Welcome back, Benji. Even though there’s a few Nelson Muntzes ringing out from the gallery, the majority of us are warmed by your decision to return to your real job as a flashy, coach-killing playmaker in rugby league.
We don’t hold grudges against those who blow us off for our sister code, so don’t hesitate to let yourself back in. All is forgiven, brother! Grab yourself a Tang, kick off your shoes and make yourself right at home in any of the spare rooms.
Just check them for cap space before you dump your bags.
Might I say, geeez you look healthy. Really ‘rugby’ healthy – like a laundry-fresh winger who hasn’t been tackled in weeks.
It really seems like ages since you’ve been gone. Like the oft-flogged saying goes, a week is a long time in footy, so I reckon spending 30-odd trying to decrypt rugby laws behind the skyward rumps of a flattened pack must have felt like a life sentence.
The word on the street is that you’ve been gazing lovingly at every game of NRL this season, but I reckon that’s bullkaka.
Being the committed professional that you are, and knowing those mad rah-rah diehards from across the ditch, I’m sure you spent your time in Super Rugby completely submerged in the game’s distinct culture so to expedite your education and smother your mungo habits.
This will mean you won’t have seen a block play or a Burgess in months, so to help you reintegrate, I believe a refresh of NRL affairs is in order.
Let me tell you, plenty has happened while you were warming Auckland pine.
The game continues to drunkenly fumble and seduce the masses like a hot mess while maintaining its critical directive of keeping the Cowboys premiership-free. I would love to go in to all of the finer details, but because there’s just too much controversy to cover in this fake dialogue – plus we are running late for that bus you want to catch to Wooloware – then I’ll have to keep the rundown brief and entirely Marshall-relevant.
Looking back, it seems that three of your old favourites have fallen on hard times while you jacked your bank account with NZD. I’ll break it to you gently.
Firstly, let’s chat about your old paymasters at the Wests Tigers. Those boardroom schlubs who fudged one of the more important aspects of your last deal – the coin part – are really doing a number on the place.
Things are so bad that Wests and Balmain’s steady union is so close to consciously uncoupling that they’ve begun the arduous separation of their DVD collection.
Nowadays, they spend all of their time arguing over silly stuff that parents typically bicker over: the Magpies complain about always paying for everything, the Tigers are hoarding all of their friends, they can’t decide on what to wear, all the while their nest egg is nothing more than a poker machine covered in graffiti and garden weeds on a Rozelle roadside.
In saying this, business out on the paddock is running magnificently without you. In fact, it seems nobody at the club has thought about you once since you departed. Except for the board, that is, when they heard about your second coming and pondered the exorbitant load of compo they could flush out of your new employer.
Okay, so while things at your oldies’ place aren’t totally choice, it’s not as parlous as what transpired with your beloved Kiwis while you were AWOL.
The least of your worries was Australia thrashing them again. Sure, it’s no biggie on face value, except that this one happened in the Shaky Isle ambush paradise of a World Cup final while half of the squad were coming down from a carbonated Stilnox binge.
Yeah that’s right, the same stuff that has the narcoleptic properties of a Steve Kearney press conference!
This death knell for the kava culture has even got Sonny Bill Williams so upset that he’ll be overseas on rep weekend representing Bali in pool frisbee. Bad sign.
Last but not least, affairs have slightly cratered for your BFF Beau Ryan. He seems to be experiencing a dwindling completion rate on the boom-tishing.
Sure, he was the toast of the light entertainment world when you jetted off, but now things have changed. His flavour-of-the-month status has turned to the taste of onion-infused sink hair among some of the footballers in The Footy Show’s viewership.
Not only has he had to increase the number of feigned injuries to avoid his ever-growing list of satirical beefcake targets, he’s managed to plummet to the comedic cellar level of cheesing-off a certified laugh-station like Jamie Soward.
You know your material is bombing when you’re getting crickets from bona fide Guy Smileys.
See, it’s different strokes. So once again Benji, I say welcome back? Only this time I utilise the services of a question mark to indicate the upward inflection of uncertainty. Something tells me these updates could frighten you back to the Gilbert.
Naturally, with all of these changes in the short space of a 33 per cent completed rugby campaign, you would be forgiven for thinking you are returning to a world of unmatched despair and negativity of which you have never seen. But never fear!
You’ve seen nothing until you have your first day at Sharks training.
Do you still want to catch that bus?
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