Finals! Is there a more exhilarating time of year, a period more calculated to get the blood pumping and the brain juices flowing rich and thick?
It is only when the finals arrive that you realise just how pointless and stupid the rest of the year really is.
And thankfully, with the NRL finals looming this weekend, we can finally see our burly heroes engaging in some real, hard-nosed football, as opposed to the genteel, flower-strewn, soft-bellied petticoat designers’ association combined dinner-dance and hand-knitted tea cosy auction that the papers would have us call ‘the home-and-away season’.
It’s finally time to take off the legwarmers and engage in the sort of brutal organised violence that Dally Messenger dreamed of all those years ago when he took to the fields of Sydney to constructively work out his frustrations at everyone calling him “Dally”.
MORE NRL FINALS
» FULL NRL FINALS DRAW
» Tim Gore’s stat attack: part 1
» PRENTICE: Write your own NRL fairytale
» NRL Finals information, team lists, full coverage
» 2014 NRL Finals: full guide to week one
» Roosters vs Penrith preview
» Manly vs South Sydney preview
» North Queensland vs Brisbane preview
» Mastermind’s NRL Finals preview
If your team is in the finals, you’re no doubt keen to absorb as much expert opinion on their chances as possible. If your team isn’t in the finals, you must wait until next autumn to possess any sense of social worth, I’m afraid.
With that in mind, here is the only NRL finals form guide you will ever need, a calm and considered club-by-club analysis of the chances that each of the remaining teams has of proudly lifting whatever it is the NRL trophy is nowadays above their heads, on what no song ever poignantly described as “that one day in October”:
Sydney Roosters
Once dubbed ‘Easts’ because they represented the Eastern Suburbs, but since rebranded ‘Sydney’ because they represent the Eastern Suburbs, the Roosters have had a stellar season, and are considered a strong chance of delivering a premiership to satisfy what theoretical physicists, for the sake of argument, called their ‘fans’.
The Roosters’ strengths are many and include the Man With The Golden Contract, Sonny Bill Williams, dashing fullback Anthony Minichiello, who this year became the first Australian rugby league player to be carbon-dated, and the brilliant halves pairing of Mitchell Pearce and James Maloney, who have been described by many wise judges as ‘not good enough to play State of Origin’.
The minor premiers are also the reigning premiers, and so the Roosters should be favourites, if not for the undeniable fact that the thought of the Roosters winning the grand final, to quote Rex Mossop, “always feels a bit weird”. Should they triumph, there’s no doubt that most of us will quickly repress the memory.
To win, they will have to retain a strong sense of discipline and try to make sure Sonny Bill Williams doesn’t wander off and join a rowing team in the middle of a game. If they can do this, and remember that failure to win premierships carries the risk of Ricky Stuart coming back, they have an excellent chance of pleasing all of us who are happy to call the Roosters ‘our eighth-favourite team’.
Manly Sea Eagles
The great thing about Manly is that they are always innovating: for years they have been the most-hated club in the competition, but not satisfied with this, the Sea Eagles went that extra mile and appointed Geoff Toovey to coach them, ensuring that nobody will ever feel sympathy for them no matter how many bad refereeing calls go against them, how many unlucky bounces cost them games, or how many bouts of food poisoning confine them to toilets for days on end.
Food poisoning is not the only threat to the maroon and white’s premiership chances though: there is also an erratic formline, and the fact that Jamie Lyon looks a bit like a currant bun.
Can they overcome this handicap? Only time will tell, but Manly is certainly in the enviable position of knowing that in every game they are guaranteed to either delight their fans, or give multiple orgasms to everyone else on earth.
South Sydney Rabbitohs
South Sydney has won more premierships than any other NRL club, its history rightfully a source of pride for its many fans. Yet many years have passed since the days when the red and green won grand finals with such ease that John Sattler had to break his jaw just to make it a bit more interesting; and in the intervening period the club has had to suffer the humiliation of having its life saved by Andrew Denton.
This year, however, the current crop of Bunnies have an excellent chance of ending the decades of imitating the rabbits from Beatrix Potter, and starting to imitate that one from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
If they are to tear the throats out of their opposition, they’ll have to start this weekend against Manly, bitter rivals of Souths by virtue of the fact that Manly are bitter rivals of everyone. The presence of Greg Inglis at the back, Sam Burgess at the front, and John ‘The Thigh’ Sutton in the middle is intimidating to any opposition – the size, speed and power of the Rabbitohs, not to mention their English forward breeding facility, should stand them in good stead.
Obstacles remain, obviously: the aforementioned Burgess will need to keep his desire to commit murder in check; but if all runs smoothly, Souths are beautifully placed to ensure that Mario Fenech becomes just a memory.
