NRL Round 3: The Round 4 Prequel

Week three is definitely my favourite of the first three rounds of NRL action, especially if you discount weeks one and two.

It’s been a busy week in league as the inevitable argument about the introduction of an NRL draft pops up for its first visit of the season. Rugby League is a relatively simple game played by relatively simple folk, epitomised precisely by the fucking stupidity of the way teams buy and retain players for the duration of their contracts. In true rugby league style, management buys the best team they can, trains it over the off-season, wins a couple of pre-season tournaments, donks them into the opening rounds and then after a fortnight think, “I want a new one!” Then they get distracted by shiny things and Todd Carney’s new tattoo and forget all about football. Case in point is Manly – this week, they lost, then found then lost then found then lost and then found enough coin to keep Daly Chery-Evans for another couple of weeks, which I believe he will be putting towards buying himself a real name.

St George-Illawarra Dragons vs Wests Tigers
Newcastle Knights vs Brisbane Broncos
Gold Coast Titans vs Melbourne Storm
North Queensland Cowboys vs Parramatta Seals
New Zealand Warriors vs Canterbury Bulldogs
Penrith Panthers vs South Sydney Rabbitohs
Cronulla Sharks vs Manly Sea Eagles

I know, it makes me sick that I've tipped the Dogs AND the Tigers.

Game of the Round:
Sydney Roosters vs Canberra Raiders

The Raiders vs Rooters game used to be one of the fiercest rivalries in league. Well, it was usually just Raiders vs Carney, but it was still ferociously fucking fierce. The Raiders were shit-hot against whichever poor, useless saps that got in their way last week (apparently it was the Titans; I really should pay closer attention) and I don’t see the juggernaut stopping any time soon. Especially not against the Roosters, who for all intents and purposes, are Cocks. Rooster, cock, geddit? See where I’m going with this one?

Something about dicks, really.

Raiders to win by a gazillion; Croker to get first try and Shillington to tear a pectoral. Me to probably have one too many Guinesses and pretend I'm Irish so I can be socially acceptably drunk.

I've been staring at this picture for hours, and I'm still not sure if he's throwing the ball or catching it.

NRL 2012 Round 2: First Round Part II: The Revenge of Round 1

Holy shitballs, how good was Round 1? I still have a massive boner about it and find it embarrassing to stand up. Also, I can’t pee properly. It has been a difficult week for me.

If Round 2 is even half as good, I could find myself in a bit of trouble.

The down points of last week were fairly minor and not-entirely unexpected. For one, the Mighty Green Machine Raiders Woo Woo Go Canberra Go lost. But only just. The other blemish was the form of the North Queensland Cowgirls. I didn’t actually see the game (I am giving up Queensland for Lent. And for general well-being) but heard enough about it to know that Thurston and his rabid band of rednecks just couldn’t be fucked turning up to play, and were an embarrassment to everyone everywhere forever. Come on, it was the fucking Titans. To go down like they did is just ridiculous.

In other news, I’m not understanding all the love for the Weststststs Tigers this year either – they were favourites, and Benji was tipped as a Dally M front-runner before anyone had even finished getting the taste of last season out of their mouths. I’m prepared to be snomming down on a sizeable slice of humble pie at the end of the season, but I’ve got a funny feeling I’m going to be eating my usual diet of awesomeness and noodles.

Round 2:

Manly Sea Eagles vs Wests Tigers
Brisbane Broncos vs North Queensland Cowboys
Canterbury Bulldogs vs St George-Illawarra Dragons
Cronulla Sharks vs Newcastle Knights
Sydney Roosters vs Penrith Panthers
Melbourne Storm vs South Sydney Rabbitohs
Parramatta Seals vs New Zealand Warriors

Game of the Round:

Gold Coast Clash of the Titans vs Canberra Raiders

What did I say last week? Seriously, WHAT DID I SAY? Watch the fuck out for the inside pass to Billy Slater. Sure, I was about 50 minutes early with my prediction, but the point is: I am awesome.

The Raiders should romp this little jaunt to the Coast like the hairy-nosed rumple; an animal bred for its jaunt-romping abilities. It’s also native to the Canberra region, which makes the analogy even better. The Titans got lucky last week, running into the only team who was possibly more asleep than they were. This week, the Raiders won’t give the Titans a sniff, much like the purple-bellied sniffless, a reptile with no sense of smell (also native to the ACT region).

Look for Dugan to make it two games in a row without a serious injury, and Croker to miss at least seventy tackles. I’d also love to see Tom Learoyd-Lahrs do a length of the field try, but sometimes we can’t always get what we want, much like the crested unluckle, a wingless, mute, featherless bird which is renowned as the most unfortunate animal in the ACT region.

The Storm can play some good football, but are useless at the YMCA

NRL 2012: Round 1 - Seriously, already?

Ahoy there dickheads! Sorry it has been so long since my last post, but I’ve been busy posing as Shaun Marsh in the Australian cricket team. I never realised how hard batting would actually be, but I figured I’d give it a red hot go. Pity I ruined one man’s career, but I’m pretty sure it was worth it. For me. Not so much for him, but he washed my windscreen at the traffic lights the other day, and he was pretty good at it. Especially the second time I did a lap of the block just for him. I only gave him twenty cents though; I mean seriously, how hard could washing a windscreen possibly be? Not hard, especially with one of those baggy green squeegees. They’re very absorbent.

