NRL 2020: Round 7 - Sack the Coach

What do you do with a sports team that has lost its ability to win; a group of professional athletes who, when put together on one field, perform as if they've never even seen the game before?  They lose the ability to catch, pass, run, tackle, kick or even successfully cheat?

One answer is to move them to the Gold Coast and let the laws of nature run its course - just ask the Seagulls, Giants, Chargers, Crushers and the Titans.  Another answer would be to move them to New Zealand.  Another answer would be to move them to New Zealand and then fire their coach. 

Which is kind of what has happened to the poor ol' Warriors.  Former Kiwi representative (maybe even captain, I don't know, I couldn't be fucked looking at his Wikipedia site) Stephen Kearney has finally pushed the limits of New Zealand management's patience, and has been asked to join the queues at Centrelink after about thirty unsuccessful years of trying to get the Warriors to give a flying fuck about footy. It may come as a bit of a shock that the NZ coach wasn't an actual sack, so often was the phrase "Sack the Coach" offered through the football circles. Todd Payton has inherited the team, which is quite the achievement, considering that no one else even knew he was a coach in the first instance.  Well done, Toddy.  It's a win-win situation for any new coach coming in, as no one expects anything from a broken team anyway, so if they lose by 60 points this weekend, the punters will just say "well, at least they didn't lose by 80 like Kearney's team would have" and then they'll quoff their pints and smoke a pipe or something - for some reason, I always imagine the punters discussing the NRL to be like the first-class passengers on the Titanic.  

Round 7

Penrith vs Souths

Well fuck me in the ear, it's a Thursday night game that doesn't involve the Broncos.  Well done everyone.  This should be a cracker, honestly; the Panthers proved me wrong last week by actually winning, and Souths are starting to put together some good performances too.  Whether the Pennies can break the "beat the Storm and then fall on your arse the week after" syndrome currently going through the NRL quicker than a dose of Victorian-flu will be a deciding factor.  The Bunnies should be on alert to look out for the "give the ball to Kikau" play that Penrith are possibly a bit too fond of using.  

Melbourne vs Warriors 

Fun fact: the movie Two Weeks Notice is a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, about a relationship between a boss and his employee, but the original script was about how long it actually takes Cameron Smith to get off a tackled player.  

Sydney Roosters vs St George Dragons

The Chooks are currently being mentioned as "the greatest team in the modern era" which is ironic considering St George are being called "the worst team of all-fucking-time".  That's not irony.  Take it up with Alanis Morrisette.  It's also ironic that they perform a lot better without James Tedesco, who is currently being hailed as "the best player in the world" (I think that actually is irony), and I have a sneaky suspicion that he'll be rested from this game after being fucking annihilated last week, although if there's ever a player to flaunt concussion rules to buffer his stats against a low-ranking team, it's Teddy.   

Nth Queensland vs Newcastle

Whenever a coach loses his job in the NRL, it must send a few shockwaves right up the bumhole of every struggling team in the league, and Cowboys' honcho Paul Green must be feeling like he has worms right about now.  Unfortunately it's not going to get any better for him as his hapless Cowboys come up against the Knights this weekend, who are just starting to prove their credentials, and the next five weeks see the Nerth Quernslenners take on the Eels, Roosters, Panthers, Manly and Raiders, so I wouldn't expect Greeny to stop grinding his arse on the living room rug any time soon.

Brisbane vs Gold Coast

LOL @ QLD.  All of them.  
Well, the under-fire Broncos have made a few necessary changes to their struggling outfit by... uh... dropping their fullback and goal-kicker, Jamayne Isaako.  Well, that'll fucken fix everything, won't it?  I mean, it's not like you need a goal kicker if you can't score tries to start with.  Anthony Milford will no doubt prove his critics wrong by having a strong running game, which is really what you want against the perennial wooden spooners, instead of, you know, anyone else. 

