Round 5 – Easter Eggs

Instead of a standard recap, this week’s Roast will take the form of eight generous helpings of Easter goodness – the annual Easter Eggs, designed to stimulate thought, encourage debate and…..who am I kidding, it’s just easier to do than a normal Roast. Enjoy, good tipping and see you next week.

‘Paul Gallen doesn’t travel to away games; the Earth rotates on his command’

Saturday’s twilight game saw another extraordinary performance from Paul Gallen, who again played the whole 80 minutes (mostly at prop) but also filled any number of other roles for Cronulla. Chuck Norris would have been proud (except Chuck Norris does not get proud, because he expects everything).

Gallen does have more help this year than at any time since 2008 but the salary cap and alcohol-fuelled cultures at other clubs have probably played a greater role than Gallen in driving the fortunes of this year’s team. Recent signings De Gois, Carney, Gibbs, Fifita, Graham, Best, Robson and Ross were all rejected by their previous clubs.

However, Gallen is without doubt the best big forward in the game at the moment. There is no one who could perform all the tasks with the excellence and consistency that he does.

'Jarryd Hayne: a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters STILL couldn’t explain him’

Jarryd Hayne is one of the most gifted athletes in the NRL but trying to understand what makes him tick is impossible. At times on Saturday night against Manly, Hayne was at his best, putting in maximum effort and able to do what he wanted when he wanted.

However, at most other times, he barely broke out of a jog and appeared to favour his recently hurt knee. But there seemed little pain or discomfort, merely efforts to emphasise the strapping around his knee and tell whoever was watching that he did have a sore knee and it might not yet be better (just in case he or the Eels had a bad game).

Such behaviour could be permitted on the soccer field (especially with a lazy, goal-poaching, egocentric striker) but is almost unheard of in rugby league, where constant collisions and impact require maximum effort and intensity from the moment you step on to the field. For most people anyway. Hayne’s limited effort was still better than most would have been, but you can understand the rumours suggesting his team-mates disapprove of his approach to performance.

‘More troubles on the home front’

Once again, it was another sub-par week for home teams, but even more tellingly, Penrith, the Gold Coast and Canberra all lost at home. For Penrith, this was their 6th home loss in a row – their worst run in 30 years. For Gold Coast, they have now won one of their last 11 at home, while Canberra has won only 4 of their last 15 at home.

However, even more incredibly for Canberra, they have only won 2 of their last 10 games at home as the favourite. In contrast, they have won 2 out of 5 as the underdog during this same time.

For the Tigers, they have several home grounds, but Sunday’s defeat to Souths was eerily similar to their last game at the same venue in last year’s semi-finals and also Souths’ late victory over them at the SCG in 2009.

‘Waerea-Hargreaves: Grade 3 Tissue Slapping’

In Saturday night’s Roosters v. Warriors game, Roosters prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves charged towards the attack. Warriors forward Ukuma Ta’ai saw JWH coming and stepped but JWH put a hand out and brushed Ta’ai’s face.

Ta’ai stopped in his tracks, slumped to the ground and waited for medical attention and the video referee to confirm JWH had in fact touched his stubble.

After Ta’ai’s play-acting, everyone involved did what was required of them (after all, no official is going to suggest play-acting with the possibility of legal action should this diagnosis be incorrect), but if the NRL does not introduce a system whereby players are punished somehow (in a post-match review of these incidents) then the game will suffer heavily.

‘The goalposts should be shifted – literally’

Sunday’s Gold Coast – Canterbury game featured the incredibly rare sight of TWO kick-offs rebounding off the goal posts.

Granted, this does not happen often, but is there one good reason why it should happen at all? In other words, why are the goal posts allowed to interfere with play, either from a kickoff, a kick in general play or as interference in attack or someone trying to escape from the in-goal area? The answer ‘Because it’s always been like that’ is not a good reason.

In the not too distant past, grounds (and specifically in-goal areas) of different sizes would have meant pushing the goal posts to the back of the in-goal area would have been awkward, but with new/upgraded stadia around the NRL, this should be little trouble. Put the posts on the dead ball line and take them out of play.

‘Benji Marshall is the best anyone has ever been at anything, ever’

The Wests Tigers gave a far better account of themselves on Sunday afternoon than they had in previous weeks, especially considering the injury to forward leader Gareth Ellis and the suspension of Robbie Farah.

However, the Channel 9 commentators had eyes for only one Tiger: Benji Marshall. Sure, he played a key role in what looked like being a Tigers win but the praise of what were not much more than run-of-the-mill plays for a half-decent playmaker was excessive, porcelain-bus drivingly so.

It is understood that media wants to promote stars of the game, but their praise is so widespread, appears for the most routine of plays while criticism or errors are ignored. Marshall led the Tigers to easily and unnecessarily surrender position just before Souths’ comeback started.

Meanwhile, for Ben Barba, another media darling, while his run out of the in-goal area on Sunday was impressive, the media missed his forward pass to Morris for the undeserved length-of-the-field try. There was also the cheerleading from all in the media of his basketball-bounce try late last season.

‘It’s all fun and games until somebody ambushes Robbie Farah in the eye’

The rugby league media also came under inspection again last week after Robbie Farah’s ‘interview’ with Matthew Johns. Johns asked some questions that would not normally be asked of a player in the media (unless that media member wanted to be ostracised by players) but the questions were entirely consistent with his previously stated views and those of many supporters.

Despite being made aware of the questions one hour in advance, Farah reacted tersely to John’s questions. There was the possibility that Farah’s outrage was staged but this seemed less likely after Farah complained of being ambushed soon after the interview on Twitter.

Farah is either trying too hard to seem upset or has the thinnest skin ever seen on a professional sportsman. But despite positive feedback to the interview, it seems unlikely that a show featuring NRL players would risk ongoing censure by the game and/or the players for asking questions other than ‘So mate, how’s things looking for the weekend, should be a hard game?’ For that, we are all poorer. Players are, for the most part, juiced-up sound-bite machines – who needs them? Just get some good opinions, preferably who have no relationship with players and let them loose.

‘Hindy, thanks for the memories and one from the archives on Saturday night’

Finally, it is the retirement at season’s end of Nathan Hindmarsh, the popular tackling machine of the Parramatta Eels. It is somewhat sad that he will retire without winning a premiership but that he will also retire probably having not lived up to his potential as a wide-running back-rower. Instead, due to lazy team-mates and poor recruiting, he often had to tackle for 3 and this became a habit.

This usually meant his tackles were rarely of the intensity of, say, a Tariq Sims but he inspired the Eels to a rare win on Saturday night with two bone-crunching tackles in the second half. It feels like a long time since Hindy has fired up in a way that hasn’t involved chasing down a speedy outside back (which is also good to watch but not quite the same as a big hit).

See you next week.