The Advanced Hair All Stars 1992-Present

Just as the Indigenous All Stars need an NRL All Stars side to play against each year last year’s 1992-Present Ranga All Stars will need opposition to play against. In the shape of the Advanced Hair Studio sponsored Prematurely Balding All Stars 1992-Present, I think we have found more than worthy opposition.

Fullback

As a future Immortal Darren Lockyer is a walk up start at fullback. One of the greatest players of the modern era he was too busy picking up Premiership winning temperament while the rest of us were lined up for a long lasting head of hair. Whose happier?

Wing

Captain Coach and first player picked is Wayne Bennett. No wait a minute that’s Scott Minto. Given the less than flattering moniker of ‘40-20’ Minto is the Prematurely-Balding All Stars ‘Preston Campbell’, the inspiration and catalyst for the concept.  

Centre

The Black Pearl Steve Renouf played most of his career with headgear. Thousands upon thousands of sports administrators and footy Mums out there assume that these helmets are sported to protect the head. In reality Renouf was just trying to hide his premature baldness. Early reports are that Renouf is still in balding denial and refusing to accept his invitation to the side.

Centre

The other centre is just as steadfast in his balding denial. Illawarra Steelers superstar Mary McGreggor is adamant that the hairless head he sported throughout his career was purely optional and he could have grown his hair out if he wanted. We don’t believe him and have selected him in the backline ahead of Matt Geyer and the McDougall brothers Adam and Luke.

Wing

Made his debut in front of 110,000 fans at ANZ Stadium as a 17 year old. It really doesn’t get much better than that, does it? For Luke Burt he could have debuted in front of a handful of punters at Adelaide Oval against the mighty Adelaide Rams and it wouldn’t have gotten any better for he was about to lose his hair.

Five Eighth

Laurie Daley. The boy from Junee appears to have already indulged in a little of the naming rights sponsor’s treatments. The usually irreversible balding process was somehow reversed by Laurie and all of New South Wales is hoping that he can have the same impact in State of Origin sooner rather than later.

Halfback

Quite possibly the toughest player of all time, or the stupidest was Geoff Toovey. Never scared to put his head in front of a ball carriers knee in an effort to halt their forward progression Tooves can add baldness to toothlessness on his online dating profiles.

Front Row

Jason Akermanis performed handstands after winning Grand Finals with the Brisbane Lions. Anybody that’s completed Year 5 gymnastics knows that the cartwheel is the natural progression of a handstand and it was Glenn Lazarus in 1999 that demonstrated just how far ahead of the AFL rugby league is when he performed a 125kg cartwheel years before Aker’s handstands at the MCG. Jason Akermanis is now captain coaching the O&M cellar dwellers North Albury while big Lazo is going bald. How the mighty have fallen.

Hooker

None of the players selected in this side have stories more tragic than that of St George hooker Nathan Brown. Apart from narrowly missing a Grand Final victory in 1999, having his career cut short by a neck injury and Preliminary final appearances as a coach the true tragedy of Brownie is what happened to the luscious mop of hair he sported early in his career.

Front Row

Big Michael Weyman must feel a little embarrassed if he has to get ready for a game next to the likes of Matt Cooper. Blessed with a terribly sloppy body and without a hair to spare on top of his head Weyman is advised to get ready for games next to the tall midget Jamie Soward. That will do wonders for his self esteem.

Second Row

The Raging Bull Gordon Tallis, is another walk up start and the third Australian captain selected in the side. What Gordy lacks in hair he made up for ten fold in intimidation stakes. A seriously scary prospect on the field Tallis is one player that is not in danger of being sledged for his lack of hair - or anything else for that matter.

Second Row

There are many theories for determining the likelihood of baldness. Whatever you believe in the Geyer family are undoubtedly ‘baldies’. Loose cannon Mark Geyer is as mad as a cut snake it is hoped the Ranga’s will be the red to MG’s bull and fns can be entertained by the sheer physicality of Penrith’s mountain man. 

Lock

Shane Webcke once picked a fight with Kevin Campion. The great Queenslander is still seeing stars. Needless to say with Gordy, MG and Campion in the backrow not too many sides will be going the knuckle with this lineup, despite how old and geriatric they may appear.

Well there you have it. With a selection panel of one we have managed to select an Advanced Hair Representative side to raise awareness for baldness in an annual charity match against the Ranga’s who are raising awareness for the plight of fanta-pants sufferers across the country. 

With more than a few controversial selections across the sides the scene is set for spiteful encounters.

No Punching?

Dave Smith and the ARLC have blundered big time and it threatens to derail the jewel in the crown of domestic sport in Australia. The annual three game State of Origin series has grown into such a monster that the NRL season proper is effectively put on hold for six weeks and a recent ARLC directive threatens the contest to its gladiatorial core. 

