Round 5 (2008) Titans v Eels

[Willow]

Forum 7s - Round 5 2008
GOLD COAST TITANS v PARRAMATTA EELS
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-v-

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Game Thread:

* Please note - This is a game thread only, therefore only game posts can be made here (Teams, Articles).
* Any other posts may result in loss of points and is at the discretion of the referee.
* Only original articles, not used in previous games, will be marked by referees.​

Naming Teams:
* 5v5 (+ 2 reserves for visiting team, 3 reserves for home team)
* No 'TBA' or changing players named
* Captains must stick with original teams named​

ALL THE RULES & REGULATIONS: http://f7s.leagueunlimited.com/rules.php​

FULL TIME: Thursday 22 May 2008 at 9pm (Syd time)
REFEREE: LeagueNut
Venue: Skilled Park
**The Referee Blows Game On!**

CLICK HERE FOR OFFICIAL WORD COUNTER​

 

[Robster]

Robster leads the team out so early that he finds out his team is still in the dressing room eating his american hot dogs.

5 minutes later. Robster leads his team out.

GOLD COAST TITANS F7S TEAM

1 - Amadean
6: Tits&Tans
7: Titans Uranus
9- Robster (c)
11- Titanic
Bench
3: Beave
23: DeeGan

 

[Willow]

From the F7s management forum:

Referees, captains and players please note that due to the State of Origin night clashing with the F7s, fulltime for the F7s has been extended to Thursday 22nd May 9:00pm for this round only.

 

[Titan Uranus]

A sleep-deprived TU tumbles on to the field for the Titans after one good and one bad result yesterday/this morning.
750 words below the stars.
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A Very Special Place

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​

There are plenty of towns and cities in the UK that have top-flight rugby league teams. Some even have no other professional sports team to speak of, such as Warrington, Widnes, Wakefield and Salford. There are a few that have more than one professional team, but could you imagine a city with two teams in the top division and none from any other sports playing at the top level?

You probably think that such a place could only exist in Heaven. In fact, such a place is real and isn’t in Heaven, but Hull; Kingston-upon-Hull to give the place its full name. The city has two teams in the English Super League while its soccer team languishes outside the Premier League. Not only that, but Hull is the largest city in England to NEVER have had a top flight soccer team.

However, this Saturday could see things change for ever. The local soccer team, Hull City, take part in the play-off final for the last promotion spot to the Premier League. What, then, has made League, rather than soccer, thrive in this city?

Hull has quite a few things in common with the only country where League is the national sport; PNG.

Firstly there’s isolation. Hull is cut off from the south of the country by the giant Humber estuary and to the north and west by miles and miles of uninhabited farmland. The nearest cities are over an hour away which, in Oz, may be the equivalent of a quick trip down to the shops but in England is considered an epic voyage. To say PNG is isolated in parts would be a massive understatement: it’s one of the most out-of-the-way nations in the world.

Secondly there’s hardship. PNG is not a developed country and life is far from what we’d call luxurious. Hull, meanwhile, regularly tops “worst city” lists in the UK. It’s a city whose industry is not what it once was. Life is a little harder than in other cities, and is made harder still by the fierce North Sea winds that whip in over the miles of almost totally flat landscape surrounding the city. Although in sharp contrast to PNG’s hilly jungle terrain, both contribute to making things that little bit harder. Yet, in both places life is lived to the full and the people are far from reserved.

Thirdly both places are … a little unusual. Both places have locals that outsiders are more than a little wary of, whether they be head-hunters or clientele of The Hull Cheese pub at chucking-out time. There are also those cute cultural quirks. There aren’t many places where dressing up as a bird of paradise would be the normal thing to do. The same goes for putting chip spice (aka luminous orange salt) on your chips/fries.

Furthermore, the local languages of both places are incomprehensible to native English speakers, to whit: “If I ever see Cookie armgunna bray im for goin yon side. I’d rather watch Dancin on Arse, or any other arse spurts, than Ulleffsee since he did one.”

This translates as “If I ever see Paul Cooke I’m going to beat him up for going to Hull KR. I’d rather watch Dancing on Ice, or any other ice sports, than Hull FC since he left.” Translations such as this are only possible after years of academic study.

So we can see that League is likely to thrive in an area that is insulated from the rest of the world and has a distinctive culture. That is somewhat unsurprising considering how the game is unique in what it offers. No other sport’s excitement, skill, ability, agility or fully harnessed power compares with that of League. It’s also no surprise that it should succeed in areas where life is a little harder than elsewhere, for it goes without saying that we all support the hardest of all hard sports. Others may attempt to take this crown from us, but they soon die off – survival of the fittest in action. League will continue to rise in tough places that are unique, and have a slight quirky charm about them, for that’s how you can also describe its supporters, or certainly the ones on this forum.

