The Grapple

Billy names anew skipper and he’s on the Munny

The blowback on DCE hasn’t been real funny

Wayne hoses down rumours of Cobbo becoming a bunny…

Socceroos go straight through on a Metcalf strike… sweet like honey

This week our heroes tackle the topics of Origin selections,  Aaron Woods words and the second coming Lachie Galvin. Forwards passes and all. Players meeting coaches and coaches denying meeting players. Have we heard this before? The Grapple Wouk like to confirm that Joel has never met Johnny, ever….. even there was a fire.Get busy Grappling or get busy dying. 

It’s the sound of footy right now.. and its nothing new

Gus plays us all… we collectively stew

The prospects of the maroons… look decidedly blue

So lets distract ourselves with lachlan Kennedys very fucking fast SHOES

TIME TO GRAPPLE. 

The optics of the NRL’s relationship with key broadcasters and club hierarchies is more blurred than ever. Not even Fred Hollows could fix this one. Enter our heroes, with a concoction of call outs and constructive pieces of feedback for the game to contemplate/implement at its nearest convenience.

Footy players telling journos and punters they wouldn’t know things because they were never on the footy field is nothing new, but Reece Walsh took it to frightening new heights this week with his dissing of a journo for pointing out a fact with absolutely nothing to do with playing football. Tha deserves a grapple too.

Highly paid reserve graders, completely reasonable super rugby finals prospects and Australia’s fastest man with media variations on pronouncing his name.

If it’s to be grappled with, the grappling shall occur. 

 The Autopsy of the Queensland Corpse will be conducted by Johnny  and special guest host Shane Muspratt 

It's the day after the night before. Our heroes, fresh from an evening that began with confident anticipation and ended with deep, dark depression, have the unenviable task of picking over the bones of another lost Origin.Searching for answers, pouring over replacements, speculating on futures ........but what will they uncover?

Perhaps a fiendish plot, an inside job. The long game has been played by an infiltrator who has sabotaged Queensland's junior rep infrastructure.

What once was a robust breeding ground of toughness and talent and is now a participation ribbon.

This began 10 years or more ago and is only bearing fruit for the insidious infiltrator who dispensed with junior reps, and now our depth is being genuinely challenged for the first time in history ( except for 1995...hey, what happened that year again?) Has Chez played his last game in Maroon?

Is tough Tom ready for the task?

Can Munster reclaim some magic?

Is Cobbo cancelled?

Are we looking at another masacre on the western front?

all questions asked with  very little in the way of actionable answers.

It's an all North Queensland Hosting panel this week.... and zero bias evident.

On days life this Life is definitely a Grapple... you just gotta dig it 

As one of our heroes takes a sabbatical his seat is filled by a special Guest Host.

Regaling tales of Paris, Osaka, Suncorp Stadium and nights on the jars with Alf, Luttsy places his feet in the sizable shoes left by Joely.

The Origin teams have the rule run over them and surprisingly the consensus of all in the room is QLD victory.

Media training for the wayward Broncos shapes as a secondary source of income for our Grapplers with advice on life flowing freely.

The PNG experiment is Grappled with and as is customary a physics discussion on the time it takes to move through the earth from any two points on the surface. 

In lieu of Neil deGrasse-Tyson you'll just have to take out word on the outcome. 

All this and much much more buffoonery.

When life gives you lemons, you have our permission to Grapple. 

An overcast Queensland Autumn Tuesday evening , on the roof of a Leagues on Fulcher Road Red Hill, a solitary man cuts a forlorn figure as pulls the cover off a large spot light pointed into the Brisbane sky and grits his teeth as he flips the switch….. he sighs as sparks shoot from the steampunk switch….. a moment of silence and anticipation…almost gives way to concern that the spot light has failed…… after all its been nine months… then with a wurr and a shudder the brilliant beam sets the South East sky alight….. a silhouette that excites every Broncos fan and tells every other fan…we really don’t give a shit… The Ezra Sign… and just like his Gotham City counterpart…. Ezra will answer the call.

And the heroes will Grapple with it….

It is a time of great upheaval.

The NRL.. obsessed with its quest to flood players' veins with hyperdrive fuel and create the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, have created a paradox of umbilical proportions. Referees are afraid not to blow the whistle, while also being terrified of its piercing shrill.

The Get Square narrative around football means penalties not blown in one game are now blown in another. One might describe the approach as utterly Sith-house.

Meantime.. rumours abound concerning a rebel faction dropped by their clubs and plying their craft in state league. The Imperial senate will move to quash any chance of them speaking out about their fortunes, while also unearthing a good news angle around the disturbance in the force that is Ezra Mam returning.

In the Outer rim of non-rugby league content: Oscar Piastri has completed the Kessel Run in 4 parsecs, collecting a chequered flag at each checkpoint. Comparisons are being made on his stature in the all time stakes.

Amid it all.. an echo in the force. An awakening. And two idiot padawans are dispatched by the Jedi Council to investigate.. or be investigated. We’re not quite sure.

