Five pre-season headlines to disappoint

You know the drill. It’s January. Each day you sit in the office and fire up the net to trawl through the scorched wastelands of the sporting pages to find the latest skerrick of information regarding the approaching NRL season.

It is a mostly fruitless, morose exercise that generally has the effect of diverting one’s attention to googling yourself or facebooking that girl who dumped you in grade nine.

Editors of these sites realise this, and as they are loathe to lose your attention and let you complete something meaningful in your day, they like to throw up juicy pieces of ‘information’ designed to whip you into a fever for the new year. Sadly, these pieces are more often than not void of any sort of substance, and can leave the reader feeling like Michael Ennis at full-time in Origin III last year. Here are five recurring pearlers to avoid like a Nigerian email scam:

“(Former bad boy/rubbish player/fringe first grader) is absolutely training the house down!”

A headline that for years was Owen Craigie’s sole mention for the season has since found a new host in Carl ‘Big Show’ Webb. Far from a compliment, this is in fact the greatest curse someone can put on a player (or team, as one journo did this year for the Sharks!), as after this the player without doubt goes on to get dropped in round five after a series of lacklustre performances.

So the player in question is going great at running up and down an empty field and drinking Staminade. Excellent.
Does this mean he won’t drop the ball, miss tackles, argue with the coach, do a knee and whack on 15kg by Origin? Because quite frankly you should be ashamed of yourself for getting my hopes up about a nuffy buy my team has made to fill the 25 because he looks good with his shirt off. You know a bloke who was hopeless at training? Jim Thorpe (google him, you have time!)

“(Team) releases new high tech, eco-friendly re-designed jerseys!”

One for the real train spotters this, and yet again shrouded in disappointment. On occasion a new jersey can re-invent a clubs stagnating fanbase and inspire the masses. But yeah, it probably won’t. Chances are your new jersey looks like a toddler has spewed up a box of crayons on it (sorry, it does Newcastle). Or not contain your team’s basic colours (sorry Brisbane alternate, your owners must hate you). Or be made of a material so sweaty and lightweight it makes your parochial mate on the hill look like a sun safe tourist at wet ‘n’ wild.

Even worse is having to sit there and listen to the conservatorium of art marketing guru with the pointy shoes try to ‘deconstruct’ the jersey for you. Listen Monet, if a jersey has to be thought about for more than a five second glance, it stinks. And get rid of all those stickers on it while you’re at it, you’re not a NASCAR driver!

“Bold new marketing campaign to start the season!”

Let me guess: little kids playing footy, players least likely to bring the game into disrepute, and a montage from the 2010 season to a stirring power ballad. Wow!

Just try to air the advertisement say, more than three days before the start of the season? And for crying out loud, I don’t need the marketing guy to tell me how this year’s ad really connects with the fans… leave the clichés to Andrew Ryan, you ironic glasses wearing insect.

Tina, I’m sorry, we laughed at Mad Max 3, we meant no harm. Please, we beg you!

“Exciting new rules set to open up the game!”

Rugby league is the Lady GaGa of rule changes. Or to be more precise, Australian Rugby League is. Look, there have been some good ones over the years: limited tackles and the like. Sometimes change is called for. The two refs rule, borrowed from the NFL ref/umpire combo, has helped to stamp out the grapple tackle, suplex and dragon punch etc in the ruck and generally made the game more spectator friendly. A natural progression if you will. Compare this to last year’s Shepherd interpretation stinker, a totally pedantic, finicky over the top nuisance that should have been left on the cutting room floor with anything John Ribot ever thought up.

In reality rule changes should be made on a ‘not broken don’t fix it’ basis, not just thought up to fill in time at the coaches summit. Stop confusing the refs, at all levels, and allow some space for on-ground interpretation. And by the way, if Harrigan gets his wish of a legal forward pass on the fifth tackle rule (true story!) then I will personally buy Bob Fulton a cement truck.

“Last year’s finals rivalry re-ignited in trial clash!”

How you can begin to compare a do or die finals match to a pre-season trial in Burpengary is beyond me. The trial, played in the dilapidated local park, will have three thousand people there, 80 of them players ready for their 10min quarter. The coaches will be scouting in NZ, the star players recovering from surgery, the floodlights will cark it at half-time, and your new recruit is still trying to remember the water boy’s name.

The only thing it has in common with an NRL finals game is the shape of the ball and the fact that the corrupt council running the game will charge you $35 to sit on top of Garlo’s pie van. How they get away with charging full price for what is a fifth of a premiership game quality wise is the biggest rort since the 1909 GF. You know why?
Because they know that somewhere out there sits thousands of poor blokes like yourself, sitting at work trawling for pre-season news who would sell their first born son to the Roosters just to see 26 blokes belt each other on some scrubby suburban dirt heap.

And I will, sigh, be right there on the pie van discussing how good Carl Webb’s been going at training lately with all the other tragics. Blow that whistle, ref.