FAO: All Union Haters

[billy big ears]

This should get the Rugby types all huffy. LOL
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/24/1066974316695.html
Why I hate rugby
By Tony Hardy
October 25, 2003


I gave this game a chance.

When I was four, my father made me mascot of the Hawthorn-East Melbourne Rugby Union Club. I lasted three-and-a-half minutes, the time it took to carry the bloated match ball to the captain who had lined up in the middle of the rectangle they use as an oval.

Scared stiff and not knowing who he was, I toddled past him.

This hairy behemoth lifted me off the ground, grabbed the ball, then sent me crying back to my father, who was no doubt looking for somewhere to hide.

Twenty years later I had almost forgotten rugby until I'm sure I saw "the captain" play an extra in a BBC documentary called The Fascinating Stone Age. As intelligent members of the tribe were discovering fire, in the background the captain grabbed a she-woman by the hair and dragged her into his cave.

My father was a New South Welshman. So I need not explain to you the unexplainable. I have struggled to cope with that race on the other side of the border for no other reason than their obsession with a big bridge and rugby. Maybe I'm biased but I reckon they love the game because of the love of the jumper, it being a fashion accessory.


If world sport were objects on a mantlepiece, rugby would be a Royal Doulton figurine. It's pretty, almost inoffensive, and best left for your mother to love.

Standing awkwardly beside it is a stubby holder. This is football. It's cheap, sort of classless, functional and it's there when you have your greatest moments.

Whatever you do to it, it always springs back into shape.

Unlike rugby, it's perfect.

Consider the scrum. When the five-eight (three eighths short of a real footballer) throws the pill under the scrum, why doesn't someone from the other side tunnel his way through all the legs and just steal it. Why?

Because you're not allowed. Why not? Rules. Repressive, British, private school, Range-Rover driving, polo playing, opera loving, Head of the River, merchant banker, navy blue wearing, la-de-da rules. No other sport makes you feel like you should sit up straight like rugby does.

In fact, if this is the game they play in heaven, I don't want to go there. Being forced to dance hip hop in the eternal fires of hell would be fun compared with this game of mauls and lineouts.

This game of clumsy kicks to the "twenty-twoooo" and of the preposterous Gordon Bray, the man who pronounces Subiaco "Sooobyarcoe" as though it's not an ordinary Perth suburb but a quaint village in Provence.

Months after the mascot debacle, my father erected a giant H in our backyard. He wanted me to place the ball near the clothes line, run at it, then kick it over the bar. I think he wanted me to be a Wallaby. To help, Dad knelt over the ball. His finger held it upright on the grass so it wouldn't tumble over. Reluctantly, despite knowing it was unnatural, I said "OK".

Time after time, I ran to him but each time I grabbed the footy and booted what I remember to be lovely, right-foot, reverse bananas and torpedoes.

Over or under the cross bar, I kicked grand final-winning goals every time. My kicks scored six whole points. Not a measly three.

I was Royce Hart, not Mark Ella. It felt so much easier this way. Because unlike rugby, the game they play in heaven and NSW, it just made more sense.

Tony Hardy is a Melbourne writer.

 

[noodnuts]

Originally posted by Joffaboy
Adelaide is a lovely place, just a little far out of town for my liking though.

Many Storm followers are Kiwi's and islanders in Melbourne. Once ex NS Welchman (like me) or Qlders move to Victoria, they soon discover that they had been sold a pup with RL and quickly convert to the true Australian game AFL.

Union is also a better and more skillful game than League.

this would have to be one of the lamest excuses i've ever heard!!! what do you mean you were 'sold a pup'? no one forced you to buy anything, no one put a gun to your head and forced you to watch league.......were you press ganged into league matches?

let's face it, you have psychological problems with the gringos of sin city and consequently you became a quisling and turned traitor. you were looking for any excuse to stick it up the gringos and the best way to do this was to pretend to like mexican rules footy!!!

what happened.....did you under go a mystical conversion on the road to mexico city?