As player safety continues to be the number one issue in Rugby League today our heroes are buoyed with confidence knowing the NRL will not.... ever.... compromise...... if there's a fire.

Our heroes provide the CSA that there has been no crackdown, none...Crackdown here, no... 

The 18 sin bins last week was the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite our sincerest efforts we have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. 

Matrix Revolutions quotes aside, the Grapplers tackle the assertions of the NRL's top dog and turn from admiration to criticism the deeper they delve and separate themselves from comparisons with David Gallop.

The player safety focus is challenged by the numbers in the NRL casualty ward and the Rabbitohs being with a 3rd of their top squad riding the pine. 

Far too much Broncos analysis for one, is never enough for another, as these men offer solutions for Madge's glaring absence of hookers in his squad.

Rugby Australia's deal with their new coach is sealed with a Kiss, Joe Schmidt gives the resurgent men in Gold the Long Kiss Goodnight, and the Reds are Kissed on the proverbial to hold on to their coach for another year.

Tom Lynagh has not been given the Kiss of Death despite what some outlets are reporting, he's just being rested, and Harry McLaughlin-Phillips is next on Kiss List.

With every Kiss pun exhausted our hero's gaze turns to the Subcontinent and the actions of a young man aged between 14 and 34 who became the youngest kid in the IPL to knock a ton and in 35 balls thank you very much.

Amazing considering how small the Indian junior base is. 

NBA, a quick lesson on vice work and a couple of charming dudes who simply want to Grapple.

Like it, subscribe to it, share it, dig it. 

As any Statistician on a juicy consulting wage from the NRL will tell you, records are made to be invented, and it's with this gusto that our heroes grapple with yet another glorious 'crowd record' declaration issued from Pyongyang. That, alongside the scheduling of a double header to take on the British and Irish Lions tour opener, assures us all the leadership coming from HQ remains- as ever- supreme.

The game is feeling a bit 1998 at the moment, with unlimited tackles AND the reinstated presence of the Bears. A reverent look at Bears past unfolds, as our grizzled heroes pontificate their wisdom, while subtly referencing Wikipedia articles.

Expansion is on the mind and in the gullet, from PNG to Perth, and next (we're pretty sure) the announcement of a team for the league loving province of Daugavpils in Latvia.

Forward passes, high tackles, sin bins and tipping shit shows. Some harsh but fair calls on QLD Origin selections, while Johnny invites fellow male model James O'Connor back into the Wallaby fold- only to be met by a wall of disinterest from Joel, who is pretty sure no one would really bat an eyelid if he became an All Black. Our heroes also briefly mention a few Super rugby scores, amid wide eyed realisations they probably need to watch the games before talking about them.

 And so, we leave you with an ode to the game:

As the whistle blows, and blows and blows and blows

The spectacle known as rugby league gets more on the nose nose nose

But lets not stop PVL and co from making it grow grow grow

From Perth to Port Moresby...soon we’ll have more teams than players to put on a show show show

The only thing Grappling harder than our heroes this week isLachie Galvins Instagram algorithm.  Withthe young man being essentially boned this week by Benji our heroes doingsomething no other media outlet is doing...provide an opinion on the Tigers/Galvin saga..... but wait there's more.

Despite the East Coast of Australia thinking that's the onlystory worth our intrepid  raconteurs will regale with astute  insights into domestic and world rugby, how the hell anyone can say The Joker shouldn't be MVP and keep a straight face, The LA Chargers next Pro Bowl Tight end ( a former QLD Red of course) and the usual repartee, swordplay, quips and wisecracks you've come to love and know.

Life’s a Grapple Lachie…dig it….. play like hell is Reggies…and maybe sack your manager …just saying.

Join our heroes for a crucial investigation, as they try and work out exactly WHO started the ugly, damaging smear campaign against outgoing Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans. A long list of suspects and a longer list of clickbaity dickheadery; let’s just say it’s an investigation breaching deep inside the walls of the NRL ‘moidea.’ Even more intriguing is a preview of the nuclear fallout on its way when one or both of the Turbo brothers are told they are surplus to operational requirements.

Payne Haas wants to play for Samoa, which alongside Tonga currently provides the majority of the NSW backline and a smattering of its bench forwards. Understandable he’d probably want to have his cake and eat it too, while equally difficult to understand is the melted and sat-on box of ice cream cake that is origin eligibility. A simplemessage here: sort it out, sillies.

The QLD reds are showing signs of late 90’s combined with 2011, and we’re loving it. The ashes are back: Joel doesn’t like it because the Ashes are for cricket. Meantime it somehow prompts Johnny into a now trademark rant about Ireland and the UK and geography or something. Whatever it is he’s talking about- it’s bloody good television. 

The New York Yankees are batting with marble columns stolen from the Acropolis and getting away with it. And Steph Curry is forcing the writers of record books to finally transition from quills to typewriters- such is the speed of his record shattering exploits. 

Life, as always, is a grapple. Dig it, because you can.