As a Raiders fan, I have been through many
years of rubbish, witnessed season after season of lost games, missed kicks,
dropped balls, bad passes, devastating injuries, poor tackles, horrible
decisions and shithouse performances.
We’ve dropped players for poor form, for
fucking dogs, for being pissheads, for being dickheads, for being too old and
to make way for a new generation. We’ve
brought in coaches with good track records at other clubs, and dropped them for
not getting the same results at our club.
We hired new coaches for rebuilding, a different coach to rebuild that
one again and another one because those ones didn’t work out. We’ve used experienced coaches, rookie
coaches and ex-players. And we’ve fired
them for bringing in too many dickheads, for not getting rid of all of the
dickheads, and just because other teams are getting new coaches and sometimes
it’s nice to have new things.
Somewhere along the way, there was some
football played, and not all of it was great.
The Raiders were more often than not seemingly content with being “part
of the finals series” then “just outside the top eight” and “not quite on the
bottom”, until we were happy just to “be a part of the competition.”
Through some rare good planning, good
recruitment or just plain good luck, last year’s Raiders team clicked together
like fresh Lego. I don’t know what they
were like off the footy field; I don’t know if they’re all good mates who have
barbecues during summer and invite the whole team and their mums, or if they
have each other’s mobile numbers and send emoji eggplants to each other at 3am;
I don’t know if they even know each other’s real names, but I do know that in
2016, the team was fucking great at rugby league on the field, and played like
they were in a coming-of-age movie where they learnt that playing as a star
team was better than playing as a team of stars.
They didn’t win the whole comp – maybe they
were overawed by the situation of playing finals football, maybe they were just
getting tired, maybe they were sick of running through injuries that were
already 20 weeks old, maybe they had an off day, maybe it was Shannon Boyd’s
potato salad that made everybody sick. No,
they didn’t win, but they went close; they played exciting football and made a
shit-tin of new fans in the process. And
everyone said, “Next year.”
Well this is next year. This is supposed to be our year. And at the halfway point of the season, we’re
sitting around 9th place on the ladder, and yet to beat a top-eight
side. Sure, we’ve been in the contest
for 90% of our games, with three golden-point losses and a couple of games that
were decided by 4 points. If we’d won
those games, the Raiders would be sitting in 2nd place on the ladder
right now. But we didn’t win those
games, and just managed to crawl choking and spluttering past a depleted
Roosters and Parramatta team. And with
each more disappointing performance, the fans comfort themselves by repeating “at
least we’re not Newcastle,” except we lost to them as well. And then we watch an out-of-form Panthers
team put in a 38-0 performance over the Bulldogs and we think “well at least we’re
not Canterbury lol look at Des Hasler’s hair,” until we remember that they beat
us as well, without their best prop and their key playmaker. And even though the Green Machine fell to a
team without substitutes, a kicking game or anyone able to tackle, the media
release has been the same: “we’re only
losing by a couple of points, and a win is not far away.”
It’d better fucking not be too far away. Our last premiership was in 1994, which is
getting into dangerous meme territory. Now
the only team we can make fun of is the Warriors, and even they made a grand
final more recently than us.
Also, with that 1994 team, only winning one
year was a bit disappointing. When all
13 of your starting line-up and a couple of your reserves are international and
Origin representatives, you really should be dominant for a fucking
decade. But that’s just me.
For the Green Machine tragics, here’s some
Ricky Stuart magic that might make everyone feel a bit better about life. How come Sezer can't throw these kinds of passes?
Round 14
Cronulla (1.61) vs Melbourne (2.38)
With Cooper Cronk being “rested”
by Melbourne, I can’t see anything but a Cronulla victory tonight, and that
makes me sad. It would be great if
everyone was really injured by the end of the game and had to retire from
playing forever.
Manly (1.21) vs Newcastle (4.60)
Daly Cherry-Evans is playing
his little heart out at the moment, and is in danger of being picked for Origin
2 if he keeps this kind of malarkey going.
Newcastle… well, you just have to love them, don’t you?
Brisbane (1.24) vs Souths (4.15)
Things that happened when
Souths were good: Flappy Bird, Chris
Martin and Gwenny P broke up, Courtney Love found the missing Malaysian
Airlines plane on Google Earth, How I Met Your Mother finished and Sharknado 2
was released.
Gold Coast (1.73) vs Warriors (2.15)
No one cares.
Penrith (1.82) vs Canberra (2.04)
Ok, so I’ve had a fair
spray at Canberra already, but I think this is going to be the game that turns
their season around. Just saying that
gives me goosebumps. No, it’s just a
rash. Never mind. WOO.
GO RAIDERS WOO.
Parramatta (2.00) vs North Queensland (1.85)
I do like the enthusiasm of
Parra at the moment. I wouldn’t hate for
them to win this one, but they probably won’t.
It’s nice to see the Cowboys winning without Thursty Thurston for a change too. I don't mind who wins this one, and I hope everyone has a great game, has fun and enjoys the spirit of good-hearted competition.
Wests Tigers (4.35) vs Roosters (1.23)
Normally you’d just say “whoever
is playing the Tigers will knock up a cricket score” but the Roosters will
probably make it look a bit harder than it should.
Canterbury (2.67) vs St George (1.50)
At the start of the year,
I had picked Canterbury to be fucking shithouse, and St George to be just as
bad. Just goes to show that I’m right
about half the time, and the other half I’m not far off.
THROWBACK THURSDAY
Anthony Watts was an
occasional player for the Cowboys and Sharks, and despite never actually
playing a game for the Roosters, was dropped by them twice. His greatest
achievement on the field was biting another player on the dick.
Following the end of his
rugby league career, he joined two bikie gangs, the Finks and the Mongols, and
was surprisingly arrested for “gang-related crimes.” He was arrested a second time for selling
steroids, and a third time for beating up an old man on the street. We can rest assured that this pillar of
society is a free man again today.
"I was wearing a mouthguard and there’s no way I bit him on the dick. It’s pretty shithouse to be at the centre of something like this, even though I've been through a lot in my career."- Anthony Watts
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| Funny, he doesn't look like a criminal |
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