 

[Pantsless]

Please, please, stop dribbling on. Time and time again you post ridiculous *****e. One post, we may have thought it an oversight...maybe you were drunk..who knows?

But post after post of unadulterated rubbish. You reply to things, not understanding of what they said and just go off on your own tangent.

You are embarrassing yourself and you are embarrassing all Rugby League supporters by purpetrating the stereotype that all RL supporters are uneducated yobbos.

Just stop with the dribble..please!

 

[lollies]

Billy big ears - you missed this article that accompanied it.




Succumbing to the lure of rugby's cup
By Martin Flanigan
October 25, 2003


What is it that characterises the best sport or the sport I like best? It's when the intensity is such that each act, and each particle of each act, is charged with meaning. That's how England and South Africa began last weekend.

I particularly watched for Jonny Wilkinson, the wunderkind of English rugby. His kicking style, in which he simultaneously appears to pray and squat on an invisible log, has been much analysed, but I like watching him in general play, the powerful rhythm of his movements, the quickness of his responses, the way he draws space and sees possibilities before they otherwise appear. Jonny would do just fine in our game.

But within two days, the London Times had run a piece by former Wallaby David "Campo" Campese saying Wilkinson was susceptible to pressure. Campo, no stranger to making the big call early, was doing his bit for his country.

As Bruce McAvaney said, the English have the look of destiny about them, but I am mindful of what I was told by an old rugby man I met this week at the Vintage Red reading group in Camberwell. Look at how many of the English players are over 30, he said. How many games can they play at that level of intensity over a six-week period? That's how I'm taking this World Cup; one conversation at a time.

When New Zealand played Canada in Melbourne, I sneaked along, sitting in almost the same seat I had when I went with a Muslim friend to watch the Kangaroos' Jason McCartney play in what is now called the Bali game. Of course, the language was different.

At the rugby, the bloke behind me kept saying, "Oh, come on you guys", like he was telling office workers the tea break was over and to get back to their desks, but then there was not a lot riding on the match.

The All Blacks are the favourites with the bookies to win the tournament and something in me hopes they do. Take Collingwood's humiliation in this year's grand final, magnify it to the status of a national drama and you have the feeling that followed the All Blacks home after the past World Cup.

What I know about the history of the All Blacks basically comes from The Book of Fame, an outstanding novel by Lloyd Jones about the first All Black tour of Britain in 1905.

More specifically, it's about a group of farmers, abattoir workers, colliers and clerks who left New Zealand to play the game they played with neighbours against neighbouring districts and were so far advanced on anything seen in the other country, which also happened to be the seat of empire, they ended up in the company of kings and dukes and famous actresses. One hundred people, mostly family, saw them leave; thousands upon thousands greeted them home.

Canada kept trying. Early it made a couple of breaks. Judging from the noise, everyone in the crowd wanted it to score. Their players ran half the length of the pitch before being brought down like gazelles pursued by cheetahs. But you had to give it to them - they got up and tried again.

As a game, rugby is modelled on 18th and 19th-century European military practice. By the end of the match, you felt like you were watching trench warfare from World War I with the Canadians rallying for yet another fruitless charge with bodies weak from the pounding of massive men such as Rodney So'oialo. The man behind me said Rodney was a "point me in the direction and tell me where to go sort of player" and that he was faulty in his ball handling. I'll be watching for that.

On Wednesday night, I sat up to watch Argentina and Romania. Romania had an orthopaedic surgeon on the right wing. Argentina had several members of its forward pack wearing headgear that resembled the colourful bathings caps worn by ladies at the beach in my youth.

The origins of rugby intrigue me. Unlike soccer, which had existed in different forms for hundreds if not thousands of years, the story of rugby union is the story of a school game - that is, the game of a single school - that ended up in funny places all over the world.

