NRL 2018 - Round 20

It’s Thursday afternoon, which means it’s time to rub my crystal ball and predict some NRL results… “Concentrate and ask again.”  Sorry, wrong ball.

This week, there has been a lot of kerfuffling about the refereeing from last round, in particular the hatchet job that was the Raiders vs Cronulla game, where there were at least three game-changing moments that all seemed to fall into the Sharks’ flippers.  It was a bit shit, to be honest, as it has more-or-less put the death-knell on Canberra’s season officially, but obviously there are other things for the team to worry about; like working on some defensive lapses, how to catch a ball, why BJ Leilua doesn’t play like that every week, how to stop getting dicked by the ref so much because who cares how well you defend when they are just going to gift tries like that anyway, and also improving second-phase play in attack. 

As we draw ever-closer to the finals, we can see that the top eight is basically sorted by now, but the real interest is on the bottom four teams who are all fighting and struggling to stay relevant.  The shitfight that is the bottom of the ladder involves Parramatta, Cowboys, Bulldogs and Manly - they are all looking to avoid the wooden spoon, and all of them have a very realistic and well-deserved chance to win it.  It’s probably not the bottom four that I would have predicted at the start of the year, but it’s also nice that Canberra isn’t involved. 

Round 20

Brisbane Borncos vs Cronulla Cheating Sharks

I hate to say it, but the Broncos are actually looking halfway decent at the moment.  In last week’s routing of Penrith, Milford almost looked like he was giving half a shit and not just thinking of the new Spicy McNuggets at McDonalds (which are actually pretty good).  We’ll see how the fat little fuck goes this week, but my tip reluctantly goes to the Horsies.

North QLD Cowboys vs Newcastle Knights

The Cows will only be trying to win so they don’t come last, which always ups the intensity by about forty (forty what?).  Newcastle, in an unprecedented situation, don’t even have that incentive this year.  They will be welcoming Kalyn Ponga back from injury to wreak havoc on his old team in a “yeah nah no hard feelings but hey” kind of way.  Despite their lack of purpose, I will give the Knights my blessing for this game.  I’m sure they appreciate it. 

Canterbury Bulldogs vs Wests Tigers

FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL WOOOOO oh wait, it’s a game between the Dogs and the Tiges.  The only good thing about this game will be that when you acknowledge 10pm on a Friday night, it means you have the longest time you’ll ever have before the next Bulldogs game.

Manly Sea Eagles vs Penrith Panthers

Both had a cricket score put on them last week, so who knows what’s going to happen this week?  Hopefully a cricket match.  Manly were amateur last week and were actually lucky to “only” concede 56 points. 

South Sydney Rabbitohs vs Parramatta Eels

Souths came back to earth with a big ol’ crash last week and will hopefully take some of Sam Burgess’ advice and “get up you weak cunt cat.”  While I do love seeing the underdog win, usually the underdog is somewhat likeable.  Go Souffs.

Melbourne Storm vs Canberra Raiders

It will be interesting to see if the Raiders can pull themselves back up from last week’s disappointment and the fact that they now have nothing to play for and will probably be struggling to find any real meaning in everyday life and be unable to find enjoyment in regular activities.  But you know, that’s fine.  Hopefully they just don’t drop their bundles completely and either spend the next few weeks fucking about on the field or trying to inflict some kind of career-ending injury on their opposition.  There’s gotta be a fine line there somewhere.

Gold Coast Titans vs NZ Warriors

Yeah nah, dunno.  Reckon the Tits might be a good option for this one, but I’m going to tip the Warriors because for some reason it just seems more sensible. 

Sydney Roosters vs St George Dragons

The Dragons haven’t been traveling all that well lately, and were pretty unconvincing in their win last week.  They were obviously less convincing in their loss the week before, and even less so the week prior to that.  But before that, some time around 1912, they were very strong.  And fuck the Roosters.

It's hard to tell from this angle if the flag is up and the play should have stopped.

NRL 2018 - Round 19

Sorry I missed last week, I was stuck in a cave in Thailand.  Not the cave that you probably heard about on the news though, mine was a new and different one that you and Elon Musk don’t even know about. Don't bother trying to look it up, it's too obscure.    

This week, the Bronco Gronkos finalised the contract for teenage refrigerator Payne Haas for the next FIVE YEARS  at a cost of $3.4 million.  I’m not saying that Wayne Bennett has completely lost his mind and is actually trying to destroy the club before he fucks off to Coffs Harbour to retire, but that’s quite the sum of money to throw at someone who has so far played an entire 36 minutes of first-grade football off the bench before succumbing to a shoulder injury. 

Ah fuck it, any team that pays Jack Bird and Anthony Milford a mill per season and re-signs Darius Boyd from his deathbed for another three years deserves everything they get.  Now get out of the top eight, you posers - the Raiders are coming through.

Round 18

Parramatta Eels vs Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

Well this one will be a thriller.  A cold Thursday night with the two bottom-placed teams playing at ANZ Stadium with a capacity of 87,000 people is going to feel pretty fucking empty.  If both teams bother turning up, they will double the attendance.  I’d also just like to remind everyone that the Dogs are paying James Graham to play for the Dragons so they could get Aaron Woods who they are now paying to play for the Sharks.

Cronulla Sharks vs Canberra Fuck Yes Raiders

It’s time for the Green Machine to spark into 2016 mode and start their run to the finals, starting with this bitch pack of pretenders.  Just because the Raiders have lost two of the form players of the competition won’t affect this result; it will just make it even more satisfying.

Brisbane Gronkos vs Penrith Panthers

This game will see Darius Boyd come head-to-head with James Maloney, and the age-old question of what happens when an easily stoppable force meets and easily moveable object will be answered. 

Newcastle Knights vs Gold Coast Titans

An interesting match-up between teams coming eleventh and twelfth that will prove to have interesting ramifications for the rest of the season.  Of course, I’m joking.  NOBODY CARES!  NO. BODY. CAAAAARES.

Wests Tigers vs South Sydney Rabbitohs

The Tigers are actually happy to have Robbie Farah back.  Imagine anyone being happy to have Robbie Farah anywhere. I can almost imagine the conversation at training:

“Hey Robbie, tell us about the plays that the Rabbitohs use.”

“No.”

“But you were there for years, man.  Give us some insight, and we can use it to exploit their weaknesses.”

“No.”

“But Robbie…”

“THEY NEVER TOLD ME THEIR PLAYS!!!”

*Robbie Farah runs out of the dressing room in tears (as usual)*.  
End Scene. Collect my Oscar for best screenplay and make out with Emma Stone. Do cocaine with Matt Damon.  Laugh about Robbie Farah with Clint Eastwood.  

 North QLD Cowboys vs St George Dragons

Will the Dragons’ downhill slide continue?  Will the Cowboys turn their game around and recapture the form that lead them to a grand final appearance last year and let’s be honest not much has really changed since then I mean everyone is seriously playing like shit and I really think that JT should have retired last year but he can’t retire this year because who would want to finish their career with this kind of fucking season?  Not me, and probably not JT either.

NZ Warriors vs Melbourne Storm

This will be a sixteen-all draw, bet your horse on it. 

Manly Sea Eagles vs Sydney Roosters

Manly have one of the best packs in the NRL, an Origin-and-Australian-representative halfback, an Origin-and-Australian-representative fullback and his Origin-and-Australian-representative brother, and they still fucking suck. 

Rugby League is often referred to as "the beautiful game." This is an example of why.

NRL 2018 - Round 17

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 70^th 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. 

Who'd have thought that the players with the best banter would be fucking Lodge and Fifita?