Run Ben Barba Run!

Yeah Nah The Boys..

Making a really negative blog post is great. It relieves me of my many stresses. Kicking someone repeatedly in the head while wearing a pair of jack boots probably has the same effect. Or so I imagine. I don't know. I'm a pacifist. The Von Trapp to your Nazi. And if the Von Trapps taught us anything it is that Nazis can be thwarted by girls in pinafores. The End.  

With this in my more relaxed and at ease mind I can now turn my attention to several highlights of round 16.  

The second greatest thing this week was Ben Barba’s man of the match performance in Mackay.

The best thing was that there was a game in Mackay, between the top two teams. I have spent a lot of time in Mackay and the surrounding hinterlands. It’s one of those sensational places that manages to be both offensive and charming, albeit charming in an abrasive, amphetamine-edged way. It’s rude and rough and full of mean looking men who work in the mines and their mean looking dogs and women.

Once I spent a night in a rainforest shack getting wasted on rotgut wine with Scott Prince’s mother. CD’s of Guido Hatzis’ greatest radio moments boomed on continuous loop all night, at her insistence. Not my thing, but Guido Hatzis is a lifestyle choice.  

Anyway, Mackay is Ben Barba’s hometown, and the place he referenced in 2011 when he said that as a youth he developed his step by running from cops. He is now, according to every section of the media, an official “excitement machine”. I think the last person to be labeled an excitement machine was Josh Dugan. He's busted a lot nowadays. He still makes me coo like a dove though, which is nice.

Ben Barba has excitement up the wazoo. He was awesome in Mackay against the Storm, he whipped the crowd into frenzy, and he blew kisses and waggled his finger like G.I. used to do and afterwards he said the whole experience was “the best thing besides my kids being born.”

Elsewhere, in a game preceded by Mad Dog McDougal waving a wooden spoon around obnoxiously on the sideline (Matty Johns, later – “What’s happened to McDougal, has he got stuck in a dryer or something – he’s Benjamin Button – he’s shrinking!”) Nathan Hindmarsh pretty much single-handedly steered the Eels to a victory. Now there’s a sentence I’ve written never. Hindy was Paul Gallen-esque. AND it went down to golden point and we have all seen far too many heartbreaking scenes of a heartbroken Hindy after far too many golden point losses, I really didn’t know how many more he could take before he went on a shooting spree or something. The situation at Parramatta these last few years have pummeled a once robust and irreverent Hindy into an apologetic, barely identifiable corpse. On the weekend he rose up from the ashes of his faded glory and fucking flew. Here’s what he said about his man of the match performance: “I just thought bugger it I’m just gonna enjoy meself”. He’s a true treasure.

Another standout event was the courts stripping Josh Dugan of his driving license. We’ve been through this before. We will probably go through this again.  He is in the middle of a vivid and impressionable youth, after all – surely he is entitled to scatter witches hats at roadwork sites and speed through school zones extravagantly? (I’m not saying he did this. What I am saying though is that I would do this (below) if he were to pass me in the street.)

After his court appearance he said that he is much smarter for it. Footballers say the stupidest things. Where do they learn these phrases? At what point in their careers are they taught not to make unconstructive remarks? Around the same time they are taught to preface every remark – particularly if they are responding to a compliment relating to their existence as an individual – with “the boys”,  and preferably with “yeah nah the boys…”

Here’s how it works: (Picture a post-match sideline interview, and prepare to gain no insight whatsoever into the interviewed footballer’s mind.)

“Ben Barba that was an outstanding length of the field run you pulled off there in the 76^th minute, you slipped past at least five Storm tacklers and chasers, some would say you’re slippery as a greased pig and twice as fast..”

“Yeh nah the boys put in a real solid effort we trained well all week and we’re just happy to come away with the win.”

There are three components to this sentence that basically constitute everything a footballer has to say in interviews, ever, no matter how hard the interviewer tries to get the player to say something interesting or expansive about themselves. And because the interviewers are invariably box headed ex-player buffoons - Gasnier, Tallis, Fitler, KIMMORLEY - who spent their playing careers making the same evasive comments they never try particularly hard anyways. Also, they are all invariably dim-witted. Michael Parkinson, your job is safe.

