Five rugby league rivalries for the modern era

After a couple of ho-hum weeks, the NRL rivalry round got the blood pumping again with some cracking games of footy.

However, some of the advertised ‘rivalries’ are more past their use-by-date than the pies at Lidcombe oval.

Bulldogs versus Parra? Wests versus Manly? Please, these are hardly Chief versus Spud in the excitement stakes anymore.

It’s a shame too, because there are actually some fantastic rivalries getting around in the NRL at the moment.

Here are five of the best alternate rugby league rivalries of the modern era

5. Terry Campese versus officialdom
As an individual Terry Campese has a lot to be irritable about.

A promising rep career derailed by injuries. An uncle constantly moaning about the outrageous lack of flair in the Wallabies backline from his gated compound in South Africa. Male pattern baldness.

It is clear to all he chooses to channel this rage into waging a running one-man vigilante style battle against the men in pink every weekend.

Sure he’s not alone here, lots of captains love a whinge, but watching Campese not let little things, like his side actually being awarded a penalty or try, stop his crusade against referees is a truly fascinating sight to behold.

4. Neil Henry versus Kevin Walters
When a coach starts to flounder in the NRL, the standard boardroom response is to Google who is the Storm’s assistant and drive a dump truck full of money up to his house on the Yarra.

This has had somewhat mixed success to date, and with Kevin Walters the next Melbourne first mate ready for promotion, it’s anyone’s guess where he sits on the Stephen Kearney-Michael Maguire scale.

However with the incumbent Neil Henry taking all the ingredients of a title threatening Townsville team and turning it into something that would barely cut it up north in 1995, the Cowboys admin would for a while now have been secretly pitting the two Queenslanders against each other.

Its touch and go as to who’ll come out on top as we speak, but as far as a fight that never was, it is all very thrilling – in a cold war sort of way.

3. Sharks versus ASADA
With the Tour de France now over, the boys from ASADA are back in town and spoiling for a re-match in their stoush with Cronulla, a battle whose length has made the Rumble in the Jungle look like a bout involving Peter McNeeley.

On the outside it appears a pretty lopsided fight.

ASADA has at its disposal hundreds of staff, endless specimen jars and a government who’d like something to show for the blackest day in Australian sport, all against a football club that gets told to move to Perth every six months.

However, that’s not to say the Sharks are destined for a loss.

After all they do have Paul Gallen.

2. The Burgess brothers versus humanity
With the recent crackdown on violence in rugby league, it’s not too difficult to imagine a future when the game is actually played by advance cybernetic organisms, sent back in time from a post-apocalyptic future in an effort to carry out their mission of total footballing entertainment.

Watching the brothers Burgess steamroll the Titans on the weekend, it looks like judgement day may have in fact already happened, as the super Souths siblings terminated all in their path.

Unfortunately it’s only a matter of time before these supermen get bored with footy and turn their hand to world domination. And let’s face it, unless they discover some sort of selfie-inflicted kryptonite, we’re all doomed.

1. Parramatta Eels versus the people of Parramatta
Now, here’s a rivalry to get the blood pumping!

In one corner you have the good, honest, hard-working Parramatta folk, who just want to unwind in front of a good game of footy.

And in the other you have the bumbling, shambolic, over-head projecting Eels outfit, hell-bent on finishing football games as a contest in a tight 15.

For those who think I’m being a tad harsh, the 2013 eels have won three games this season, the same number as the 1999 Western Suburbs Magpies, a team only assembled for comedic value.

Unless they win their grand final versus the Dragons in Round 25 (fittingly at ANZ stadium), the Eels will share a win record with Lincoln Raudonikus All Stars.

And, considering they once burnt down their home ground when they won a grand final, do Ricky Stuart’s soldiers really want to push the fragile mental state of the blue and gold army any further?