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Johnathan Thurston’s tin foil hat has done great damage to the conspiracy theorists cause.
Your friendly neighbourhood conspiracy nutter simply seeks to bring the truth to the people, and JT’s missed tackle on the NRL has really thrown the public off the scent of the true NRL Grand Final conspiracy.
The Roosters and the Rabbitohs isn’t the final they want – it’s the Sea Eagles and the Knights.
Steve Mascord’s despondent attitude towards the way the media are being shunted by the rugby league community first spurred my interest in this conspiracy and now it is all falling into place.
The ARL and by extension the ARLC and NRL are still bitter about the Super League War and will do anything they can to erase News Limited’s influence from the game. It would be too obvious to stick the finger up to the DT, Courier Mail and other associated papers, so they’ve done it to all media across the board, even Steve Mascord.
So where do the Eagles and Knights fit into this? I’m glad you asked, budding conspiracy commander.
The Eagles and Knights have long been two of the NRL’s favourite sons, ever since their legendary ’97 ARL Grand Final, now etched in rugby league folklore. Certain pockets of the Blues supporter base have always raised concerns of token selection for the state’s favourite sides when names like Gidley, Williams, King and Cross were inexplicably read out on the NSW team sheet.
The North Queensland Cowboys entered the finals as the team everybody feared. Nobody more so the NRL, realising the huge possibility yet another Super League aligned side could likely become a premiership winner.
In Week 1 of the finals, the Cowboys had to go.
The commission knew they couldn’t leave it to the next week, as they had already engineered Kieran Foran’s hand of god to remove the Cowboys in 2012, so it had to be that night. The Eagles doing it again would raise too many alarm bells in the league community.
Manly had defeated the Sharks already this season, and the commission knew they could rely on their Silvertail heroes to deny the boys from the Shire once again.
Geoff Toovey’s earlier season rant, orchestrated by the NRL in the case they may have to intervene to create their ideal final, was a brilliant ploy to distance them from the insular peninsula’s finest.
And so it was done. The seven tackle set was played out, a tactic used to ensure Manly success since 1978, and the Cowboys could do no damage to the NRL’s dream finals scenario.
Now who would the Eagles face? There was only one former ARL aligned side left on the other side of the draw, so it had to be none other than a ’97 reply, a coup for the coffers of the commission – a Grand Final against the Newcastle Knights.
The Knights are as old, tired and slow as Nathan Tinkler on a treadmill and Wayne Bennett’s skill and worth as a coach is headed down faster than the aforementioned sugar daddy’s bank balance. I know these facts are true because I read them in the Daily Telegraph.
This rag tag bunch of wheelchair bound former heroes and the young guns employed to wheel them around the field were rightfully no chance against the Dogs or the Storm. It was hard for me to unearth how the NRL could work with this, but the chorus of fans noting that ‘the Bulldogs beat themselves’ and ‘the Knights didn’t play well, the Bulldogs played poorly’, revealed all to me.
With a history of match fixing and salary cap busting, the NRL and their new head of football Todd Greenberg knew it was simply a matter of buying the Bulldogs to be beaten by the Knights.
With a slight increase in credibility, the Knights travelled to Melbourne. According to Gus Gould, Slater Smith and Cronk are infallible beacons of rugby league perfection, and Phil is always right (just ask him). How could they lose at their Melbourne fortress?
The ARL knew that they couldn’t buy two wins in a row after the growing suspicion amongst wide eyed fans, so they resorted to their favourite and most reliable of schemes – instructing the referees to simply hand the game to the Knights.
This pushed them into the prelim and kept focus on the misguided conspiracy brought up by Thurston.
And now, we are here, just a few days before the preliminary finals. The powers that be have executed their plan to perfection so far; now we must helplessly wait and see if they continue to manipulate the game for their own benefit.
Will the fans notice that the Knights once again only won because the Roosters played poorly? Will Manly once again benefit from a ludicrous refereeing decision?
Judging from history, it’s almost guaranteed.
You can follow Pat and his growing number of conspiracy theories on Twitter at @The_Hoss12
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