Parra matters: Milk to shake Moses-free Eels
We've tipped them four in a row and won't stop now. At home against the Eels without Mitchell Moses on a Saturday night, Canberra should win. Which means a nervey time to be a Raiders fan, of course.
Dunno.
Can’t tell you.
Flat out, hundred per cent, rock solid gold bullion dredged up from the dark red earth by the child miners of Brazil, say, or Uganda, can not, with any confidence, tell you who will win the NRL round 11 fixture between Canberra Raiders and Parramatta Eels at GIO Stadium on Saturday night.
Dunno.
We’ll tip the Raiders, of course. Because they should win. All the food groups are represented: form, momentum, confidence, home ground, eight-day turnaround versus six, a halfback who’s in form and, you know, ‘playing’ rather than one who’s the fulcrum around all which is potent for your team but who is, you know, ‘not playing’.
But missing all those links, Mitchell Moses and more is our Parramatta Eels, who’ll turn up at Bruce on Saturday night thinking, We’re coming to piss-cold Canberra to get out of a rut? Screw that, Hans Brix. Who’s next week? The Bunnies at Allianz? Yeah nah. After that? The Cowboys in Townsville? Yeah, baby. We’ll be good then, Coach. Give us a couple days off in the Townsville Tap House and watch us rock it north of that tropical circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point at the December (or southern) solstice.
Or not. Who knows? The bookies have the the Eels at $2.15, pretty skinny latte for a mob travelling like busteds who can’t get it done, losing so many games by less than six points. While the Raiders ($1.75), as has been described a time or two within these e-pages and in actual physical ones that children may not know are contained in things called ‘books’, could be generously described as enigmatic at best.
Or flat out fuckin kooks, if you will, and I did, and often, in the The Milk, a 40-year history of fandom and something I just thought up, a kook book, if you will and I do, my gift to you.
And lo! So has it been in 2023 as our people have headed out on 12- and 18-point leads, little journeys, even sojourns, like hunting dogs, frothing and bounding out ahead of the pack, only to tire, and be pegged back, and find more wind, and be swallowed again, and somehow get up and fall in over the line against Broncos, Dragons, Dolphins and Bulldogs, four weeks on the trot, it’s a streak but a typically streaky one.
But a win(s) is a win(s) … s omething.asd.fasfasd’fjasd;klfj that’s going nowhere.
Anyway. We’ll beat ‘em, probably, I reckon, because:
Big Red Corey Horsburgh’s found the potent mix of power and passion, mixing his crazy-arsed blood-orange blood lust with physical gifts and the disciplined hard-arsery of the professional 60-plus game NRL man. He’s in a very good space two weeks from Origin 1 in Adelaide May 31 (wanna go?, give me a shout);
Josh Papali’i and Joseph Tapine are often receivers one and two in a set before Big Red gets his chance rumbling further up guts, it’s a simple game the greatest game of all rugby league, sometimes you just need big hard pricks charging up guts like berserkers. Craig Bellamy’s been lauded as a ‘Supercoach’ for this game plan and Melbourne Storm’s won many premierships because of it;
Matt Timoko! Shit-hard to tackle, low centre of gravity, he’s opposing (and never ‘versing’, kids, it isn’t a word, please never ‘versing’) former Raiders flanker Bailey Simmonson and, for mine, in a pivotal clash, Timoko will give Simmonson a big bubble bath;
On the other side Jarrod Croker’s not making mistakes, and kicking all his goals, and he scored a try against the Bulldogs that was a beauty, and I thought it was over for him but he’s keeping Seb Kris at fullback and he’s playing well enough it’s keeping Xavier Savage in reserves, and we’re four-from-four, don’t change a thing, Sticki, know you won’t;
Jamal Fogarty’s running and kicking and passing - read: being a threat - which has freed up Jack Wighton to just be Jack Wighton, and play, and throw pure flat passes that are so good they appear forward, passes so good referee Chris Sutton is in reserve grade this week because of one that put Emre Guler under the posts, if they’re rubbing out that pass the terrorists have one.
The blokes they aren’t picking - Corey Harawira-Naera, Harley Smith-Shields, Xavier Savage - are good. Thought they’d keep Savage for Albert Hopoate who went to a wedding, and thought Harawira-Naera might sneak back in for one of the giant man-children Ata Mariota and Pasami Saulo, or even Elliott Whitehead who, after 175 first grade games for Canberra Raiders in the National Rugby League and 177 games of Super League for Catalans Dragons and Bradford Bulls (for whom he debuted in 2009) is, at 33 years old, looking old. And not as nippy. Or fast. Or effective. Champion player and fellow. As the Blake and the Pork podcast fellows would sing in their terrible falsetto Who’s gotta lift?, it is Elliot Whitehead. Hope he does. A lot. Prove me wrong, Whitey, like Tootsie did Stick. But there’s more yesterdays than tomorrows.
Ricky Stuart has stayed loyal to Whitehead, and Hopoate, and Mariota, and Saulo, and by doing that, standing by one’s word, he has said to the greater squadron: I have got you. Loyalty is appreciated by the greater playing squadron. Even if it means they’re playing reserve grade, they know: the coach will not bullshit me. Play well and I’ll get back in. And then Stick will pick and stick.
As will I.
Raiders by 7.
Up the Milk.