Parramatta vs Canberra woo

I just don't even know what to do anymore.  I show nothing but love, and this... this is what I get back in return.  I feel like the Raiders have gone from being the Mighty Ducks from the start of the first movie (fun fact: the first Mighty Ducks film was actually called "Champions"), to being the Ducks from the 2nd movie, and now they're the team from whichever movie it was where they got all cocky and were beaten by Iceland a lot.  I think there was a fourth movie that dealt strangely with an application to keep the team together through a college fund, which is probably quite accurate about the next step in the inevitable Raiders evolution.

Manly vs Cronulla

Manly played with passion, determination, skill, heart, fire, earth, wind, and summoned Captain Planet to bring them victory.  It came at a price though, as Turbo Trbojevic sacrificed his hamstring, Dylan Walker offered his knee, and Brad Parker gave his beard to the great blue benevolent god.  Cronulla haven't beaten the Sea Eagles in something like 30 generations, but with most of Manly out with latte-related injuries, this is their best bet.  But they're shit, so they won't.

Bulldogs vs Wests Tigers

Well, I guess someone has to win this one, and you can always count on the Tigers to knock off bottom-four teams.  It's a chance for the Bulldogs' faithful to bid farewell to a true legend of the game and occasional Bulldogs player, James Graham, who managed to rack up 400+ first-grade games in the front row (fuck that for a joke), and was only involved in a handful of indiscretions; mainly involving biting Billy Slater (and who can blame him) - but my favourite was when he applied an entire tub of Vaseline to his legs before the game to make himself harder to tackle instead of, you know, running at a slight angle. 

"Guys, do you think anyone will notice?"

NRL 2020 Round 6: Six again

It's rare in sport that the referee actually gets anything right, and it doesn't even matter what sport it is - they are undeniably a group of the most incorrect, mistaken, blind, stupid, cheating, biased, bribed, useless, shitfuck, dickheaded arse-for-brains bunch of fucken prick-wanker fucktards that even Todd Carney wouldn't piss on (he would) if he'd set them on fire (he would).

On very rare occasions though, they get something right.  And in this case, it's a change in the rules to the NRL.

In order to stop cheating teams like Melbourne from cheating so obviously by slowing the game down so old man Cameron Smith could keep up with the play, instead of awarding a penalty, it was decided that a "ruck infringement" would instead just nullify the tackle count to the attacking team, and play would continue.

To put it in context, if James Tedesco makes a break (which he does) and gets tackled (occasionally) by Cameron Munster (illegally, most likely), Munny used to be able to lie around on top of Teddy like a fucken horny lazy walrus until his team could recover their defensive positions for the next play.  On occasion, the ref would say "oi Munster, that's too long (that's what she said)," and he'd blow a penalty to the Roosters.  Meanwhile, Cam Smith would stop there and discuss with the ref about how Boyd Cordner did exactly the same thing about ten minutes ago, not only that, but how can you tell the Morris twins apart, and what do you think you'll have for dinner tonight?  The game has, in essence, completely stopped while old man Smith complains to the ref about how his grandkids don't visit any more.

The new rule means that the game doesn't stop, so the defending team can't have a quick rest and Smith can't distract the ref about why Dire Straits was the last great rock n roll band.  The ref doesn't even give a reason for the restarted tackle count; he just rings an air raid siren, which probably gives  Smith a few flashbacks.  NRL teams being NRL teams, have found ways to try and bend the rule, by being dickheads early on in the tackle count so a restart is only another extra few defensive plays.  I would counter this by making each restart cumulative; so if it's only the second tackle and you get another set, you should have ten tackles.  Another infringement on the third, and you've got yourself thirteen tackles.... and fuck, I've just invented rugby union.  Never mind, forget this entire thing.  Stupid refs.

An intriguing weekend of football awaits us.

Round 6

Newcastle vs Broncos

The Broncos dared to show a smidge of promise last week, until a couple of questionable refereeing decisions and some trademark shithouse Brisbane play quashed the hopes and dreams of the Queensland faithful in the most beautiful, perfect way possible.

Souths vs Warriors

The Warriors could spring an upset with this game; on their day, they have the firepower and unpredictability to knock off any team in the league.  Of course, on its day, a rhino could come to my house and become my crime-fighting best friend too.  With Souths star recruit Latrell Mitchell starting to cash his hefty pay-cheque (imagine getting paid by cheque though, seriously), it's unlikely that the Warriors or Igby the Rhino are going to do much of anything this weekend.