And what of the round ball play-off? If Hull City do win, the ratio of League to soccer teams will still be 2:1. If it were like that in every city, most fans would be over the moon.

 

[Titan Uranus]

apologies .. duplicate entry by error

 

[Titanic]

Titanic for the Titans - screws in his tags, screws up his courage, removes excess Dencorub off his brow then wiping it on his sphincter (guaranteed to get another couple of miles per hour out the old legs) and chews his last clove of garlic to ward off any vampires and opposing props in the first scrum.

(750 words from the OWC, between the stars)
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Monopoly: not just a game

Hardly a week, or should that be ‘a day’, goes by without reading or hearing about a top flight Australian Rugby League player heading overseas to capture the filthy lucre on offer in Europe or some other exotic destination. The headlines shout “player exodus”, the fans scream “loyalty lost” while the NRL seems to move like a sloth wading through quicksand.

The problem is not restricted to our patch of turf with Round Ball, Yawnion, Cricket and even AFL all becoming targets for the rapacious northern hemisphere cheque books. “Shock and horror” you may cry, but I won’t, because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow so will the dreaded player drain continue.

Where does the money to keep our marquee players come from? Crowds through the turnstiles? Chook raffles or Leagues Clubs? These are bush league solutions. I think we all need to accept that, from a global perspective, Australia is “the bush”.

When it comes to competing with the big smoke of the UK, EU or USA, our paltry squabbles over bragging rights of a few million viewers, divided across a half dozen codes, makes our athletes prime targets. Russell Crowe and PHAC could afford South Sydney because they could, without even denting their purses. The small change passed around in Australia is laughable when compared to truly international arenas such as almost any sporting acronym ITF, PGA, FIFA, NBA, NFL, NHL and ITTF … yes that’s right, ping pong.

You could hardly criticize our superbly conditioned gladiators for wanting to at least earn a competitive salary alongside those little people who jump and screech around a ping pong table. After all, our players get bashed for a living and have a shorter life expectancy within their chosen profession than other less physical sportsmen. Theories based about market influences on sport have been well documented. In summary, this is a business where size does matter, i.e., the size of market.

Going back a few years, we celebrated Craig Johnson making the big time in Pommieland. It was quaint that Mark Harris could try out for gridiron. We all cheered for Greg Norman, Yvonne Goolagong-Cawley et al. So why has the issue become such a sore point? David Gallop becomes all bitter and twisted when the media bail him up. He takes the high ground with “The salary cap keeps the lid on club viability” and although he’s right, I have the perfect solution. My answer allows comprehensive market reach, total public acceptance, captive sponsorship pools and an almost bottomless pit of talent:

The Australian Government should ban all other sports and focus solely on rugby league.

​

Bloody fantastic! All of Australia would become a venerable trough for League to wallow in. Wait up, before you get your snouts wet, monopolies are illegal, aren’t they? No! In fact, the pariah of economics is the “coercive” monopoly, but what I am suggesting is a “natural” monopoly. The delivery of mail in Australia, for example, is an absolute “natural” monopoly for Australia Post. The provision of water and sewerage is also a “natural” monopoly - neither illegal nor mythical.

An economist would define a sport as having a "natural monopoly" if the fixed cost of the capital goods (players) is so high that it is not profitable for a second sport to enter and compete. Sound familiar? Therefore, there is a "natural" reason for rugby league to monopolize Australian sport, namely that the economies of scale requires one sport rather than several. Undersubscribed sports are clearly less efficient - out goes AFL and all the rest. They wouldn’t warrant a license because by global standards the market is too small to share.

To counter the potential of saturation, the government would allocate permits for Leagues’ Clubs to operate, and would limit the number of permits based on performance. Legislation regulating high prices would prevent clubs from exploiting their monopolies. Typically, they would be allowed a fixed percentage of profit above cost; after all there is no need to get greedy. Player salaries would become competitive, players would stay at home and loyalty would return to the league landscape.

Another benefit would be a truly national competition. It would be just like owning hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane. There could be drafts and caps and swaps and shady deals. Of course, any blatantly wrong move would mean “go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect $200”.

Let’s roll the dice and “take a Chance”.


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[eloquentEEL]

A loud screech grabs the crowd's attention as the Eels bus tears around the corner, taking out a trash can in the process. The starting side scrambles off the bus in a state of pure chaos:

Goleel (vc)
Dean
bartman
MarkInTheStands
eloquentEEL (vc)

And a couple of name tags are left on the bench on the off chance that they can play and are required:
Bubbles
The Engineers Room

 

[Robster]

Robster pauses for a minute silence on the player he is just about to write about.
---------------
​

Tribute to Albert Baskerville.

