People are sweating a little less each day, Easter is just around the corner (which means Xmas is practically a week away) and rugby is back. Finally we can get back to the centuries’ old debate: by what margin is rugby union a better sport than rugby league?
Can’t you feel it? The streets have that dramatic tension of a broadway musical telling the story of a couple of rival gangs. We have the Capulets versus the Montagues gathering all their mates and statistics, beers and sledging ammunition. War is upon us.
HOLD! Change ensues. 2017 is to prove the year of peace. Our friend Trump will make sure of that as his bromance with the Kremlin continues. So let us put aside our keyboards and sledgehammers, and think of why we love these sports and embrace our each other’s code!
Let’s look forward to a season of sparkling spiral passes from the hands of a general to his most lethal weapons. Let’s look forward to those pinpoint bombs sent away to penetrate the opposing try line. Let’s look forward to those sphincter exploding hits, those wonderfully legal and tactful hits that change the game.
Let’s love NRL for its blend of the forefather rugby and NFL, a game of checkers to rugby’s chess. Seeing the big hard men grind away for every precious inch, to run at each other with the force of a literal refrigerator. Time and time again until those puppet master halves release that game-breaking play that slingshots a speedster into rugby league folklore.
Let’s love rugby for its strategic splendour. To see all players push and budge at all fronts, to see eight warriors bunker down for technical and physical supremacy, to aerial trickery from a man the size of Groot being lifted by men more akin to dwarves of Middle Earth. And then the lightning strikes to the tune of 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
It’s all kinds of rugby time. And I cannot wait!
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
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