NRL 2012 Round 12: Origin Hangover

Allow me to just put on this broken record that’s been sitting in the corner of my lounge room for the last six years:  Congratulations Queensland.  You played like balls but well done on winning the game.

Origin I wasn’t a particularly spectacular display of rugby league by anyone’s stretch of the imagination, regardless of how stretchy their imagination is.  There was a lack of fluidity and cohesion, some rookie mistakes, simple errors and Greg Bird.  I really dislike that man.  For what has become the showcase of the NRL, the match really wasn’t up-to-par with previous Origin clashes, grand finals or when we used to play footy during lunchtime at high-school.

The main talking points of the game were the sin-binning of Michael Jennings and the controversial Greg Inglis try that effectively ended the competition.  “Experts” of the game have said that Jennings shouldn’t have been binned simply because “it’s State of Origin.”  As a bit of a scuffle began after some rough-housing in a tackle and someone piffing the ball at the back of Greg Bird’s head, Jennings caught a flight from Hong Kong (with an eight-hour stopover in Perth and a connecting flight in Adelaide) to get involved in the fight.  “It’s Origin, it should be allowed” is the stupidest fucking excuse I’ve ever heard.  That wasn’t Origin, and that’s not football – that is a new sport called “Punching Brent Tate in the back of the head.”  I believe it’s included in the London Olympics as a demonstration sport.  Brent Tate, by the way, has a head that is held in place by gaffa tape, blu-tac and hope, following a few broken vertebrae in his neck a couple of seasons ago.  Depending on how you look at it, he’s either the best candidate to receive a punch in the back of the head, or the worst.  Origin should be a hard game, yes, but it needs to maintain some degree of fairness or it will descend into Lord of the Flies territory.  And even though it would be good to see Brett Stewart cry because he’s Piggy, it wouldn’t quite be the same.

In the end, Jennings received a one-week suspension following his involvement in the biffo, which means he will be unavailable to play for the Windsor Wolves third-grade reserve team this week.

As for Inglis’ try, eh fuck it.  It looked a bit shit to me, and I’m fairly sure the video ref who had to make the decision of whether to award the try or not closed his eyes and muttered “why the fuck didn’t I call in sick to work today?” before doing some “eenie meenie miney mo” with the Try/No Try button.  It probably wasn’t going to change the result of the game though – NSW were fairly useless in attack, and could only get over the line by kicking it to Billy Slater, who looked like he was on the same drugs as Todd Carney (aka all drugs ever).  Despite the Blues picking an “attacking team,” they still struggled to find the line.  When your winger is the best/only attacking option your team has got, you really don’t deserve to win.

Onto Round 12!

St George Illawarra Dragons vs Parramatta Eels   

Melbourne Storm vs Brisbane Broncos

Newcastle Knights vs Gold Coast Titans

Penrith Panthers vs Manly Sea Eagles

Wests Tigers vs Nth Queensland Cowboys

Sydney Roosters vs Canterbury Bulldogs

GAME OF THE ROUND:

South Sydney Rabbitohs vs Canberra Raiders

I have gone against the might of the Raiders this week for one reason:  they’re rubbish.

They have also lost a couple of game-changing players in the form of Josh “I call everyone ‘bra’ on Twitter and it’s really annoying” Dugan and Blake “I don’t follow Blake Ferguson on Twitter” Ferguson following a breach of the Raiders’ booze ban.  Granted, if I played for Canberra at the moment, I’d probably get on the sauce as well, but sometimes you really just have to accept the rules that have been handed down from your coach and management, kind of like the same way that everyone else in the world has to do what their boss says.  I’m not usually one to spruik someone else’s blog on my own (for fear of losing both of my readers), but LeagueFreak has summed Dugan up fairly perfectly right here.  

I don’t think it really matters who Souths decide to donk onto the field against the Green Machine tonight; the Raiders are their own worst enemy.  They have no spark in attack, and seem afraid to do anything except go one pass off the ruck, unless it’s an inside pass to an unsuspecting player who is running away from a hole in the opposition’s defence and directly into three of their biggest players.  When the Raiders are defending, they’re slow to get off the line and are giving up too many easy yards in the middle, and their left-side defence is akin to a game of ‘tag’ that I once saw a group of retarded children play, where the kid who was ‘it’ would happily chase the other players with great gusto, but would avoid coming into contact with them.  Then he would laugh and run after someone else and not touch them either.

Still, it’s always worth popping a sneaky $10 on the Raiders.  Eventually, that retarded kid is going to accidentally run right into someone and knock them out, and you shouldn’t feel bad about profiting from that.

Melbourne got right behind the State of Origin