Rugby league almost has its pre-match game in order

When rugby league and music cross paths, hilarity often ensues. But the times, they are a-changin’.

Not that it’s been all smooth sailing the past 12 months for the production teams hyping people up for the greatest game of all. Far from it.

I wrote with some bemusement last year of guitar god Slash and one-and-a-bit-hit wonders Train being entrusted with NRL grand final warm-up duties, cynicism laced with a touch of optimism that we’d at least get a fist-pumping classic riff or two to get the bloodlust flowing.

Instead, Slash ‘performed’ the (admittedly quite anthemic) Bent To Fly sans vocalist Myles Kennedy, his usual hard-working rhythm section, and – so far as could be told from just below cruising altitude in the second-back row of Stadium Australia – anything vaguely resembling enthusiasm.

He then unleashed an apologetic fragment of that famous opening refrain of Sweet Child O’ Mine before ambling off stage, hopefully a little embarrassed about the number of zeroes on his cheque.

All around us paying punters laughed, incredulous at the bare-faced, half-arsed audacity of it all.

If Slash wasn’t embarrassed then, getting promptly blown off the stage by Train – the hard-rock equivalent of Johnathan Thurston getting schooled in the ways of playmaking by Josh McCrone – should’ve had him blushing beneath those signature black curls.

Thankfully, the surreal spectacle of Sarah McLeod and her drumming troupe doing, well, something as the Bunnies and Doggies were about to enter the battlefield wiped Slash’s misfortune from our collective memories.

Why must we have musicians performing before the big game anyway? Have you ever ummed and ahhed about shelling out a small fortune to see International Touring Band X in the hope they’ll schedule some sport on the undercard?

PUNTER A: “Yeah nah, not sure I can justify $150 for the Fooies this time ‘round.”

PUNTER B: “They’ve just announced Broncos-Cowboys will be opening.”

PUNTER A: “TAKE MY MONEY.”

The above hypothetical is as unlikely a scenario as Sydney suddenly rallying behind the boys from Brisbane this Sunday evening. But that indefinable ‘game-day experience’ holds great currency in rugby league circles, which is why we’ve over the years borne witness to such diverse travesties as Billy Idol aimlessly cruising for chicks on a hovercraft and Shannon Noll and friends brutalising an Oz rock classic.

And people wonder why Angry Anderson is so angry.

That Origin I, 2015 debacle may well be seen as a tipping point for rugby league pre-match shows, particularly given the fireworks spectacular the MCG turned on for the return clash three weeks later. No bands, no lonely guitar heroes, no props borrowed from last year’s Rock Eisteddfod winners – just lots of bright, sparkly things, plenty of ‘splosions, and video footage of various sporting heroics, overlaid with solemn narration which underlined the Grave National Importance of what was to follow.

It was the sort of display which would have Luke Skywalker boldly declaring he could take on the whole Empire himself, and the Lang Park brains trust wisely followed suit at the ensuing decider.

Which brings us to grand final day 2015.

Cold Chisel? On the surface, Barnesy and co. are a safe selection: dependable, workmanlike, but – like Cowboys battering ram Matt Scott – with the odd touch of flair to their game.

Dig a little deeper, though, and the booking could be seen as subversive. Because if ever there’s a time for a nation-wide singalong about a drug-addicted PTSD sufferer, pregnancy termination, and partying beyond your means because YOLO, it’s on commercial television prime-time before a sporting fixture.

If the NRL can secretly convince Robbie Williams to lob into Australia a week before his tour kicks off to put rugby league fans through Let Me Entertain You for the 756,000th time this year, people born since Parramatta last held the Winfield Cup aloft may be satisfied as well.

It’s not exactly a ‘cool’ line-up, nor is it particularly contemporary, but your average blue-collar rugby league fan probably isn’t ready for an entrée of Courtney Barnett, Alison Wonderland and Hermitude before hostilities begin.

And if even a second of what unfolds packs the emotional clout of Lizzie Jones – widow of Welsh international Danny, who died after a game this year – somehow finding the courage to sing Abide With Me before this year’s Challenge Cup final at Wembley, there won’t be a dry eye on the continent.