Bombs from space on Saturday afternoon to frighten Gold Coast Titans
Such is the bye-heavy nature of the 2023 National Rugby League, Gold Coast Titans could leapfrog Canberra Raiders with a win this afternoon. Jamal Fogarty won't let that happen.
THE GOLD Coast Titans, eh?
The Gold Coast Titans that sacked their coach?
The Gold Coast Titans which scored an immediate dead cat bounce victory over Brisbane Broncos?
The Gold Coast Titans in 11th place but who will leap-frog our Canberra Raiders with a win at GIO Stadium at the highly-under-rated kick-off time of 3:10pm this Saturday afternoon?
Those Gold Coast Titans?
Friend, we eat them like your mum’s spaghetti bolognese.
We own them like George Washington once owned slaves.
We whip them and whip them good, as American rock band Devo sang in the hit song “Whip It” from their third studio album Freedom of Choice (1980).
At home. Peach of a day. Fast surface. Jamal Fogarty raining bombs on AJ Brimson like icy mortars from space as a pack of devil dogs rush and harass and hurt him.
There’ll be tries aplenty and the tip is: Get on, watch the game, get in line at your SP book’s.
I say that to all the girls? True. Because it is true: every weekend these our Canberra Raiders, on the back of Fogarty’s space bombs, have the attacking chops to offload and run and scorch the earth.
The five-eighth is running left, ball in two hands, a potent mix of light feet, athleticism and brawn, and right-side Ds cannot cop him at all.
And now he doesn’t have to worry about kicking he’s reprising Best Since Laurie Daley form.
Joe Tapine, Corey Horsburgh and Hudson Young hurt to tackle.
And if they could defend with the same intensity as they attack, they’d be the Penrith Panthers.
Alas they are the Canberra Raiders. And this could be nine tries to six, 46-32, and a fine afternoon out spectating, were I there I’d be there.
Them? Their wingers are up with Josh Addo-Carr as the fastest in rugby league, Kieran Foran’s a bit of skilled gristle while David Fifita can channel our man Mal Meninga when the mood takes him, though there is the rub with David Fifita, you’d get more consistent rent from an Ozarks meth-head.
They do welcome back their giant, Tino Fa'asuamaleaui, and if you want to know what it’s like to be a sports writer, kids, type that bastard’s surname into a Word document in a Golden Point game on deadline, you’ll curse the entire South Pacific.
But fair player, Big Tino, his forearms are like Big Mal’s bumper bars wrapped in old white arm-guards, and it would’ve been good to see Josh Papali’i run into him many times. Alas Big Papa’s off with an old man’s hamstring strain, though silver lining: a few weeks off and he’ll come back refreshed and fit and ready to rip into the finals series that – do the NRL ladder predictor – we could finish anywhere between third and third-last, only that weird-ass -69 points differential deciding the position.
Nothing is certain, of course, in this harum-scarum season of National Rugby League 2023.
But I like us. As ‘Butch Coolidge’ (Bruce Willis) says to himself in the award-winning film by Quentin Tarantino Pulp Fiction (1994), “That’s how you’re gonna beat ‘em, Butch. They keep on underestimating ya.”