NOW READ ON as our fearless blue-blooded hero attempts to be gracious about a Queensland Origin win...
And a comprehensive one at that, one of the more assured Origin performances of recent times with the result rarely in doubt even when the northerners were behind by a dozen at the break. In reality, this was a game that NSW should have lost by double figures and change. If any team in the broad church of Rugby Leeeeeague has ever been less deserving of an 18-6 halftime lead, it was this particular NSW Dodgy Home Loans Blues outfit. That the interval scoreline was not the exact inverse was largely down to two multiplicative factors. One: the highly interpretive whistle-blowing stylings of referee Paul Simpleton, who spent much of the game in his own wonderland - best described as Stevie Wonderland judging by his disallowal of Steve Price's first try and his even more cretinous awarding of Hindmarsh's effort (setting Anasta's forward pass aside, has anyone yet seen whether the big unit from Parra actually grounded the motherfucker?) And two: arse, and lots of it, in the form of Jarryd Hayne's stoopid-good solo effort on the halftime siren. However, arse may giveth, but arse doth assuredly taketh away, as evidenced later in proceedings when Hayne produced the royalest fuckup since Prince Harry and giftwrapped a try to Qld captain Darren Lockyer. Memo to Locky: Tommy Raudonikis wants his voice back.
As for the rest of the game itself, your mum was right: if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all. Quite why it's up to me to let you know what your mum's up to, maybe you should be asking yourself. Still it's gotta be better than having that little shit Rove pestering you to saying hi to her for him all the time.
So that's all we are prepared to say on the topic of Origin I, other than to pose the following:
'Braith Anasta: fucking useless overrated fuck'.
Discuss.
You may use additional pages if necessary. We dare say you'll need to.
The Miracle of the Bleeding Steeden
OK, we lied. More has to be said about the story of Origin I - namely about the one glaring, gaping omission in the story of Origin I. Let's face it, the game, nay, the whole event was a hollow, shambolic farce, in the absence of probably Origin's greatest personality. Every facet of the night spoke to the emptiness that resonated from the great man's absence from the rarefied stage which he'd made his own over Origin campaign after Origin campaign. It showed in the performance of his former team in the first serious hit-out since his disappearance from the big stage. Bluntly, those who'd been picked as his replacements were barely adequate and were left to wallow in their own clueless, directionless, creativeless incompetence. Then again, to be charitable, their failure to carry their team to triumph spoke more to the greatness of the leader they'd lost, rather than necessarily their own failings.
Actually that's not really fair. HG Nelson went reasonably well without Roy Slaven, surprisingly enough. Why Rampaging took the night off we have no fucking idea, but presumably calling what amounts to the same game three times a year for umpteen years gets vaguely tedious, and it can't be as easy to come up with comedy gold now that the golden years of the Unmade Bed, the Brick With Eyes, the Pillow With Feet, Dishhead, the Prune, the Kumquat, the Quince, the Train, the Cough Drop, Back Door Benny, Three Knees Hancock, About To Cut Loose, the Boy on the Bike et al has passed us by. Signing former Blues prop and serial Godbotherer Jason 'JC' Stevens up for colour duties worked surprisingly well, at least until Jesus started taking offence at everyone slagging off his mates for being shit and overrated (case in point Anasta comma B full stop who's still yet to do anything of merit whatsofuckinever since leaving Souths Juniors aged 18 late last century). In the shouting random shit classification, generic Triple J spare part Dools tried hard and has clearly spent most of his youth listening to Roy and HG origin calls judging by his clamouring for a refereeing recall for Kelvin Jeffes (that's old skool m'niggahs) but looked short of a run and in truth wasn't up to Origin level - ironically, given he'd banged on about Mullen and Anasta being likewise all night (which is also true.) But Dools' biggest problem is that he isn't Roy, and in particular, doesn't SOUND like Roy. He sounds like a whiny little shit. To slag large leaguies off in a way that doesn't have them seeking you out to tear off your head and do number twos down your trachea, you need GRAVITAS son. Same, it has to be said, goes for Jay Whalley (credited as 'The Ancient Voice Of Rhomb' - a nice touch from HG) who tried to sub for King Wally Otto on voiceover duty but sounded arse. Now we at the World of Bollocks have long enjoyed Jay's work, and his nasal whine worked a treat out front of Rhomb and is only vaguely annoying on breakfast radio; but flat out sucked donkey balls in place of King Wally Otto. And he mispronounced Sirro (aka Paul 'The Buttocks' Sironen) which should get him beaten up next time he's anywhere near Balmain.