After a fiery Game 1 Smith and the Commission handed down a blanket ruling that any punch thrown (not necessarily landed) would result in the sin binning of the offending player. At Rugby League Central in Moore Park much pocket pissing and back slapping was had at the ‘decisive’ action Smith had taken to rub out violence in our game.

In reality the decision opened a Pandora’s Box that is indicative of a wider problem emerging in the game. Remember for a moment that David Gallop, the former NRL Chief Executive, was sacked halfway through last season with the criticism that he was ‘too reactionary’. According to Chairman John Grant the game had outgrown Gallop’s reactionary ways and needed a new leader. After over six months of siphoning of resumes and interviews the job was finally offered to and accepted by Dave Smith, a Welsh banking executive. Whether you agree with the move or not is not important, just remember it was to move away from reactionary administration.

The timeline of events since the sacking of Gallop has seen, firstly a redrawing of shoulder charge punishments on the eve of the 2012 finals series. A mere weeks out from the business end of the season the CEO-less ARLC administration handed out a directive that the NRL was ‘not a gladiatorial sport’ and all shoulder charge offences would be subject to harsher penalties at the match review committee. Alarms bells were already ringing at the willingness to shift the goalposts mid contest in reaction of course to Greg Inglis’ hit on Dean Young. Young by the way played for St George Illawarra less than a week later.

During the off season the ARLC took this a step further completely banning shoulder charges. Despite the fact Rugby league has survived and thrived off the physical battle for over 100 years administrators saw fit to ban perfectly legal tackles because of the increased risk that those previously legal tackles could go wrong. The correct measure I feel would have been to strengthen the punishments for shoulder charges gone wrong but leave the risk and reward equation up to coaches and players to weigh up. At the end of the day a good hit should be a good hit and a dangerous tackle is a dangerous tackle. It’s really that simple isn’t it?

The 2013 season however has been truly alarming. It seems the mid 2012 season shoulder charge directive is just a toe in the water for what Rugby League fans can expect in regards to mid season rule changes. Firstly we had the obstruction rule changed over the off season and abandoned after only a few weeks. I realise I’m in the minority here but I was enjoying seeing how coaches and players would cope with the rule change hoping we would see some different attacking patterns and a willingness to move away from the tiresome sweeper play employed by every club from first to last. Instead we had whingeing coach after whingeing coach getting their own way and a return to monotonous attacking footy.

Then we had the shoulder charge rule re-drawn again to include incidental head clashes while attempting a shoulder charge and finally the dreadful response to the Gallen-Myles stoush in Origin 1. The directive handed down was misguided at best and plain stupid to most people.

Stevie Wonder could see it would blow up in our faces and take away from the very nature of our sport. If you think back to the first shoulder charge amendment last season the writing was on the wall. ‘Rugby League is ‘not a gladiatorial sport’ we were told. Just as a Labor leadership spill on origin evening demonstrated their disconnect with voters this directive shows the gap between fand and administrators. The gross over reaction could have been avoided if Daniel Anderson had come out and said that Gallen should have been sin-binned. It’s as simple as that. That way trent Merrin and perhaps Hodges would have been the only players sin binned in Game 2.

I know people say we need to think about the kids and parents but the facts are people love it. It is a significant strength of our game and particularly Origin. If little Johnny doesn’t know the difference between the TV and his own life, I lay the blame squarely at his parents and not Paul Gallen. And for the children stopped from playing league or pulled from sides in response, I say to parents’ good luck. Good luck stopping the kid you’ve taken away from Rugby League from loving the sport. He’ll grow up one day to become a lifelong fan and eventually probably play the sport and no amount of do-gooders will ever stop that.

The worst look for our game wasn’t the Game 1 fight but the AFL shirt grabbing and pandering that took place during the flashpoints of Game 2. Nobody wants to watch Origin and see grown men pulling each other’s shirts. Rugby League is not AFL or soccer and it doesn’t need to be. The game has its own strengths and marketing points and should never weaken those too become more like a rival code.

Here’s hoping for a final mid season directive from the new reactionary administration cleaning up a mess of their own creation.

Rugby Union

The British and Irish Lions tour is a massive event on Australian sporting calendars. The once every twelve year cycle of the tour and parochial support the Lions drag across the pond make it a memorable occasion for all involved.

For as special as the Tour is though, it can’t get away from one undeniable fact, out on the field they play Rugby Union. No matter the quality of the contest you just can’t shake the disappointment that comes with watching the 80 minute penalty shootout that Rugby has become.

For me Australia’s loss on Saturday night sums up the game. Down by 5 points with ten minutes to go and you get a penalty, what do you do? You take a shot at penalty goal of course so you only lose by two points. Can you imagine a Rugby League team down by three points with ten minutes to go, taking the two points on offer? Not in a million years.