​

It was 100 years ago this week that a Rugby player turned Rugby League legend ‘Albert Henry Baskerville’ passed away in Brisbane Hospital. Baskerville’s vision made him one of the most controversial figures in New Zealand sport. His pioneering efforts have made him a Rugby League icon and earned him the title “Father of New Zealand & Australian Rugby League”.

Baskerville was an extraordinary man who was raised in the village of Waioronomai. Having earned an enviable reputation as an All Black, the “powers that be” were furious with the news that Baskerville was organizing a Northern Union team together with fellow All Blacks winger George Smith. The NZRU threatened life bans for any players who switched codes. Despite the threat, and the financial risk, Albert Baskerville stuck to his dream. His insight has triumphed remarkably, with Rugby League now recognized as one of the top sports in New Zealand.

It was never all “beer and skittles” for Baskerville. Having left school at 14 and prior to earning football fame, Baskerville began working for the Auckland Post & Telegraph Office. The tragic accidental death of his father when Albert was 20, left his mother to raise seven young children. A promotion meant transferring to Wellington and Albert flew his entire family there to join him.

In 1906, the young “postie” was also plying his trade as a prolific try-scorer for a local rugby union club. His inspiration to take a New Zealand team to challenge clubs in the north of England was ignited when a work mate gave him a copy of the Manchester Athletic News. He noted that a magnificent crowd had turned out to watch a Northern Union game in Bradford (UK).

Fortuitously, he befriended champion All Black George Smith, who had witnessed a Northern Union football match in 1905. With the All Blacks players striving to create a Northern Union International team, the concept almost went “pear-shaped” after life bans were meted out for those who turned their back on the NZRU, following Baskerville and Smith to the new code of the Northern Union.

Baskerville is recognized as the pivotal figure in the foundation of International Rugby League in both New Zealand and Australia. His most notable contribution to IRL was the promotion of the inaugural test match (1908) between the New Zealand All Golds and the Australian Kangaroos. It should be remembered that All Golds was not the official name, but rather a derogatory swipe at Baskerville’s men, their All Blacks connection and their perceived avarice.

This was the game where Northern Union Football was, for the first time, officially called ‘Rugby League’ and was the tail end of the successful All Golds’ tour of England. The profits generated by this mini-tour funded the inception of the NSWRL.

The legendary Dally Messenger, who had toured as a “guest” with the team, reverted back to the enemy’s camp while several key players such as George Smith, Lance Todd and Jim Glesson were unavailable due to British club commitments. This pressured player depth for the All Golds.

With Baskerville on the wing. the All Golds managed to narrowly win 11-10 in a thrilling match. The best play of the day belonged to Baskerville, when he intercepted a pass on halfway, beat two Australian would be tacklers and sprinted under the posts to give the All Golds’ kicker an easy kick. In front of 20,000 spectators, that converted try won the match as the All Golds took the lead and held on for victory.

Eleven days later Baskerville caught a chill during the steam ship trip from Sydney to Brisbane and couldn’t play against Queensland, although he watched from the sideline as the All Golds cruised to a 34-12 victory on May 16th. The chill escalated to pneumonia and Baskerville was hospitalized. Shocked and saddened teammates raced from their midweek win over Brisbane to his bedside, where he died at 6.pm on the 20th of May.

It was in recognition of Baskerville’s contributions and sacrifice that the first Rugby League Match in New Zealand was played at Athletic Park in Wellington on June 13th, 1908 with proceeds going to his mother. Albert Henry Baskerville was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1996 and the NZRL Legends of League in 2001.

Baskerville is my only non-contemporary hero. ‘God Bless’ the father of Rugby League in New Zealand. Your passion has been realised and I humbly thank you.

---
749 words.
Refrences- The Kiwis - 100 years of Rugby league by John Coffery and Bernie Wood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Henry_Baskerville

 

[tits&tans]

tits&tans hobbles on to the field for the Titans after an extra long F7s session this week...

750 words from the Official Word Counter ..

*************

... ran away with the spoon​

Run! Tackle, tackle!​

The spark and the crackle​

Of watching the Titans in June;​

Our opponents did cry​

To see such a try,​

And the losers ran away with the spoon.​

​

Mathematics and League. Could any two fields of human accomplishment be so different and yet so bizarrely intertwined?

One field resides on mankind’s highest intellectual plane; a place of human contemplation inhabited by multi-dimensional fractals and elegantly sculpted equations; a haven of logic, reason and austere beauty. Each thought is deliberately crafted and every action carefully calculated.
This is the home of mathematics.