So, in summary, the NSW brains-trust might need to get their shit together pretty badly for Origin II - but not nearly as badly as Triple J do. Somebody at the Js needs to find Roy Slaven - shouldn't be that fucking hard, he's still turning up for the Sunday afternoon radio show - and write him a big fuck-off cheque. Now. Please. Otherwise we're all stuck listening to Phil Phucking Gould banging on with his interminable fucking shit. And, to be brutally honest, given the prospect of listening to that pug-faced, bullshit-spouting choad merchant, your correspondent would rather eat my own arse.
Award-Whinging Sports Journalism
We finish with two shiny-brand-spankers Dodgy Awards:
The Sidchrome 24PC Set of Chrome Plated Spanners for Making A Complete Tool Of Oneself
This goes to Windies deputy chief copper Mark Shields. For having to kinda sorta admit that that famous cricket coach bloke who he kinda sorta said had definitely been murdered, kinda sorta... wasn't. Look for him in a glamourous new position writing parking tickets, coming soon to a council carpark near you.
The Salim Malik Memorial Pitch Report (OK, so we're mixing our matchfixing metaphors here) for Most Pointless Act of Matchfixing, Throwing or Tanking In World Sport
For this we need to move from the State of Origin to the State of Oregon, to NBA side the Portland Trailblazers, who won the lottery which all the shit teams in the NBA go into in order to decide who gets the top picks in the upcoming draft - a big deal given that all the top college players who want to turn pro, as well as all the best European players who want to join the NBA, go into the draft, and there's a couple of guys likely to be drafted first and second (Ohio State's Greg Oden and Texas' Kevin Durant) who, ESPN hype aside, seriously look like genuine future stars of the NBA. All the teams that miss the playoffs go into the lottery, though it's weighted such that the teams that finished lowest in their conferences and had the shittest records in the NBA get more ping-pong balls in the Powerball machine. However, Portland weren't the worst team in the comp; they're actually vaguely useful and had the rookie of the year. Neither were the second-pick winners, fellow Pacific North-West side Seattle. So the Salim Malik Award doesn't actually go to Portland or Seattle. It goes to the Boston Celtics, Andrew Bogut's Milwaukee Bucks and the Memphis Grizzlies (stupid name - did Marc Cohn see any grizzlies when he was out Walking in Memphis? We would have suggested the Memphis Fat-Dead-Elvises-Stuck-On-The-Shitter) - the three teams which, recognising late in the season they were a chance to finish last in their league and get an up-to-25% chance of winning the draft lottery, started throwing games in order to have as shit a record as possible. Allegedly. (...Your Honour.) The resultant shitstorm of crap basketball tarnished reputations, got players traded and coaches fired... but what it conspicuously failed to do, it would appear, was get Greg Oden or Kevin Durant into the starting lineups of any of those three sides.
So for that, the Celtics, Bucks and Dead Elvises jointly get our Salim Malik Award for pointless matchfixing. We'd have called it the Hansie Cronje Memorial Crytowel but Hansie's idea of 'taking a dive' was a bit more dramatic than most. Namely from ten thousand feet into a mountainside in a cargo plane.
And that's the plane truth of the matter.
Urrghh.
The Doctor is OUT.
