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Ever had that situation where you’re going on a well planned ski holiday, and after carefully packing and walking out the front door, you suddenly feel the urge to race back inside and grab your speedos?
Yep, that’s the New South Wales Selectors in April.
Despite everyone having a pretty good idea of the makeup of the New South Wales team since last year’s Grand Final, all of a sudden the temperature drops and it’s like Capt. Ricky Stuart has rammed Phillip St Headquarters into a Sam Backo-sized iceberg.
Everywhere you look, elderly bulldog-faced NSWRL administrators are hobbling around frantically trying to find an outside centre, while a couple of chirpy ex-footy player assistant coaches are flicking through the refidex arguing over who has ownership of Wallerawang.
Little five-eighths are getting trampled in the crush, as selectors rush to push some first class ring-ins into the lifeboats.
It’s rep season madness, and the chaos starts this weekend with a match which those pesky cane toads can’t spoil, City versus Country.
Sure there’s also a Test match between two behemoths of international rugby league being played, but the headlines for that one write themselves.
Now, it’s easy to put the boot into the City Country match; its existence in the rugby league calendar at times seems a bit like opening a 2012 first aid box to find a magic sponge and bottle of smelling salts.
From noble origins (bush players elbowing professional players and bragging to their mates about it) the game morphed into an entertaining New South Wales selection trial. Then into a bit of a snooze fest. And once again into a credible New South Wales selection trial.
Mostly thanks to New South Wales being too crap to get anyone bar Gallen, a couple of token backrowers, and a Fijian into the Kangaroos team.
I’m loath to bag the match, as hearing a bunch of pampered pros whinge about getting their socks dirty in the cramped local sheds is enough reason to have it if you ask me.
I am however quite happy to bag the New South Wales selectors that choose the teams for the match, many of whom I imagine have now decided that because they watched Patton on DVD and clocked ET’s Rugby League computer game in 1992, they are officially strategic geniuses.
Every year they seem obliged to pick a few players just to knock Karl Stefanovic’s drunken Logies speech off the front page.
First is the square peg, the bloke blatantly chosen out of position. This year it’s Jarryd Hayne, a bloke who plays fullback every week chosen at five-eighth for City.
Why didn’t the Eels think of this? I mean they are coming last and have a five-eighth who couldn’t direct a dog’s arse to face backwards, don’t they?
Maybe it’s because Stephen Kearney knows if Hayne is not in the mood to play footy, his outside men will spend the entire game trying to spot hotties in the crowd.
Next is the bolter, the bog-standard club player who gets thrust into the big time like some cheesy Disney movie, much to everyone’s bewilderment. When pressed for answers selectors will spin a tale about his ‘consistency’ and ‘influence on team dynamic’.
This of course leads to drama when he returns to club football and his coach can never drop him again. Hello, Chris Bailey!
And finally there’s the sentimental. Sure, old mate has retired from rep footy, hasn’t made a line break in three seasons, and is only turning up for training because his wife hates him, yet his name is still bandied around like a hot Robertson Super Spud before every rep season.
I’ve got a nagging feeling that a fortnight before Origin 2030, Sterlo and Rabs will still be talking up Matt Cooper’s chances of getting a Blues jumper, despite the fact that he is running a gelato stand in Puerto Rico somewhere.
So memo to NSWRL: I’m more than happy to support City versus Country, to try to get a few Queensland mates to watch and to take the concept seriously.
I just wish you would do me the same courtesy when you’re selecting the teams.
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