The other field lives rooted to the surface of the earth; a place of human physical achievement inhabited by multi-talented athletes and precocious tactics; a place of pain, exertion and intense emotion. Every decision is instinctive and every move the essence of competitiveness.
This is the home of Rugby League.

Such dissimilar worlds; seemingly, so incompatible. Funnily enough, mathematics and League became indelibly printed in our folklore when they crossed paths. This led to unexpected, largely unknown (in some cases unwanted) consequences.

Had you strolled down the corridors of England’s University of Cambridge in the mid 1800s, you would have absorbed the quiet, serene atmosphere of arguably one of the world’s finest education institutions. It was in these cloistered environs that, at the end of the Easter term, Mathematical Tripos undergraduates would huddle together, predicting and fretting while awaiting their examination results. Successful students would be placed into one of three Classes (I, II and III), which would then determine the prestigiousness of their degree. The student with the highest results was henceforth known as the Senior Wrangler. Of course, for every top there must also exist a bottom. The student with the lowest passing examination was duly presented with a wooden spoon.

(For those not familiar with such an object: Wikipedia helpfully describes a wooden spoon as “a spoon made from wood.” I’m glad they cleared that up for us!)

As a booby prize, an actual wooden spoon was dangled over the head of the graduand as he came before the Vice Chancellor to be awarded his degree. Despite how absurd this proceeding may sound, it was always carried out with complete solemnity and the utmost respect. As the years progressed, the size of the wooden spoon increased until, in 1909, the very last wooden spoon was awarded: it was 1.5m long (see picture).

This tradition is now an integral part of a few select sports – rowing, Yawnion, AFL, British ice hockey and of course NRL.

How the wooden spoon traversed the gulf between the elite English mathematical community and the Free World is still a matter of contention amongst League scholars. The most plausible explanation is that Cambridge graduates made up a large proportion of the early history of Yawnion and wanted to commemorate their university’s heritage by instigating this discontinued custom. These fairies may have introduced it, but it took a real sport to perfect it.

Today, the NRL’s wooden spoon is an unofficial, yet fitting, reward reserved for the team that finishes at the bottom of the league table at the end of the season. The current wooden spooners are those pesky Penrith Panthers.

As one of the founding nine clubs of the NSW Rugby League and right up until their merger with the Balmain Tigers in ’99, the Western Suburb Magpies hold the record for the most wooden spoons won, impressively stacking up 17.

The Sea Eagles have the best league performance record, in that they have the worst wooden-spoon-winning record: managing a paltry zero spoons in the 61 years since the club’s inception.

The Bulldogs racked up their 4th spoon in 2002 when they were stripped of all their points because of their multiple breaches of salary-cap regulations.

Indeed, this quaint custom has spawned a multi-million dollar betting industry. Bookies now offer odds on which team will finish at the bottom of the heap each season. A quick glance at the latest figures confirms what many South Sydney fans may have feared – after 7 successive defeats, the Rabbitohs are currently clear favourites to bring up the rear.

Without those cheeky mathematicians in Cambridge, today’s League fans and players would be deprived of the pleasure of heaping scorn and humiliation upon their opposition and its followers in the guise of an invisible and metaphysical wooden spoon.

The obvious question on everyone’s lips must be: who will run away with the spoon this year?

 

[Amadean]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]For the Titans, Amadean is off his line, marking the wrong man and wearing a very silly undershirt in memory of his Origin hero Tate.

730 words beneath the bar

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The Origin of Health

Fibre is said to be good for the bowels. It keeps you regular. Sufficient bran, green vegetables or Metamucil as part of your R.D.I of foodstuffs lowers the risk of colon cancer to merely accidental levels. Proper intestinal health (through correct nutritional intake, exercise and the occasional endoscopy) extends your life expectancy and vastly lowers the risk of having a first-year Medicine student removing a dense blockage from your bowel with their fingers.

Pilates is said to be good for the spine. It keeps you limber. Sufficient bending or posing or stretching as part of your daily R.D.I of exercise improves the flow of lymphatic fluid and relaxes muscles that could otherwise spasm and leave you rigid in pain on the bathroom floor. Relaxing points of musculo-skeletal pressure (together with proper correct nutritional intake, enough sleep and the occasional endoscopy) may ensure proper posture and a pain-free existence.

Flossing is said to be good for the mouth. It keeps you hygienic. Sufficient rubbing of a length of waxed twine between the teeth lowers the risk of tooth decay, gingivitis and halitosis that could prevent you from accidentally kissing anybody ever again. Proper dental and gum hygiene helps to prevent a build-up of bacteria in the mouth to the point where tooth enamel rots and gums turn gangrenous. A healthy mouth allows for a happier and healthier life.

These are all things we are assured to be true by medical professionals, every time we're unlucky enough to come in to contact with said professionals.

They're probably right.

