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Good Friday will be remembered for the death of The Chargedown

4th April, 2015
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The Doggies take on the resurgent Rabbitohs in Friday night footy. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
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4th April, 2015
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As I always do, I spent my Saturday ignoring my loved ones as I casually flicked through The Roar‘s classifieds section. What I discovered in the obituaries was something that was as shocking as it was unsurprising.

Check it out for yourself, and let’s make a date to talk it over at the wake. Or in the comments section below, whatever suits.

IN LOVING MEMORY

RIP: The Chargedown. 1908-2015.

Rugby league’s Chargedown tragically died on April 3, 2015 at the age of 107. It was found dead under a blanket of bile and bottles in Homebush after a long and arduous battle for relevance against the all-conquering movement for kicker welfare.

The Chargedown is survived by a family of fellow safeguarders in The Smother, The Wall, The Block and Steve Price, and will be preceded in death by a swarm of halfbacks in dinner suits and the eventual death of the game due to chronic softness.

The Chargedown came to prominence in the first set of six ever played in rugby league, spawned from necessity when it was realised that the scheming of silky playmakers should be nullified at all costs, most notably when it came to kicking.

While largely considered an unfashionable one-percenter of the game that was rarely celebrated, it experienced major spikes of popularity in the four-point field goal era, the early 40/20 years and the Falcon craze.

However, as the game gradually shifted away from its hardcore roots with every horrific hyper-extension, reconstruction and amputation, The Chargedown began an exhausting fight for survival that would eventually be its downfall.

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Beset by a pile of contradictory game laws and OH&S regulations, The Chargedown’s final years of existence were spent in a frustrated state of flux as it fought an internal battle between defensive instinct and duty to care.

This was exacerbated by an increase in cunning and cheek from the game’s leading ballplayers, plus the horrid duress inflicted from unreasonable demands by coaching dictators to limit anything from the boot at all costs.

After these years of confusion and struggle, The Chargedown met its ultimate demise on Friday afternoon when James Graham desperately lunged at Adam Reynolds as he attempted a match-winning field goal in the Good Friday clash between Souths and Canterbury.

While it was universally accepted that Graham made a genuine attempt to block the kick with no intention to harm, he still ended up skewing the Reynolds hinge, and at this point footy fundamentals fatefully clashed with modern ethics and the universe lost its collective mind.

With the haywire that ensued across newspapers and talkback, it had become blatantly obvious that absolutely nobody knew what tha f*ck constituted a fair block of a kick attempt anymore, whether accidental or incidental was relevant, and whether halfbacks were now allowed to basically do whatever they wanted inside the cushy cocoon of the law.

Coupled with the various minefields associated with Charging Down such as its split-second nature, the Russian Roulette of the grading system and an in-game adjudication system completely bereft of confidence, it was considered too risky a tactic to be continued with and was subsequently pulled from the playbook forever, never to be seen again.

Fittingly, with its final act before passing, nobody was sure whether The Chargedown had played at the ball or if the tackle count should be restarted, so the coroner went to the video ref for confirmation before noting the necessary details on the toe-tag.

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A funeral is scheduled as part of a Friday night double-header alongside the cremation of toughness.

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