Season 2009: Round 9

 

From The Couch

Four Corners: We will start this week on the Four Corners “expose” on rugby league titled “A Code of Silence” by Sarah Ferguson. Whilst some of the allegations were horrid (see the Dane Tilse sexual assault of a woman) and the attitudes of some players towards women were downright disgusting, hypocritical and arrogant (see the Knights under-20’s team when on an education course and in particular, the loathsome comments of Simon Williams who suggested that it’s not important what occurs during the act, “it’s how you treat them afterwards”) the story offered no perspective and was nothing more than a cheap stitch-up of rugby league.

I have few problems with what was shown with the exception of the use of Charmyne Palavi, whose attempts to take the high moral ground on any issue regarding sex and rugby league was absolutely astounding to anybody who knows anything about her story including the fact she has allegedly been spruiking a tell-all book. I empathised with all victims and found the behaviour of many of the individuals involved appalling. I did, however, have a fairly large problem with what was left out including less “sensationalistic” stories, a fair and proper response from the NRL and the tales of rugby league players who had been falsely accused of sexual assault like Anthony Laffranchi. As a rugby league fan I took a great deal of offence to the issue of group sex, degradation of women and sexual assault being limited to the sport. The story not once suggested that these issues crossed sporting boundaries or were a symptom of a wider problem in society despite the issues of fear of reprisal from victims, “sexting”, sexual assault and group sex all not being confined to league. Worse, the story tried to actually blame the code for these problems and attitudes, suggesting that the very nature of the game somehow meant these attitudes were inevitable. No credit was given for the education programs the NRL has put into place, no sympathy was given to the league who has very little power to control individual players or the cultures of clubs.
The lack of perspective left the story looking like nothing more than a tawdry tar-job akin to something you would see on Today Tonight or A Current Affair. Had the reporter not been so vehemently anti-league, she may have been able to get something constructive out of the story. Sadly, she saw rugby league as her target and she wasn’t stopping until she slung as much mud as she could. This helped neither the victims, the players (and the general attitudes of players towards women) or the league and its attempts to educate players and change the cultures of clubs from the outside.

Letter of the Week: “Dear Nick. I have a novel suggestion for keeping rugby league players in line. Chastity belts. When any player debuts in the NRL he is fitted with a chastity belt. The key shall be kept by David Gallop on a massive key-ring. A player is unlocked upon retirement. No exceptions shall be made. Wives and girlfriends of players will just have to make do with other various forms of sexual activity. The men will just have to keep their minds on the game. It should be a win-win situation for everyone. Kind Regards, Louise of Sydney”.

I’ll pass that suggestion onto Mr. Gallop, Louise. It is certainly a novel approach and the trappings of medieval times may be just what the NRL requires.

Return of the Luckiest Man Alive: The Luckiest Man Alive, Michael Crocker, returned to the NRL last Friday after having his application to play in Britain again rejected. Crocker signed with Souths though it is doubtful that they will see much of him. Crocker tends to avoid wasting his time playing too many club games. Injuries, suspensions, rests, midseason sojourns…they are all part of the Crocker year. Some doubts are there that he even wanted to play in England…he just didn’t fancy preseason training or playing the opening nine rounds. Crocker, even if he doesn’t play a game before Origin I, will of course be jettisoned in to the Queensland team and is certain to play all three Origin matches. That can be locked in. Even when he signed with Souths at about midday last Friday he fancied his chances of a late call-up to the Australian team. If Ricky Stuart were still coach he would have been. Crocker will also be there to play against Manly: one of his missions in life is to defend the honour of Clint Newton and that involves throwing around Josh Perry. Every other pre-finals game, well, that is a toss of the coin. If he plays four games in a row, make a note of it because you will be able to tell your grandkids about it one day.

The Return of the Pedant: Robert Finch and his gang of pedants were back to their 2008 finest over the weekend with their “strict” interpretation of the laws having an impact on more than one match. On Friday night the man in the box robbed Billy Slater of an extremely pretty try for an obstruction despite the fact it was obvious to anybody with a double-figure IQ that the try resulted from a bad defensive read by Manu Vatuvei. On Saturday the Cowboys had a try taken off them due to the laziness of Michael Weyman. On Sunday the video referee awarded Jamie Lyon a try despite the fact he grounded the ball with his hip at best, never having control of the ball. Seemingly the entire refereeing fraternity is filled with those suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. These pedants justify their existence through their knowledge of minutiae, sacrificing the wider cause for their own egotistical desires.