The thing is that I just don't know for certain. Sure, I've never had colon cancer or a blockage, but then I tend to eat something kinda green at most meals. Without doubt, I've never suffered a cripplingly painful spinal injury, but then I try to remember to stretch before playing sport. Unquestionably I've never had my teeth rot down to blackened stubs, but then I brush them whenever I'm near my toothbrush and try to avoid lollies before bedtime.

In the end, I have no reason to doubt what my medical professionals tell me. But I do feel they're missing the point.

For instance, I've never once had a doctor/physiotherapist/dentist tell me to have more sex, for health or any other reasons. Yet after sex I feel healthier, happier and far more alive than I ever have after a good teeth-cleaning, back-stretch or plate of salad.

Perhaps they'd guessed the average man tries to have as much sex as possible and so thought their advice unnecessary. Perhaps.

Yet no medical professional has ever told me to watch State of Origin either. They've never told me to care more about Queensland during those 80 minutes than I do about anything else in the world. They've never told me to enjoy a few beers, abuse my Cockroach mates loudly, and then stare fixatedly at a 24-inch screen for nearly an hour and a half. I cannot recall them ever, even once, telling me to scream at men I've never met, to hurl insults at men I'll never meet or to reach the heights of delight or depression according to the skill and luck of some blokes on a field.

Shows what they know.

Tallis dragging some New South Welshman over the sidelines in 2002 was a fantastic moment. It was a pivotal point in a pivotal series, without a doubt, but that's not what made it special. It was the rush of pure adrenaline through every tube in my body; an atavistic surge of emotion carrying myself and everything about me so far over the horizon of wherever the hell I was at the time, etching itself on every thought I had; it moved parts of me that any bloody dietary recommendation you care to name couldn't come close to touching.

And every match is the same. Oh, I don't mean in terms of glorious moments or tries or ridiculous bloody field-goals. What is important is that physical rush of emotions whilst watching the game. Intensely concentrating on something I cannot hope to influence is one thing, the flood of fire through the veins is quite another: when you don't notice picking up your massively-built mate and carrying him around the bar, cheering like idiots, because you truly don't have another care in the world.

That's what Origin means to me.[/FONT]

 

[Dean]

Dean takes the field for the Eels.

Passion?

Remember the joke about Queenslanders having more passion than New South Welshmen? My mates and I always have a good laugh at that one, usually around Origin time, and usually at the expense of our one Queensland counterpart, born in Blacktown by the way.

But well might he say, “who’s laughing now”, with the news that Sydney will be stripped of future Origin matches if we can’t fill a stadium in the next five years, and as hard as it is to admit it, we deserve such a devastating outcome if we fail to vote with our feet.

Last nights game drew 67620 people, 15880 short of the stadium’s capacity. Queensland on the other hand, sold out their 52500 capacity stadium for origin weeks ago. If these figures alone don’t kick start the self-appraisal machine in all of us then we should bugger off now and follow the AFL’s Western Sydney Mother Lovers instead.

For years now the Queensland players have been telling us that they’re more passionate than the blues players, so much so that you’d think that they bottled the aforementioned emotion and mixed it with their magic spray. Of course this has always been a myth; we soon found out that the only thing in their water bottles was water and a few drops of their patented Queensland aphrodisiac for cousins. But player’s passion and inbreeding aside, no one could ever doubt their community’s passion for the game as a whole. They’ve been selling out Origins and club games for years, while the game's biggest supporter base flick their remote controls and critique the commentary of Andy Raymond.

So why can’t we fill stadiums anymore? The Daily Telegraph would have us believe that off-field matters are turning people away from the game. In this writer's humble opinion, this is a complete cop out which suggests that Rugby League players are the worst sporting personalities in the world in regards to bad behaviour. It also suggests that a large majority of people are influenced by off-field scandals and that their passion for their sport of choice is determined by the off-field behaviour of players. If this were true then the West Coast Eagles would be playing in front of empty seats and soccer - at best - would be one of those non-medal events at the Olympics. Of course, scandal can be a factor in turning people away from the game, particularly with the over saturation of the game that we see in the media, but to suggest that Sydney cannot fill their stadiums because of a few player's inability to handle alcohol is an insult to the intelligence of the public.

The proof is in Queensland’s ability to sell-out almost any game that is held there. Their players also get drunk, start fights and argue against rape charges in the courts, yet the public remain stead fast in their passion for the game and continually turn up every week to support their team.

So once again, why can’t we fill stadiums? Could it be the new, fresh and most of all, annoying rule changes that are implemented every year? Is it the approaching shadows of other codes which are forming in areas where there were no shadows before? Or are we just Lazy?

