sidelined

It seems with concerns over injuries and the judiciary NSW have name 21 players for the intial squad for Origin II. They are: Trent Barrett, Matt Cooper, Ben Creagh, Josh Dugan, Michael Ennis, Paul Gallen, Kurt Gidley, Jarryd Hayne, Nathan Hindmarsh, Jamal Idris, Jason King, Tom Learoyd-Lahrs, Luke Lewis, Brett Morris, Luke O’Donnell, Mitchell Pearce, [...]

I’ve noticed the usual mid season despondency creeping around the traps. Unless you are a Dragons fan it is has been a bit of bumpy ride for most teams (excluding the Storm for obvious reasons). If my memory serves me correct no team has registered more than four wins in a row yet. But if [...]

League has its fair share of idiots but let’s be thankful that Jason Akermanis bats for another code. The AFL can have the homophobic ignoramus. His column explaining why gay AFL players was just a sorry retread of the usual “some of my best friends are gay but…” arguments. My favourite is that AFL players [...]

A training ovals around the city this week, you could hear NRL players learning the words to The Internationale as murmurs about a strike took hold. The cry was heard from the players as they demand fair pay for a fair day’s play plus agent commission. Eric Grothe Jr took to the streets to sing [...]

I love this time of year. Winter is starting to get warmed up and you can tell that the footy season is in full swing when Matt Cooper make his now traditional announcement that he couldn’t be buggered to play in the City v Country game. He is injured but will make a miraculous recovery [...]

Well, it looks like that the salary cap scandal has hurt league so bad that the test this Friday in Melbourne is a sell out. Just imagine how many tickets they would have sold if there was no shenanigans with the cap. If there was some sort of nuclear holocaust all you would have left [...]

And it is 7 days since the NRL had a salary cap scandal. But the Storm still dominate the back pages and surely in weeks to come as more dodgy deals arise from the stygian depths to be cleansed by the light. A shame as the game showed some rude health last weekend. Melbourne fans [...]

A heavy blow indeed but David Gallop and the NRL have done the right thing by the game to strip The Storm of two premierships, minor premierships, points for the rest of the season as well pay back prize money. It is a decision that will give no comfort to rival codes as a standard [...]

The advantage is now with the players (and fans) as ridiculous advantage rule is scrapped. The refs can now apply common sense when deciding if a side has taken the advantage. Of course, the next issue is which refs actually have common sense. And I’m not sure that dropping Cummins and Sutton will actually do [...]

One day there may be a new enlightenment. An age where all irrational beliefs, customs and ideas will be swept away. All of them, except for one. The (seemingly often unrequited) love of your footy team. No blast of logic will ever kill the wretched but beautiful passion involved in supporting your footy team. It [...]