Thus was the Empress Dowager Cixi reported to have said as she and her court evacuated Beijing under Gen. Pershing's artillery assault during the Boxer rebellion around 1900.
For NSW supporters, maybe it's also a tagline for NSW's litany of defeat.
While it may be cathartic to savage players like Pearce, in the end it isn't helpful: if NSW doesn't have any better, then surely the larger question is WHY ? Is anyone of consequence in the hierarchy asking the hard questions ?
Any which way you slice it, whether it be numbers of players, clubs, organized competitions, coaches, heck even ticketed refs, my guess is the NSW emerges with something like a 2-3 to 1 advantage (does anyone have authoritative figures ?). Is there any measurable where QLD even has parity - never mind superiority - over NSW ? For this reason alone I (as a QLD supporter) thought the "average" series result would be a 2-1 NSW win. Yet there are 11 QLD wins in 12 years.
Maybe part of the story lies in the 1988 advent of the Broncos, which was accompanied by the demise of the 8-team BRL comp and a reorganization of QLD RL as a whole, so that players are now identified sooner and more efficiently developed. Can anyone comment with more authority ?
On the flip side, could there be something in the organizational arteries south of the border, esp. with player development ? Are kids now being developed more to "follow the coach's orders" than "just play" ? Why has there been no worthy successor to Johns post-05 ? Is there anyone involved with junior development who can comment with more authority ?
For NSW supporters, maybe it's also a tagline for NSW's litany of defeat.
While it may be cathartic to savage players like Pearce, in the end it isn't helpful: if NSW doesn't have any better, then surely the larger question is WHY ? Is anyone of consequence in the hierarchy asking the hard questions ?
Any which way you slice it, whether it be numbers of players, clubs, organized competitions, coaches, heck even ticketed refs, my guess is the NSW emerges with something like a 2-3 to 1 advantage (does anyone have authoritative figures ?). Is there any measurable where QLD even has parity - never mind superiority - over NSW ? For this reason alone I (as a QLD supporter) thought the "average" series result would be a 2-1 NSW win. Yet there are 11 QLD wins in 12 years.
Maybe part of the story lies in the 1988 advent of the Broncos, which was accompanied by the demise of the 8-team BRL comp and a reorganization of QLD RL as a whole, so that players are now identified sooner and more efficiently developed. Can anyone comment with more authority ?
On the flip side, could there be something in the organizational arteries south of the border, esp. with player development ? Are kids now being developed more to "follow the coach's orders" than "just play" ? Why has there been no worthy successor to Johns post-05 ? Is there anyone involved with junior development who can comment with more authority ?