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I cracked a wry smile reading fellow Roarer and fellow tortured Raiders fan Eleanor Kite’s thinly-veiled take-down piece on Queenslanders yesterday.
And in these highly-charged State against State, mate against mate times that we currently find ourselves living in, I feel compelled to exercise my right of reply.
Yes, I’m from Queensland, and yes, I have been known to exhibit symptoms of chronic insanity from time to time (though most of those are in the past now, touch wood).
However, having been comfortably ensconced in Redfern – as deep as you can get into enemy territory this side of Palmerston North, as far as I can tell – for three State Of Origin series now, I’ve been able to observe some insane antics of my own as I plough headlong into my fourth series down south.
Like how team selections are leaked, un-leaked, re-leaked, changed, debated, revealed and ultimately reviled in the Sydney media and online forums seemingly from the time stumps are called on the New Year’s Day Test.
How losing has become so ingrained that there’s almost a desire not to win, so fans can continue to spew the same Mitchell Pearce-flavoured bile they’ve been regurgitating since before most of them even knew that hashtagging was a thing.
How two players can be bought into camp and set against each other for the final jersey, only for the coach to admit after the fact that he’s got no idea how he’ll be using said player anyway.
How the greatest of your FOGs can ostracise one of your players when dropping the black C-bomb during his role as assistant coach, then be anointed as an Immortal by a presumably Blues-centric panel ahead of the most successful Origin player/coach of them all. A Queenslander, naturally.
How the continued non-selection of Nathan Merritt fuels the fire of all sorts of paranoid agendas.
How Queenslanders are mocked for not questioning the slightly leftfield selection of Chris McQueen, like us having full faith in our selectors and players to get the job done is some sort of metaphor for the aforementioned chronically insane collective consciousness (We did get behind Adrian Brunker, after all).
How every montage of Classic Origin Moments™ down here is led not by a stunning try, cover-defending tackle or club teammate uppercutting club teammate, but a former coach stealing the current coach’s chair on the touchline.
How said former coach is often much-maligned, yet whose pre-match monologues for the host broadcaster have been easily the most consistent efforts from a New South Welshmen over the past… how many years has it been now? I still haven’t learnt to count past six.
How the only way to even threaten stadium capacity is to use blue wigs as an enticement to get punters through the turnstiles.
Yep, these here are crazy times, no doubt. Which is why I might have to get stuck into my lithium stash, slip on a maroon wig of my own, and make my way out to Olympic Park come Wednesday.
If I may flip a well-worn phrase, if you can beat them, it’s even more fun joining them, especially when you’re chronically insane.
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