What I know about South American rugby comes largely from meeting two members of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972 and who ate the bodies of their former team-mates to survive.

The two men, Carlitos Paez and Roberto Canessa, would be on the list of the more interesting people it's been my privilege to meet through journalism, but, in researching their ordeal, I read that rugby came to Argentina through a religious teaching order - the Christian brothers, perhaps. In the case of Romania, I'm told the game was introduced by the country's former dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu.

Tomorrow night, England plays Samoa in Melbourne. The Samoans tackle like runaway brown boulders. Their coach, who missed a World Cup semi-final as an All Black because it was played on the Sabbath, says his team is taking inspiration from the Bible story of David and Goliath.

I'm going along. I've always liked that story. It would be very interesting to see it played out.

 

[noodnuts]

Originally posted by Pantsless
Please, please, stop dribbling on. Time and time again you post ridiculous *****e. One post, we may have thought it an oversight...maybe you were drunk..who knows?

But post after post of unadulterated rubbish. You reply to things, not understanding of what they said and just go off on your own tangent.

You are embarrassing yourself and you are embarrassing all Rugby League supporters by purpetrating the stereotype that all RL supporters are uneducated yobbos.

Just stop with the dribble..please!

mr pants please stop yapping like a mexican chihuahua. from your posts i sense deep psychological problems are troubling you. you seem to be a fish out of water, a mexican caught up in the big smoke of sin city unsure of your place in the scheme of things.....am i a gringo or am i a mexican?.....this is the question you keep asking your self. this inner turmoil is what leads to the extraordinary and vitriolic personal attacks directed at me.

like any fish you will always yearn for the river that you were spawned in, no doubt you have dreams of swimming in the yarra's murky embrace. perhaps it would be best if you headed back south of the border.

 

[Pantsless]

Looks like my tip to look up the dictionary paid off! And you found the thesaurus as well...good boy!

I'm not the only person who thinks you're a tool! Just read through the thread.

 

[Bellicose]

Originally posted by Mark Rudd

I'm a born and bred VIC. Preferred AR. Watched a sport called RL and loved it. I know many who have done the same. Personally, I prefer contact football to non-contact codes like AR and gaelic.

AR not a contact sport?

...And the Mark Rudd Goose of the Week Award goes to...

(drum roll)

Mard Rudd!!!!

(audience cheers)

 

[Pantsless]

Agreed.

Although, I thought it would be a waste of time replying to that post because of the sheer stupidity of it.

That post did however, cross the line from objective opinion to absolute dribble.

As Marge Simpson once said, "You didn't just cross the line. You threw up all over it!"

 

[Bellicose]

I love this db. If you ever do or say anything dumb, all you need do it look for a Mark Rudd post to cheer you up and make you feel smart again.

 

[Fire Storm]

AR a contact sport? Huh? Have I missed something here? Ah, I see. Its a joke. You got me there.

Cause I remember all the games of AR I've played and I dont remember there being any contact.

 

[billy big ears]

From the AGE today. This guy makes some very valid points.

Rugby - the game they play in Anglo heaven
October 29, 2003

International rugby has always progressed at an imperceptible rate and, at certain times, including during the modern era of professionalism, it has rather tended to regress.

Now, it seems, is such a time: barring an upset or two from the Pacific islands teams, we are going to have, for the first time, a Rugby World Cup quarter-finals line-up featuring none other than the eight International Rugby Board "old boys". Argentina has taken a step backward since 1999, and Samoa and Fiji remain unlikely to revive their glory days of a past era by returning to the final eight this year.

This RWC is a disaster for the image of rugby as an international sport. There was not a single upset among the first 30 games. It was like watching a movie when you had already read the book. Only three of those encounters were separated by less than a converted try. The majority of them were separated by a margin of three converted tries or more. Australia had achieved the biggest walkover in tournament history and the average winning margin stood at a fraction under 40 points.


