Stone cold Blake Austin
When Blake Austin is humming, running, incising, tearing about like Ragnar Lodbrok on a bet, rugby league is truly a happy place. How good’s he going? Always talented, always x-factored. But labelled with the dreaded “utility” role by the Tigers and Panthers, he was never any one thing. We never knew what he could do. And perhaps he didn’t either. Some dudes just grow into themselves relatively late. But he’s got it going on now, our Ragnar, at 24, and under Ricky Stuart in Canberra he’s been given his head, given licence to be himself and to express himself, and be the running five-eighth that he is. And he doesn’t have a lot of instructions other than that – just be yourself. Which shouldn’t be hard. But y’know, some dudes need to be told that they’re good and being themselves is good. It’s the way Stuart coaches – he play to blokes’ strengths. Why try to make Blake Austin into Cooper Cronk, particularly when No7 Sam Williams – also given his head and told to play the way he does – is a distributor and navigator type. Rather, Austin’s been given the Raiders’ No6 jumper, the one worn by the great Laurie Daley, and the not-as-great-but-still-quite-good Ivan Henjak, and the unspectacular-brother-of-Phil-Blake Michael Blake. And he’s screaming about winning games for the Raiders. And he’s a Blues man in waiting because the Blues’ Origin adventure with Mitchell Pearce at six and Mitchell Pearce I mean Trent Hodkinson at seven gave NSW’s attack all the spark of a mattress tossed out for council clean-up.
Big things building in Bruce
Canberra? Yes, yes, it’s colder than Krakow by night; colder than a soldier bleeding in the snow, saying to his comrades through chattering teeth, “cold, so cold” like they do in the movies when a soldier’s about to cark it and everyone’s sad. So yes. Pretty cold. Minus-2 is pretty cold. And it’s not a pleasant place to play, Canberra, and if they played the grand final in Canberra on a Friday night in July, the Raiders would firm in from their present market position of 33-1. But the grand final won’t be played in Canberra on a Friday night unless Channel Nine thinks there’s ratings money in it (Channel Nine would play the grand final in Krakow if there was a quid in it) so the Raiders should sneak into the finals in eighth and then maybe surprise someone. And then that’ll be it for the bad and mean green machine who’ll hit ya, hit ya, hit, and you’ll see green. Still, tasty run home, with Sharks (h), Penrith (a), Cowboys (a), Tigers (h), Sea Eagles (h), Titans (a), Panthers (h) and Eels (a), with all bar the Cows in Townsville and Eagles at home you’d rate a slightly better than even chance of winning. Big forwards, slick backs, Ragnar Lodbrok – things could be building in Bruce (which is the suburb where the Raiders train not a Raiders player or supporter or sundry official called Bruce).
Gallen nears the end
The Sharks? Good adventure against the Dragons missing 13 first graders and it was a pretty fair display. But there’s something not quite right. They should be top-eight morals. Their pack are all hard-arses, their backs all small and tricky. Micky Gordon has flashy feet and Ben Barba’s are flashier. Jack Bird, Valentine Holmes, these are quality colts. But something’s not right. There’s just something … myeeah about them. They should’ve torn the Dragons asunder. The Dragons were the Illawarra Cutters. And I know 28-8 is nothing to sneeze at. But I’m sort of sniffling at it, like if your nose is over the pepper shaker. And I reckon I know why: their forwards are too old. Chris Heighington was fringe Origin five years ago, now he’s more crash-test dummy than man. Luke Lewis is a champion but he’s been bashing about since 2000. Michael Ennis is a nasty little creep on the field, and maybe that’s good for morale or something. But as a player he he offers no, well, threat. And Paul Gallen … you know what, for Paul Gallen, it’s over. Yes - over. Sure he racks up huge metres and people look at his metres and exclaim, wow, massive metres. But Gallen … I dunno. Why does a bloke with relatively little ball skill have his hands on the ball so often? What are his passing stats? Why is Gallen crashing it up so often the Sharks “move”. The Sharks had a breakaway run in the first half, the ball went through a dozen sets of hands, all the players looking to keep it alive. The ball got to Gallen on halfway, who was admittedly doggedly backing up in the middle, and with blokes out wide and inside, he hit it up. Crash ball. With everyone hot for the potato. Now, Gallen’s been a great warrior for the Sharks and Blues and Australia. And I do not want to fight him bare-knuckled in a cage or anywhere. But compare his overall game to Corey Parker’s. Both men can play lock or prop. But Parker has soft hands and awareness and “game”. And Gallen racks up a heap of metres.
Peri peri Roosters
The Chooks? How about those Chooks. Know what? You want to win this premiership, you’ve got to go through the Chooks. Or you’ve got to hope a virulent disease runs through the Chook. Because the Chooks are hot like peri peri chicken, and for mine are the testing material of this National Rugby League. Run through ’em? Okay: Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is like an electric eel except with legs. Shaun Kenny-Dowall is on one wing, Daniel Tupou the other. SKD is a Kiwi international in hot try-scoring form; DP played State of Origin. Centres? Mick Jennings is the fastest man in the game outside James Roberts and Brett Morris and Shaun Johnson and probably a few fast kids in Holden Cup, and maybe a really fast one who plays for like the Bowraville Tigers, say, or Woden Valley Rams but isn’t quite skilful or tough enough to play first grade but is super-fast. Regardless, Mick Jennings is very fast. The other centre is super-skilled bad-boy-bad-boy-what-you-gonna-do-what-you-gonna-do-when-they-come-for-you Blake Ferguson who can really play rugby league. Big, rangy, skilful, and he’s not ever going to be accused of over-thinking the game, the man-child is a massive handful. The halves have both played Origin, they don’t hand out those jumpers as much as people think they do. And the forward pack is full of nut-cases like Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Sam Moa and ball-playing hard-bodies like Mitch Aubusson and Boyd Cordner and Aiden Guerra and Jake Friend. And I’m probably leaving out a few. Flame-haired thunder child Dylan Napa would be one. And if you want to know how to have a crack team under the salary cap, do whatever the Roosters do. They go grouse.
And the rest
Elsewhere the Broncos proved their equal-comp favouritism by rolling over the Bulldogs in Sydney, the Warriors scored one of the tries of the century by dismantling Storm in Auckland (and added to the perception that if the grand final was played in Auckland or even Krakow they’d be a shot) and the Sea Eagles rolled onwards and upwards and four points out of the eight by tearing asunder effete Titans at Robina. And we learned: the Broncos are really good; the Bulldogs are pretty good; the Warriors are pretty good and will win more than they lose probably; the Storm are pretty good but miss Billy Slater and Cameron Smith like a heart misses ventricles; Manly are a sleeping giant rising from slumber like a giant that’s been sleeping but is now coming awake; and the Titans couldn’t win the North Korean election.
