Friday, July 18, 2014

NRL 2014 Round 19: Thorpedoed


In typical fashion, I tipped a full round last week… and forgot to post a blog with my predictions and hilarious insights into the world. 


In a nutshell, the last fortnight has entailed:
The Sharks beat the Roosters, Lote Tuquiri was one of Souths best players, Josh Papali threw a bottle ofmoisturising lotion at some bloke, Darius Boyd cemented the notion that league players are all fucking idiots, the Wolfman has been banned from playing for tipping himself (plus he would’ve lost a couple of bucks on a wasted bet), the Warriors pushed in a scrum and scored, and Wayne Bennett has decided that he doesn’t want to coach a team whose average age is older than him. 

There was also a great example of "what the fuck am I going to do now?" from outside the world of rugby league, yet I think that many of our boofheaded heroes can learn from. Ian Thorpe, former Aussie swimming champion has clarified what everyone in the whole world ever suspected, and cares fuck all about, in that he is indeed gay.  I’m not sure whether it was the fact that Thorpie was never seen with women during his swimming career or that he opted to go into designing pearl necklaces (hehehe), but I just don’t really think anyone cares who an ex-swimmer is knocking flippers with anyway. 

To me, it’s a desperate act for Ian Thorpe to remain relevant, and he did it in a dick way, by going to the most popular and most-watched (and probably highest paying) interviewer, Michael Parkinson.  What’s up, Thorpie, isn’t Ray Martin good enough?  Karl Stefanovic?  That chick off 60 Minutes?

Personally, I’ve never liked Ian Thorpe.  I didn’t like him when he was swimming, I didn’t like him when he wasn’t, I didn’t like him when he wasn’t gay and I don’t like him now that he is.  He just seems like a tool.  Yes, the bloke can tread water like a boss, but I don’t think that’s much of a substitute for personality.  He tried to host a shithouse tv show, tried to make a swimming comeback, tried to be the people’s champion again, and it didn’t work.  Maybe he didn’t quite realise that staring at a black line on the bottom of a pool can only get you so far, especially to the fickle Australian sporting community.  Once your use-by date is gone, you get chucked out with the rest of the old vegetables and empty milk containers. 

What Thorpie really needed to do was to line something up for his post-swimming life.  A job.  An education.  A personality.  Fuck it, if that Hackett dickhead can get a gig hosting Wide World of Sports every Sunday, and faffing off around the world to commentate on swimming meets, then surely there’s something out there for Thorpie to do, other than his current occupation, which is TO BE GAY. 

It’s something that every pro athlete in Australia needs to think about.  Once you hit that magic age where your injuries don’t heal as well, your technique starts to falter, or you just get plain tired, you need a Plan B.  There’s only so long that the public will want to see you, so there’s only so long that your sponsors will want you to be seen with them. 

Good luck with the next month of interviews for Women’s Day and New Idea.  Hope you invest the cash well so we don’t need to see you in a see-through fluoro string vest at Mardi Gras.

 I know, I'm as shocked as you are.


Round 19

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

Friday, July 04, 2014

NRL 2014 Round 17: Back to normal


After a tumultuous week for rugby league which saw Todd Carney pissing metaphorically over his career and literally over his face, State of Origin has reared its head for the third time this year and to restore some pride and respectability back to the sport.  

Queensland player Will Chambers is facing assault charges following an incident at a nightclub on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

I knew I could rely on the NRL to provide me with something to write about.  I'm not sure if it's the assault charge or the fact that the players were in a nightclub on a Tuesday that impresses me more.  QLD coach Mal "That's Big Mal To You" Meninga has stated that investigations into the incident won't have an effect on training or the players, which is probably true, as they're all probably used to "helping police with their enquiries" by now.

The NRL then went out of its way to announce that they were investigating pretty much the entire league regarding illegal betting.  Not like betting on cock fighting; more like betting on the games that they were playing in.  Placing bets like "I bet there will be a field goal in this game" and "I bet Shaun Kenny-Dowell will have a shit match."  Could be interesting to see who gets "rested" from their games in the upcoming weeks.  "I bet that Cameron Smith will be rested for quite some time" is paying $2.    

