Ho. Ho. Ho.

[Rich102]

I for one am glad 2019 is coming to a close.
It has been a very disappointing year; especially for the Warriors. Hopefully with the ownership settled we can start to rebuild. But don't expect a Lazarus act.

Anyway we have Christmas to look forward to. Catching up with family and friends. Too much to eat and drink. What's not to like?

From the Forum the first competition of the year was the WWWF ladder predictor. Zero led for most of the year but was run down in the home straight by Iafeta.
Final placings: Gold Iafeta. Silver Zeromisstackles. Bronze Ozenzud.
Really well done.

We had two Last Man competitions. Both won by Penrose 11. So he gets all the prizes. Superb effort.

We also had two of Marn's Eliminitor comps. First won by Penrose 11 (He was on fire). And the second by Beavers Headgear. Again, well done guys.

The big one, the Skinner Memorial Trophy for the tipping competition, was a real close race this year.
Gold went to JJ. Silver to AliN and Bronze to captain warrior. Skinner would have been smiling.

And the big one. We came a disappointing 13th.

From the 3-2-1's the MVP awards:
Gold RTS. Silver Ken. Bronze Blake Green.

On to the acknowledgements. Big thank you's to:
One Warrior for keeping our roster thread up to date. It's been a busy year for comings and goings, sadly more goings than comings.
Philip Smith and others for the entertaining Game Day threads. Well worth reading.
Meth for so ably managing our 3-2-1.
Mixmasterreece. For his news from the “inside”.
Rhythm & Stealth. The "Fan in the Stand" is a great series.
vvvrulz for our "Weekly Match Results".
LeagueNut for his diligent research.
Big Marn. For his Eliminator game.
And, as always, MKEB my fellow mod.

And so finally to my biggest thank you. To all you forum members.
For making this an enjoyable place to discuss all things League.

I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and may 2020 bring you all good things.

Lastly. Those of you affected by the fires in Australia. Stay safe and our thoughts are with you.

Cheers,

Rich

 

[Philip_Smith007]

All the best to everyone over the festive season. Play safe.

 

[vvvrulz]

Cheers Rich and have a great x-mas everyone.

Bring on 2020.

 

[One Warrior]

Thanks Rich and thanks for all your efforts running the site.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone, stay safe on the roads etc
and here's to a better season in 2020.

 

[JJ]

Thanks Rich, for all your efforts - and all the others you mentioned who work to keep this forum as good as it is.

Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Xmas period - best wishes to everyone

 

[Big Marn]

Nice one Rich.
Wishing everyone happy holidays. Stay safe, and see you in the New Year.

 

[Rich102]

One name missing from my acknowledgement list was Blair.
Blair runs the weekly NRL roundup thread as well as NRL Finals and SOO threads.
All these threads add to our knowledge and keep us up to date with the game.
I know Blair is suffering through the fires.
Have a good Christmas mate.

 

[TheDMC]

Thanks Rich, hope you catch some good moochers this summer, or at least plenty of feeds...

 

[Blair]

One name missing from my acknowledgement list was Blair.
Blair runs the weekly NRL roundup thread as well as NRL Finals and SOO threads.
All these threads add to our knowledge and keep us up to date with the game.
I know Blair is suffering through the fires.
Have a good Christmas mate.

Thanks Rich.

I'll break my summer forum sabbitical to show you all a picture from my balcony, taken last week.

The fires are confronting, the smoke is a public health emergency. The 'Lucky Country' is becoming unlivable at this current time. There is no end in sight.

For example, I'm in Katoomba, we have fire-fronts on both sides, often with billowing clouds of smoke, often glowing red, with whole escarpments ablaze. The sound of helicopters and sirens is the new normal. Oh, and no rain at all.

The easy bliss (apart from those bloody Warriors) of footy-season seems a long way off right now. I can't wait of course, see you all at the usual time, round one in March.

Take care all, enjoy Xmas/NY, and keep the forum ticking over.

Ps the Black Caps are disappointing thus far. I hope they don't blow Boxing Day. Some of us have waited over 32 years to have another crack at that great occasion. I was there in '87. Morrison had McDermott plumb as in the penultimate over (but 'not out' by Dick French, it's on Youtube).

An exhausted Hadlee, of course, didn't have the physical strength to dismiss a defiant Michael Whitney in the last over.

 

[JJ]

Thanks Rich.

I'll break my summer forum sabbitical to show you all a picture from my balcony, taken last week.

The fires are confronting, the smoke is a public health emergency. The 'Lucky Country' is becoming unlivable at this current time. There is no end in sight.

For example, I'm in Katoomba, we have fire-fronts on both sides, often with billowing clouds of smoke, often glowing red, with whole escarpments ablaze. The sound of helicopters and sirens is the new normal. Oh, and no rain at all.

The easy bliss (apart from those bloody Warriors) of footy-season seems a long way off right now. I can't wait of course, see you all at the usual time, round one in March.

Take care all, enjoy Xmas/NY, and keep the forum ticking over.

