It’s time for weekly Rugby League rant of The Gurgler’s angry man Buzz equivalent known only as the NRL Donkey, who provides his NRL Round 22 Expert Tips as well as offers an alternative, slightly unhinged view full of sass of the world of rugby league and beyond for another week.
The NRL Donkey’s NRL Round 22 Expert Tips and Weekly Rant
So the NRL finally gets over the State of Origin hype only to be overshadowed on Channel Nein by the Olympics. Sorry, I mean the swimming, then the Olympics.
There’s so many parallels between rugby league and the Olympics, most of them revolve around hopeless administration. For the NRL Bunker we have the clowns who decided to race the triathlon in the Seine River. Now I am no Water Engineer, mainly because I’m a donkey and the cheap skates in the federal government won’t give me Hecs to do the course, but using a river in a major metropolis was always going to be a bad idea. Even the pi$$poor planning for the Brisbane 2032 wouldn’t plan to do the Triathlon in the Brisbane River. Or Oxley Creek. Or even Yebri Creek and sorry for those fans in the Kallangur region holding out for an Olympic event. Sure the Brisbane 2032 will plough billions of dollars to present the worst Olympic Stadium in a Century, in the hope to have an even worse Olympics than the one in 1936 in Nazi Germany, but they wouldn’t be incapable enough to plan the Triathlon in the Brisbane River. Or at least they would ask the Brisbane City Councils to stop the City Cats. Although what a delicious extra obstacle that would be.
We think they should do it at Redcliffe – home of the mighty Dolphins. Imagine the thrill of the Olympians swimming the length of the Hornibrook Highway, then riding their bikes up and down the treeline memorial that is Anzac Avenue to the Kallangur RSL then hurrying their way out of dodge back to Redcliffe, then running along the foreshore, finishing up along that lane that has the Bee Gees statues. That’s iconic. And beamed around the world. And the headline writes itself “Stayin’ Alive to Win Gold”.
If you can think of a better place to hold a Triathlon other than the Seine River in Paris, Chernobyl, or Redcliffe, then send in your entries to gurgler.chat@gmail.com under the subject heading Gurgler Triathlon, and the best entry will win a hand drawn picture of three of our favourite Triathlon athletes of all time (list pending).
And while the Olympic is still the hot topic, what do we have to do to get a Fast Pool? If we have to endure seven days of swimming and Harvey Norman commercials featuring Ariane Titmus and her dad (who’s a Seven journalist in case you didn’t know) plus the Channel Nein rugby league commentator screaming at the TV for a second consecutive sport, then at least give us a Fast Pool.
Who on earth wants a Slow Pool? If nothing else, people want to see Aussie gold, and smashed world records. They don’t want to see winners 1.4 seconds outside the Olympic record. That’s like going to the NRL and hoping there will be only 14 points scored. It would be like people requested organisers add honey to the surface of the Monaco Grand Prix or the MCG groundstaff going on protest for a month before the Grand Final and refusing to mow or limiting long jump competitors to a five step run up. Olympic organisers need to forget about Carbon Neutral for just two weeks. Two weeks. And give us, the fans, the paying public, the consumers of Olympic sponsors product, except for Harvey Norman, up yours for having too many ads, and give us a Fast Pool.
The Fast Pool we demand and deserve.
After the swimming they can make it slow and put all the Triathlon swimmers in there at once. The pool can be as slow as it wants when there’s a 100 odd triathlon swimmers trying to swim a kilometre in a 50 metre pool all at the same time. In fact that would be very funny. And a little left field. And you can’t say the Olympic organisers don’t like left field. Look at the opening ceremony which was an all you can eat fruit buffet. They pole vaulted over left field into a new and exciting region. Left of left field. Which is rare air, like above the top shelf at a bar.
Before leaving the Olympics and heading into the NRL tipping, which should be the reason for this whole article, but so often isn’t, we should address the complaints about certain commentators at certain events. So, what were people expecting, it’s Channel Nein and they suck. Except for Peter Psaltis who is sport’s best commentator, and a close second is the voice of cycling Phil Liggett. Murray Walker would also be on the list but he sadly died a few years ago. He is still the greatest commentator of all time of any sport.
