NRL 2014: The Grand Final

And so it has come to this – sixteen teams entered, one shall leave.  Rabbit v Dog.  In a game where the supporters could provide A Current Affair with stories for a year about welfare cheats and shonky Lebanese builders, the NRL decide that this will be the year that they raise Grand Final ticket prices.  Nicely done, NRL, you cheeky bastards.  I’d buy you a beer for that prank, if they also didn’t cost $12. 

In a real-life situation, you’d probably pick a bulldog to tear apart a rabbit, roll around in its entrails, give it a quick dry-hump (for good measure) and then sleep it off somewhere shady.  Alas, this isn’t a real-life situation, and everyone is still wondering how the fuck the Bulldogs got this far.  They’d lost four out of their last six games, including a spanking from 14^th place Titans in the final round of the regular season.  Their five-eighth is borderline retarded, their halfback’s eyes are so close together that there are doubts that there are, in fact, two of them, and they used a 110kg prop as a playmaker for half the season.  Plus, their coach is Des Hasler, who has been stuck in 1982 for the last 30 years.

As a result of the Dogs being so fucking terrible (yet making it this far), the Rabbitohs are about a trillion-to-one favourites to take this game out.  However, 2014 has been the season of upsets (also, the Season of Grubs, the Season of What the Fuck, Raiders? and the Season of Seriously, Sonny Bill Really Isn’t That Good; I Think He’s Playing Well Within Himself So He Stays Fit For His Change To Rugby Union [Again] Before He Comes Back To The NRL And Expects To Just Walk Into Any Fucking Team He Wants For Billions Of Dollars While Phil Gould Fellates Him Three Times A Day.  Trust me, it was a very graphic season) and the Dogs have been kind of dismissed by everyone for this game.  According to pretty much every media article I’ve read this week, the Grand Final is being played by Sam Burgess and Greg Inglis.  If anyone else turns up, it’ll just be a bonus.

Souths should be a bit wary – there’s still a game to be played here, and fuck me if the Bulldogs won’t be digging deep to give 110% so that the boys can receive full credit by sticking to their game plan, and get some go-forward happening, and the backs can build on that.  It’s still a game of two halves, and they need to stick with it for the full 80.  I’d like to thank Channel 9 and KFC.  Shout out to my nan.

South Sydney Rabbitohs vs Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs

Look, I’m thinking Souths will win this by about thirty or forty points.  Seriously.  The closest thing they will find to an opposition this weekend will probably be themselves – Sam Burgess is heading back to Pommieland to play union for some fucking stupid reason, and his three giant brothers will be determined to send him out on a winning note.  The problem there is that they all get a bit “dropsy” and “spastic” when they get “determined.” 

This SHOULD be a piss-easy game to pick.  Souths have the better forward pack as well as the better outside backs.  Both teams will lose a whole shit-tin in attack, defence and grubbiness with the loss of both first-choice hookers – Issac Luke through suspension (and how the fuck do you misspell Isaac like that, Issac?), and Michael Ennis through injury (who still has the potential to play, despite reports of having two breaks in his foot). 

If Ennis doesn’t play, it may be the first time ever that there are no hookers at an NRL event.  Eh?  Eh?  See what I did there?  Sex joke.  Always end the season on a winning note, that’s what I always say*.

*I have never said that before.