Round 17


The NRL are a bunch of fucking fucktards who think they're so fucking clever by putting on what will probably be a Grand Final preview with the Doggies taking on the Manlies... only they've scheduled it during  the Origin period where neither of the teams good players will be actually taking the field.  It makes the fans feel like they're getting a good match, but they're really, really not.  It's about time that the NRL started giving the fans what they want, not what the NRL wants the fans to want.  Things like Justice Crew and The Voice contestants.  Even the fact that the national anthem is always sung by some dickhead who just happens to be appearing in a musical that's touring the country and has been "receiving reviews".  We're sick of the constant fucking advertising.  

Anyway.  Onto the  games.

The dickhead Dogs will lose, because their worst players are worse than Manly's worst (and that's saying something).  The Cowboys will lost because they travel worse than Schapelle Corby.  The Sharks will lose, because, you know, they're the Sharks (you should feel bad, Broncos).  The Tigers will lose because the Panthers won't, and the Titans will lose because that's just how they roll. 

Canterbury Bulldogs vs Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles
St George-Illawarra Dragons vs North Queensland Cowboys          
Sydney Roosters vs Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks      
Wests Tigers vs Penrith Panthers       
South Sydney Rabbitohs vs Gold Coast Titans



Greg Bird and Luke Lewis bring the manliness back to rugby league with a game of slap n tickle


Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Todd Carney - Urethra dickhead or sick, but urine some trouble

The story on everyone’s lips mind this week is the sacking of Todd Carney by the Cronulla Sharks, following a photo on social media that went viral, depicting young Toddles pissing into his own mouth. 

Joey Johns, a rugby league immortal, one of the world’s sharpest minds and a confessed drug user throughout his career, doesn’t understand why Carney was sacked, saying, “He isn’t hurting anyone else.  It’s stupid, but it’s harmless.”  Johns also doesn’t understand where the sun goes at night, or how to make those “bunny ears” that keep his shoelaces tied up.

Carney’s manager, David Riolo, has complained that Carney didn’t have a chance to defend himself before the Sharks CEO cut him loose.  Normally, I wouldn’t give a fuck about anything that Toddles has to say about anything, but I would buy a ticket to listen to him try and explain this one. 

“It’s a set-up, like when people stand in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” Riolo told radio station 2UE.  It’s very much like that, except completely different, as one involves people standing in front of a leaning building, and the other has a grown man urinating into his own face.

Is Carney’s sacking due to other misdemeanours since he’s been at the Sharks?  Not according to manager man Riolo. “There’s been no serious allegations that I’m aware of that have come across my desk in writing,” he said. “I get 1000 emails every time Todd steps out.”  Just quietly, I reckon Riolo’s email database takes up eighteen warehouses.

Other dickheads have come out and blasted the photographer, one Mick Robinson, a “mate” of Carney’s who took the photo without Todd realising, sent it to his brother, who then lost his phone at the greyhounds which some unknown champion found, unlocked, scrolled through the photos and posted that picture on social media.  It’s all making sense now. 

I’m just going out on a limb here, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that Carney would piss into his own mouth unless it was being photographed.  You know, for posterity, so he can look back when he’s older, perhaps with some grandkids on his knee, and reminisce about the time he drank his own wee.  Carney himself has stated, “It was just a prank, the boys have seen me doing it before.”  I'm not sure if admitting to doing this multiple times makes it any better, to be honest, just like the time he pissed on a bloke at a Canberra pub, drove his car into a mobile phone shop in Goulburn or set fire to someone else on New Years in Sydney.     

Mick Robinson, by the way, will be relieving “Joe the Cameraman” at Channel 9 next week in his role as “sport star scapegoat.” 


I'm glad to see that Fox Sports keeps it as professional as I do

The Sharks made a controversial decision to sack Carney; drinking your own piss isn’t illegal; being a fuckwit isn’t illegal; having your photo taken being a fuckwit and drinking your own piss isn’t illegal - so why should he lose his job?  If Frank the butcher was caught pissing in his own face, would he get sacked?  Maybe not, but I doubt that many people would be buying their sausages from him once they saw the photo.

The point is that Toddles is earning $650,000 per season to play football.  That’s a fucking dump-truck of money by anyone’s standards.  He plays for 80 minutes per week, and trains for two or three hours a day, maybe four times a week.  Other people would call this “going to the gym for a bit” and pay through the dick for the privilege.  Carney has also been injured for the last two months and has played maybe 120 minutes of football in six weeks.  For a guy who is constantly injured, whose name doesn’t get mentioned for representative honours, whose team isn’t winning, fuck it, they’re not even sponsored, but is still pulling in $650k per year, he needs this smack in the face. 