Let’s break it down.

1.       “Yeh nah the boys”. This negates any suggestion of individual effort, excellence or indeed existence. It just shuts it right the fuck down. Next! 

2.      “We trained well all week”. This is like me saying “I looked at Facebook well all week”. Of course they train well. They’re professionals. It’s what they do. In the same way, of course I look at Facebook well. I’m between jobs. What else would I do?

3.      “We’re just happy to come away with the win”. This one is readily interchanged with “We’re just happy to get the two points”, or “We’ll take the two”. Usage usually depends on the nature of the win. If it was an ugly, hardscrabble, or offensive match or one that the victors had no business winning but somehow did, they’ll go the “We’ll take the two” route – see: Paramatta Eels. “We’re just happy to come away with the win” is used after a confident, decisive or spectacular victory, such as Manly’s 38 point thrashing of the Roosters on Sunday. “We’re just happy to get the two points” lies somewhere in the middle of these two. Usage is suggestive of inconsistent, erratic, thrilling or outlandish passages of play and a score that seesaws extravagantly and unpredictably over the eighty minutes - see: Wests Tigers, South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Anyways, moving on from the assertion that footballers are robotic, witless and mentally slow on most fronts, let’s now return to Josh Dugan, who is obviously none of these things (coochie-coo!!)

Here is an actual visual image of what went down when I was there to watch him walk out of the courthouse in Canberra after he lost his license in 2010, bearing in mind, of course, that I am the Hoda to his Beyonce.

He is becoming as thickset as a steer now. This is sad, but inevitable. The NRL: Turning fawns to fat necked steers since 1909.

Now, turning from steers to snakes: 

Obviously I still think Brett Snake Stewart needs to pull his head in and get a hold of himself before further mental disintegration and hair loss occurs. But that article in Good Weekend about his accuser’s father and family background had the unwelcome effect of making me feel great sympathy for him.

Which is annoying.

In my experience sympathy leads to empathy and from there it’s a slippery slope that usually leads to eventual feelings of warmth good will and camaraderie.

When it comes to Brett Stewart, none of these are feelings that I need to feel.   

This one time I found out all this stuff that this girl I had not been able to handle for years had been going through with her wayward miscreant of a boyfriend and baby daddy. The sort of galling, how DARE he stuff that would make you want to throw things against walls. (As it happened, she did throw things against a wall – and by ‘things’ I mean ‘him’. I know. How awesome. Go girl.) Anyway, all this had the strange effect of making me feel great sympathy and a good deal of tenderness and good will toward her. It was a strange sensation. Unfamiliar. I waited for it to pass but it didn’t.

Is this now what I have to look forward to with Brett Stewart? Fuck. Football is supposed to be simple. Love the Raiders, hate the Rabbitohs, respect the Storm. END OF FUCKING STORY.  

BUDDHA WAS RIGHT

Football Fatigue.
The giddying early-season flush of Austen-esque Raider romance has reformulated itself into steely-eyed irritation and associated urges to head out on weekly stabbing sprees.

What is particularly galling about this is that the person who should be crumbling, sobbing, into a ball of recrimination and self-loathing (coach Furner) is not. He continues to sail along blithely, with no regard for my shredded nerves and the unpleasant gloom that has taken root like fungus on my soul.

Speaking of fungus and unpleasantness, a hygiene related boil virus is going through the Raiders camp right now. My brother tells me this is the second outbreak to sweep the club in the last several years. He also tells me with a good deal of severity that this is a sign of a fundamentally unprofessional and deeply flawed club.

He’s right. The club has an image problem, a coach problem, an injury-rate problem, a recruitment problem, a completing-sets problem and a hygiene problem.

