Whoop de fucking do, it’s fucking Thursday again, so welcome
to another round of NRL magic. Another
round where the Raiders can lift my hopes, let me believe, inspire me, raise me
up and then throw me down and wee all over me and these are new jeans why are
you doing that now I’m all cold and wet and my phone is dead so I can’t even
call anyone.
Last week was another loss for the Raiders in a game that
they were convincingly winning until they fell into a large football-field
sized hole around the 70th minute of an 80 minute contest. That’s the sixth time this year. SIX FUCKING TIMES, MAN. To be honest, it left me numb. I considered quitting NRL. I could be an AFL man, for sure. At least there are no rules that I need to
learn. I could get drunk and yell abuse
at a whole bunch of new players. There’s
18 players on each team; that’s even more abuse that I can yell. Or maybe I could watch basketball or the
netty – I hear the Firebirds are going well this year.
No, fuck it. I will
stick with the Raiders; we’ve been through some shit times before and will come
out the other side again.
I don’t know what the answer is for the Green Machine, to be
honest. Every other armchair athlete has
a plethora of changes to improve the team’s performance, ranging from “sack
Ricky Stuart” to “sack Blake Austin” and “sack Aiden Sezer.” I don’t know if these are really the best
moves. Sacking the coach or the halfline
just means that now you need to find new people to come to Canberra and perform
better than the last fucking guys. And
anyway, the best way to attract new and better players to the team is through
success. The opportunity to run off
Hodgson, and feed Rapana and Cotric should already be enticing to other
play-makers. To defend with Leilua and Whitehead should make second-rowers
dribble with anticipation. A front-row partnership with Boyd (now gone),
Vaughan (also gone) and Paulo (another one gone), should have kept all of those
players here; throw in Papalli and Sia, and you won't be able to find a bigger
bunch of bodies to play behind. But no
one is banging on the door to green themselves up, because we aren’t winning.
Me, I actually love the fact that the playing roster hasn’t changed
immensely from the last few years, and I believe that (most of the time) the
team that stays together will win together as they grow as a unit and learn each
other’s' strengths and weaknesses and adjust their own play to allow for that. This is a great theory that I probably got from
the Mighty Ducks movies, because it sure as fuck isn’t happening for the
Raiders.
Canberra needs players who want to be here, not just guns
for hire. The “buy the best players and
we’ll totes win” tactic is currently being employed at the Roosters and the
Sharks, and it’s just not working. Sure,
they’re getting a few wins up, but not really enough to warrant the cost. When you buy a Lamborghini, you shouldn’t
have to wait a few years before you can drag off a Mazda at the lights. A rugby league team needs to be hungry for
success, not just wanting to be there because they get paid and are never held
accountable for shit performances, drink-driving offences, assaults and
gambling debts. The Raiders tried that when Dave Furner was the coach, and too many
dickheads hung around for way too long.
Ok, for the sake of argument, let’s change up the team. We’ll kick off with the current whipping boy,
Blake Austin. For starters, Austin does
great things off the field, and occasionally even some good things on it. But
for $600,000+ a year, he needs to do more. I don't want to single him out, but
he is playing in a pretty influential position in the team. He gets to control
the play and all parts of it; the direction, the intention, the speed, the
match-ups, the risks. If he is going to be a running five-eighth, he needs to
have support running off his hip. If he is going to pass, he needs people
hitting gaps. But it seems that at the moment, no one on the park knows what he
is going to do (other than dummy and run with no intention to pass). He needs to put his body in the way – there
were three tries last week that went straight past him. At the very least, he needs to become a speed
bump in the style of James Maloney; the NRL has probably never had a weaker
tackler, but he at least gets in the way of his opposition. A pebble in your shoe won’t stop you from walking,
but it will definitely slow you down and piss you the fuck off.
The other option we have is to take up the NRL’s favourite pastime
– Sack The Coach! Ricky isn’t the one
fucking about on the field, but that’s ok, we should probably get rid of him anyway. I loved Ricky Stuart as a player. No one
could throw those long passes like he could in the early-to-mid 90s, and no one
has had as strong a kicking game since. But is he a good coach? Is he the right coach? Who the fuck knows? He needs to find something - anything - to
keep the players calm when they let in a try. As soon as the opposition gets a
sniff on the scoreboard, the Raiders fall apart. There's panic all across the field
and balls get dropped, passes don't find the mark and tackles get missed. What
changes in the players during this time that hadn't happened in the last 70
minutes? There's no control at all, and we need control. Is that the coach’s job? Does he need to tell everyone on the field to
“calm the fuck down” during the last ten minutes of a game? Can’t they handle this themselves? Have you ever been panicking about something
and someone says, “Hey man, just calm down”?
Do you know how not calming that is?
These guys are professional fucking athletes – if they don’t know how to
relax during a game by now, then maybe they’re in the wrong line of work.
I am not expecting to go through a golden patch of rugby
league dominance in Canberra. I don’t
anticipate seeing premiership trophies piled up next to Questacon, but just a
bit of fucking positive consistency wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Round 17
Melbourne Storm vs St George Dragons
Of course you’d have two of the top teams in the competition
play each other when both have their best players out because of State of
Origin. Well done, fuckwits.
Penrith Panthers vs NZ Warriors
The majority of the Panthers players are either injured or
in Origin camp, so this should be a walk in the park for the Kiwibros that I’m
sure they will make pretty difficult for themselves anyway.
Canterbury Bulldogs vs Canberra Fucking Raiders
I think I’ve said enough about the Raiders for one day. It’s going to be hard to support the team
from here though; they really needed to win last week to remain relevant in the
competition for the year. It will be a
good test to see how they come out this week.
They’d better fucking win too, or I’ll shiv someone.
Gold Coast Titans vs Brisbane Broncos
Goldies for the upset.
Aw yeah. Fuck you, Broncos.
QLD vs NSW
The Origin series has been decided, and just to add insult
to defeat, half of the QLD side has pulled out of the farcical third game
through injury. It’s nice that Billy
Slater will get to captain the maroons to an historic loss in his final
game. My favourite thing about Queenslanders
is them acting as if they have some sort of mythical quality they call "Queensland
Spirit" based on loyalty, trust and a hard work ethic and not, you know, a
freak generation of all-time great players mixed in with a healthy dose of the
bounce of the ball every now and then. I’m not denying that they have been vastly
superior for over a decade but to attribute their success to anything other
than the players’ skills is just fucking stupid and too many fucking idiots
from Queensland think they have some supernatural athleticism and prowess just
because of the fact that they were born in Roma.
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| Who'd have thought that the players with the best banter would be fucking Lodge and Fifita? |
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