The world has reset their stopwatches to count down to the final game of State of Origin 2017, where the series will be decided and bragging rights awarded to the dribbling, cheating inbreds north
of the border, or the dribbling, cheating fuckwits down south.
It’s like Christmas for footy fans, if Christmas was all about smashing a bloke in the face for 80-minutes.
The biggest story of the week has been the selection process to find the successor to Johnathan Thurston, whose reign of Miss Universe came crashing to earth after Origin 2. The finalists were Miss Manly, Daly Chery-Evans; and Miss Brisbane, Ben Hunt.
One of these contestants has been playing reserve grade for three weeks. One of these players has been leading his team to eight successive wins. One of these players has had shoulder surgery in the last six weeks. One of them hasn't. One of these players just led his club to a 6-42 point loss. The other one brought his team from 16-0 down to win. One of these players can speak English. The other one clicks and grunts a bit.
Neither of these players has a problem with Queensland Origin selectors, and yet the retarded, injured, illiterate one was picked.
It's not the first batshit crazy thing that Queensland have done this series though. They started in Game 1 by not picking their best fullback. After losing that, they picked three fullbacks for Game 2. And now they've selected four halfbacks to cover Johnathan Thurston... but still not the best one.
In the New South Wales camp, captain Boyd Cordner is under an injury cloud with a tear in his calf. To cover for him, out-of-form lock Jack de Belin has been called into the squad. JDB's calf is fine, but he missed last week's game with a knee injury.
Round 18
Sydney Roosters 2.30 vs South Sydney Rabbitohs 1.65
Souths were red fucking hot last week. The Chooks were shit. This one should be cut and dried for the Bunnies. No doubt they'll somehow manage to fuck it up though, just because that's how the Rabbitohs roll.
Penrith Panthers 1.91 vs Manly Sea Eagles 1.91
With DCE having a massive point to prove, this game could blow out for Manly; especially if the Panfers are going to be as insipid in defence as they were last week. As a bonus for the Pennies, it's Free Fidget Spinner Day at the stadium, so disgruntled fans are being supplied with small missiles that in no way will be thrown at players during the game.
Melbourne Storm 2.45 vs Parramatta Eels 1.58
Parramatta are an 80-minute team this year. All they really need to do now is put all of those minutes into one week, instead of spreading it over three or four weeks as they have been doing lately. Despite the Storms missing their best thousand players, I reckon their back-up team will dig deep enough to get over a scratchy Eels outfit.
Canterbury Bulldogs 1.45 vs Newcastle Knights 2.85
Nobody cares, least of all Newcastle. They had their chance not to be the shittest team on earth last week and they fucked it in ways that people didn't think were possible, even for Newy.