Once I discovered this mysterious, sinister lesion on one of my butt cheeks. I was in a third world country; I thought it was Japanese impetigo. I thought if the government got wind of my dangerous and contagious lesion I would be seized upon re-entry to Australia and quarantined like a dog. None of this happened, and after ten or twelve weeks the lesion eventually stopped festering and faded out. My point is that certain things – unsanitary behaviours and viruses and such, are permissible and even expected in far flung places where running water is scarce and goiters are many. I know it’s a nowhere place full of nowhere people that feels for all the world like it’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, but Canberra’s entire existence is based on its proximity to Melbourne and Sydney: IT IS NOT FAR FLUNG.

Anyway. I’m fatigued. The third-world hygiene problems sweeping the Raiders only add to my funk. I am burning out, sailing on exhausted, mid-season seas.

Occasionally I am seized with an irritable envy for the excitement that Storm or Bronco or Bulldog supporters must be feeling as their teams put down roots at the top of the ladder. Or for the enchantment of possibility that Cowboy or Shark supporters must be experiencing, even as their teams are inevitably ground down by the wheels of the world in the coming months.

But then… My friend sent a text during that Cowboys Raiders rubbish last weekend that perfectly encapsulates the existential angst underpinning the very act of supporting the Raiders:  “I try to be a good person…what have I done to deserve this? Buddha was right – life is suffering. Especially if you’re a Faders fan…..” … and this reminds me that my suffering allows me feelings of lofty, martyr-like superiority.

My God, this must be how religious zealots feel. I find this realisation a trifle unsettling.

Speaking of suffering, Josh Dugan busted his ankle at the end of the Cowboys match. It put a macabre flourish on the whole sorry evening. It was tropical Townsville but it was as grim as late 80s Warsaw.

Sad.

Bruce Springsteen

When the aliens –assuming (probably stupidly) they are friendly and evolved - are ready to make their presence known and perhaps even mingle among us (note the ‘when’, not ‘if’) I think they should be given the collected works of Bruce Springsteen to listen to. This will be the best way for them to get a hold on things here, I feel. An aural overview.

As it happens, there is no reason to wait until they are ready. We humans are ready right now.

Deliberate transmissions into space are taking place right now. A team has already beamed forth a series of interstellar messages, including pictorial and musical transmissions, from a radio telescope in Ukraine.

Also, commercial companies that are equal parts alarming and absurd are springing up, including the Cosmic Connexion. The Cosmic Connexion website invites you to email your messages to them and they will then beam them, free of charge, into space and “introduce you to extraterrestrials”.

Many scientists, frightened by the danger that might lurk out there, are stridently opposed to seeking contact with extraterrestrials. Fair play. We are the newest beings in a strange, ancient and uncertain cosmos. We would be foolish to assume anything, least of all that different galactic civilisations would interact at the same idiotic level as us.

But what the hell. We are humans and we are innately foolish. The instinct to blurt out the details of our existence is as old as civilization itself (see cave paintings, Plinys Elder and Younger, Twitter, this blog..), who cares if we’re jeopardising that very existence in the process?

Anyway, Bruce Springsteen songs could potentially ease all sorts of intergalactic tensions and unease. Maybe. Or maybe not. Whatever.

My Favourite Bruce Springsteen Song:

Downbound Train.

“I had a job I had a girl I had something going in this world / I got laid off down at the lumber yard our love went bad times got hard” It’s heartbreaking. It hot-tongs my calcified heart. It’s a terribly sad song of lost love and lonesomeness. All the best songs are. And Bruce Springsteen sings about shit luck and The Struggle like no one else.

Also, as if this song doesn’t have enough going for it already, it’s followed up by I’m on Fire, which starts with the most simultaneously sinister and sexy words ever ; “Hey little girl is your daddy home did he go and leave you all alone -  Mmm-hmmm I got a bad desire….”  And then – I know, I can scarcely contain myself –  “ sometimes it’s like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my skull / At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train runnin’ through the middle of my head”. Oh, my god. It burns. They burn, his songs. Bruce Springsteen’s songs burn me.

