Manly and Saintly Miracles
According to the front page of The Manly Daily they’re praying to God on Sydney’s northern peninsula that the Dragons lose by 31 or more points to Wests Tigers and Manly beat the Sharks by 31-plus also. And good luck to them. The God has been particularly benevolent to Manly people, they’ve made the finals each year of the last ten, the beaches are made from golden alluvial sand, and its local Members are Tony Abbott and Bronwyn Bishop, how about them apples. But if divine intervention didn’t help the Lord’s own team - the Canberra Raiders - from reaching the finals of this 2015 Telstra premiership then a bunch of surfboard jockeys from the northern beaches won’t overcome a 61-point for-and-against deficit and sneak into the eight, no sirree Bob Fulton.
Should be cracking fun watching them try, however. For Manly still sport arguably the best backline in rugby league (steady on, Chook people, we’ll get to your crack squadron in good time), and their forwards are playing to impress Mr Fulton, the grand poo-bah and impresario who runs the club according to the blokes at golf, some of whom might actually know.
Anyway. Sunday afternoon at Remondis will be rocking with Shire types who haven’t been this excited since the Sharks won the minor premiership in ’88 and Barry Russell won the Rothman’s Medal. And it should be a cracker.
Disappointing Willie Mason won’t be playing in perhaps his last game in the National Rugby League as it might’ve been nice to see someone with nothing to lose actually whack Michael Ennis in his pesky motor-mouth. Not that one would advocate violence, mind. But in Ennis’s case, well, one sort of does.
Pouting Tigers, Frightened Dragons
It’ll also be fine sport watching Robbie Farah’s mates try to send their captain out a winner in perhaps his last game of Tigers top grade when they run about like mad things against Saints on Saturday evening at ANZ Stadium. Will it be Farah’s last one in Tigers first grade? The chicanery at the top level of rugby league would suggest … maybe. I dunno. Nobody knows, as yet, even the principles.
But know this: this thus far ordinary though very rugby league tale of egos and money and competitive press jockeying has a long way to run in the media and court rooms of this great southern land. And Farah is nothing if not ornery. Last week he played with that particular blend of motivation and hate known only to the world’s most ridiculously competitive people. And the Tigers ran out mighty victors over admittedly rudderless, Johnson-less Warriors.
And the Dragons … well, they’ll have bricks in their lower bowel. Because they’ll know the Tigers have crack weaponry in James Tedesco and Martin “Kapow” Taupau, and 15 other men capable of plenty. And the Dragons will be plenty worried about losing to the Tigers, who despite losing to the Sharks by 22 the other week are capable of knocking off Melbourne. And this week have the motivation to send their captain out a winner, and the motivation of the captain to stick a metaphorical stake into the metaphorical lower bowel cavities of his perceived enemies.
Tigers 36 Dragons 14, I feel it in my waters.
Hot Chooks To Scorch Busted Bunnies
Phillip “Check out the big brain on Brad” Gould said an interesting thing during the Roosters-Manly game last Friday night; that halfback Jackson Hastings - in the side for the injured Mitchell Pearce - possessed better fifth tackle options than anyone at the Roosters. Which is a pretty big call given the Roosters have Origin halves in Pearce and James Maloney. But there you go. And you’d defer to Gould on just about everything rugby league, he’s hauled Penrith up from 20c hot dogs to be the powerhouse of rugby league in the greater golden west.
The way the Roosters bullied and bulldozed highly-motivated Manly at Brookvale - and this missing rep players Pearce, Michael Jennings, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Shaun Kenny-Dowall - you’d suggest, yet again, that the tri-colours are looking even money to be 2015 Telstra premiers. They have guns everywhere. Beasts in the pack. Arguably best backline in the league. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, how about him? Steps like he’s trod on a firecracker, more metres than any man in the game. If Jarryd Hayne proves a hit in the NFL the next target would be RTS, the man can run like an electric eel if it grew extremely muscly legs and could play rugby league.
Souths? To coin another Gus-ism. It’s over, baby. It’s over. Greg Inglis is on one leg. Isaac Luke’s brain doesn’t work properly. And the Burgess twins play 80 minutes between them. And their brother Sam’s in England. And that’s all she wrote.
Relegation Delegation
Panthers and Knights fight out for the wooden spoon on Saturday afternoon at Pepper Stadium, and it should be open and entertaining enough given 3pm is the best time for the best rugby league. Alas television dictates that most games are on when most people will watch them on the television, which is night-time when it’s dark and there’s dew, and people don’t necessarily turn up in large numbers at the ground because there’s kids to feed and you don’t get out of the ground until 10pm before the drive home through traffic from the great thumping mega-dome that’s charged you $20 to park and $10 for a meat pie that tasted like lava wrapped in the pages of a microwaved bible.
But should be good out at Penrith.
Yet you think it would be better - and this is a pipe dream given rugby league can’t agree what a shoulder charge is - if it were more like the English Football Association which relegates poorly-performing teams into lower divisions and promotes those who do well in said lower tier. Then you’d see teams fans gave a stuff if they finished last or not. And fans of, say, Newtown Jets, North Sydney Bears, Balmain Tigers and Western Suburbs Magpies dare to dream of a return to the Big League.
Never happen. But … well. Be good, I reckon.
Elsewhere…
Stuttering Cowboys host terrible Titans in Townsville, kooky Eels host godforsaken Raiders at Pirtek, while comp-leading Broncos host hard-arse Storm, and the Storm will win 15-8 because it already happened and you can read about it here.