Penrith vs Storm

I'm not rating the Panthers' chances here. They don't trouble too many teams over 80 minutes; they've failed to defend a 10-point lead twice already this year, and looked very unconvincing in going down to a pretty ordinary Parramatta side last week.  Halfback Nathan Cleary complained that he was being sledged over his viral TikTok video.  He fucking complained.  About being sledged.  Because TikTok.  Let that sink in for just a moment, while the rest of the world contemplates things that actually merit worrying about.

Gold Coast vs Dragons

I have a son who is almost three years old.  I'm going to record this game for him, so that when he comes to me when he's fifteen and announces that he isn't going to finish school and wants to play NRL instead, I'm going to show him this game and say "this is what happens to all the kids who thought they could play NRL for a living."  I figure that will scare him into straight A's and he'll graduate top of his school, get a degree, play professional footy for a bit and then take over captaincy of the Australian Cricket Team before he wins the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.

Tigers vs Cowboys

This game is like the orange snakes of the Allens Assorted Lolly Bag - no one goes specifically looking for an orange snake, but when you pull one out (with spearmint teeth), you're pretty indifferent about the situation.

Roosters vs Eels

The Roosters are looking shit-hot after last week, but let's not suck them off just yet - they were only playing the Bulldogs. In any case, this game will be a good chance to see how both teams are actually traveling this year - I reckon the Eels are going to get done, but will come back a better team for it, and sometimes, self-improvement is all we can really ask for.

Raiders WOO FUCK YEAH GO RAIDERS vs Manly

The Raiders were actually a smidge lucky to get away with a win last week (we'll still take it though), and will need to play a whole metric fuck-ton better against Manly this round, who always manage to lift to another level against the Green Machine, like the fucken pricks that they are.  It will be interesting to see if Curtis Scott tries to punch on with Dylan Walker again, which is about as interesting and useful as Curtis Scott gets these days; not sure what the Raiders paid for him, but I hope he's still under warranty.

Cronulla vs Bulldogs

I have a daughter who is 1 year old.   I am going to record this game for when she comes to me when she is fifteen and announces that she thinks NRL players are hot.  I will show her this game and ask "are they still hot now?" while they run around shitting themselves on the field, laughing about it, dribbling spit down their chins and wiping snot bubbles on their matted arm hair.   After that, she will probably move to a cave in the Himalayas just to ensure that the chances of her meeting someone involved in any way with this game are at an absolute minimum.

Jack Wighton is a peg leg and a hook away from going full-pirate.

NRL 2020 Round 5: Siebold and Sie-beautiful

There are few things quite as beautiful in the rugby league world as a team getting thoroughly tonked every week; usually we can rely on the Titans to bring us our share of shellackings, or the Warriors to instantaneously forget what football is, or the Knights to provide us with some Benny-Hill-style buffoonery - but we are currently in that rare realm of the cosmos where the most shithouse team is the Brisbane Broncos, and my god it's brilliant.

In the last two weeks, the Ponies have given up close to a trillion points as they struggle to cope with a faster-paced game, the retirement of some club stalwarts, the non-retirement of Darius Fucking Boyd, some shithouse new recruits, and a coach who looks like he's handing out Happy Meal vouchers after every game, and ensuring that the players all know that "they did their best" and "he's proud of them regardless" and "it's just good to see them getting outside." 

Traditionally, the Broncos have had their roster filled with players with 300 games of experience; the kinds of guys you could trust to elbow a bloke in the back of the head, or break their nose with a raised forearm.  Unfortunately for the Horsies, those players have all retired or been arrested. 

Last week, the Bronx opted to fill the void of experience by bringing in a host of players that were found wagging Maths in fourth period, which strangely did not reap great rewards against the Roosters.  This week, coach Siebold has moved away from his "well, I fucken tried that idea once" tactic and has selected Ben Te'o to bolster his team.  Te'o brings with him a swathe of experience, having entered the NRL in 2007.  He played Origin, has represented Samoa, is a fair unit, has had domestic violence charges - everything looks perfect.  EXCEPT HE HASN'T PLAYED IN 6 YEARS.

