Stick wields axe after Panthers disgrace; names strong XVII for comp-topping Broncs
Yes, it was a flat-out hideous effort against Penrith at GIO Stadium last Friday night and it's taken us a week to write of it. But from the mangled carcass there are green shoots of hope. True fact.
Last Friday? Pretty ordinary, of course. By the end the Panthers were playing keepings-off and our guys were so many stunned mullet, watching the other boys play in the yard, effectively being taunted, called ‘un-co’, reacting, in-acting rather than getting in the game, getting in their very faces, making thing happen.
At the very least making them work for it, making them earn their Friday night Festivus.
Instead it was proactivity versus inactivity, and the premiers handed out a quite righteous whupping.
Yes, short turnaround. Yes, no Jack Wighton. Yes … no - that’s the list of excuses. You run out in lime green livery, at home, Friday night, you do better than that. You just do.
Because that, sports fans, that?
That was flat-out fuckin shit.
And yet: we beat Brisbane tonight.
What’s that? I’m on dangerous drugs? My brain’s been possessed like in that movie … that I can’t be arsed Googling, one where someone’s brain is possessed?
Mayhap that’s true, fellow wayfarer. Mayhap that’s true.
But I’m still running with it: we’ll beat Brisbane, and they’ll call it Upset of The Season and one of the Raiders’ Greatest Wins. And there will be talk of adversity and guts and the resilience we showed in the first four rounds but which went missing at Bruce the other night, for reasons doubtless Sticky Ricky Stuart will have examined and shone a cold, hard, merciless light upon this week.
Can’t imagine the video session was much fun. Can’t imagine it was much fun being told, you’re out this week, Bubba.
For lo has Sticki wielded the axe.
In comes Brad Schneider to start in the six, don’t mind it, Matt Frawley’s donkey drop punts weren’t really … good. They weren’t good. I like the bloke. He has a crack. But he’s a limited creator.
In the centres, Return of the King! Jarrod Croker is back from the reggies after Harley Smith-Shields felt big Stick’s stick. Old Crokes is straight into skipper – interesting. Got to be keen for a big one, and he’ll need to be, because Herbie Farnworth can jag about like a frightened gazelle.
On the other side a big, even match-defining battle between in-form running nugget Matthew Timoko and the all-jagging muscle-back Kotoni Staggs. Centres don’t often get the big bucks, the position has been sort of devalued to that of more agile backrower. See Brenko Lee, Eaun Aitken. Excellent Bronco backrower Kurt Capewell played for Queensland in the centres.
But Timoko and Staggs can run and hit and get over the stripe and carry men with them. They’ll go hard at each other at Suncorp, recognising a fellow traveler, if not wayfarer, whatever that is. Should be a beauty.
No Joe Tapine? Not ideal, no. I can grant you that counter-point to this upbeat bit of kit. And the tipster in me nearly saw it as a deal-breaker.
‘Nearly’ because Tapine is more than a middle, he’s a footwork and hands man. He’s an outlier. Normally big yins in the middle have simple jobs – belt the other middles, cart it up and don’t drop the ball. And that’s it.
And one assumes power-pups Pasami Saulo and Peter Hola have been given strict instructions from Stick: belt the other middles, cart it up and don’t drop the ball. And if you do anything else, I will have you executed in Garema Place, don’t think I won’t.
Yes, yes, yes, curse your fact-based pesimissm - Seb Kris remains a centre with the one on his back, and that’s far from ideal, I’d have told Jordan Rapana to bloody well play there and make up for the GIO shit-show last week.
And Albert Hopoate has a quite big job on Selwyn Cobbo, the latest of New Greg Inglises – Greg Inglii? – who seem to breed from the Queensland bush like Orcs from the goop.
And Adam Reynolds has somehow improved as a play-maker, it would be good if someone - don’t get ideas, Hudson Young, but you know - renders him immobile.
Elsewhere Reece Walsh can bop about like a beautiful, muscular little fawn or something I don’t know these fucking similes don’t write themselves and there is of course Payne Haas and Billy Walters and Patrick Carrigan and Martin Taupau off the bench they got him cheap but he’s handy and strong and fills a hole like Aaron Woods who’s played so many clubs you can forget which one he’s running into people for this week.
And what are we bringing to this same party? Josh Papali’i, Young and Big Red Corey Horsburgh who’ll start in the 13 and play as a middle before subbing for Corey Harawira-Naera when we need something to happen.
It’s not the worst thing. For things will happen. We are not – factity-fact-fact - the worst XVII. Not as good as the Brisbane one, on paper and form, sure. But the NRL’s a week-to-week proposition. And whoever said you’re only as good as your last game never saw the Bulldogs lose to Sea Eagles, flog Storm, beat Tigers, lose to Warriors, beat Cowboys and get flogged by Rabbitohs to be three-and-three in ‘23.
And that’s why we beat Brisbane: because it’s our turn.
Up The Milk!