Every time I’ve consulted my online sports betting account this week the panic has taken hold. Every time I’ve examined the odds, scrutinising the points start and exploring the variety of multi-bet options, my chest has tightened and my vision has gone fuzzy.
Even now, writing about it, I’m beginning to sweat. Like an ANZAC washed up to shore, I’m reluctant to proceed but painfully aware that surrender is not an option; it is grand final day and I have to bet.
However, choking back tears as the realisation hits home, I have to concede that I simply do not know who to back!
The Bulldogs, inspired by the league’s most focused bogan, Des Hasler, boast the most remarkable line-up in grand final history.
Padded out (excessively so, in the case of Greg Eastwood) by grinning simpletons, aimless talents, unimpressive journeymen and sunburnt poms, the Bulldogs have a squad that must make superstars like Thurston, Hayne, Inglis, Gallen and Marshall shake their heads in despair.
Indeed, on a grand final day where the only Benji on display will be whining along to tuneless pop-punk dross, one has to give Hasler his due.
Traditionally, players like Kris Keating had no place on grand final day, but Des Hasler has changed all of that.
Hasler has built a game plan which hardly requires a halfback at hall. In the structure of the 2012 Bulldogs, Keating is a handy left-foot kicker with a touch of speed around the rucks.
Dogged by many of the same frustrating deficiencies as late-night SBS soft porn, Keating’s attacking game lacks penetration. Following in the footsteps of Mortimer, Sterling, Alexander, Stuart, Langer and Johns he is not. However, with the ball-playing being left to the forwards, it hardly seems to matter.
Indeed, Hasler’s effort to turn this group of wacky individuals into a team of immense power, precision and skill is truly awe-inspiring. In a coaching career which has already reached some incredible heights, Hasler’s 2012 efforts have still managed to stun us.
Hasler began by regenerating the flagging Manly outfit in the middle of the last decade, but it is his efforts with the Bulldogs in 2012 which have put an exclamation point on the most notable string of jaw-dropping off-field efforts the game has seen since Julian O’Neill hung up Jeremy Schloss’s boots in the late 1990s.
At the moment, under Hasler’s tutelage, there is no better centre in the game than Krisnan Inu, no better second-rower than Frank Pritchard, no better prop than James Graham and no better fullback than Ben Barba.
If I’d written that sentence 12 months ago I would have cyber-bullied myself. Today, I can only nod along in agreement. The turnarounds for so many of these players have been remarkable.
However, despite all of the earlier evidence to the contrary, this is no love letter to Des Hasler. With Craig Bellamy coaching the Melbourne Storm, Hasler’s not the only master clipboard-wielder heading to ANZ Stadium this Sunday.
Arguably, the effort of Bellamy to lead his Melbourne Storm side to the 2012 decider is even more impressive. If Bellamy’s original effort to carry Melbourne out of the hole dug by Mark Murray was impressive, what adjective best sums up his recent efforts?
‘Good’ doesn’t seem to cut it. On and off the field, rightly or wrongly, the Melbourne Storm were torn to shreds when the salary cap scandal broke in 2010. Without Craig Bellamy, I daresay the club would be deader than Mel Gibson’s acting career right now.
Instead, with Bellamy still at the helm and the ‘Big Three’ still hogging all of the journalists’ lazy headlines, the Storm rages even stronger than Tom Cruise’s rumoured homosexuality.
It is a fascinating contest whichever way you look at it. It’s a game of two brilliant coaches and two brilliant football teams in two different ways. In the age of the salary cap, no side is brilliant across the park (though the happily vanquished Sea Eagles come close, on paper at least), so the team structures here add much to the intrigue.
The Bulldogs field the biggest and most skilful forward pack in the game, and outside them they have the competition’s best centre pairing.
The Storm, on the other hand, concentrate their class in the traditional playmaking spots: hooker, the halves and, as is the way these days, fullback. On the role of the fullback, at least, both sides can agree.
Like the Bulldogs with their halves, the Storm pad out their front row with hard-working types who, like Meg White’s best work back when the White Stripes were still kicking, get their job done in grim, consistent, largely unnoticed fashion.
They’ve been the two best sides all year and remained the two best teams in the play-offs; they both deserve to be there on grand final day. Unfortunately, as a gambler, this does not make things easy.
Indeed, as my mind drifts back to the question of where to place my hard-earned money, I am once more beginning to shake. Panic, my old friend, you’re back!
Kris Keating versus Cooper Cronk? It’s just too close to call!
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