Penrith Panthers
Penrith stormed into premiership contention on the back of an ironclad game plan devised by master tactician Phil Gould, the scintillating playmaking of Greg Alexander, and the rampaging second-row duo of Mark Geyer and Jon Cartwright. Or possibly they have a bunch of other players by now, but I like to think back on the innocent days of 1991, when the Panthers had only just shed their creamy chocolate uniforms and the possibilities seemed endless.
Now the possibilities seem extremely endful, as on paper the mountain men suffer severe deficiencies in comparison to their rivals. However, they are in fourth, so clearly they have something.
Much will depend on the performances of livewire seven-year-old Jamie Soward in the number seven jersey, and barnstorming centre Jamal Idris, who is looking to secure his future at Penrith after the NRL ruled his contract will fall outside the salary cap due to the government classifying him as an office tower.
They are underdogs, but if Idris can keep his hair free of light aircraft, and whoever their coach is can do whatever he does, then there’s definitely a possibility of something or other happening in their games.
North Queensland Cowboys
In many ways North Queensland has been more successful than South Queensland, which no longer exists and achieved little in its short life besides destroying the hopes and dreams of Garrick Morgan.
The Cowboys have yet to win a premiership, despite the efforts of the little genius Johnathan Thurston, who has often been forced to carry the burden of bitching to the referee and looking like he’s about to cry alone. But the current Cowboys team is a potent attacking combination, led by the wiles of Thurston and the mercurial brilliance of the apparently-totally-rehabilitated-and-quite-a-good-bloke-honestly Robert Lui.
Up front they are well served by the powerful frontrow duo of James Tamou and Matt Scott, and behind the scenes they are well-coached by Paul Green, who learnt to overcome diversity during a playing career in which he achieved representative honours despite being 90 per cent head.
If the Cowboys can show they are able to perform well away from the sweltering fortress of Weird Name Stadium in Townsville, they have every chance of a crushingly disappointing loss on grand final day.
Melbourne Storm
The Storm is a team centred on the sensational talents of Cooper ‘The Haircut’ Cronk, Cameron ‘The Pencilcase’ Smith, and Billy ‘The Shetland Pony’ Slater, and if the rubber bands in Smith and Slater’s legs hold, this finals series could prove fruitful for them.
They certainly won’t lack for motivation, as not only will they want to send departing veteran Ryan Hoffman off with a memorable grand final win, but they know that every time they lose a game Craig Bellamy personally punches every player five times in the stomach.
A good performance from ‘the big three’ can almost be assured, but much will depend on the form of ‘the small six’: Ryan Hinchcliffe, Mahe Fonua, Sisa Waqa, Bryan Norrie, Tim Glasby and the other guy. Can these little-heralded names get a bit of heralding? It’s hard to say, but certainly what they lack in raw talent they make up for in their ability to stand near people with more talent.
Having proven in 2012 that they don’t need to cheat to win premierships, it is now time for the Storm to prove that again, which seems a bit redundant, so maybe they won’t bother.
Canterbury Bulldogs
The Bulldogs’ form hasn’t been the best of late, and this combined with star five-eighth Josh Reynolds’ lobotomy makes for an uncertain future.
They certainly have the talent to cause problems for other teams in the finals, and they have the benefit of possessing, in Des Hasler, the most miserable coach in rugby league history.
Much depends on the performance of the Bulldog big men: if Frank Pritchard and Tony Williams can sit strategically on the opposition’s key players’ heads, it will allow Trent Hodkinson and Reynolds to work their magic; or in Reynolds’s case, to sit in the middle of the field and count mushrooms or something.
As in all things, Canterbury will be led by their gutsy hooker Michael Ennis, who will lead from the front as usual by promising everyone he tackles that if the Bulldogs don’t win he will personally glass them. This modern-day Mark Bugden is a true warrior of the game, and if guts and determination count for anything, Canterbury will almost certainly take the field this weekend.
Brisbane Broncos
Don’t be fooled by Corey Parker’s kindly, grey-haired demeanour. Just because he takes the field smoking a pipe and offering the referees some Werthers Originals doesn’t mean he will not fight ruthlessly for his cause. And in this case, that cause means leading a Broncos team determined to honour the heritage bestowed on the club by such legendary names as Wally Lewis, Allan Langer, Darren Lockyer and Brett Plowman.
Nobody gives Brisbane much chance of taking home the premiership what’sit this year, but that’s really only because they’re not good enough. Apart from that they’ve got an excellent shot. It’s a truism in sport that it’s when teams are at their most incompetent that they are at their most dangerous, and Brisbane fulfils this to the letter.
With Justin Hodges at fullback providing attacking thrust and invaluable obnoxiousness, their backline is functioning strongly, and look out for strong performances from Sam Thaiday and Ben Barba, who is finally fulfilling the enormous potential he has always had for causing people to say he’s finally fulfilling his enormous potential.
If there’s anything standing in the way of Brisbane’s premiership push, it is the other seven teams, but as the club’s official motto says, “Dare to dream, losers”.
And so say all of us. Bring it on.
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