State of Origin 2 - Queensland Under Pressure

It’s State of Origin 2. It’s only been 3 weeks since NSW comprehensively outplayed Queensland in Game 1. It’s been so long and the memories so good, some of us actually think Mitchell Pearce had a good game the first time round. Well a good game for him. And while we don't think Mitchell Pearce should be seen anywhere near a karaoke bar any time soon, he could be excused for belting out in Queensland's direction the David Bowie/Freddy Mercury masterpiece, Under Pressure. Knowing Pearce though, he'd probably go with the Vanilla Ice rip off. But we digress.

Queensland, stung by the thrashing handed out to them, has rung the changes. Unfortunately, that doesn’t extend to the coach. But Kevin "Not that Big Kev" Walters has made the tough decisions – he’s brought Billy Slater back. And Jonathon Thurston. With that kind of tough decision making, expect Captain Obvious to turn his talents to politics. Because we all know how well that went for is predecessor. 

Oh yeah, Captain Obvious also dropped most of the forward pack. This has its advantages. Nate Myles has taken up a residency at Pasha in Ibiza. After party security is now handled by His Girl Thaiday. Then it’s Back to Mine with Matty Johns. What.

Anyways, for Queensland, Wednesday is crucial – not only is the series on the line, it could be Thurston’s last competitive game at Origin level. No pressure Queensland. No need to think that playing in front of 80,000 Blues fans baying for only the second Origin victory in 10 years would be the kind of scene tailor made – but not Jason Tailor made – for a player like Thurston. Who else would you want to send over a wobbly field goal in the 78th minute to break a 4 all deadlock?

NSW will want to wrap up the series in Sydney. The idea of going to Brisbane in Thurston’s last game with the series still to play for would be the worst case of dead man walking since Paul Gallen's captain's run last year.

Either way, it’s going to be huge. It’s going to be hard. And it’s going to be coming at you. Live on TippyTappy Sports. To hear us call the game, bash that green button any time after 7:45pm 

Australia v Saudi Arabia - A Love Story

Saudi Arabia is a country that is all too often in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Sure, the recent spectacle of President Trump fondling an orb and predicting the next episode of fake news was cool.  After all, it provided a brief respite from the barrage of alleged human rights abuses, censoring of free speech and indiscriminate incarceration that we’ve come to know and love from our Saudi cousins. But Saudi Arabia poses a far more immediate threat to Australia – direct qualification for the World Cup in Russia 2018.  This is why on 8 June 2017, all Australians should check their political sensibilities at the door and either get out to the Adelaide Oval or get down to the pub to support the Socceroos.

The equation for the Socceroos is pretty simple. Win by 3 clear goals and move to second in Group B and pretty much guarantee direct qualification. Or draw/lose, remain in third place and face a play off for qualification. Not just one play off. Possibly two. The first would be against the third placed Asian team in Group A. Win that and then face another play off. Not against an Asian team but the 4th placed team from CONCACAF. At the moment that’s the USA. Let’s hope their keeper has tiny hands. We know their captain does.  

Given all the domestic football that’s on, you might have forgotten that the Socceroos are in the midst of their World Cup qualifying campaign. To be fair, the campaign has been going on since June 2015. That’s not a typo – June 2015. Think back to what you were doing then. Ok stop. Now clean up after yourself. June 2015 is almost a year to the day when the NSW Blues comprehensively demonstrated that victory in 2014’s State of Origin was basically a fluke. Almost six months before the Wallabies would reach the pinnacle in world rugby by being the best team in the world after the All Blacks. Hell, in June 2015 people still genuinely believed signing Lance “Buddy” Franklin on a 10 year contract was a bloody good idea.   

We all know how the match against the Saudis is going to go. It will be a cagey affair with Australia not wanting to commit too many players forward for fear of conceding a goal on the break. The Saudis will remain ‘compact’ in defence which is a polite way of saying they will ‘park the bus, ute and any other armoured vehicle that happens to be around’. Australia will look to Aaron Mooy, he of Huddersfield – and now playing with the big boys in the English Premier League – to inspire. We will look to Tom Rogic to conclusively prove that he does the best Mark Viduka impersonation of his generation i.e. is a gun at club level but goes beyond AWOL in big internationals. Regardless, if it’s 0-0 with ten minutes to play, expect to see lots of footage of Ange Postecoglu lurking in the technical area threatening to go the full Calombaris – no, not underpay his staff but abuse anyone in earshot.