The excuse that Rugby League is the most perfectly suited sport for television has been thrown around before, so have we reached the point were the game is better viewed on television? The answer to this is no. The game is a spectacle and a spectacle is best experienced when one is part of that spectacle. So have we become lazy? If this is the case then let us all put our hands up in the air, every last one of us and shout, “We are all lazy bastards, we are all a disgrace to the game that we love, we are not fit to use the word passion in the same fashion as a Queenslander.”

There, now that we’ve admitted to our faults we can move forward into a bright and better future… Let us never speak of this again.

If only it were that simple.

So if things don’t improve, I am officially a supporter of the NRL taking origin games away from Sydney. It’s a cruel to be kind measure that might make us realise what we are missing and leave us hungry for the few games that we do get in Sydney. Then we might start voting with our feet.

***************

Word Count: 749

 

[bartman]

Bartman gets out of the hyperbaric chamber especially to put in this hit-up for the Eels...

- - - - -

Origin – To change or not to change?

While basking in the surprise result and success of the NSW Blues in Origin match one, it might seem rather negative of someone south of the line of engagement to pose the question about whether the State of Origin concept needs tweaking.

Journalist Dean Ritchie was interviewed on the news today and rated the game a seven out of ten. I think that’s a fair call, as the first game wasn’t as close a run contest as we have become used to throughout the history of State of Origin. There was some fantastic football played by New South Wales in terms of negating Queensland’s attacking threats, and creating enough point scoring opportunities of their own to dominate the flow of the match. But even parochial Maroons fan Fatty Vautin admitted on the telecast that the Queensland performance was not up to its usual standard.

So despite there being plenty of good football on the night to discuss, as well as some intrigue in the lead up to Origin match two about how Queensland will try to hit back, that shouldn’t stop us from reflecting about the changing role of the “mate against mate” Origin concept in the modern NRL competition, and thinking about whether State of Origin should always stay as it was since its inception in 1980 - or instead whether it might be time to plan for and make some changes?

Having watched State of Origin from game one in 1980 as a child through to the present day, there’s no argument that the concept provides for one of the annual highlights of the rugby league calendar. Rugby league fans all around the world recognise the mid-season series of three matches between the two heartlands of the game in Australia as the most intense, hardly fought contests of rugby league that you can ask for, and it remains a showpiece that attracts casual and potential new fans to the code like nothing else can.

But a lot of things have changed in rugby league since 1980, and Origin as we know it may also be forced to move with the times. With the introduction of the Brisbane Broncos and Gold Coast-Tweed Giants to the then New South Wales Rugby League premiership in 1988, this paved the way for “state against state” clashes on a weekly basis - albeit via the best teams these Queensland clubs could muster against the fourteen New South Wales clubs, rather than through sanctioned official representative clashes.

The emergence of the Broncos and Giants also stemmed the historical flow of Queensland raised players to Sydney in order to compete in what was the premier state-based club competition in Australia at the time - a one-way flow of players that had in effect made the pre-Origin interstate clashes such lop-sided affairs and created the need for a change in direction with representative rugby league.

If we can take a step back from the state against state Origin passion that has engulfed most of us at this time of year for the past twenty-eight seasons, we can see that the ways rugby league has been changing - and is still trying to change - in Australia and New Zealand over the last thirteen years gives us a very similar situation to that which encouraged the change to representative matches that created the Origin concept in the first place.

In 1995 what had been the New South Wales Rugby league premiership became the Australian Rugby League premiership with intentions of developing a national coverage and the first addition of a team from Western Australia (as well as raising the number of Queensland clubs to three) and one from New Zealand. 1997’s rebel competition saw the entry of a team from South Australia, and 1998’s reunited National Rugby League season saw the establishment of a club from Victoria.

While the fall out from the Super League war saw the clubs in Western Australia and South Australia come to grief, for the National Rugby League to live up to its name further expansion to these areas will again be on the agenda for the future. Imagine having four rugby league breeding grounds within our club competition whose future players will be excluded from participation in the traditional New South Wales versus Queensland version of Origin domestic representative games? It just doesn’t make good sense - or good money.

Before too long we will all have get used to having an “Others” compete alongside our Blues and Maroons…

- - - - -

750 words between the lines
Some facts checked in www.wikipedia.com

 

[eloquentEEL]

eloquentEEL - Eels
________

Three Finger Salute

“Smithy… wake up Professor, you’re drooling.”

“Huh?... What?... Oh, sorry. I was having that dream again.”

“Ah, the dreams of the head programmer of Knights Robotics Inc. Was it the one which ends with Vuna giving the crowd a three finger salute right on the siren in the grand final?”

“The one and only. One finger slowly raised after the other. One for each of his magnificent tries”.

