type remarks he was well miffed. I think in the aftermath of such crushing defeats he'd be the glacially silent type, all barely leashed fury, simmering and glowering and tense around the jaw...I dont know. He could be a really nice, chill guy. It seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible, in the same way that it's possible that Greg Inglis could actually be likeable. And that, in some circles, passing a kidney stone could be considered fun.


Speaking of fun, doesn't Sam Thaiday have an absolute ball in Origin games? I don't know how the guy manages it, but he is up in every bitches business at all times and loving every filthy minute of it. You can tell he wishes all 26 rounds were played at Origin level intensity, purely so that he can indulge what are clearly his deeply violent urges on a far more frequent and far less penalised basis. He reminds me of the red cattle dog my family had growing up, he would fight other dogs wildly and indiscriminately and with absolute, undiluted joy and relish. He would pant and grin for hours afterwards; lavish fights delighted him like nothing else, except maybe rolling in shit, which was his other great passion. Like I said, reminds me for all the world of Sam Thaiday.

Sometimes it takes a lacerated face and gushing blood for me to realise a man is hot. Oh, hai Luke Lewis, welcome to my radar! 

Making that fucking phenomenal try-saving tackle on whoever that about-to-score Maroon also helped, although, let's face it, if it had been Anthony Watmough or Mark Gasnier or Jamie Soward it certainly wouldn't have set my man-o-metre to shudder. Kurt Gidley is about as far as I'm willing to go down that slippery slope of 'taking impressive achievements into account and allowing a certain amount of leeway when considering hotness', frankly. Even low-rent bloggers have to have standards.

Here is a small selection of further bloodied footballers that I find infinitely, boganishly appealing:

Ricky Stuart wrote last week that he had initially paired Watmough and Lewis up to room together on Origin II camp, "until Luke said he can't handle Choc" because he was too much of a night owl. Substitue the words 'night owl' with 'dick head' and we probably get a clearer understanding of the situation. When informed that Lewis was going to be switched for the more easy going Anthony Minichello, Stuart wrote that Choc just laughed and said he'd been afraid he was going to get crash-tackled during the night if things had kept going the way they were, which half made me wish things had continued on as they were...

As it happened, Lewis was taken away from Watmough and put in with Ben Creagh, who Stuart said is at the opposite end of the scale to Choc. A decent bloke then, in other words.


Still on camp, Grandma Hopoate dropped in during the week and mixed up an industrial sized trough of special fruit punch for the boys to stick their snouts into. There were some charming pictures of Blues in towels swilling lurid pink punch. In all honesty though I find the whole Hopoate clan unseemly and Spencer Pratt-ish in that they are always around,  seemingly lurking and with a mini-van at the ready, but that's me.

I don't doubt that the Blues played extra hard because Grandma Hopoate had promised to serve up another vat of her famous watermelon, pineapple and coconut elixir in the sheds if they won. I would have liked to see a frenzied Greg Bird tip the whole cauldron of it over his head like Beau Ryan did that time after a particularly spirited win with that fully loaded esky while the Tigers were screaming their team song all around him, because that was fucking great. This probably did happen, actually, because if there's one thing we all know it's that Greg Bird is partial to throwing a drink or two around.

Finally, and maybe above all, I wish Josh Dugan could have been a part of the win, but until he puts some meat on those skinny foal-like legs of his this may remain an elusive dream. This, I hasten to add, may well happen - he put on five kilos over the off season  - or it may not. Sometimes dreams have inconclusive or dissatisfying endings. Blogs, too.

Whiskey Oscar Whiskey = Origin

Well. I hate to sound biased and vindictive but fucking suck on THAT Queensland you filthy arrogant overachieving tip-rat batards.

Question: How sweet was that?!
Answer: So so so so SO sweet.

So sweet that my blood sugar levels have blown out to such a degree that I haven't been able to blink since the much maligned (by me: he's a grub) Jamie Soward pulled off that incredible kick play to set up the much loved (also by me: he's a champion) Anthony Minichello's MATCH CLINCHING TRY.

Obviously I was unable to sleep all night too, which really goes without saying given the circumstances - by which I mean GIVEN THAT NEW SOUTH WALES WON AND ALL.

Also, given that I am semi-delerious and may or may not be experiencing the odd hallucinatory, blue-tinged vision, I feel I should keep this short and save my expert and objective match analysis (ahem) and Paul Gallen love-fest for later in the day.

So. On with a quick wrap-up of my favourite moments.

Michael Ennis' high shot on Corey Parker.

Hands down, without a doubt the best bit of the night (aside from the winning of course, but that came later, and was entirely unexpected). Eight minutes in and Ennis was already pouring blood all down his face from a gash somewhere on that huge horsey mug of his. The tape wrapped around his head made him look like even more of a warrior, which I hitherto thought impossible, in all honesty. WRONG. His hit on Parker was high as an elephant's eye and brazenly, enthusiastically illegal and everything about it screamed Origin, it was brilliant. Made more brilliant of course by the fact that outside of Origin they're best mates. Nothing encapsulates the 'state against state, mate against mate' ethos like sending your groomsman and the godparent of your children on a thirty second trip to Disneyland in front of the entire nation I feel.

Hearing Phil Gould say "WOW".

This is actually one of the great joys of my life, and if you haven't heard it - if you haven't heard the great Gus Gould roll the word "wow" around every corner of his mouth before releasing it in all it's rich, throaty, drawn-out glory - well, you haven't lived. I mean, look at yourself.

When Gus says the word "wow", you know he is really, really impressed. I won't lie, it gives me chills to hear it. It comes at those moments where you yourself are sitting watching something marvellous unfold and thinking that this truly is the greatest game of all, and then Gus steps in as commentator and just sums up all the emotion and everything you're feeling, regardless of team loyalties or whatever, with that one word. Powerful stuff.

This occured last night at the 49th minute when William-the Mormon missionary-Hopoate scored a typically awesome try for the blues and put us into the lead for the first time in the game. Gus said "wow", and the rest, as they say, is history.

I mean that literally too - last night; that win was historic and epic and everything about it confirmed what we all already know but love more than anything to be reminded of: that rugby league truly is the greatest game of all*.

My favourite Origin photo.
Captain Gallen, flanked by Warrior Ennis, allowing himself to breath out upon winning. Incredible.



*And that it's over for the Maroons, obviously.