Most importantly, this qualifier will provide cannon fodder for all the soccer ‘haters’ out there as the Saudis look to slow the match down, fake injury and fake concern for fellow human beings. That is not fake news. President Trump would be proud. That’s reason enough to get out there and wear your green and gold. We’re calling it 2-0. To Australia.

This article was first published here

Tour de France and the Mont Ventoux: Running Up That Hill

In a blaze of insomnia, I stayed up late last night and watched the Tour de France for the run up the hill. Sure, I was hoping for cooking tips from everyone’s second favourite late 80’s tv chef, Gabriel Gate, but the stage was to the not quite summit of the ‘iconic’ Mont Ventoux in Provence. After all, how else would you want to spend Bastille Day? 

Any climb up a mountain over 1,500m is deemed ‘iconic’ unless it happens to be Mt Koshoosko. Or is it Kosciuszko. Kashiskhi? Kaschnitzel? Either way, Mont Ventoux doesn’t have a weak and watery pale ale named after it. Mont Ventoux does, of course, hold a ‘special’ place in Tour de France folklore.

It was on the Mont in 1967 when the British cyclist, Tom Simpson, died while participating in the original Tour de France 3 drug monte. Apparently, Simpson died from a combination of stomach upset, heat exhaustion and amphetamines. Seriously. Anyone who fancies getting on a bike and climbing to 1900m with a dodgy tummy and a burning need for speed on the inside is either insane or has taken a wrong turn on the way to the Full Moon party.

Last night’s climb was meant to be different. The finish of the climb had been reduced by several hundred metres given there was a problem with the wind. The wind. Of all the things to be worried about when riding a bike, wind should be somewhere between “no helmet” and “can’t find my tyre pump”.

Then I realized that the winds on the summit of Mont Ventoux can get to 320 km/h. In summer. What. No wonder Tom Simpson was on the speed. Of course, Mont Ventoux is not a ‘special’ place due solely to Tom Simpson or its weirdly aggressive wind. The esteemed French philosopher, semiotician and good ol’ boy Roland Barthes had plenty to say about Mont Ventoux. But then he had plenty to say about a lot of things all while eating jambon be Bayonne and chuffing Gaulois. I think what Barthes was trying to say about Mont Ventoux was that it was really high. And steep. And he got a lot of pleasure out of watching blokes puff their cheeks out while climbing to the top. Certainly I did last night.

Which brings me to the stage itself. Chris Froome was apparently going to ‘make a move’. Richie Porte was also going to ‘go with Froome’. Nairo Quintana was going to do whatever it is that Colombians do. On a bike too.

What none of the riders was expecting was to battle crowds that were running free in an organic, free range kind of way that would make Rene Redzepi shed a tear. Given the problem with the wind, the race organisers didn’t put up any kind or barriers to hold the crowd back in case the barriers were blown over. That’s fine in theory. But a couple of days after Chris Froome showed even less respect for a spectator as Paul Gallen allegedly did for Cameron Smith, it didn’t seem wise to have no form of crowd control. After all, it’s the Tour de France, it’s an iconic mountain stage, it’s hot, it’s steep, it's Bastille Day, we’re all on the pastis. What could possibly go wrong?

And then Richie Porte crashed. Because a motorbike had stopped. Because it didn’t want to crash. Into people. Who were drunk and generally disorderly. Unlike early Buzzfeed headlines, you actually will believe what happened next. Chris Froome came off his bike. And rather than wait for the support van to get to him and lose some 5 minutes, he started running. Like a late model T-1000, Froome tucked his helmet under his arm and started Running Up That Hill. I haven’t seen a more ridiculous sight since Aaron Woods tried to high jump his team mates in Origin 3.

It wouldn’t be the Tour without some kind of ridiculous controversy. And unlike Kate Bush, I wouldn’t swap places with Froome.