Lessons learned at Shark Park in funny game of rugby league

Things we learned and re-learned after a pulsating, clunky and borderline weird derby fixture between Dragons and Sharks in Round 1 of our dear sweet National Rugby League competition include:

• The Dragons and Sharks are evenly-matched;
• The legality of the one-on-one stripping rule isn’t yet understood by players;
• Peter Sterling may never age;
• It’s a funny game, rugby league.

Lessons rained upon us all night.

Pre-match the bookie-spruiker Joel “Sugar” Caine told us in his best Dr Evil that his gambling mob had paid out nearly a million dollars to punters who’d backed teams that lost last week after being 12 points up.

What did we learn? Plenty more where that came from, baby! Because if people actually did “gamble responsibly” as Sugar urges, there would be no corporate bookmakers. The nation’s addiction to gambling isn’t the sickest thing about our country but it’s in the top half-dozen.

We also learned that the Footy Show is on, again, still, this iteration featuring good-looking thin people in the promos and “throw-tos”, and not the jowelly old boys Fat Man and Daryl.

So it goes. Television is a bitch that eats its own. Fat and Big Marn know that well as anyone.

Kick-off and Val Holmes, “relegated” to the wing, ran super-hard and laser beam straight, with the wind, straight into Tyson Frizell and James Graham who ensured he made no further progress.

(Photo by Tony Feder/Getty Images)

Rugby league is a funny game. But mainly it’s really, really hard.

Hard? James Graham used to run at brick walls, literally. And not brick walls that he may have had a chance of knocking over, but the side of buildings. True story.

Crowd? Healthy. Looked pretty full. Shark people want the derby game on a Sunday afternoon, and fair enough. Best time to play footy; best time to pack ‘em in and fill the coffers with locals’ coin.

Suburban grounds will only survive if they’re filled. The NSW government’s building two mega-stadiums on the sites of two mega-stadiums. No-one can tell you why.

14th minute: Jason Bukuya stepped Tariq Sims before he’d received the ball, scythed by the big lump, plunged over. Great line by Bukuya, dud read by Sims.

Twenty minutes in the locals had two-thirds of possession and completed ten sets from ten. Those numbers, running with a booming southerly, you better be up 8-nil.

But Saints didn’t go away. They couldn’t anyway. They were obligated to stay out there. You can’t just quit and not play anymore, and walk off the field, put your love gear on and head over to the King Wan for a feed of honey prawns.

There will be none of that.

But with the ball the Saints couldn’t bust through. The Sharks “D” was all big bodies, wrestling, manoeuvring men into positions, timing their hold-downs just so. Fifita is a master of it. Matt Prior. Gallen’s biography could be: Penalise Me Again, Ref, I Dare You.

Prior stripped the pill off Nightingale. You’re allowed to do it, one-on-one, and it’s not a knock-on if the ball hits the ground. Obligation is on the ball-carrier. It’s probably a percentage play for the defence. And Nightingale was told: Hang onto the ball, sweet Nightingale. Hang onto the ball.

The Sharks continued to play relentless rugby league. Ball control best practice. Completions. All those completions. Coaches love those things. And the Saints continued to tackle. And tackle. And tackle.

Eventually it gave. Matt Moylan was let off a forward pass because the away fans were all on the hill behind the posts and the home crowd didn’t yell as one “Forward!” So it goes.

From dummy-half Moylan flung a beautiful bullet to Sosaia Feki who planted. We had a decision and went to the big Kentucky duck scoreboard – “Try”.

Townsend landed a big curling bomb from the paint and my mate Kev’s bet on a half-time draw remained in Sugar Caine’s pocket.

Fourteen-nil, blood-thirsty Sharks of the deep.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

They came again. Bombed big. Matt Dufty let the ball bounce. Nightingale retrieved in goal. And Josh Dugan – who could only fit more tattoos on his body if he grew another four arms, and ran about like a weird tattooed man-spider – belted him, hard.

“Boom,” said Gus Gould in commentary, and there could be no argument.

Somehow the Dragons scored when Nene McDonald ripped off a feat of gymnastic contortion to leap, catch and plant a speculative Widdop bunt. A ridiculous play by the rangy, impressive wing-man.

Half-time the Dragons were somehow still in it. The Sharks had played the ball in the Dragons’ 20 metres 26 times. The Dragons had returned serve four times, once for the McDonald Ridiculous.

Funny game, rugby league, they say, and they are right.

Paul “Mary” McGregor didn’t think it was very funny. He sat mid-mouth of the Dragons “U” and gave them angry eyes with both barrels. It worked.

Back into it and Dufty was slung in goal. The man’s 85 kilograms, a jockey in this league. Happened a few times, the Sharks throwing him around. And it’ll happen every week unless he carries a lead-filled saddle with him like they put on weight-for-age thoroughbred horses. Dufty’s fast and good. But in the tackle could be a liability.

Ben Hunt, who’d been quiet, ripped off a fine and typical for this game wacky play when he cleverly looked like he’d stuffed up a grubber so badly that it dropped onto the ground, and then kicked it again, ineffectively, with his shin.

But his “drop” was a kick, even if he didn’t mean it. And his second hack bounced for Frizell who scythed through a D-line that had effectively stopped, waiting for Gavin Badger to blow knock-on.

Instead the bearded little buccaneer made the universal “T” signal to the boys in the box who signalled back: It’s a try, Badgie man. It’s a try.

And the Dragons trailed by four.

Frizell came again. Big Paul Vaughan bombed in. Leeson Ah Mau shrugged off several Sharks. Widdop threw long balls to fast men wide.

After some strong work by the impressive McDonald in the middle, the ball swung right to Euan Aitken, the balanced and nuggetty-strong centre man who fended hard and planted wide.

And we were all tied up.

But not for long!

Widdop landed a beautiful curling conversion that faded on the wind like Jason Day’s knock-down 8-iron and sailed right between the sticks. Top stuff, one-time Pommy backpacker who turned up in Melbourne looking for a game. Top stuff.

Shark time! Feki took an intercept and scorched 60 metres. The Sharks streamed south with him. Feki found Dugan. Nightingale held Dugan down. Nightingale rode the pine for 10 lonely minutes. Chad Townsend landed the penalty goal and tied it up.

Then it got really weird.

Matt Moylan dropped the kick-off. Aaron Gray dropped the ball in contact. Frizell dropped the ball off a backline move from a scrum while Saints had 12 players. Fifita dropped it. The Sharks kicked out on the full. It was high comedy.

And it all seemed apt. Game like this, nobody should win.

But the Dragons did because they scored more points, and didn’t go away to the King Wan and eat honey prawns.

And we learned this, yet again: it’s a funny game, rugby league.

It’s a funny game.