Rumour of the Week: Tim Smith will be back in the NRL next season and it will be with the Cronulla Sharks if, of course, the Sharks still exist. Brett Seymour has been bitterly disappointing this season and the Sharks need to sharpen their attack and start winning games soon. Stuart and the Sharks have never minded signing players with chequered pasts so expect him to the playing in the Shire in 2010.

Fun Fact #1: Brett Morris scored four tries on a losing team on Saturday night. Morris became only the second player of the NRL era and the fourth player in the history of first grade rugby league in Australia to tie or break his club record for tries and not win the match.

Fun Fact #2: Justin Hodges (Brisbane) in 2007, J.McNeill (University) in 1930 and J.Bain (Annandale) in 1917 are the three others.

Fun Fact #3: Johnathan Thurston scored 5 tries and kicked 9 goals for 38 points in two matches over the weekend.

Fun Fact #4: Jamie Lyon scored 4 tries and kicked 6 goals for 28 points in two matches over the weekend.

Fun Fact #5: Thurston scored three of his tries from dummies and two from catching the ball a metre from the line and falling over.

Fun Fact #6: Lyon scored all four of his tries from kicks.

Coaching Stocks:

Value	LW	Coach	Comment
5	5	Kevin Moore	Bye: Bulldogs alone on top, gets props for being a players coach.
5	5	Wayne Bennett	Bennett did an outstanding job to get the Dragons so close with so many back-ups and little preparation time.
5	5	Brian Smith	The Knights go from strength to strength with their toughness and self-belief.
4	4	John Cartwright	Big win for City but the Titans loss hurt. Still, there is an argument that they were stiff with a few refereeing decisions.
4	3.5	Craig Bellamy	Finch has livened up the attack. The Storm are starting to build some momentum up.
3.5	4.5	Ivan Henjak	Blowing a 16-0 lead is not a common Broncos trait. Depth may become an issue in the coming weeks.
3.5	3.5	Tim Sheens	Bye: Couldn't have started his Test coaching career any better.
3	3	Ivan Cleary	Bye: Warriors at a critical juncture over the next fortnight.
3	3	Jason Taylor	Bye: How he handles Wing and Crocker now could prove decisive.
2.5	2.5	Matt Elliott	Bye: The bye came at a bad time for a team who had built some momentum.
1.5	1.5	David Furner	Bye: It is do or die for the Raiders and they need to start winning games or 2009 is gone.
1.5	1.5	Neil Henry	The Cowboys should have put the Dragons to the sword but only won due to Thurston's brilliance.
1.5	0.5	Des Hasler	Huge win over Brisbane on the road on a rep weekend. Need to build on that courageous win.
0.5	0.5	Daniel Anderson	Bye: There is nothing to say about Parra right now.
-0.5	0	Brad Fittler	Roosters are trying hard but they just don’t have the talent to be competitive against good teams.
-1	-1	Ricky Stuart	Bye: Stuart must take some blame for the current financial problems due to his persistence with unattractive football.

Game of the Year Nomination, Round 9: Brisbane-Manly, 20-22. Brisbane bounced out to an early 16-0 lead but the gap should have been bigger with a number of opportunities blown, Brisbane unable to put Manly to the sword. Manly took great heart from their goal-line stand and fought their way back into the match by half-time thanks to a brilliant Jamie Lyon try. Lyon then took control in the second-half with two more tries from kicks and a late penalty goal that saw Manly lead 22-16 with less than 4 minutes to play. Brisbane were not dead, however, with exciting young prospect Antonio Winterstein scoring a brilliant try in the dying moments to give the Broncos a chance to send the game to golden point. The pressure was on Corey Parker. He missed. It was a thrilling match with plenty of twists and turns and one that Jamie Lyon can take the credit for the win.

The Colin Best Express Fan Revue: With his Origin dreams dashed due to the stupidity of selectors, the Colin Best Express will be left to pick up the pieces this weekend. Somehow Ben Pomeroy was selected to replace Chris Lawrence for the City team last week despite Pomeroy graduating with honours from the Matt Utai School of Catching and being well in the market for the slowest player in the slowest backline in the league. Best now realises he is the Brad Hodge of the NRL and his dreams of donning the sky blue have been taken from him by a useless and foolish cadre of dopes and opium addicts.

What Did Shane Rodney Do This Week? Shane Rodney looked back on his debut match in round 1, 2002 against the Melbourne Storm and came to the realisation that only 6 players remain in the NRL from that match. Matt Orford, the Storm’s only remaining player, is now his teammate and skipper at Manly. Luke Lewis is the only player still left at Penrith. Joel Clinton is now at Brisbane and Danny Galea is at the Tigers. Luke Priddis and Rhys Wesser are now in the twilights of their careers, injured and unlikely to play much more league. Shane still cannot believe that his fragile body outlasted so many of the players who were there for his debut.

