We need to talk about Corey – 3 Things Corey Norman could do during his Gap Year

What a couple of weeks it’s been for our current favourite NRL player, Corey “The Wonderdog” Norman. Seriously, is there anything he can’t do? He has scratched almost everything off the NRL Not To Do List. The only things probably missing are “ask Anthony Mundine for lift to airport”, “use boots as toilet” and “touch someone on genitals (front and back)”. Now he gets to go on a Gap Year too!

While it’s admirable that The Wonderdog has decided to live each day as if it’s his last (Mad Monday), the 8 weeks off will do him some good. Give him some time to reflect. He can take a long hard look at himself, although preferably not in the mirror or on Snapchat while “performing” some kind of “sex act”.

So here are 3 things we reckon The Wonderdog could do during his Gap Year to fill in the time.

1.         Get politically active

Now that he’s dined with bikies and been told off by the Police for cavorting with known criminals, or as we like to call it, “chillin’ with m8’s”, the logical next step is for Norman to join an extremist political group.

Why should anyone have the right to tell The Wonderdog what to do and who to do it with? He should be free to have as many spring rolls, pork buns and those funny little fried prawn toast things as he can handle and not have to take a pill afterwards to aid digestion.

Campell Newman tried to do something similar in Queensland and look what happened there. So whether it’s communist, fascist, jihadist, or otherwise, who cares? Just get active. Get involved. Rise up m8.  

2.         Get involved in property development

It’s been tough at Parra generally. Given the salary cap breaches and stench of administrative ineptitude surrounding the club, Norman should do what all great rugby league clubs do when they try to fit players under the salary cap – sniff out property development opportunities. There are a whole bunch of property projects in North Queensland that are just crying out for the kind of man management and attention to detail that only Norman can provide.

Once he’s done that with the obligatory stint on Renovation Rescue, Norman can turn his attention to Parra itself. After all, it’s the new CBD. It’s booming. We’ve been hearing this since the 80s or at least ever since Peter Wynne’s Score still ran ads on television.  Surely now is the time to turn The Roxy into some crap apartments with a lap pool and a rooftop cabana. Residency by David Guetta too! Justice Crew on Sneaky Sundays though.  

3.         Get on a reality TV show

Pauline Hanson went on Dancing with the Stars. Shane Warne was on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Some Poontang. So old mate Corey should probably have a crack at something too. Probably Masterchef. He can cook up some organic, single origin contraband using a recipe handed down from one generation of cartels to another. And then share it with his m8’s. That’s what life’s all about eh. Shared times, shared memories. shared needles ok too.  

4.         Find Chrissy Sandow

yeah this is number 4 out of 3 but so what? seriously. where is chrissy? is he coming back? can he and corey play together now that parra have been penalized? it doesn't even have to be rugby league. come on. fellas? fellaz!

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.

State of Origin 2 - Match report and post mortem

Like a fatty boombalah starting a diet tomorrow, every June talk turns to whether this is the year the Blues finally break the shackles. This is it. The players have learned from last year. They’ve learned from Game 1, They’’ll do it for The Chin; they’ll do it for Uncle Laurie; They’ll do it for…  SPOLIER ALERT: They didn’t. This match review could end here. But it won’t.

This year, things were meant to be different. For a start, Mal was no longer the head coach of Queensland. But just as everybody knew Uncle Junior was the Boss in name only and Tony Soprano was really pulling the strings, this Queensland team has Mal’s grubby paws all over it. Mal’s comment that “it’s good for NSW to win from time to time”, is the kind of pat on the head you used to give the unco neighbor your mum used to make you play ping pong with whenever you let him win. 

What we saw in Game 2 was the kind of performance that NSW have been trotting out since Jarred Mullen was the Great White Halfback. In fact, the only thing more predictable than NSW losing when in a position to win is mainstream media whining about Speak No Inglis being born in NSW. He’s not playing for NSW. Get over it. We are never ever ever getting back together. After all, Pitcairn Island is a more verdant source of organic, fair trade, single origin players.  Get it! GEDDIT. Yeah puns are cool man. We like plays on words too. Add us on Snapchat!

Anyways, NSW didn’t make things easy for themselves from the outset. Wade Graham was out. He was never actually in. He tackled Where’s Darryn and now he might never play Origin. Uncle Laurie said “Wade brings something new to the team”. Like what? Bacardi Breezers? Chicken drumette sliders? Frankly, when you’ve been named after a verb, bringing your boots for training is already a win.

 Brett Josh Morris was also out. Dylan Walker had the full 80 minutes to conclusively prove that he is the best in NSW at putting his hands on his head after knocking with the try line at his mercy on since Nathan Merritt. And didn’t he just. Of course, no report could fail to mention Michael “AVO” Jennings. Quite how he was able to put in arguably the best ‘worst on field’ performance in Origin history surprised even himself.

 The match post mortems focused on the lack of ‘culture’ in NSW, the lack of ‘true’ leaders. For once, Phil The Toad Gould is probably right. We say that only because Wayne Bennett agreed with him. And he knows a thing or two about winning. Clearly, what’s missing is a lack of true grit in NSW. Just as Jeff Bridges had to head out into the Wild West to really learn how to become a man, the Blues have to do something similar.

Short of getting Wayne Bennett in as coach, we think that what our esteemed administrators need is to set up a new state of origin – an Islamic State of Origin. Taking on the hardest men this side of the Levant is the only way to ensure NSW stay vaguely competitive. It’s unlikely to be enough to defeat Queensland in Game 3, but it’d certainly ‘bring something new’ to the team. World peace too.  Cool! Add us on Snapchat! Or just watch the vid linked below.