My favourite thing about Bruce Springsteen is Bruce Springsteen’s sense of place. Place is always front and centre in Bruce Springsteen’s songs. Especially origins. Bruce Springsteen is especially interested in origins.

Where you were born, where you come from, where you’re stuck, and where you dream of running to.  

They’re epic poems; Bruce Springsteen songs, populated by the lost and the longing and the downtrodden and their dreams of escape and salvation. 

And who among us – extraterrestrials included - doesn’t dream of escape and a little salvation?

World's Toughest Truckers

Looking to cultivate impressive ways of spending your time this winter?

Aspiring to capital “c” culture while remaining sprawled on a sofa wearing a stained robe and slippers?

Do as I do and watch World’s Toughest Truckers on A&E.

It’s a great show. Gripping.

Here’s what happens:

Eight truck drivers converge on different continents and drive all manner of trucks in all manner of conditions carrying all manner of cargo.  Producers, capitalising on the fact that truck drivers are solitary, rebellious types who tend to be ill-tempered and uneven of temperament due to long-term amphetamine abuse, have divided them into pairs. This creates a good deal of conflict, confrontation and coarse language – the bedrocks of good reality TV. The coarse language is especially enriching because a) it comes in a great variation of colourful local vernaculars and b) it comes from the mouths of truck drivers, who are traditionally handy with an expletive.

There is a hideous man from Mobile, Alabama called Rookie. He is repulsive in an indefinable and unnerving way. His eyes are sly and shrewd and he has a sardonic slit of a mouth suggestive of barely leashed aggression and rat cunning. He also has an unpleasant, droopy moustache and a nasty, hectic disposition.  

He is paired up with an Australian, who is the amalgam of several thousand Australian men I have had dealings with in my lifetime. You know the type. You know the type because he is a type. See if you can spot him in that group photo.  

He and Rookie are not getting along. Their fraught mutterings have already spilt over into a blazing argument that saw them disembark from the truck so as they could abuse each other in a more spacious and expansive fashion. The Australian is very rigorous and thorough. He seems to be in possession of a logical and orderly mind. Rookie’s mind seems completely clapped out. He drives in a hell-bent fashion, and casually mows down a road sign without notice or concern. This causes the Australian a good deal of distress.

The only thing I like about Rookie is that he uses the word ‘bubba’ in the same way and to the same degree that we use ‘mate’. The effect, however, is startlingly different. Coming from Rookie, with his menacing air of ill-bred derangement, it basically sounds as seedy and grotesque as a word possibly can. 

There is another American called Shane. Shane declares himself “a dumb hillbilly from Tennessee”.  He is blubbery and sweaty and short-tempered. Shane wears denim overalls, which I believe people in the south refer to as ‘hog washers’ (calm yourself, ladies). It is my understanding that good ol’ boys called Leroy and Jim Bob wear them while they sit on the sagging porches of their hillbilly shacks in remote and lofty mountain hollows, whittling and planning their next incestuous act.  

Shane is paired with a trucker from Colombo, Sri Lanka, whose style is based on a Village People aesthetic. They too have failed to gel and came in in last place on the first leg.  Shane looks the most likely to fray and fall apart as the strain of being alienated from his life and his country takes hold.

There is a third American who I think was cast to counter the assumption that all American truckers are Southern and severely impaired. This one comes from Detroit and is exactly as you would imagine a truck driver from Detroit to be. Hardscrabble cities breed hardscrabble men.  

There is also a Canadian, who is like every other Canadian in that he is dull and inoffensive and devoid of a sense of humour. He is paired with a rotund Scotsman whose dialogue is impossible to understand and should be subtitled but isn’t.

This episode they were in Australia, transporting cattle from Cape York down to Mossman Gorge. There were soaring aerial shots of the top-end with an over-caffeinated American voiceover gleefully espousing the terrible dangers of the hostile Australian environment in that typically hysterical fashion that they seem to like. I say “they” but I like it too. And I really love seeing Australia through an American lens. It makes me feel terribly proud and patriotic. I was watching these immense Kenworth-whatevers speeding across the landscape throwing up cyclonic sheets of red dust as the drivers ground the shit out of their unfamiliar gearboxes and rained regional curses upon their inner workings, and all I could think was “is this a great country or what?”