This is not an RWC so much as a flagrant exhibition of rugby's failure to develop as an international game.

The Australasian press was convinced this would be a superior format to the 1999 model, but it has proved the opposite. The problem is not with the number of teams competing. The same number were involved four years ago, but the brevity of the group stages limited the mismatches to the opening week or so of competition and there were no complaints.

Neither is a separate tier required. Players from the minor nations have commented that they would not have it any other way and that playing in an RWC second division of sorts would not inspire them at all. It would also be unlikely to inspire public interest.

France, I believe, should revert to the 1999 format for 2007. The teams that wind up in the repechages to complete the quarter-final line-up will only have themselves to blame - and at least those repechages would be competitive, crowd-pleasing affairs.

But the real problem lies not with the format, either. It lies with the lack of real work being done between RWCs to help bring the developing nations up to speed. For a decade or more the IRB has paid lip service to this objective, but what has it actually done? Its intentions are good but one gains the impression it is not a strong enough governing body, and too often allows itself to be bullied by the elite playing nations, of which there are few. Rugby at the highest level continues to be dominated by England, a few of its former colonies and France.

As a fan of international rugby, I am embarrassed by the sham that is being passed off as the fifth Rugby World Cup.
Peter Hamilton,
Barcelona, Spain

 

[Pantsless]

AR a contact sport? Huh? Have I missed something here? Ah, I see. Its a joke. You got me there.

Cause I remember all the games of AR I've played and I dont remember there being any contact..

Doesn't surprise me at all...you sitting in the forward pocket too scared to go near the ball..you soft ****!

Why do you keep opening yourself up to ridicule?

And would you care to explain how I broke my arm in a tackle playing AR?

I await your stupid, purile and immature post in the coming days. I reckon we have a winner of the "Mark Rudd Goose of the Week award" before it's even been typed out!

 

[Bellicose]

Originally posted by Mark Rudd
AR a contact sport? Huh? Have I missed something here? Ah, I see. Its a joke. You got me there.

Cause I remember all the games of AR I've played and I dont remember there being any contact.

Come on. Out with it! You and noodnuts are the same pseudo person!
(en passant: does this mean we have to divide the goose of the week award?)

It seems that you did infact receive some pretty serious contact in that game of AR, and have yet to recover from it.

 

[Fire Storm]

(sigh)


I though you were a fisherman Bellicose?

I went to the same school as Shaun Hart. Beat that. Yep. The Bears wanted me instead of Hart too. Someone with my talents though dont except anything less than $250,000 a year for a first contract. Cheapskates!





Pantyhose Head?


I believe every wall in your tent/home is covered in my 'awards'.

 

[Ms.Storm]

Originally posted by Joffaboy


Many Storm followers are Kiwi's and islanders in Melbourne.
===========================================
SOME Storm supporters are Kiwis....most are your average Australians....anyway, what's wrong with Kiwis, they are huge favourites with me....wish we would get more to the Storm games, but they like to follow the Warriors.
==========================================

Once ex NS Welchman (like me) or Qlders move to Victoria, they soon discover that they had been sold a pup with RL and quickly convert to the true Australian game AFL.
==========================================
NOT NECESSARILY JOFFA, ONLY SOME.
==========================================

Union is also a better and more skillful game than League.
========================================
NOT NECESSARILY SO AGAIN JOFFA.

 

[Ms.Storm]

Originally posted by billy big ears

Originally posted by Hicham
Excellent point Bellicose, and I knew that one was coming. However, my point is not soley the fact that the majority of the side is not 'Queensland' as such, but the fact that Akermanis is not a born 'n' bred Qlder and then has the hide to say we dont care about Origin - that's what gets me.



The big difference is that the Brisbane Lions sell out the Gabba and rate very well in QLD try that for the Storm in Melbourne - average 8000 at Olympic park and dont rate on TV = no comparison.