Someone who doesn’t fit that bill is Mark Taylor. For any sport, but especially diving. If there was an Olympic sport for air conditioning, and doesn’t that sound better than half of the Gymnastics, then Mark Taylor would probably still be crap at it, but he would at least have some tangible experience. But the best part of the outrage was the news headlines – one saying that “Aussie TV Royalty” was outraged. When that “Aussie TV Royalty” turned out to be former Channel 10 weatherman Tim Bailey, we saluted. And crossed off our Bingo card for TV obscurity for 2024 six months earlier than planned after crossing off Consuming Passions’ Ian Parminter in June. And people complaining about Taylor should remember, it could be worse. Even if wasn’t for legal problems they might have considered Michael Slater. Nuff said.
Nuff said too about the Olympics, onwards to the weekly tipping.
The NRL Donkey’s NRL Round 22 Expert Tips
WESTS TIGERS v NORTH QLD
Last week said anyone who tips the Tigers deserves what they get. Perhaps John Bateman didn’t tip the Tigers in the dressing room tipping comp, so he will do so now from the UK. Although he’ll probably miss the Thursday game with the time zones. The Thursday game is usually sh!t anyway. As evidenced by this week’s game. Neither of these teams have played Thursday yet this season. The last time the Cowboys came to Leichhardt they conceded more than 60 points. Being a Thursday night with the Cowboys playing, the crowd will probably only be double that score.
Tigers by 8
WAHS v PARRAMATTAHS
Parramatta are winless away from home this season. So it’s hard to imagine an away trip to Auckland will be any better. They even lost the only home game they took on the road.
Warriors by 8
DOLPHINS v ROOSTERS
Sadly the Dolphins are dying in the arse, as the saying goes, with a certain finals series looking unlikely. So Wayne Bennett will have the unbeatable record of coaching two sides in the one season to miss finals without getting sacked. Looks like the Dolphins decided they may as well make a hard game harder by shipping it over to Perth. I guess this will test the locals demand for rugby league and not just lonely North Sydney Bears fans. To be honest I quite liked the Pirates nickname that was floating around for the WA side at some point. So much you can do with that. But everyone seems to like the Bears. Except that hopeless ranger chasing Yogi Bear around in that cartoon.
Roosters by 20
GOLD COAST v BRONCOS
What a time for the Gold Coast. They have won four of their last five and face a busted arse Broncos with the chance to do a rare season double over their capital foes. This will be the biggest win for the City of the Gold Coast since the AFL announced somehow that the Brisbane Bears would play on the Gold Coast, or the sadly forgotten baseball powerhouse Daikyo Dolphins took out the ABL title in the 80’s or 90’s. What an era, Dreamworld was still cool, Warwick Capper played for the Bears, Captain Charger was a mere few years away. Lots to like. Not like the Broncos. Gorden Tallis says it’s Adam Reynolds fault and he should be dropped as captain for Patrick Carrigan. I say let them wrestle it out like a pre-season pi$$ up. Oh, they’ve already done that? Who won? Well clearly Adam Reynolds as he is the captain. Either way I disagree. The Broncos just need more Xavier Willisons.
Gold Coast by 12
MELBOURNE v DARGONS
Melbourne will give the Dragons the spanking they deserve, just so we don’t have to listen to how big a coaching genius Shane Flanno Flanagan is by his worshippers at Fox League. They’ll see a real coach is action. Although, come to think of it, both have titles via (legal dept removed).
Melbourne by 48
CRONULLA v SOUTH SYDNEY
I have sat here for 20 minutes trying to think of something clever, or funny, or warped about this game. I just can’t. It is this week’s Meh Game of the Week.
Cronulla by 5
PENRITH v NEWCASTLE
Newcastle’s spin the bottle approach to halves meets….the triple Grand Final winning combination. That’s all sorted then.
Penrith by 36
BULLDOGS v CANBERRA
Rugby league where it should be. At a suburban ground on a Sunday afternoon. If only we could dust off Ray Warren so he and Gus Gould could reminiscence and argue about it. Or not. Bulldogs are unbeaten at home, and they have a few of them over the course of the season. Given they are Bulldogs, they will defend their home with growls and bites. So that would make Canberra the Australia Post of this game. Whilst we wouldn’t past Ricky Stuart to kick a dog, or at least a weak-gutted dog, same for Hudson Young, and Corey Horsburgh if he were playing, and I’m sure Jordan Rapana would chase a stick like not many others, and Xavier Savage could outrun most dogs including those stupid Sausage dogs, overall Canberra won’t win, because they aren’t dogs.
Bulldogs by 6
