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On Saturday night rugby league once again proved it is the unpredictable housemate of sports. After a fortnight of parking in your spot and leaving the empty toilet roll on the holder – wham!
Just as all hope is lost, the housemate of sports walks with an armful of pizzas, a Vienetta and all the Rocky films bar Rocky V.
Despite the best of intentions, the lead up to this year’s All Stars match was patchier than Lang Park’s pitch after a Metallica concert.
Sure the footy was getting good coverage for February, unfortunately though boardrooms politics, a New Zealand nines carnival and phantom jars of urine turning up in dank corners of stadium infrastructure all over the country were hogging the headlines.
Even worse for the All Stars match though was the emergence of the dreaded question all relationships face sooner or later:
“Where are we going with this?”
“Um, well, urrrr…”
The question is inevitable, of course, for as old as the All Stars match concept is, the game is still pretty far out for a code that likes to keep things simple.
Rugby league does not do friendlies or exhibitions, and games played at anything less than full pace are quickly snuffed out.
So taking the game’s best players at a time of the year when they lack match fitness and smashing them into one another for the good of society should not really work.
But it does, and did.
Players tackled hard, chased when the opposition made a break and hit the line at pace in a display that was more than acceptable for a season’s launching point.
Compare this to some of the All Star games we’re ‘treated’ to in other sports and you can appreciate how fortunate we are. Geez, look at the shambles that is the NFL ‘Pro Bowl’.
I’ll be the first bloke in the room to defend the NFL when people start sniggering about helmets and spandex, however I could have the entire back catalogue of the NFL films library and Don King in my corner and not be able to defend the Pro-Bowl.
Players jogging around the field, chatting to people in the stands, making goofy faces for the camera. You would find more intensity at your church picnic wheelbarrow race.
The NFL’s MVP, the all-conquering Adrian Peterson, set the tone for this year’s match as he jogged into the defence for the first carry of the game, only to fumble the ball like it was covered with radioactive spiders.
Compare this with the NRL’s finest, Ben Barba, exploding after a loose ball for Saturday night’s opening score and you know, unlike the NFL’s bloated parody of a contest, rugby league’s All Stars game has a future.
Throw in a Laurie Daley coaching victory over Wayne Bennett (I can hear the Twilight Zone music just typing that sentence) giving desperate Blues fans a reason to cancel their mid-year cruise holiday and some worthwhile community work and the All Stars match is getting more difficult to bag.
I’m not saying we won’t have a long boring deep and meaningful about its legitimacy in the future, because I’m sure we will.
But at a time when the ugly side of professional sports seem to be dragging the place down, it’s refreshing to see the game deliver more than we expect.
Follow Chris on Twitter @Vic_Arious
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