In the aftermath of the game all people wanted to talk about was Kurtley Beale’s slip as he attempted a subsequent penalty and not the complete lack of attacking ambition exhibited by either side in the final ten minutes. Granted I only watched the final fifteen minutes but if you have a Rugby League winger out on the field, think Sailor, Tuqiri and now Folau, the Rah Rahs would be well advised to actually give them the ball. Apparently Folau breezed across the line for two tries against the Lions but in the final fifteen minutes he didn’t touch the ball once. In fact he didn’t even come into screen.

Rugby Union’s superstar Brat Pack, Berrick Barnes, James O’Connor, Kurtley Beale and Quade Cooper I’m looking at you, need to understand one thing for Australia to claw back the Lions series from a game down. While you would all make super NSW or QLD Cup players Israel Folau made his name in the NRL and in State of Origin. Even after a two year working holiday the foundations of Folau’s Rugby League development mean that he is head and shoulders above his new peers in attack and defence.

Berrick Barnes in fact was a QLD Cup player before moving across to Union and finding himself at fly-half in a World Cup twelve months later. Barnes stretchered off again on Saturday night is seemingly knocked out in every collision, making his code swap fortuitous, as at times he has gone months on end without meeting the medicab in Rugby Union.

The sad thing is Rugby Union could be a great game, entertaining even, if it just made a few changes to the structure of the game. For starters people want to watch Rugby so I would reduce the points awarded for penalty goals. Why should you get more points for a penalty then a conversion? Make them all two points. Two field goals should not be worth more points than a try nor should they be worth more than conversion or penalty, so a reduction to one point seems in order. Five point tries are an unnecessary reward and should be reduced to four. This change brings the scoring into clean even numbers increasing the significance of a one point field goal in deciding close encounters.

Away from the scoring side of things there are just too many players on the field. Unless Rugby Union are confident they can re-size stadiums around the world it might be best to reduce the number of players from 15 to say 13, losing the breakaways from the scrum and creating a bit more space for the contest with the ball in hand, which at the end of the day is what people enjoy watching.

Of course there’s already a game like that. Over a century ago, the league split from the union and ever since has constantly sought to evolve and refine the game being played out on the field. 

All that time ago league sought the money of fans and sponsors to fairly renumerate its players and that’s why right now we have two such different games being played at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane five days apart to packed houses. I know which I’ll enjoy watching, what about you?

The Myths of Queensland

Origin is supposed to be all about Queensland. It’s all about their passion and their loyalty. Heading into Game 2 with NSW leading the series 1-0 for the first time since 2008 is a good time to have a look at some of these myths. 

Myth 1: Passion
Queensland believes they are more passionate than NSW and they don’t mid telling the world either. They are quite open in explaining that the difference at Origin level comes down to their pride and passion for the Maroon jersey and by association the absence of such feeling in NSW. As if they couldn’t quite remember why they were out there or what they were doing, they even developed their own catch cry to motivate them during battle. Creatively they came up with ‘Queenslander’ which was perhaps designed so that Adrian Lam and Brad Thorn wouldn’t break into a haka or Papua New Guinean war dance. The creativity and intelligence Queensland have come to be known for is reflected in their equally clever victory song which includes such great lines at ‘Yippee’.

Seriously though we could sit here and talk about how stupid Queenslanders are all day, but what fun is that? Queensland are always talking about how much they hate NSW and probably the rest of the world but it hasn’t stopped them backslapping and celebrating the exploits of a born and raised New South Welshman. I’m not going to go into the debate on whether or not the 2013 Clive Churchill medallist should be running out in a Marron jersey in a week’s time, the time for that has been and gone, but why don’t Queensland hate him? Here is a bloke born, raised and played footy in New South Wales until he moved to Brisbane to join up with Melbourne feeder team norths as a 17 year old. Yet every year ‘passionate’ Queenslanders dust of their ‘Inglis 4’ jerseys and join in with their ‘Queenslander’ chants. 

Hard to keep up with these Queenslanders isn’t it? I mean one minute they hate New South Welshman, next Greg Inglis is the greatest thing since XXXX. One minute Brad Thorn is a passionate Queenslander next he’s an All Black. Tonie Carroll was a Queenslander, a Kiwi and then a Queenslander again. Adrian Lam was a Queenslander until he was Papua New Guinea captain and then a Queenslander again. Either the state suffers from a terrible identify crisis or they’re just not passionate enough to turn away the turncoats. 

Despite losing seven straight series State of Origin has gone from strength to strength in NSW. If I can take you back to 2006 with Queensland on its knees and staring at four consecutive series defeats Origin in both states was on the way out. With no signs of a turnaround any time soon after NSW dominated the ANZAC Test side with 13 of the 17 players the talk was that the Origin concept had run its course. If NSW had won the third and deciding game that year people were saying Origin was finished. Dead. Kapoot! If two controversial video refereeing decisions had gone NSW’s way in that game we may very well be watching an Indigneous All Stars or Tri-Series tournament with New Zealand next week. Queensland’s revered passion for their state barely survived three consecutive series defeats. Meanwhile New South Wales’ continues to grow on the back of seven consecutive defeats with two sold out games at the 80,000 capacity ANZ Stadium and record T.V. ratings.