Is his career over?  Possibly.  But probably not.  He might fuck off to the Super League in the UK (last time he tried this, his visa was rejected due to his criminal record), or he might fuck off to France, who will pretty much sign anyone.  More likely, he’ll fuck about in Australia until he fulfils whatever rehab nonsense he pretends to go to and then gets picked up by the Cowboys, Warriors or Storm – probably for about $500,000 a year – so he’ll learn absolutely nothing from being sacked by the third club that he’s played for, and carry on as if nothing happened until in another two years, we’ll be back right here again.  

People have also drawn parallels with the trials and tribulations of my other favourite fuckwit, Robert Lui, who was let go by the Wests Tigers after he was found guilty of assaulting his pregnant girlfriend on numerous occasions, only to suffer the indignity of paying a $2000 fine (seriously) before getting snapped up by the Cowboys for a two-year contract for the meagre sum of $180,000 per season.  Good ol' Robbie unfortunately spent the best part of one of those years on the sidelines following injury, lack of fitness and the small matter of ANOTHER FUCKING ASSAULT CHARGE ON HIS GIRLFRIEND.

We also have the cases of Greg Bird (smashing a schooner glass over his girlfriend's head), Nate Myles shitting in the corridor of his hotel after a night out, Billy Slater punching a bloke in an English pub, Anthony Watmough, Mitchell Pearce touching up a woman in a nightclub, Blake Ferguson's sexual assault, every fucking next guy drink driving... 

It might just be a case of "bad timing, Toddles" as the NRL rap sheet starts to reach biblical proportions, and that might have been how the Sharkies saw it too.  Make an example out of this bloke and send the message through to every fuckwit out there that it doesn't matter if you've won a premiership, scored the Dally M, represented your state and your country, that you can't just go around being a dickhead without facing some consequences.  Each club can do what they want with the dickwits that continually fuck up, and this is what Cronulla have done.  In my opinion, it's what the Cowboys should have done too.  They probably should have also had second thoughts about Lui's comeback game being the designated "Women in League" round, but I'll leave that up to the stellar people at the North Queensland marketing department.  I don't know how we got to the point where the punishment for ongoing violent crimes was a trip to a tropical paradise and given hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I don't know if it's much of a deterrent.     


There's um... something on your chin.


What should be done with ol’ Todd Carney?  Shooting him into orbit was my first thought... but before we find out exactly what happens when a person is launched beyond the stratosphere, we should actually look to the future a bit more seriously.  I think it's safe to say that there’s not a whole lot going on behind those squinty eyes of his, so playing footy is pretty much all he has going for him.  His track record shows that he obviously doesn’t appreciate the position that he’s in or the money that he earns, so let's take that away from him.  If someone is seriously desperate to sign him, then put him on a contract for $80,000.  Enforce a mental health assessment to see why his mentality got stuck at 15 years old.  His new club could become a trailblazer in actually trying to rehabilitate people, and not pretend that they have “overcome their demons” simply because you need them to play against the Bulldogs next weekend.  Carney also needs to actually want to accept support, want to keep playing and want to stop fart-arsing around.  He needs to learn from his mistakes – mistakes that have so far cost him literally millions of dollars.  If he doesn't want to change, learn or improve, then it's up to the team management to deal with that and understand that he is a risk and accept the fact that he will most likely drag himself, the club and his team mates through a fair amount of shit (possibly literally).  Again, he hasn't broken the law or hurt anyone.  If he can stick to that, he might have a future.  

Unless, of course, that Carney's firing wasn’t entirely unplanned, and it was all part of his brilliant scheme to escape the ongoing drug investigations at Cronulla HQ.  Maybe Todd felt the need to uh… evacuate the premises, so to speak. 

In terms of the Sharks' reaction to all of this, Carney’s Cronulla team-mates are full of support for the “fallen angel” but split as to whether he’s a massive twat who deserved to be fired.  One report claims that they enforced a media silence as they rallied around him by stating “Sharks players started arriving at Remondis Stadium from 8am and were tight-lipped as they entered the ground.”  I’m not surprised - I’d be tight-lipped around Carney as well.  He has exceptional aim.