What a great show.

My Arts Degree Has Failed Me

It turns out that not everyone is as interested in the rugby league ladder and the unraveling of the lowly-ranked Raiders as I am*. Who knew?

That wooden spoon I was sent? It really was just a wooden spoon. “I bought two at the markets and just thought you would like to have one. I think it’s ironbark!”

I thought I had a pretty solid grasp on semiotics. I spent a lot of time studying it at university. People have always said that arts degrees lack some capacity for practical application and I have always scoffed and called them shit-kickers but could it be that they are right?  

In any case, I misread the signs, scrambled the message and arrived at an illogical conclusion. Sometimes a wooden spoon really is just a wooden spoon. Again, who knew?     

*In Nepal I took my Raiders scarf and installed it in a small shrine somewhere near the base of Mount Kangchenjunga in the hope that this would bestow good fortune and great wealth and lower their error count and injury toll and such. There was a Sharks fan with me, he jeered and made derisive comments but then confessed he wished he had thought to bring a jersey and do the same. I felt smug. It was that special kind of smugness derived from superficial acts of random, baseless spirituality. But back in Australia I learnt that the Raiders had lost their last five games. The Sharks, however, were on a dazzling winning streak and had won five straight.

 “That’ll learn me”, I thought**.

 **- it probably won't.

Richie Cracks a Funny

Oh, my god, MY STEP-FATHER MAILED ME A WOODEN SPOON.

I have never, in our 25-odd year relationship, had a conversation with him about football, least of all about the Raiders, and EVEN HE HAS GOT WIND OF HOW FUCKED UP THEY ARE. My god.

This is bad. This means that word of their abject awfulness has crept beyond the mainstream and penetrated the cracks and crevices of polite society. Like mildew! Or thrush!

I know it’s only round 15 and I know the Eels have some catching up and clawing back to do but he is probably right about the spoon. Richie really doesn’t engage with popular culture at all. He has no tolerance for movies, or music, or even television aside from early evening viewing on the ABC. One time I was watching The Biggest Loser in his presence and he became very excited by the big mansion they were living in  – that rude white edifice – and bet me twenty dollars that it was Rose Porteous’ pile. I said no, I said I was fairly certain the show was filmed in Sydney and not on the banks of the Swan River in Perth; I said silence, fool, but he insisted, and the bet was lodged. He’s out of touch, in other words, and of an often uniquely illogical bent.

But perhaps not this time. Perhaps Richie is ahead of the pack this time.

In any case, it’s a beautiful spoon, an artisan affair, all off-kilter and irregular. I will use it to administer beatings to my assorted cats, and any future children; step, birth or other.

After I arrived home from overseas last month our very first exchange involved Richie telling me that he had fixed the interior light in my car and that I must be very careful to keep it on the ‘off’ setting so as it didn’t activate itself every time the door is opened and drain the battery. He bought this final point home repeatedly, with a quiet potency. This is actually exactly the conversation you want to have after two turbulent flights and the nerve-shattering trauma of an overstayed visa incident at Kathmandu airport. It is very grounding. Truly. There is nothing like a conversation about car maintenance while you struggle with overstuffed luggage, in a train station parking lot, after midnight, to really bring home the fact that you are suddenly far, far away from the sweeping majesty of the Himalayas. As it happened it was really pretty much the perfect home coming. I’d had a fucking gut-full of those stinking mountains.

Later on, in the early hours of that same morning, as I was preparing for the long drive to my home, he appeared with a baggie of Australian Defence Force supply rations – tubes of condensed milk, and jam, and bars of chocolate all tersely wrapped in khaki green, Soviet-style packaging -  and said “You like this stuff don’t you? It all tastes like shit but it’ll keep you going on your drive” as if I was striking out into the rolling vastness of the Antarctic instead of, you know, driving down the Hume…  

As a footnote; that stuff really did taste like shit, and, because I have cheap and trashy tastes I really did like it. But more than that, I liked the sweet absurdity behind the giving of it. After all, it’s not every day that you are plied with military rations to ensure your gastro-intestinal satisfaction while in charge of two-tonnes of speeding metal atop one of Australia’s most heavily used highways. I can’t help thinking now that it should be.             

