The Roar
The Roar

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The Roosters and Knights are awful and we're cool with it

28th May, 2016
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Newcastle coach Nathan Brown. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Grant Trouville)
Expert
28th May, 2016
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Just because State of Origin is here to shaft club footy to the doghouse, it doesn’t mean we have to refrain from exercising our divine birthright to death ride the beleaguered coaches of the NRL.

That’s right, the Lazy Susan of scrutiny halts for no man or interstate function. It will continue to spin unabated, circulating withered losers around the table for our weekly devouring based on the latest flogging or approval from the board.

As we know, Andrew McFadden has been a mainstay on the rotating wheel this year, while despite a few wins, Jason Taylor has come and gone depending on the motions of those uncontrollable external forces he constantly fights, ie his players.

But what about the other two coaches below this pair in the bottom half of the lowest quartile of the premiership ladder?

Down where the goblins roam amidst tiny slivers of natural light sit the Roosters and ´ Knights, two of the suckiest sucks that ever sucked in 2016.

If I know the rational nature of rugby league, surely there should’ve been a campaign to expunge the livelihood of one of these blokes by now.

Seriously, what gives? It’s Round 12 and there hasn’t even been a tent community of journalists outside someone’s house yet.

With the Knights receiving regular lecherous whippings and the diamante-encrusted Roosters playing with the sparkle of river stones, we’re definitely overdue for some regulation over-egged hysteria about their tenures.

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Despite this, barring the odd nasty headline or dissatisfied shake of the head, nobody seems to have Trent Robinson and Nathan Brown on the sweltry end of their pressure index. Why is this so?

Well, I believe I’ve worked out why these two clubs are being allowed free reign to lower rugby league’s reputation with their weekly cycles of putridly libelous performances.

Firstly, the Knights.

Put simply, they’ve spent 2016 sequestered in a cube of humiliating discomfort.

Be it losses or injuries or points differential, their record is record-breakingly frightful. The only positive is their for-and-against would be outstanding if they were playing golf.

Yet uncharacteristically, a general air of acceptance seems to surround their performances from the football community.

This is because we realise they are cleaning up the town’s second biggest maritime disaster after the Pasha Bulker, that being the dense slick of woe left behind by renowned cash whale Nathan Tinkler.

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Because the magnate’s Dollarmite account wasn’t ‘all that’, Brown arrived at Newcastle to a derelict list and a football department so povo that it backed up player data on floppy disk. He knew immediately this was to be a resurrection from a place subterranean to rock bottom.

So as anyone would do, he safeguarded himself from scrutiny on the first day on the job by trumpeting an investment in youth, which translated to non-football English is a warning about an imminent stage of reconstruction involving repeated 50-point drubbings.

What’s resulted is the sweetest bunch of meddling kids since Scooby Doo, plus repeated 50-point drubbings. They’ve endeared themselves to the public, and in return, we’re allowing them time to blossom, provided it happens within the next five rounds of next season.

And what about the Roosters?

A team who has put forth some of the most complete 55-minute showings this season, they are so lacklustre they don’t even deserve the points from the bye this weekend. So why are they allowed to underperform scot-free? Where’s the blood-curdling furore?

Well, because any half-educated footy fan knows to enjoy Rooster decrepitude like a lap dance – in joyous raptures of tantric-like arousal, but with a nagging tinge of sadness knowing it will soon be over, just before money starts changing hands.

Despite a foul season that’s been more blue cheese than blue chip, nobody is cooling on the haloed Robinson and his stable of wealthy thoroughbreds. And that’s because everyone knows it’s only a matter of time before they cash-splash their way back to the top.

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Success at the club runs in patterns – a few years up, then a year or two of their wildlife running rogue through the streets of the Eastern Suburbs, before they’re intimidated back to the top after seeing the inside of Nick Politis’ sedan trunk.

Delivering finals contention on a per daily average of every five out of seven, their reliability to rebound is as standard as your common milk round, except only with organic, grain-fed, plant-based milk delivered by a pretentious trendoid on a fixed-gear bike.

Like a mouthful of this loathsome trendy Bondi cafe dairy product, the Roosters simply can’t be kept down.

That’s why the public accept it’s only a matter of time before the next Politis-funded rebuild with a five-year plan of extra premiership windows arrives at the Junction, and that Robinson will be the man to front their entirely cap-compliant campaign because that’s what they’ve said and I believe it.

So in summary, Brown and Robinson have been granted amnesty in 2016 because we are patient with the young and cognisant of the wealthy.

We know there are good times on the horizon for these clubs. And if they don’t come to fruition, we’ll be ready to go right off.

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