Beyond the ‘you pick Kiwi’s’ and ‘so do you’ arguments that have become quite tedious and repetitive over the years there are two clear examples that I immediately recall when thinking about Queensland’s ‘passion’. The first was Game 3 2009 when Steve Price was knocked senseless by Brett White and carried from the field on a stretcher. The issue here is without Sam Thaiday joining the scuffle as third man in to land a few trademark rabbit punches to the back of someone’s head, the Queenslanders in the vicinity of the brawl stood and watched, before doing all their ‘fighting’ from 20 m away with three officials between the sides. For years people have laughed at Ben Creagh backing away from Hodges but more significant than that was firstly Creagh was willing to come in and protect Kurt Gidley who Hodges had clearly cheap shotted and secondly the moment Hodges goes after Creagh three Blue jersey set upon Hodges. If Queensland had showed the same passion and commitment moments earlier Price wouldn’t have needed a stretcher.

The second incident was of course in Game 1 this year, when Paul Gallen put a left right combination on Nate Myles’ significant chin. Clearly Nate Myles, incidentally the onlooker in Steve Price’s ‘fight’, will have learnt that unlike tackling, when shaping up for a fight it is best not to leave your hands by your side and lead head first into contact. But not a single Queenslander sought Gallen out in the next half of football. No one even attempted to get square with Gallen illegally or legally for that matter. There was no racing out of the line looking for a big shot, not even a trademark dog-shot from a single Queenslander. They seemingly rolled over and submitted to the more physical Gallen led pack and for all the talk of Thurston’s poor game it was through the middle of the park that Queensland were beaten.

Myth 2: Loyalty
Just as often as we hear the ‘Queenslanders are more passionate’ line we are told how Queenslander are more loyal. Apparently Queensland are better at identifying State of Origin talent and ‘picking and sticking’ with those players. People point to the stability Queensland have shown over the last seven years as evidence of the loyalty Queensland players are afforded. But tell that to Ashley Harrison and Dave Shillington. Mainstays of the record breaking Queensland squad both were had particularly poor games in the series opener and have promptly been shown the door. No chance to make amends on home soil or leeway provided for their contributions to the greatest origin side of all time. Just a ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out’ as another New Zealander is ushered into a Maroon jersey. Again that old passion chestnut means a little less when your staring at a 1 nil deficit and the in-form option needed weeks to decide if he was a Queenslander or not a mere six months ago. An isolated incident I hear you saying? Think again.

Consider this. In 2006, the first year of Queensland’s current winning streak Queensland named seven debutants in Game 1 and used 24 players across the three game series including five changes for each game. New South Wales used only 22 players in the series and making one enforced change for Game 2 and five changes for the decider. Queensland didn’t win the 2006 series, by sticking solid with the blokes that delivered them three losing series, in fact they tossed twelve Game 3 2005 players to the curb before Game 1 2006. Kind of makes a mockery of NSW continually striving for stability in a misguided attempt to emulate Queensland’s success. Stability happens naturally when you start winning, for both states.

Further examples of Queensland’s selection strategy include 10 debutants in Game 1 2001. In the 2001 series in which Queensland won back the Origin shield they made 10 changes from Game 3, 2000 in which they were humbled in the biggest origin defeat of all time. They won Game 1 and made minimal changes for Game 2, which they lost. Again they made a whopping 10 changes for Game 3 and were victorious.

Even during their extended winning streak Queensland have been unable to demonstrate the revered loyalty they have somehow become known for. In 2008 they ignored 2004 players player Scott Prince to replace the injured Darren Lockyer at five eighth in Game 1 going instead with Karmichael Hunt. When that didn’t work out they moved Billy Slater from fullback to the bench to accommodate Hunt while prince was recalled. While players like Dave Taylor, Jacob Lillyman, Michael Crocker, Dallas Johnson, Carl Webb, Neville Costigan and now Shillington and Harrison have at various times found themselves in and out of favour at different times.

Queensland passion and loyalty is a myth. They are motivated by the same thing as NSW, success. If sacking a player will bring them closer to that goal they won’t and haven’t hesitated to do so in an instant. Over the years NSW have erred with many a reactive change between games, who can remember Gasnier at five eighth in 2006 to kick start Queenslands dominance? 

Here’s hoping that the lack of passion and loyalty shown in the selections of ‘am I a Queenslander or not’ Papalli and Daly Cherry Evans goes some of the way to New South Wales own era of State of Origin domination.