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. 

Josh Dugan Where You At

Furner, Just Admit It.

The Raiders are deeply entrenched – languishing, even - in the hog-wallow at the bottom of the ladder. They have lost their grip. Watching them play requires a great, marrow-taxing exertion of patience and stamina. It leaves me wrung-out, and with a filthy feeling that lingers for a long time. Who needs this? Not fucking me.

At the very least, their work-rates and demeanors are not living up to that of their namesakes.  The Vikings were manly and drank out of skulls and didn’t take any crap from anybody. I can’t help feeling like the Raiders have moved far, far away from these roots. Victor the Viking’s pre-game dancing is more menacing than the entire current Raiders playing team combined. I’m no marketing expert, but I think this means brand Raider has an image problem.

Of course, the Raiders also have injury problems. This is convenient, as it allows David Furner to maintain his veneer of delusion and lies when confronted with suggestions that things may not be going so well for him as coach.  News of inane and bizarre injuries do not help. In fact, it is fucking distracting. For example:

Jack-Boom Wighton is out for the season after a freak accident sustained WHILE BOUNCING ON A TRAMPOLINE AT HIS HOME which did terrible damage TO HIS LITTLE TOE. (My brother, spluttering and very near speechless – “A trampoline??? Does he have kids??? Who bounces on a trampoline??? Who even has a trampoline???)

What can you say? He lives in Canberra. It’s a full life.

((“Just twelve months ago, young Jack Wighton was working as an office trainee packing envelopes at Raiders headquarters in Canberra.”)) 

Anyway. Watching that god-awful 40-0 affair on the weekend I was struck afresh by their irredeemable badness.

Still, I felt cheered because I thought for sure that the fact that coach Furner is grooming the corpse of a dramatically dead football team had been demonstrated perfectly over an entire 80 minute period. And, y’know, I was hoping that this would lead to his termination and expulsion. Effective immediately.

Yeah, no. Not only did this not happen, he also said he took a variety of positives from the game. Astonishing! The man is committing numberless offences against my sensibilities; he’s turning me into a mouth-frothing hell-cat, I’m losing my fucking grip here and he thinks things look positive?? Fuck you, Furner!

I have enough yawning-void and looming-ruin type stuff in my daily life. Plus there’s winter to contend with. Winter brings a whole raft of problems. How to source a bulk load of the goose fat I like to coat myself in, for example.  It also requires a substantial rearranging of my fragmented psyche. So, you know, I really do not need an additional motive for agitation here.   

I could do without the Raiders sucking this badly, basically.

Jarrod Croker.  Jesus-mother, we need to talk about Jarrod.

(("This counts as a tackle, right??"))

Croker doesn’t look like he is even playing football anymore. Croker looks like he is playing a game of Catch the Oily Pig, and not actually catching any oily pigs.  

Is it neurological wherewithal he lacks? Is anemia or neuralgia or something causing him to be a slow flaccid mess? He hasn’t always missed this many tackles has he? Surely he hasn’t always been so absurdly, cartoonishly bad? Why is no one talking about him? Is it because he already looks like a refugee from a Dickens tale who is prone to suicidal despair? Why is no one talking about the Raiders in general? Why does Travis Waddell still have a contract? Why hasn’t anyone keyed Furner’s car/face/person? Why does Furner still have a contract??

Am I the only one asking these questions?

Here are the texts my brother sent me during and after the game. He too feels this hurt very deeply.

I just walked in to see the try from a scrum knock on. Great work

Furner can’t read

Marshmallow

Jasper would be able to tackle better than that   (Jasper is our mother’s foolish crippled whippet.)

That is about as good as Croker can do – tackle a man who is already down

Did he let in another?

