Well, that game can fuck right off.
Up 12-0 blot in the slop. Dud errors in the death zone. And the new chum Phins shock the top experts by rolling us at their baby ground at Moreton Bay.
And they come at you from everywhere, Manly fans, many of them, to tell you that it was bad. That your team is bad. And that you, by extension, are bad.
And in the dark periods within 48 hours afterwards, passions still high, you fire back, yeah, good, no shit it was bad. You can fuck right off also.
And then you calm down and realise it’s a long season and you’re missing a few and the defence is good and that’s two tight ones on the trot. And then you bet these people cartons of Mick Fanning’s Balter XPA, a delicious beverage. Because, baby, long way to go in this puppy. And the signs, while sometimes bad, are, actually good.
It’s just that the bad stuff is bad as Michael Jackson wanted to be in the multi-platinum album Bad.
Bad as the very bad arthouse horror flick Bad Boy Bubby, a movie that Matt Johns and chums on the Morning Glory radio show’s ‘Movie of The Week’ segment would agree could not be made today, and not a bad thing. Haven’t seen it? Don’t see it. You won’t feel better if you do.
Replays of the Raiders 20-14 loss at Redcliffe would be similar.
Excuses? A few. Prop’s injured, fullback’s injured, first choice winger’s suspended, centre’s playing fullback, second-choice winger leaps into the air in the pissing down rain to attempt an impossible catch with the scores tied 14-all and gifts possession and territory to a decent side with a slick fullback who killed off the game with their halfback in the sheds.
So yes. Dud result in a tough old game against a club that appears, after two decent wins, to have top-8 aspirations.
And that’s two tough, close ones in two weeks. And the Dolphins flogged the Roosters, who are good, aren’t they?
And bit of luck we’re two-and-oh on the road in the north.
But we’re not. We are just not.
Albert Hopoate? Appreciate the endeavour, even the self-belief that you are, in fact, leaping Sydney Swans full-forward Buddy Franklin and that you are playing Australian rules, a game without knock-ons.
But Albert? You are not Buddy Franklin. I can’t stress it enough. And, last tackle, in defence, in the wet, they put up a speculator in the hope that a Raiders player will fly into traffic and try to rip off a Big Play and knock it on. They couldn’t have scripted it better.
Matt Timoko? Toe the ball dead. Do not shepherd the ball from the rampaging lock forward while the ball sits, pregnantly, behind your try-line waiting for someone to jump upon it. Toe it dead. Drop it out. I can’t stress it enough, either.
Seb Kris? Carry on. It was a devilish little grubber from a pretty good, and competitive little player. And the sliding play to collect the ball was probably the one. That the soap bubbled out the bath, you’ll get that in a North Brisbane monsoon.
So there it was: three mistakes, three tries. You could drill deeper. Find stats for sets in the opponent’s Red Zone. This fellow Dan gets into the weeds at the Sportress.
I’m just gonna wing this one. And bin it. And make a nice cup of tea.
And focus on the positives:
Defence is good.
Storm lost.
Up the Milk.