The idea of Josh Dugan playing State of Origin this year will be a difficult one for some Canberra Raiders’ fans to grasp.
In certain Raider fan subsets it will be seen as a rank affront, the latest treacherous insult in a long and varied series of treacherous insults.
There may be some psychological distress, some dark mutterings, the odd intimation that the Furner brothers are running the Raiders’ ship up onto rocks. No matter. Emotional and spiritual fluctuations are all part of spectatorship.
For most of us, our first and most powerful response when watching sport is emotional.
My earliest memory of rugby league involves my brother crawling under his bed in the manner of a dog not far off death after Penrith beat Canberra in the 1991 grand final. He didn’t come out for a long time and when he did he was in some way diminished.
Twenty two years later they are still causing him great anguish. It pains him to follow them, yet he does so forensically. They drive him to aggressive distraction, yet he cannot quit them.
They ruin most of his weekends by putting him into moods so black that when he is out after a rude loss in what was most probably just one in a spirit-sapping string of rude losses people express concern and ask if he is alright because clearly he is not.
And while he claims to wish he could cut himself loose of them; somewhere, in the dark recesses of his brain and bone marrow, there is great love and tenderness for the Raiders. The conflict this creates – great and abiding loyalty overlaid with everyday weariness and woe – is essentially what makes him the quintessential Raider fan.
It’s complicated, this supporting a team business.
Dugan complicates things further. If he gets an Origin call up it will pose yet another challenge to the Raiders fan’s patience and sanity. Well, so what. Endure.
This is football, and football, like life itself, mostly consists of endurance and suffering. One vile task after another, punctuated by nasty little bursts of violence and small fleeting glories.
If you’re struggling to relate here (hi Storm fans!) it may help to think of Dugan as an ex.
You know how you don’t want to see them reduced to a quivering gelatinous mess without you, but you don’t want the bastard/bitch soaring to lofty new heights since being rid of you either? It’s a fine line and one which Dugan has already overstepped with crude insensitivity.
The trick to maintaining a healthy relationship with the Raiders is one which I seem to have applied to all facets of my life: a substantial lowering of expectations.
This means that I am less inclined to snap phrases such as “do I look like I had a good weekend?” and more inclined to make allowances for Jarrod Croker’s missed tackle counts. Which is nice.
There’s a certain serenity to be found in this lowering of expectations technique. I would suggest supporters of all the teams marinating in the bin-juices of the ladder’s lower end give it a try. Failing that, just find a bed to crawl under.
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