Cricket season is more or less coming to a close though, and thanks to regular commenter Mr Football, I’m banned from flogging Ricky Ponting until the end of the season. Due to my habit of flogging piss on Ponting (especially in his recent form), saying anything derogatory is outside of my contract, and as much as I’d like to say that he’s a fucking useless sack of shit who should have Swisse vitamins delivered up his arse via a douche canoe, I won’t.

Which brings me to...

WOO NRL 2012

There’s a lot to wonder about this season, most of which is about Todd Carney and his sexual prowess with dead hookers, stray cats and dead stray hooker cats.

The first round of the season is always a tricky one to tip, especially when you’re as drunk as I am now. But these things need to be done, and the rent needs to be paid. If only I got paid for this shit, the rent would be paid a lot easier than it is now, considering I spent all of my cash on beer and Radiohead tickets. Seriously, if someone wants to buy a Radiohead ticket off me, that would be great. And by Radiohead ticket, I mean a bottle of VB. And by a bottle of VB, I mean an empty can of VB. And by VB, I mean Tooheys Red. And by buy, I mean give me cash or I'll stab you with a broken bottle of it.

The NRL season kicks off tonight, so get your tips in, or cop the wrath that is the scorn of the office when they realise that you forgot that the traditional night of starting the season is a Thursday, rather than, you know, a fucking weekend. God forbid that the NRL allows you to wait until the cricket season, the working week, the Footy Show or a new series of the Big Bang Theory begins.

In any case, we have the following conundrums to contemplate:

Newcastle Knights vs St George-Illawarra Dragons Parramatta Eels vs Brisbane Broncos
Penrith Panthers vs Canterbury Bulldogs
North Queensland Cowboys vs Gold Coast Titans
New Zealand Warriors vs Manly Sea Eagles
Wests Tigers vs Cronulla Sharks
South Sydney Rabbitohs vs Sydney Roosters

GAME OF THE ROUND:

Canberra Fucking Raiders vs Melbourne Storm

Oh go on, have a bitch about my tips. Regardless of the fact that the Raiders have somehow decided that signing the worst player in the NRL over the last three years, including Todd Carney coming off a massive meth bender, in the form of Michael Bani is a good idea, they’ll still have it over the Storm. Recent shithouse weather in Canberra, aka for the past twelve months, should take the most potent Melbourne weapon out of play; the inside pass to Billy Slater.

NOTE TO DAVID FURNER: IF YOU ARE READING THIS (AND YOU SHOULD BE), FOLLOWING TWO PASSES TO THE OUTSIDE, LOOK FOR THE INSIDE PASS TO BILLY SLATER IN THE 63^RD MINUTE. You know, just a prediction. Don’t put money on it or anything.

The presence of a certain Mister Evil Breakfast at the game should definitely push the Green Machine to victory, lest they feel my drunken crowbar wrath from wherever I decide to take refuge from the rain (NOTE TO DAVID FURNER: if it’s raining, I’ll probably just go to the pub to watch it, but I'll mail you a crowbar with which to bash yourself with).

I've got a good feeling about this 2012 year, despite what the Mayans and John Cusack have to say about it.

So lifelike it hurts.

Also, they missed an apostrophe in team's.

Life is a highway

Whenever I see a single shoe on the side of the road, it proves that the world was once covered in oceans, and a pirate had his leg cut off and replaced it with a stump and threw one of his shoes overboard.

My coinundrum

People drop coins; these things happen to the best of us, as a general rule. When someone is receiving change at a shop, restaurant, bar etc, occasionally the fingers don’t always agree with the brain, and a handful of silver hits the ground. Whenever I am in the vicinity, the change-dropping frequency increases exponentially.

When this happens, two things occur:

1. I bend down to help the person collect their coins. Instead of being gracious for my assistance, the dropper of the coins will snatch each precious silver piece that I hold out to them and eye me with suspicion as if I’ve just pulled off a master heist to relieve them of fifteen cents. That’s right, dickhead, I carry around FAKE ten-cent pieces that I subtly use to replace real coins whenever someone drops their change. I have a funny feeling that a fake ten-cent coin would cost around eighty cents. Ocean’s 11 this is not.

2. A single coin lands on its edge and rolls past me, and continues to merrily defy physics as it glides along. As I watch it, I know that I have to stop its progress, and a conundrum presents itself to me - how far am I willing to chase this coin? The fact is, the money isn’t mine; I don’t even know the person to whom it belongs, so I don’t really have a vested interest in it, but the dropper has seen me watch the coin roll, so I feel compelled to do something about it. The coin is now a few metres into its happy little journey, so I take two quick strides after it, and bend down to snatch it up. The coin suddenly makes a 90-degree turn and I clutch at thin air and am forced to take another step or two to catch up with it. Finally, I’m able to corner the silver, and pick it up to return it to its owner. There they are, about eighteen metres away, watching me awkwardly chase a coin through a shopping centre.