“Well Prof, we always knew it would be a long term project. I think we’re well on the way. You made a great start with cleaning the registry on the FRINGE_PLAYER computer last year.”

“Yeah. We had no option really. There were so many rogue entries in there, and a few that were just confusing things and not doing anything at all.”

“You’re not wrong there. I just shudder thinking about that list:
CARMONTG
PERRYJ
DAVICOL
WOOLNOUGHA
SNOWDENK
TIGHEB”

“It’s just such a shame that the JOEY machine threw a fatal error and couldn’t be restored. I don’t know what was powering that box, but even though it was a much smaller server, it was processing far more than FRINGE.”

“So that’s why you had to upgrade to Mullen 2008 and use the failover box DUREAU.”

“Absolutely. Although one of the most important things I did was run that malware scan over the whole network and managed to Google an answer on how to get rid of Trojan.C.Newton”

“It was good to see you experiment a little, upgrading a couple of our existing programs and installing all those new programs. Wicks is working an absolute treat, and of course Vuna is absolutely flying on our network.”

“It’s all about getting the right program portfolio. Making sure that all your programs are correctly supported by the operating system and making sure that they don’t corrupt each other and lock up each other’s system resources. To tell you the truth, almost had to do a complete format of all hard drives and start again. I Kidley you not, it was that bad.”

“Yes, but you were under enough pressure just to keep what was working and cleaning up the rest. I especially like your tweaks and getting into the code. What was it that you had to fix in the Simpson program again?”

“Ah yes, Simpson. One of my favourites. I got in there and found the same stupid loop in the program as I’d seen before in Hindmarsh.

while opposition_ball = ‘Y’
then tackle(all)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t recompile Hindmarsh, but I think I’ve got the hang of it with Simpson.”

“Well, the latest release of Simpson just went in after we did the recent benchmarking and so far, your reprogramming seems to be working.”

“Funny you should mention the benchmarking, when was it? May 12? Anyway, we learned a lot from running our systems through the Storm 2008 benchmarking tool. I’m actually just working on a bit of load balancing now after seeing those results.”

“Load balancing?”

“Yes. In order to get our whole network performing at its best, we have to balance the load on our various systems. If you have a look at the results from the benchmarking, you’ll see that DEFENCE was working particularly hard.”

“Right. And it was doing a pretty good job there for the first hour or so.”

“Exactly. Meanwhile ATTACK…”

“Was, pardon my French, doing jack all for pretty much the whole test.”

“So…”

“… If you balance the load a little better, so that ATTACK picks up more of the work, then DEFENCE will be able to perform better for the full 80 minute test and the whole network will kill it.”

“Exactly. It’s similar to what you should see with Simpson. The tweaking should reduce the CPU usage of the Simpson.Tackle process down from about 80%, thereby congesting the whole system, down to about 20%, closer to where it should be.”

“So how long until you manage to get this load balancing between ATTACK and DEFENCE right.”

“Well, it’s a tricky subject but there… with that keystroke, I may have just finished.”

“Let me guess, it’ll require a reboot for the changes to take effect?”

“That’s right. So hopefully from one three finger salute to another, here goes…”

<CTRL-ALT-DELETE>


________

708 words

 

[eloquentEEL]

Proxy post for MarkInTheStands - Eels
________


When the Thrill is gone.

There comes a time in every football fans life. Well maybe in every New South Wales based football fans life when we all have to acknowledge that the thrill has gone. That our sides form is not as good as it could be, and for one reason or another this season is not going to turn out like we hoped.

It is a time when expectations are re-assessed, when anger spills over; when fighting amongst the fans on opinions is prevalent, and when crowd sizes dwindle to near family and friends numbers. It seems that this is not only true for the former power houses of New South Wales Rugby league, like Parramatta, Canterbury and the Dragons, but it echos all the way up to the New South Wales Blues.

New South Wales with its glut of clubs standing on each others' toes trying to one up each other is starting to affect every New South Wales club, to a point where only the regional clubs will survive. With poor performing teams come poor crowds. With poor crowds comes lack of income. With lack of income come increasingly poor performing teams.
League is struggling in New South Wales. You only have to read the papers recently to realise it. The head of the NRL acting on advice from the Sydney CEOs yesterday announced that without serious tax relief the game will be dead in this state. So pressing is the message that Ray &#8220;Rabbits&#8221; Warren even made a point of adding it into the commentary of last night&#8217;s State Of Origin call.

A Tax of 40% of the money received from poker machines, not of the profits, 40% of the money received, is to be given to the New South Wales Government. Instantly, as you turn on a poker machine the state Government will take 40% of any dollar that is taken by the machine. That leaves 60 % or 60c for the clubs to power the machine, pay for up keep. Hire staff to work the machines, and the bars. To pay for any other attraction to get people to play the machines and to pay the prizes. The State government takes 40% regardless and don&#8217;t contribute to any of the running of the machine.