What are the commentators saying?

Titans aren’t going to finish last and I can see the Panthers and Eels springing a few more upsets, so you know where that leaves us…

I’m long gone   (he left – fled, you could say)

Dugan looked uncomfortable from what I saw of him – will he be wearing 6 next week?

Wouldn’t matter how bad he went, with Furner in charge and Croker still in 3, Dugan could let in 50 points a game and still be 6 in 2015.

Not that I blame Dugan of course

Furner….

Were there comments about Furner or the future of the club?

Jesus… But the club will not ever change anything will it… Keep the coach and keep re-signing shit players. In HQ they must think that everyone else is wrong and their time will come. The 3^rd Reich will be back before the Raiders.

Aside from all the obvious issues, they are not going to win games without a real captain who can talk at the players. Campo wasn’t much of a captain but he was still the best man for the job. They really need to consider buying a senior marquee player. Like Orford….

God damn, just kick them out of the comp so no one has to care anymore. And let Furner carry the drinks and the oranges at halftime.

Watching Footy Show highlights of Tiger tries and Croker was involved in all tries (apart from one)!!!

--------

“They” “say” a little failure is good. Gives your face some texture.

“They” also “say” drinking your morning urine is a useful and healthful habit.

“It” is all “relative”, but, really, enough already.  

Josh Dugan's Sweetness..& other stuff

Weird things are happening everywhere.

It’s a strange season. Cosmic aberrations abound.

Darius Boyd has taken to weeping in dressing sheds at half time, and probably at full time too, poor little pie.

Mitchell Pearce is picking up Pussy Cat Dolls and maybe (unsubstantiated) Nicki Minaj while on Blues training camp in Melbourne.

Luke Lewis has been stood down as captain; a masterstroke devised by Ivan Cleary and designed to simultaneously demoralise and galvanise while at the same time helping to keep Lewis’ self-esteem in check.

Des Hasler has nothing to maniacally rake his fingers through after shaving off his lion-like mane.

Krisnan Inu has abruptly been sold to the Bulldogs and may turn out to be coachable after all.

The Sharks have been winning games.

Jamal Idris has gained weight and grown so puffy that his edges resemble rising pizza dough that’s been set aside in a bowl on a windowsill. 

Todd Carney came down with a shocking case of the Yips during his Origin debut and made numerous strange and unhelpful contributions to the game.  

Brent Kite took over Billy Slater’s high-ball duties in Origin because Billy Slater couldn’t take one to save his life. His uncharacteristically tenuous command of a fairly simple skill was a welcome development. It was also totally disorientating.

The Bulldogs and the Eels have become my favourite teams to watch; for entirely different but equally rewarding reasons, including but not limited to Jarryd Hayne's lazy charm and Josh Reynolds' abrasive feistyness.

There are some unshakable certainties though.

Brett Stewart remains as aggressively petulant as ever.

Luke Lewis continues, despite his tribulations, to trail a vague air of menace and mongrel behind him.

Laurie Daly’s eyes still look like cornered rats.

The police have netted another Rooster in their wily civic net.

Chris Sandow continues to do his best imitation of somebody who can play.

Timana Tahu continues to do his best imitation of somebody who is not a psychopath.

Dane Tilse still looks like someone who is making good progress on his learn to read program but still has to move his lips to get through the longer words.

Queensland continues to win with a good amount of ease.

Josh Dugan’s sweetness and beauty continues to trouble the air around him.  

Cameron Smith is as irritating as ever.

Braith Anasta’s head is still magisterial and profound.

Dave Taylor’s head still looks like something on a spit.

Wayne Bennett’s press conference comments still have no chance of being mistaken for an author being interviewed on Radio National.

Daniel Vidot is proving to be just as much of a liability for the Dragons as he eventually became for the Raiders.

Hating on referees is now seen to be an even more legitimate and desirable pastime for players, ex-players, fans, coaches, journalists, children, livestock and judges on The Voice.

Willie Mason is still boss.

- All this is about all I ask out of life.