Spare me from this January madness

Roar Guru

By Steve Kaless, 15 Jan 2009 Steve Kaless is a Roar Guru

Tagged:: Gold Coast, Jason Culina, Newcastle, newcastle united, Ricky Stuart, Rugby League

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So the pre-season is now in full swing. Players are hitting the sand dunes, the beep tests, and the protein shakes, as the 2009 NRL season inches ever nearer, like those zombies in the movies.

And for those of us watching it through the eyes of the press, it is already starting to take a familiar path, just like those zombies in the movies.

The New Year brings optimism for most of us. We range from either celebrating we got through another one or might be genuinely hopeful of a great new year.

Footballers the world over always share this optimism at the start of their new season.

Everyone is always raring to go, the winners are looking to defend their title, the losers are looking for redemption, the injury prone crocks are looking for some time on the paddock, and the serial offenders have conveniently wiped their slate clean and are looking for a fresh start.

In a word: boring!

There is something so predictably tedious about this time of year for the rugby league fan and possibly fans of the other footballing codes that I, and many others, are pushed to the brink of insanity more often than at any other time of the year.

It is just the cocktail of the banality of pre-season predictions from the players themselves, the tedium of not actually having any matches to watch, and the fact that nearly as many words are produced when absolutely nothing is happening, that drives us all mad.

Players are flogged to within an inch of their lives by masochistic trainers, only to be dragged before the waiting media to pronounce ‘We’ve got a real shot this year’, before rambling on about this being the best the side has looked, this being the toughest preseason of their careers. And so on.

Rugby league is about 101 years old, and judging by the last cliché, this pre-season is 101 times harder than the first pre-season (which was incredibly long seeing it lasted for all of the time before the first match).

If things get harder, at the current rate, players are going to need to be tunnelling to the centre of the earth and sculling a pint of molten lava within 20 years (the fattest one doing it in a pink t-shirt).

Some are keener than others.

There seems to have been 500 words dedicated to every passing thought going through Reni Maitua’s mind lately.

And, shock horror, the winner of last year’s award for most expensive sleep-in is looking forward to playing for the Sharks under Ricky Stuart. Headline: ‘Player backs coach that’ll pick him and club that pays him’.

One for the ages.

Just once I’d like a player to say “we are going to get f*cking flogged this year, we were a shambles last year, and it is only going to get worse this year.”

Some honesty would be incredibly refreshing.

And it is not just league.

Jason Culina was at it this week with his “I’m here to win” declaration. Well, hold the front page! Footballer declares he enjoys victory.

It would have been far more entertaining had he said, “This Palmer bloke has more dollars than sense and if he wants to throw some my way to get out of the European winter and bring the kids home, then I’m all for it. Results? Who cares. I’m a 15 minute drive from the Gold Coast casino.”

But my favourite of recent season was when new Newcastle United manager Joe Kinnear declared he had plenty of “telegrams of support” after getting a hammering in the press.

Telegrams? Who the hell sends telegrams these days and who offers the service?!

Not only would it be strange to find one person does it, old Joe seems to have found a whole group of people that still do it, obviously commenting that it is so much faster than the days when runners would be dispatched.

Kinnear was either clearly lying, knows people who own a time machine, or has gone mad.

If it is the latter, I’m not far from joining him this off-season.

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The Crowd Says (13) | Page 1 of Comments

Ben C said | January 15th 2009 @ 9:31am | Report comment

The answer is to get a group of mates together and whip up a game of cliche bingo.

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The Link said | January 15th 2009 @ 9:31am | Report comment

Steve – lets not forget the pre season calls for someone to make State of Origin.

I heard Owen Craigie talked up so many times in pre-season that it almost turned into a running joke.

Manly have already started their rolling campaign for Matt Orford.

With the current NRL focus, looks like we can now place pre season Members targets along with these other rituals as well.

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Matt the rat said | January 15th 2009 @ 10:20am | Report comment

What about the classic “there’s a lot of spirit in this club”. What the hell is “spirit” in pre-season?

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Brett McKay said | January 15th 2009 @ 12:18pm | Report comment

Matt, “spirit” is the ghosts of the blokes who never came back from the last sand hills run….

A great piece Steve, and I must admit I couldn’t beleive how much press Matua got for his first training session with Cronulla. But then again, since his whole “rugby league lifeline” negotiations were played out in the papers, it was hardley a surprise either.

The only thing better than players making predictions is when “experts” do it. They’ve all read exactly the same articles while they’ve been on holidays, but on return they seem to be able to offer different predictions on the fortunes of teams X, Y, and Z, because “I’ve just got a good feeling about X/Y/Z this year”, or “I think X/Y/Z might struggle with depth…”

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The Link said | January 15th 2009 @ 12:29pm | Report comment

Oh, also every man and his dog predicting the Raiders to take the wooden spoon, happens every year and every year they’re wrong

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Sam said | January 15th 2009 @ 7:03pm | Report comment

All sports are full of players giving cliche answers. But let’s face it the questions asked aren’t exactly the most imaginitive. The good old ‘How do you think you will go this year?’. At the end of the day they have to fill the papers with something that will sell. If not this it would be some kind or scandal or gossip, so take your pick?

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Steve Kaless said | January 15th 2009 @ 7:13pm | Report comment

The Link,

At least Matt Orford has some claims for the jumper, you know we are in the thick of it when the Raiders say Joe Picker should be playing Origin this year. A gold star for the first Roar reader to spot such a claim.

Matt,

I agree with you about experts previews especially when the following three lines culd be applied to every team. “If there star performers stay in form they could be real contenders”, “lack depth to cover many injuries”, “will be looking for some young talent to shine”.

Sam,

I’d take scandal and gossip over tired old cliches, however one then normally leads to another.

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Guy Smiley said | January 15th 2009 @ 11:41pm | Report comment

Less than 10% of players subjected in interview in any sport are actually worth listening to. Sometimes post-match interviews can be worth tuning into because the adrenalin is still coursing through their veins but otherwise its tedious, repetitive and excruciatingly dull. Is the demand really that large for this filler material?? Could the media outlets get by without it? Could players get through an interview without the terms ‘obviously’ and ‘the boys’ and ‘at the end of the day’?

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James said | January 19th 2009 @ 3:41pm | Report comment

Has any player or coach made any claim by this stage that another player in the club is “training the house down”? Note that a player never describes himself as having trained the house down … that would be “obviously” a bit too big headed.

I have seen Trent Barrett on a bike and he looks very fit. Which is great. I just hope he doesn’t get placed on the missing persons register this year. As a long suffering (it goes out without saying) Sharks fan, we are praying for the biggest comeback since the Resurrection. It really is a matter of faith.

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OldManEmu said | January 19th 2009 @ 4:22pm | Report comment

Add Willie Mason who is always good for hubris to the list of all that is boring and predeictable about the pre season. I read the other day that he was “itching for the season to start so he could repay the faithful at Bondi Junction”. The faithful at Bondi Junction – that’s funny, and I am a Roosters fan.

Willie Mason’s season will follow a script something like this:

February – Awesome trial form, running over the top of small halfbacks at will.
March – Exclusive interview with Danny Weidler reveals that Mason is tormented by the ghosts of last years State of Origin and that he is dedicating this season to the Blues and revenge at Lang Park
April – Mason receives man of the match award against Souths and dedicates win to Jesus.
May – Mason announces he is keeping all options on the table in advance of contract negotiations and that he secretly harbours a desire to be an All Black
June – Mason denies all involvement in brawl at Northies.
July – Devestating form leads to Mason being picked for Blues Origin team.
end of July to October – Mason missing in action

He is the human headline.

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