I speak with a club chairman often, and every time we do so in a club, he asks me &#8220;You don&#8217;t play the machines do you? It&#8217;s a mug's game&#8221;. Now I have played the pokies, as the son of a problem gambler, it is in my blood, but I am lucky that I have the mentality that I don&#8217;t need to play them, but my recent reply to the question from the club chairman is &#8220;No I don&#8217;t, but it is also a mug's game running them&#8221;.

Rugby League has grown up on poker machine revenue. It will take more than 6 years of gradually increasing taxes to wean it off of pokie money. What is needed is a cultural revolution. We have competed with the AFL for such a long time, but have done so on the back of poker machines, now without them we are starting to struggle. AFL teams have never needed to use poker machines to help them fields their sides. They have used other methods of getting larger number of fans through the gates, to get them to become members, and to expand its footprint, so it must demand the highest sum for its television rights.

Over the last few years lead by the NRL, all clubs have looked to increase their memberships, but still the only true increase in membership will come if a side makes the Grand Final as success breads more success.

So it seems for Sydney, the lack of funds, mean the lack of good team over long periods of time, and may well mean that Sydneysiders will give up on League, and watch sides that represent the city as a whole and not just its suburbs.

I guess you could say the Thrill of having 9 teams in Sydney City is gone; we need to think about moving some of them off, For mine the logical ones are the Sharks to South Australia, and the Panthers to Perth. Then we need to think about contracting the number of teams still remaining. Sydney and Souths will need to become one. Then you have 4.5 teams in Sydney. If that happens will the Thrill return?

745 words.

 

[Willow]

 

[Robster]

Hard Stuff Eels, just missing out on your full ammo. Still a chance though 5 against 4. Good luck.

 

[bartman]

Good hustle under the circumstances this week Eels.

Best of luck Titans, you guys are going great for a debut season.

 

[Titanic]

Eels - you guys produce quality stuff week in and week out only to see it dunked in the Parra River. I know it's just a game and with the exception of Robster we are all newbies yet I can't help but admire that "we'll give you a game anyway spirit". Thanks for that.

I played in a junior team like that until eventually we started winning games 1 or 2 players down because we learned to compensate. With all due respect I hope that's not the case this week.

 

[LeagueNut]

Titans

Titan Uranus
A Very Special Place (750 words)
An interesting read. While there are some valid comparisons, I felt the link was stretched a little too far at times. Still, a good background on places not many of us would know a lot about.
Score: 85

Titanic
Monopoly: not just a game (750 words)
A good start, but a shaky end. I’m all for new ideas but this one seems to generate more questions than it resolves.
Score: 82

Robster
Tribute to Albert Baskerville (745 words)
A very informative article on a true Kiwi pioneer, but the author does himself no favours by leaning a little too heavily on his references. I don’t think substituting the word “huge” in place of the word “magnificent” but leaving the rest of the paragraph intact constitutes using your own words.
Score: 74

tits&tans
... ran away with the spoon (750 words)
An interesting look at the origins of the most dreaded prize of all, but aside from a few sentences towards the end, there wasn’t a lot of Rugby League content to it.
Score: 83

Amadean
The Origin of Health (730 words)
This one took a while to get going, but still kept me intrigued as I waited for the point to emerge. Very well written, and very true at the same time. I won’t even penalise you for being a Queensland fan.
Score: 88

Titans total - 412


Eels

Dean
Passion? (749 words)
Although some good points are raised, this one asks a lot of questions without giving any answers. It may have been best to focus on one point instead of trying to cover them all in a limited format.
Score: 84

bartman
Origin – To change or not to change? (750 words)
A good starting platform, but it sort of tapers off towards the end. I can see your point here, but I can’t help but think that the game is at least 10-15 years away from facing this dilemma.
Score: 84

eloquentEEL
Three Finger Salute (708 words)
Okay, this one really pushed my buttons. Very strange, very original, and very clever. I loved the Hindmarsh loop and the Trojan virus.
Score: 90

MarkInTheStands
When the Thrill is gone (745 words)
I have to admit that I don’t know or understand a hell of a lot about the whole Poker Tax thing from this side of the ditch, and this article does a good job in explaining the background and current issues. A few minor spelling errors let you down a little, and the ending did seem a bit rushed.
Score: 85

Eels total - 343


Gold Coast Titans (412) defeat the Parramatta Eels (343)
MOM: eloquentEEL (Eels)

 

[Titanic]

One more contribution Eels and you had us pipped - commiserations. Thank you touchies, thank you Ref - well done guys, have a good break and see you after Origin.