While standing in line at the Richie Benaud Bar prior to kick-off at Pirtek Stadium last Friday night, I wondered how the ‘Doyen of Beige’ would interpret the spin currently gripping the NRL.
Probably off the back-foot, using a straight bat, well-oiled with cricket’s greasiest innuendo.
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Hardly news to excite winter purists amid uncomfortable twitches during this month’s World Cup.
Nevertheless, memories of the former commentary team skipper reignited my ivory crush, prompting this piece shamelessly riddled with references to the summer game.
But instead of the awkward bounce that’s been baffling fullbacks for more than a century, my concerns focus on the exaggerated sideways movement of players that has teased coaches and bamboozled fans.
From my spot inside the Manly pavilion, this season’s home wicket is a grossly under-prepared green-top paving the way for regular Sea Eagle departures in a collapse initiated by the salary-cap stumping of Glenn Stewart.
Adding to the demise is former Brooky bad boy Anthony Watmough, who hasn’t wasted any time taking aim from the opposite end of the pitch. Intent on bolstering Parra’s middle order with the scalp of Kieran Foran, the blow-waved genius’ inspirational return with Bodyline bruised ribs exposed Manly’s fragility in a heartfelt advertisement for the hamstrung Kiwi.
Manly struck back with the long handle but their second innings appears to be teetering, after a dream start saw half their problematic board deposited over the Fulton-Menzies Stand.
But with selectors fast running out of talent they will be sweating on the efforts of Big Bash recruit Willie Mason. If rugby league’s version of Shane Watson fails to trouble the scorers he’ll remain the juicy half-volley that’s been clobbered by Brookvale’s loudest for more than a decade.
And what line-up needs enemies in a crisis when one of your own selfishly abandons the team mid-pitch to collude with the competition’s governing body before agreeing to prop up its ugliest member and save the game’s bulging TV contract.
Sharing more in common with Stuart Broad than a bad haircut and uncanny resemblance to Draco Malfoy, Daly Cherry-Evans continued his fan-divisive link to the English pacemen in completing the NRL’s first reality-TV contract negotiation.
In a tacky ending before cameras prior to last Friday’s kick-off, the Mackay junior trapped a gob-smacked Geoff Toovey plumb in front with confirmation of the Titans deal. Squad members squirmed in agony upon hearing the news after Manly’s 42-12 innings defeat to Parramatta.
Regardless of fact or fiction, perception is reality for most fans, and it’s why smart folk during the 2013-14 Ashes series decided to top their pockets through sales of homemade T-shirts promoting ‘Stuart Broad is a sh#t bloke’.
So what is the NRL’s message in bowling 15 teams around their legs with guaranteed overs for the Titans’ new face or does stage two involve return charter flights from exotic locations so new Raiders recruits are spared frozen mornings and boring nights.
And what of commercially savvy clubs like the Canterbury Bulldogs stranded in Sydney’s inner west, smack bang in the game’s potential merger belt? What’s the reward for Raelene Castle’s team after busting their backs from both ends to run a financially positive NRL-licensed club?
Two groups are laughing right now. One is nightwatchman Daly, padded up to protect an unsustainable Titans’ tail. The other is the NRL who should ultimately laugh loudest by informing the Manly spearhead his financial guarantee includes relocating the disgraced basket case to the rugby league heartland of Ipswich
And with the Cherry-Evans fan-base rapidly dwindling to the confines of NRL HQ, he’ll do anything to help them out, especially if his corny pro-NRL television commercial is anything to go by.
So with no Richie Benaud Bar at Brookvale Oval, locals will ditch spin for pace this Saturday night in potentially ugly scenes that could send DCE cart-wheeling back to Queensland earlier than expected – awkwardly through a jersey-sponsored crowd promoting ‘DCE is a turncoat’.
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