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While just recently rugby league roustabout Phil Gould was lampooned for choosing fish ‘n’ chips over his own team’s chip ‘n’ chases, it has now become clear that the great man was in fact trying to convey a far more important message.
For you see, rugby league is a lot like fish ‘n’ chips… with yesterday’s marvellous match at Manly the perfectly cooked Fisherman’s Basket with the works.
Whereas to the untrained eye Gould was just hanging around at his local greasy trying to get something to go with all that choccy milk he’s got sitting around in the garage, to the eye with brains that was Fillet-o-Fish Phil making a poignant point about the state of the game.
Just like rugby league, fish ‘n’ chips is an English import, but one that has become ingrained into our culture.
While both are generally considered to be poor for your health, both pose an irresistible attraction to their besotted.
Sure, we know there’s fancy fare out there, and when you get a bad batch it can be soul-crushing, but when you’re in the mood and you get the goods… man oh man, there ain’t nothing better.
Yesterday’s Manly versus Parramatta match was that perfect parcel.
In a game that would make a particular alcoholic beverage company drop their sponsorship of the Super Israel Fifteens to make a long awaited sequel to their seminal footy advertising masterpiece, the Eagles and Eels captured the essence of the NRL in a flavoursome eighty minutes of awesome.
After a couple of soggy and slightly undercooked previous rounds, yesterday the NRL’s sun shone, the Brookvale crowd bubbled like a banged-up old deep fryer and the on-field product featured more big hits and amazing moves than the Street Fighter 2 machine in the corner.
That’s not to say the game was always pretty. Hell no, like a burger with the lot, the best ones never are.
There were accusations of diving, bombed tries, a team that couldn’t kick Mark Tookey up the bum with a pair of diving flippers and the customer with the number one yellow-and-blue ticket seemed to have used a bit too much vinegar on his crumbed cod.
But the end result? A game that ebbed and flowed like a great game of footy should, and that left a taste in the mouth that even the mildly disappointing lime icy pole for dessert couldn’t remove.
The detractors will tell you that the game was played at a dilapidated venue that wouldn’t pass even the slackest health inspection and that the two teams were simply the same old Sydney clubs bashing out another round of an already heavily battered rivalry.
That we should be expanding our tastes, introducing new key ingredients and more healthy choices to appeal to a more upmarket consumer clientele so that we aren’t taken over down the track by a multinational juggernaut and that mums still let their kids eat fish ‘n’ chips in the future.
And y’know what?
Perhaps one day rugby league’s fans will develop a more refined palate for super-sized stadiums and slick corporate crunch, with the old days of the packed and sweaty local bulldozed to corners of the memory.
But for now I’m just going to take away what I can, and enjoy what’s bad for me even if it is artificially sweetened with a heavy slice of nostalgia.
I mean, it’s got to be better for you than Maccas, right?
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