How the fuck did that decision ever come around?
"Hey Anthony, last week's performance really wasn't quite up to par."
"I know, CEO of the Broncos, but we're preparing really well for Round 5." 
"Fantastic.  We're talking recruitment, right?"
"You bet."
"Great, we're on the same page. There's a couple of young centres coming through the QRL that I'd like to get a look at; of course, that would mean we'd have to fuck Darius off - which would free up $800,000 of our salary cap and get rid of a gaping hole in the defensive line, as well as offer something in attack--"
"Te'o."
"..."
"Te'o."
"Anthony, it's 2020.  I hate having to remind you of that three times a week." 
"Te'o."
"..."
"Te'o."
"If I say yes, will you leave at the end of the season?"
"Te'o."
"Fuck it, good enough. Start packing your shit though."

For $99, you too could own a repainted Josh Reynolds doll.  Jarrod Croker would be rolling in his grave.  You know, if he was dead.  But he's not.  As far as I know.  

Round 5

Manly vs Broncos

Manly will be missing the likes of Jorge Tafua and Curtis Sironen in their lineup tonight, so will probably only win by 40.  I think I've shit on the Broncos enough for one day.

Warriors vs Cowboys

The Cowboys will be doing something that they haven't tried in about twelve seasons; bringing in a new player.  Young gun Hamiso Tabui-Fidow makes his debut on the wing as a threat to the "fastest man in league" moniker, as well as giving Erin Molan an anxiety attack.

Parramatta vs Penrith

FUN FACT: Both teams are undefeated this year, but Penrith don't really count because they had a draw and it's basically the same as a loss.  Nathan Cleary returns from his ban for dancing like a twat on social media, and I understand that as punishment he also had his MySpace account shut down.

Souths vs Titans

NRL Tipping 102:  Keep betting against the Titans, last week was a fluke. 

Newcastle vs Storm

Here's a drinking game to keep you entertained:  every time one of the Channel 9 commentators says "oh that's very unMelbourne-like" whenever Melbourne do something typically Melbourne-like, such as Cameron Munster being a grubby fuck, or the Storm #6 opts to run instead of pass, or the five-eighth comes out of his line and misses a tackle, or he drops the ball or gets sin-binned twice in a grand final. 
The Knights will be looking to keep their giant-slaying form going, all on the back of gun centre Bradman Best, whose parents took a massive fucking gamble when they named him.

Tigers vs Canberra woo go Raiders woo

The Raiders were so keen to get rid of their "Faders" tag by not even competing last week.  They come up against their proverbial bunnies, ironically not South Sydney, for round 5.  Known niggler (and you know I had to spell check that a thousand times) Curtis Scott comes up against known hot-head and serial grub BJ Leilua; if Scott hasn't had his face ripped off by a very angry Samoan by the twelfth minute, I'll give up Raiders Lime for an entire day.

Bulldogs vs Roosters

Fuck, it's an easy little trot for the Chooks lately, huh?  First the Borncos and now the Doggies.  For those missing cricket at the moment, keep an eye on this score, which is likely to be 0-62.

St George vs Cronulla

LOL @ StGeorge, amirite. 

I'm right, alright.  The Dragons haven't managed to cross the stripe in two games, which sounds like even more when you say 160 minutes of football, which sounds a lot worse if you add in the time off since Round 2 ended and say "since 20 March."  Stupid Dragons.

NRL 2020 - Round 4: "THE BEST THING ABOUT THE NRL IS THIS BLOG"

The coronavirus quarantining rules have affected our daily lives in ways that I don't think anyone had anticipated; there was that weird toilet paper shortage between April and May, the "I can bake my own fucking bread thank you very much" trend, and the "argh I don't have a job anymore" issue.  Of course, there was also the "oh look, we can use our leftover masks from the bushfires last month" fad and the "argh I'm seriously dying" craze that swept the country for a while.  In between using single socks to wipe our asses and disinfecting individual Rice Bubbles before eating them, we also lost the ability to leave the house to do pretty much anything - go to the pub, go to the movies, go shopping, and most importantly, go to the footy to yell abuse at Josh Dugan, as everything closed down, including stadiums.  The Roosters reported no difference to their playing experience, with captain Boyd Cordner noting that "the atmosphere was electric", and he thanked the crowd for coming out by signing an autograph for coach Trent Robinson, and posing for several selfies with halfback Luke Keary and the Morris twins.

