The week’s most mean-spirited battle for high office will reach its stunning climax this Sunday night, with exit polls indicating a clear victor is set to be inaugurated in the showdown between Mal Meninga and Wayne Bennett.
With Meninga’s Australia and Bennett’s England locking horns in rugby league’s traditional bellwether seat – the field – pundits are predicting the knockout blow is imminent in their ongoing feud over who should coach Australia.
This will bring welcome closure in The Race to the Oval Ball Office, especially for administrators of the Four Nations.
Event organisers have grown increasingly disillusioned after originally staging the tournament as an international rugby league competition, not a backdrop for two men squabbling over their rightful occupancy of a head coaching position.
Even by footy’s standards, this spiteful tussle between Meninga and Bennett has been unusual, with both candidates choosing to persist with campaigning for the job well after the result was called.
Despite his coronation 12 months ago, Meninga has continued to spruik his values as the man to Make Australia Great Again by tirelessly besmirching Bennett.
On the other side, the England boss has sought to snipe in more traditional fashion by leveraging off the impoverished.
But in good news for long-suffering constituents and people who just want plain footy without chicanery, it appears the seat is set to be decided beyond doubt.
With Meninga smashing Bennett in the key battlegrounds of performance, PR and preferred employer, he enters the final stage of the campaign holding a significant upper-hand in the approval ratings.
Therefore, if predictions ring true and England are profoundly creamed by the Kangaroos, it will hand Meninga the votes needed to sweep him to power for the second time in a year, while shamefully consigning Bennett to his backbench seat in Brisbane.
For Meninga, not only will it be a result that will stylishly cap-off his character assassination of Bennett, it will also fulfill his long-held dream of securing the position as Chief of State and smashing his rival in the process.
For Bennett, such an outcome would round-off an unthinkable fall from grace.
From the outset, his campaign lurched from one catastrophe to another.
This began with being refused the Australian job, followed by accepting the English job, then the tactical backfire of upsetting the entire British press corps, which is apparently not real smart.
The Broncos mentor now faces the real prospect of an international career in irrevocable ruin.
Bennett left Australia as a multi-title winning guru, but Meninga’s sabotage will see him return as some agenda-driven sad-sack who should be stripped of all his premierships for further burying English rugby league.
His impregnable repute appeared weak against his rival’s withering attacks, with some pointing to the absence of his long-time running partner Darius Boyd as a possible reason for the uncharacteristic capitulation.
Should results play out as predicted and Meninga does end up schooling Bennett in front of the whole world, whispers have emerged that the England coach may refuse to accept the result.
However this was denied when it was realised this would require talking to people.
As such, he has confirmed he will make a concession speech should the result fall in Meninga’s favour. Yet this will probably just be him phoning in a cough, probably incidentally after pocket-dialling.
On the other side, victory to Meninga will cement him in for a long and fruitful tenure in the role of Australian coach.
On current approval ratings, he would hold power indefinitely, provided he doesn’t do something stupid like pour his own beer or hold internet security seminars.
Reports state that he and his VP Michael Hagan are already in discussions about an agenda for the first 100 days in office, with how his right-hand man can continue to make him look awesome already top of the list.
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