Ps the Black Caps are disappointing thus far. I hope they don't blow Boxing Day. Some of us have waited over 32 years to have another crack at that great occasion. I was there in '87. Morrison had McDermott plumb as in the penultimate over (but 'not out' by Dick French, it's on Youtube).

An exhausted Hadlee, of course, didn't have the physical strength to dismiss a defiant Michael Whitney in the last over.

Beautiful part of the world the Blue Mountains

Hope you and your family (and everyone affected by those fires) stays safe...

 

[Matua]

Stay safe Blair, can't imagine what it's like for you being so close to the actual fires considering just the smoke from them is blanketing Sydney.

Merry Xmas and Happy NY to everyone and I second one warrior is thanking Rich for keeping this place running.

 

[Philip_Smith007]

Thanks Rich.

I'll break my summer forum sabbitical to show you all a picture from my balcony, taken last week.

The fires are confronting, the smoke is a public health emergency. The 'Lucky Country' is becoming unlivable at this current time. There is no end in sight.

For example, I'm in Katoomba, we have fire-fronts on both sides, often with billowing clouds of smoke, often glowing red, with whole escarpments ablaze. The sound of helicopters and sirens is the new normal. Oh, and no rain at all.

The easy bliss (apart from those bloody Warriors) of footy-season seems a long way off right now. I can't wait of course, see you all at the usual time, round one in March.

Take care all, enjoy Xmas/NY, and keep the forum ticking over.

Ps the Black Caps are disappointing thus far. I hope they don't blow Boxing Day. Some of us have waited over 32 years to have another crack at that great occasion. I was there in '87. Morrison had McDermott plumb as in the penultimate over (but 'not out' by Dick French, it's on Youtube).

An exhausted Hadlee, of course, didn't have the physical strength to dismiss a defiant Michael Whitney in the last over.

Need some rain and nothing decent on the radar!
Keep vigilant, we still have the bushfire bag packed, passports, photos, clothes etc after a few fires in the Hunter Valley.

Those water bombing planes are impressive.

 

[Blair]

Need some rain and nothing decent on the radar!
Keep vigilant, we still have the bushfire bag packed, passports, photos, clothes etc after a few fires in the Hunter Valley.

Those water bombing planes are impressive.

Yeah, same to you, Phil.

Those planes, this one came over the house unannounced the other week, which is not a good thing when you have a bit of post-9-11 trauma!

A live glow from last week, down near the Three Sisters/Echo Point:

The reality is endless days like this, just acrid smoke everywhere. I've bought a 'P2' mask:

Sydney is as bad, if not worse (this one isn't my picture), Beave's beloved Manly:

Bring on the Autumn chill of footy-season.

 

[Big Marn]

wow.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Not being a news watcher at all had no idea the extent of this, pretty harrowing pics there Blair

There have been a few mornings here where the smoke has drifted over and made for a very strange morning sky

Take care of yourself fellas and try and have a top notch festive season

 

[SpaceMonkey]

This is the latest addition to my work uniform, we had to face down management yesterday over at what point we’re supposed to cease work entirely when the smoke gets too bad.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

And this was taken at work a week or two back in the worst day for smoke in Sydney. That’s not fog, it’s bushfire smoke.

 

[One Warrior]

And this was taken at work a week or two back in the worst day for smoke in Sydney. That’s not fog, it’s bushfire smoke.

View attachment 34894

I was living in Tassie in 83 when the Ash Wednesday fires were on in Victoria, we had fog like bushfire smoke like that for 3-4 days during that, and we were 250-300 Kms south over the Bass Strait.

 

[Big Marn]

Thanks Rich.

I'll break my summer forum sabbitical to show you all a picture from my balcony, taken last week.

The fires are confronting, the smoke is a public health emergency. The 'Lucky Country' is becoming unlivable at this current time. There is no end in sight.

For example, I'm in Katoomba, we have fire-fronts on both sides, often with billowing clouds of smoke, often glowing red, with whole escarpments ablaze. The sound of helicopters and sirens is the new normal. Oh, and no rain at all.

The easy bliss (apart from those bloody Warriors) of footy-season seems a long way off right now. I can't wait of course, see you all at the usual time, round one in March.

Take care all, enjoy Xmas/NY, and keep the forum ticking over.

Ps the Black Caps are disappointing thus far. I hope they don't blow Boxing Day. Some of us have waited over 32 years to have another crack at that great occasion. I was there in '87. Morrison had McDermott plumb as in the penultimate over (but 'not out' by Dick French, it's on Youtube).

An exhausted Hadlee, of course, didn't have the physical strength to dismiss a defiant Michael Whitney in the last over.

Mate, how you getting on?

 

[mikeob]

Thank you Rich for the work you do here and a Merry Christmas to you and everyone else on this forum. We've had a couple of bush fires near here. The worst one burnt through a macadamia plantation (with the price of macadamias that would be bloody expensive) it then jumped fire breaks and a narrow river and got into a pine plantation and closed and jumped the Isis Highway which is the main road between Bundaberg and Childers and destroyed most of the pine plantation on the other side of the road. The firies eventually won the battle but from what I have seen there are a lot of blackened pine trees.