Feeling stupid, I nonetheless give the coin back to the person who dropped it, someone who probably wouldn’t give a shit if they dropped twenty cents, let alone chase it for a half-marathon, let alone chase someone else’s coin. As I return it to them, I will attempt to be uber-casual and instead of handing the money back to them, the coin will drop to the ground once again. In a perfect world, we’d just laugh it off before having a beer together. In this world though, I usually dig through my own pockets for a coin and give it to them so they don’t have to chase theirs again. Sometimes, those things just need to be set free.

Shit. These coins have adopted the Phalanx formation. I have no chance

Horses, start your engines

It’s that time of year again that the nation stops doing whatever it's doing so we can watch a couple of horses prance around a field whilst carrying a dwarf atop their back. If there’s a better Australian tradition, then it means I’ve forgotten about Australia Day, the day after Australia Day, any day where there’s a cricket match on, and every other fucking day except for Melbourne Cup Day.

This year, the awesomeness of the Cup extends itself to the famewhores of the United States of Merica, as Sarah Jessica Parker intends on making an appearance. For a $40,000 appearance fee. To spruik her new movie. That no one will see. That she received a few million dollars to appear in. That is a piece of shit.

It is nice that SJP gets to attend the Cup this year though – (a) it’s most likely the last time anyone will have to hear her fucking name again, and (b) she gets to be among people of her own disposition.



There is also a rumour that Kim Kardashian is also going to be there, perhaps to form the back half of a pantomime horse (with Sarah Parker up front), if her schedule of doing … uuuh… allows it. This is a genius move from the Cup Public Relations people, as they try to tap into the elusive “vapid 15-year old slut” market, as they are the only people who would think that Kardashian has any actual value, other than Kardashian herself (another easy $45,000 for her). Kim will also be unveiling her new perfume range. That smells like her last perfume range. That she had no part of making. That she doesn’t wear. For those who won’t be able to be there in person, we’ll just have to make do with watching her on all four of her identical reality TV shows.

But by far the biggest name appearing this year is Brynne Edelstein. Oh wait, I mean “the biggest fuckwit.” I hate this old bag and I hope she gets eaten by a rabid horse. In fact, I hate this whole fucking day – why do we have "A-List" "Celebrities" from America and Cirque du Soleil acrobats doing hour-long trapeze shows in a “tent” made out of diamonds, with a butterfly house being set up by Myer? WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH FUCKING HORSES?

The only sensible thing that happened this year in an attempt to drum up some national pride for the Melbourne Cup was some champion deciding to make a movie about the Cup. They called it The Cup. It had that bloke from The Castle in it. Unfortunately it looked shit boring and fairly depressing and was about jockeys. No one saw it. Because it was boring and about jockeys. And not really funny at all.

But who am I to piss all over this great day? Australians, grab yourself a chicken leg (the traditional meal for this traditional day), head to the TAB, pop on a stupid hat and get acceptably drunk at work. My money’s on Sarah Jessica Parker, but only if she’s being ridden by the guy from The Castle. Even though he’s not funny any more. Except on those ads.

NRL 2011 GRAND FINAL

This is it? The grand final already? Man, it only feels like eighty-three years ago that the season kicked off.

What a year we’ve had – the Raiders were victorious in round one, Mark Gasnier retired, Darren Lockyer single-handedly won State of Origin and Billy Slater was identified as the guy in the Prime Possum costume. But the best part about season 2011 is the way that it ended: with Todd Carney on the unemployed list.

As the dust settles on season 2011, it has inevitably come down to two teams to duke it out in the Granny. Personally, I think throwing an extra team onto the field could create some excitement, but some people are traditionalists and just want to let the Manly Sea Eagles and the New Zealand Warriors play.

I think it’s safe to say that both teams stayed out of the spotlight for the majority of the season; Manly only drew attention to themselves towards the back-end of the year when St George decided to lay down their guns and not win any more, and NZ just kept sneaking their way forward, using the fact that everyone kept thinking that because they weren’t Australian that they must be shit as a very effective shield. Even now, Centrebet are offering better odds for Brisbane to win than the Warriors.

Both teams are coming into the match on the back of some shit-hot form, and it will all depend on who maintains their composure as to who will win. Personally, I think both teams have enough young’uns in their squad playing in crucial positions that the pressure of the game could squash their feeble brains. However, if everyone keeps their heads and Manly can get a roll on, they could even repeat their 40-0 demolition of the Storm a few years back. Hopefully that won't happen; for one, no one wants a shitty one-sided grand final; and two, no one wants that amount of smug Manly fans wandering around again.

Mister Evil Breakfast’s Tip:
Manly will probably win – but if you have a lobster that you’re dying to spend, throw it on the Warriors by 13+. Everyone’s expecting a bit of razzle-dazzle footy from the Kiwis, but if they can stick to a controlled and mature game, they’ll probably surprise everyone (including themselves) -the Storm are still undergoing eyebrow reconstructive surgery to overcome their surprise from last week.

This is why Australia keeps losing to New Zealand - they aren't focussed.

MEB cumulative score: 123