BY DAN

Going to the footy rules.

On Saturday I got to do something that isn’t common for me, at least not as much as I’d like. I got to go to the footy. Being a Canberra fan in Melbourne, with small children, I have to get proper organised and lathered in brownie points to make it to games in person. But for this weekend that was managed, and I got to see football close up.

It meant hanging out with my oldest friends, my newest friends, people I’ve always been friends with and never met, and people who I will never be friends with (like the dude with the ‘Jack De Belin is a beast’ banner. That’s a choice). It meant seeing two games of footy back to back, paying $7 for a coffee (old man shakes fist at cloud) and wearing so many layers the Canberra winter thought I was an onion.

It also meant sitting on the footstep of greatness, watching Kaeo Weekes do his best Brett Mullins impersonation and Teagan Berry be just as frustratingly brilliant. My god. After Kaeo scored the first try I turned to one of my new old friends and said “it’s amazing to have someone who you know will score once they’re in the clear”. He did it again as if he was trying to prove a point. It was so glaringly similar to Brett Mullins in Newcastle that I’m barely holding it together. It was glorious. I will be telling strangers, friends (old and new), and basically anyone who listens to me about it for weeks.

It also meant seeing the halftime entertainment try to get people to sing along with Sweet Caroline. I guess it can’t all be good.

One: Fathers and Sons

Shane Flanagan got asked about the crowd booing his son Kyle in the press conference after the Dragon’s loss to the Raiders. He was as confused as you and me. If the crowd boo it was barely perceptible, and presumably related to trying to goad him into missing than anything else. But it was placed as though Canberra fans actually had a problem with Kyle. We hate nepotism, unless it’s on our team? We want it all for ourselves? It was an odd question.

As strange as it was, Ricky Stuart’s unsolicited comments on it hardly helped. Stick’s commentary of Kyle Flanagan’s treatment was fair in a vacuum and his note that he wants fans to boo the opposition goalkicker seemed uncontroversial. But if the intent was to tell the media off for making a big deal out of nothing, it gave them the exact quotes they needed to make a big deal about nothing. It became the talking point du jour for Sunday.

Maybe Stick is too pure for this world.

Two: The duality of man

Like the Panthers, the Broncos refuse to die. They now find themselves settled in the eight and pushing for the Warriors top four position made weak by Luke Metcalfe’s knee injury. They’ve won four on the trot, and beaten the Sharks, Dogs, and Warriors in that time. But still, they were being handled by the Dogs, until they weren’t. And now a marginal upwards trend takes on bigger proportions. The margins are small.

Apart from hating this resurgence like any sane human, I also quietly am happy for Madge Maguire. Literal weeks into this season the noise around his approach was already bouncing around, and the old boys from Broncos talk back were providing quotes. Now let’s be clear, I have zero idea if Madge has the right approach, or even really what his approach is. But what annoyed me more that people were drawing such definite conclusions from such small sample sizes. So right now I’m happy for him.

But also disgusted. Obviously.

Three: Sad Bunnies

Brandon Smith left the ground late in the Bunnies insipid performance on Sunday. He’s apparently out for six weeks at least with a knee issue. It made him the latest in a long line of Souths players who’ve missed time this year with an injury of some sort. He hasn’t played this year, and was chucked into doing a lot of that straight away. This isn’t the normal soft tissue injury though, so one can’t blame the preparation (I presume, I’m not NRL Physio). But then again, I doubt I’m the only person wondering what’s going on under the hood at Redfern.

And it’s not just in the support staff. Old man Wayno’s doing all kinds of crazy stuff with his line up. I don’t have the knowledge of how you’re meant to make the Bunnies go, but last Saturday’s insipid performance confirmed Wayne doesn’t either.

Four: Tigers Rally

Their victory over the Roosters was an incredible game of insane football. The kind that you show to people who don’t understand league and say “it’s rad, I don’t understand it either’. But that’s not my reason for including it.

In the media wash after the game every Tigers player I saw interviewed went to lengths to say how they were winning for Benji. Which stood out because it was either something they were genuinely thinking, or something that they were told by media management to say.

You might think it being the latter would make it not genuine, but I wouldn’t. His position, and almost any in the Tigers organisation is under constant threat from the Murdoch media. I’ve always assumed it’s about clicks, but the more I think about it, the internal fight for the organisation between Wests and Balmain appears to keep media well informed about the internal dynamics. That might not be as important as the clicks, but it does help feed them.

And so for the players to be speaking that language, presumably with backing from the media wing of the organisation, would at least speak to some semblance of discipline in the whole franchise. It’ll take more than consistent words to get everyone on the same pack, but at least they’re talking the talk.

Five: The need for speed

Forgive my lack of Raiders NSW Cup takes this week. Instead, here are some Raiders NRLW takes.

Teagan Berry tore the NRLW Raiders an absolute new one on Saturday afternoon. This really highlighted a problem the Raiders have with lateral quickness. Their middle can stand up to the biff, because Simaima Taufa is a fucking terminator. But once the ball gets wide you find those edges are easier to tease apart than a flimsy pizza base.

In particular Zehara Temara found it hard to keep up with the shifts that were made around her in space. Not every team will have a Berry (or a Bostock) but any team that watched this is going to make sure Temara sees a heap of traffic. Not that this is Temara’s fault. This was a ‘connection on the edge’ issue. Leianne Tufuga defending next to her had consistently turned her back on Berry putting Temara on an island against the pace of the Dragons backline. That’s a problem that needs fixing.

Six: High Noon at Night

Come Thursday morning Billy Slater is going to either be (more of) a Queensland legend, or fired.

If you’ve read these pages you’ll know I’ve not been a fan of what Slater has done with the Maroons’ personnel over the last two seasons. To be it’s reeked of someone who got too high on their own supply post 2023, and is now desperately rudderless and searching for a way back to land. Josh Papalii might be his saviour, but unless something magical happens it’ll be NSW by a lot.

It’s a strange gig. Getting graded on three games a year, heavily influenced by player availability and things that you can’t possibly influence (like how players mesh, who’s career is peaking when etc), under the brightest lights Australian sport can offer. It’s a tough way to make a living. And now put the added intensity of your legacy being heavily leveraged, and it all being in the hands of 17 other people. It’d be a stressful event.

It’s only a sideshow to the bigger story of Origin. But when the Maroons walk out I’ll spare a thought for Billy. And then tweet he should have picked Horse.

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