Beard Watch: David “The Wolfman” Williams has been the gold standard for beards over the last twelve months and he will almost certainly take that beard to the Origin arena after a stunning performance for City in the City-Country match at Wade Park last Friday night. The highlight was certainly his length-of-the-field try. Williams received a pass from Michael Jennings near his own line and then was off to the races, his wild and flowing beard stretched out as he sliced a hole through the Country defence and then outsprinted the Country cover defenders. The Wolfman has one of the all-time great beards and there is no doubt said beard has helped him make a name for himself in the NRL. Another victory for the beard.

Thems Were The Days: The 1989 Grand Final to this day is regarded as one of the greatest rugby league games ever played, the starting point for the modern game and the prime example of beauty in rugby league. The reasons the match was so remarkable were plentiful. It was the perfect storm. For starters, 21 of the 32 players who took the field played Test match football, accumulating 390 Tests for three nations. 18 of those involved played 299 State of Origin matches. The two coaches involved are regarded as two of the greatest ever: Tim Sheens, former New South Wales coach and current Australian coach, has won four premierships and has coached more first grade games than any other person and Warren Ryan, fourth on the list of all-time games coached, the winner of two premierships and the coach of six grand final teams in the eighties. Even the referee, Bill Harrigan, is regarded as the greatest of the modern era, if not ever. On a sun drenched Sydney Football Stadium, these giants of the game slogged it out in a match so memorable that it is usually a consensus pick for the game’s greatest decider. Balmain, twenty years without a premiership, were heavy favourites and justified that favouritism early when they bounced to a 12-2 lead on the back of an intercept try to James Grant and a brilliant score to Paul Sironen. The game seemed out of reach for the Raiders but on the back of the brilliance of Belcher, Meninga, Daley and Clyde, they clawed their way back. At 14-8 and with less than five minutes on the clock, John “Chicka” Ferguson got tapped the ball, stepped inside three defenders and crashed over. The full-time score was 14-14. The game went to extra-time. From then on it was all Canberra. Garry Jack dropped the kickoff and Chris O’Sullivan slotted a field goal off the ensuing scrum. The score remained 15-14 until the final minutes when big Steve Jackson, in his greatest ever moment, burst twenty metres to score one of the great tries. Balmain had lost and would not win a Grand Final until the Wests Tigers won in 2005. Canberra would go on to win in 1990 and 1994 and become one of the teams of the nineties. The game had it all: brilliance, drama, history. It would take a truly remarkable game to knock the 1989 Grand Final off its perch.

Fantasy Team of the Week:
1. K.Gidley (New)
2. B.Morris (Stg)
3. J.Lyon (Man)
4. S.Sa (Roo)
5. I.Folau (Brs)
6. B.Finch (Mlb)
7. J.Thurston (NQ)
13. C.Parker (Brs)
12. Z.Taia (New)
11. N.Myles (Roo)
10. C.Houston (New)
9. A.Payne (NQ)
8. L.Bailey (GC)

Geurie Greens Update: Missing most of our squad with the bye, the Greens pulled out a courageous win over the Silverton Shrews to go to 9-0. Nobody really stood out but some solid performances from Michael Jennings, Sam Perrett, Cooper Cronk and Luke Bailey got the Greens over the line. Geurie are now assured a finals berth and the dream of an undefeated season continues.

What I Hate About Rebecca Wilson This Week: Where does Rebecca Wilson get off moralising over Matthew Johns, saying that “he let us down”? For starters, Wilson once again failed to offer a disclaimer about her hatred of the Footy Show, a show she survived one episode of before she was unceremoniously fired. Secondly, how do the actions of Johns seven years ago affect her or us or anyone outside of those involved and their respective families? And to say he has done the game “irreparable damage” is the gross over exaggeration that proves how little Wilson actually knows about the game or any sport for that matter.

Watch It: The extended highlights of the round 19 match between Canterbury and North Sydney from 1986 found here and here. Terry Lamb is at his brilliant best, slicing Norths to pieces at one stage and scoring a try out wide at another. His strip early in the second half that led to a Steve O’Brien try was absolutely delightful to watch while his sheer speed to set up a try from his own half was mind boggling. His goal-kicking is also exceptional. “He has it all” in the words of Bill Anderson and against Norths he put on one of the great individual shows. Other things to watch for are Steve Folkes penalty try from a tap-forward, Geoff “The Wildman” Robinson sans beard, Fred Teadsell playing with a yo-yo whilst riding the pine, Steve O’Brien’s perm and the fine commentary of Rabbits Warren. Click here.