The NRL took their social distancing and cleanliness measures pretty seriously; the Titans' defense refused to go within 1.5metres of anyone, the Burgess brothers finally had an excuse as to why they handled the football like a wet bar of soap, and the Broncos finally had a reason not to accept the invitation to Darius Boyd's Tupperware parties.  Souths' supporters' teeth finally felt like they were doing the right thing.

With no crowds available to fill Latrell Mitchell's pockets, the NRL had to look elsewhere for revenue, and have opened up the empty stadiums to the supporters of the game to fill with life-sized cardboard cut-outs - all for the low-low price of $22.  Unfortunately, St George coach Paul McGregor misread the memo and instead opted to fill his team with cardboard cut outs for the opening three rounds.  The under-fire coach has reportedly been given a three-game timeframe in which to turn the Dragons' season around, with former Sharks mentor and part-time drug pusher Shane Flanagan ready to step into the role.  If that happens, look for a late run for the Red V to make a push for the finals, win Ninja Warrior and rob a servo.

And the crowd goes mild

Round 4

Broncos vs Roosters

The Broncos have not looked great this season, which warms the cockles of my heart like you wouldn't believe.  They have opted to put in the youngest team in premiership history to take on the experience of the Roosters tonight, and let's hope (for once) that the Chooks put them through the ringer and destroy their confidence, careers, prospects and any chance of reproducing for years into the future.  Just saying.

Panthers vs Warriors

Everyone loves an underdog story, and the Warriors are about as underdog as you could possibly be, without actually being... um... a dog... that's, you know, under... I guess.  We all wish our Kiwi cousins the best, but we also secretly hope that they lose, but maybe only by a couple.  

Storm vs Rabbitohs

If the Storm looked underdone last week, it's fair to say that the Rabbits looked raw as fuck, and if someone served me that in a restaurant, I'd probably send it back.  Unless it was a sushi restaurant and someone explained to me that it was meant to be raw, in which case I'd probably order something else.  

Eels vs Manly

A lot of experts (aka people who are not me) are tipping the Eels to challenge the premiership this year, but I think the dirty Sea Eagles are a dark horse - not literally of course, I know what a fucking eagle looks like, and I know they are very different to horses.  I'm tipping an upset, and when it comes to picking Manly to win, you know I'm very, very serious.

Cowboys vs Sharks

Christ, I don't fucking know.  Or particularly care, to be honest.  It might be mildly interesting to see how Valentine Holmes is treated by his ex-teammates, but I'm imagining it to be how all inmates react when they see someone they know.  I'm tipping Sharks, but that depends on Matt Moylan injuring himself early in the game, or during warm-up.

Raiders vs Knights

Go you Raiders.  Fuck yeah.  And it seems like we'll have to do it all without John Bateman, whose head is in Canberra, heart is in Wigan, wallet is in Bankstown, and a shoulder coming in from Taiwan any day now.  Kaylyn "Pretty Sure I Misspelled That" Ponga is back from suspension, and carries on his scrawny little shoulders the hopes and dreams of the Novacastrians.  Here's hoping we fucken crush em like ants.

Titans vs Tigers

Tipping NRL 2020, lesson #1:  Tip against the Titans at all times.

Bulldogs vs Dragons

This is what we get for having two public holidays in a row.  They said life wasn't meant to be easy, and this game is living proof.  What a sad state of affairs.  Go Dogs, but only because I fucken hate the Dragons right now, and I have a minor crush on Lachlan Lewis.  I know all he can do is put up bombs, but he just does it so relatively adequately that I can't help but admire him.  Sportsbet have got Kieran Foran shattering his pelvis before halftime at $8, which I just can't go past.