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They wear your favourite colours, bleed for your cause, and are probably pretty nice blokes. But you just can’t help hating them anyway. Forget the invincible and the unbeatables; these guys are the unflushables.
The players in every team whose name on the team sheet is likely to send fans into a murderous, Wade-Mackinnon-like rage, but who continue to bob up in first grade week after week after week.
Sure, some of these players might occasionally get dropped or injured, and they can show flashes of brilliance, but just like Two and a Half Men, you know they won’t be gone, or good, for too long.
There are many perceived reasons why an unflushable might frustrate his team’s fans.
Sometimes it might be put down to coaching bias, whereby a player is seen to follow a coach from club to club to cling onto a first grade spot.
Many jokes are made about the relationship between said coach and player, with rumours of coaches’ daughters flying thick and fast in the grandstands. (Hey, why do you think Ben Ikin played so much first grade?)
This player really rankles on the fan; because you know no matter how much of a stinker he has, he’ll always be selected next week as ‘an important part of the team dynamic’ or ‘a contributor in the dressing rooms.’
This is coach-speak for ‘he lives round the corner from my place and his wife cooks a mean Bolognese.’
Another reason may be that the now-ageing unflushable is blocking the place of a younger, far brighter prospect. Watching an over-the-hill, fading former star being continually selected for things he did five years ago is almost as annoying as being stuck behind video referee Russell Smith at the Leichardt oval canteen (Decision Pending, Decision pending, Decision pending…).
Yes, it’s sad to see a great player dropped to Reggies, but maybe they could have some dignity and take up Oztag or write articles on an internet sports forum like the rest of us, where the only critics are fourteen year olds and blokes with dodgy knees.
The last reason a player may be seen as an unflushable is that, well, he’s just not that good. Sure, every NRL player bar Greg Smith and Garrick Morgan had some skill to make it into first grade, but not all players are created equal.
The Illawarra Steelers used to have a back-up hooker named Brad Hepi who did not exactly endear himself to the local fans (though I’m led to believe he became a cult hero in Castleford). As a hooker Hepi could not pass the ball off the ground, could only tackle from the neck up and seemed continually confused out on the field.
I remember a match where he was penalised for being inside the ten only to walk off the field thinking he had been sent off. Hepi did this sort of stuff a lot.
My father, who was usually more John Dorahy than Donnelley, refused to attend another Steelers game as long as Hepi played, and contacted the local paper, radio stations and even the coach Allan McMahon in an effort to have him removed from the team. Ah, for the days before the internet.
So, in the interest of fairness I have nominated each NRL club’s unflushable. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.
Panthers – Adrian Purtell
Raiders – David Milne
Souths – John Sutton
Cowboys – Ashley Graham
Manly – Tony Williams
Melbourne – Anthony Quinn
Titans – Esi Tonga
Broncos – Scott Anderson
Newcastle – Joel Edwards
Parramatta – Jeff Robson
Bulldogs – Dean Halatau
Roosters – Phil Graham
Warriors – Kristian Inu
Dragons – Matt Cooper (process of elimination)
Tigers – Daniel Fitzhenry (trust me, as long as Sheens coaches, he will be back!)
Sharks – John Morris…and most of their backline
NSW – Kurt Gidley
QLD – Brent Tate
Australian cricket team – Cameron White
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