Billy Big Ears has nothing in between them.
How many times do we have to tell Mr. Bill Big Mouth that the Bears have been around for a long time and have been supportered by the AFL TO THE HILT, even when they were down and out averaging a few thousand people to games.

Get your facts right Billy Baby for heavens sake.

 

[dr nick]

Originally posted by Mark Rudd
(sigh)


I though you were a fisherman Bellicose?

I went to the same school as Shaun Hart. Beat that. Yep. The Bears wanted me instead of Hart too. Someone with my talents though dont except anything less than $250,000 a year for a first contract. Cheapskates!





Pantyhose Head?


I believe every wall in your tent/home is covered in my 'awards'.

Has anybody seen the movie "Preston Tylk"? This guy reminds me of the brother.

 

[billy big ears]

Originally posted by Ms.Storm
Billy Big Ears has nothing in between them.
How many times do we have to tell Mr. Bill Big Mouth that the Bears have been around for a long time and have been supportered by the AFL TO THE HILT, even when they were down and out averaging a few thousand people to games.

Get your facts right Billy Baby for heavens sake.

Shut your mouth idiot. NEWS Corp (co owner of the Storm) pump in Millions of dollars into the dying club all to no avail they get less support now than when they started and this includes winning a premiership..
So dont tell me to get my facts right.
And the Brisbane Lions are out drawing the Broncos in Brisbane -that is a fact.The new Suncorp stadium was supposed to improve the Broncs crowds but this didnt happen apart from the novelty opening game.

 

[Fire Storm]

"The new Suncorp stadium was supposed to improve the Broncs crowds but this didnt happen apart from the novelty opening game."





Actually, it did. Check your figures.






"Shut your mouth idiot"



What would your mother think of that language(sic)?

 

[Fire Storm]

"Has anybody seen the movie "Preston Tylk"? This guy reminds me of the brother."


And what would YOUR mother think of you watching x-rated movies Nicko? Shame on you.









Hehehehe. Geez I'm good.

 

[dr nick]

i must admit, the title does sound a little pornographic now that you mention it.... but youre not good.

 

[billy big ears]

Originally posted by Mark Rudd
"The new Suncorp stadium was supposed to improve the Broncs crowds but this didnt happen apart from the novelty opening game."





Actually, it did. Check your figures.






"Shut your mouth idiot"



What would your mother think of that language(sic)?

Ill just go and wash my mouth out with lye soap. ********.
OH there I go again tch tch tch.
The Lions still out drew the Broncos overall.

 

[vindor]

Originally posted by Rex
To the executive comparing that opening game to the GF ridiculous. If he watched both games you would not want that game to be used as a sales pitch for union. I couldn't stay tuned with so many ad's while time still on. I went to the League GF with 5 min to go it was still anyones game THAT was totally exciting from start to finish and I didn't need anyone to tell me.

Rex, I can see your point!

Firstly, Im an one-eyed AR supporter, and this sport will always be number 1.

However, I watched both the RL-GF and the RWC-opening-game, and for me the RL-GF was much... MUCH better. I have never watched much of either of these two sports, but I was far more impressed with the RL.

I have only watched the one RU game (opening) from the RWC, and segements from about 5-6 others. The fact is, I find RU very tedious to say the least. At least with RL game, my attention was maintained throughout the whole game, and I actually enjoyed watching it.

 

[noodnuts]

Originally posted by vindor
Rex, I can see your point!

Firstly, Im an one-eyed AR supporter, and this sport will always be number 1.

However, I watched both the RL-GF and the RWC-opening-game, and for me the RL-GF was much... MUCH better. I have never watched much of either of these two sports, but I was far more impressed with the RL.

I have only watched the one RU game (opening) from the RWC, and segements from about 5-6 others. The fact is, I find RU very tedious to say the least. At least with RL game, my attention was maintained throughout the whole game, and I actually enjoyed watching it.

try telling that to mr pants and his cohort of private school twits and they wont believe you!!!