Parra fans were entitled to be thrilled – or chilled to the bone.
Earlier this week, star halfback Chris Sandow cheerfully told the Fox Sports crew he has regained his six-pack.
Well, I’d like to presume he was discussing a superb, muscle-toned chest rather than six bottles of his favourite brew.
OK, flippancy aside, Sandow was announcing to the rugby league world that he was back in A-1 condition and that’s news – really great news – for the blue and gold faithful who invested heaps in the gifted No 7 last season, but received a paltry dividend for their trouble.
Chris Sandow may well have been Chris ‘Shadow’ if you compared his livewire, match-winning efforts of the previous season at Souths to the debut year he endured with wooden-spooners, Parramatta.
He didn’t quite reach rock bottom for the Eels. There were others around him who fared even more miserably.
But there did come a low point when respected Parra legend Peter Sterling told a huge radio audience on Triple M: “I think that Chris Sandow is overweight.”
“I think he’s playing four of five kilos above what he should be playing and it affects your sharpness – there’s no way you can carry weight in this game, or very few players can.”
Sterling’s honest opinion caused an almighty stir in league circles as Sandow had been one of the highest-profile and most expensive off-season recruits but there were merely words of defence emanating from Parramatta.
Perhaps they didn’t want to offend the struggling player, the man they had signed to be their go-to-man, their chief play-maker.
Some six months later, it seems as though Sterlo’s brutal ‘home truth’ reached its mark.
“I think I was a bit chubby,” Sandow told Fox Sports, “But I’ve got my six-pack back, I’m enjoying my conditioning here.
“It’s happy but also tough at the same time, but you are doing it with your mates.
“You know you are going to go out and bleed for one another on the field.”
I believe Sandow is going to be one of the most talked about players in the 2013 competition.
For starters, he has former (dual) international halfback Ricky Stuart as his coach and it will be fascinating to see how Stuart wants him to play the game.
Will he ask Sandow to be super-structured; to lay down the desired platform and drive the Parra forwards and outside men accordingly, once the foundation has been laid?
Or will Stuart delegate that duty to others, and call on Sandow to provide spontaneity and flair to the Eels attack?
I am also wondering if Sandow will respond positively to a perfectionist coach who tried ever so hard to be the ‘perfect’ halfback when he played the game. Ricky likes his halfbacks to play to a certain pattern. If they don’t . . . there is usually hell to pay.
It is going to be one of the most intriguing stories of season 2013.
Sandow is an immensely talented young footballer. Who doesn’t like watching him in full flight? There isn’t much he cannot do on a footy field.
And now that he’s super fit, some of the outrageous stuff he tries might come off on a regular basis.
If Sandow fires, I believe we will see electricity again from the Parramatta Eels.
There has been a power outage in the golden west for way too long.
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