On crashing out
Recognise the signs before it is too late
Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a weekly newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
Rugby league doesn't love you
A while ago, when my eldest was four and the youngest was a toddler, we were leaving Bunnings. It was a ten minute drive home and the youngest was upset. Operating in a base state of exhaustion and frustrated that I was being yelled at for something I could do nothing about, I lost it: yelling, slamming the steering wheel, real jerk-off behaviour that lasted maybe 30 seconds. I stopped when I heard my eldest trying to soothe her sister, exactly what I should have been doing. It is a sobering moment when a four year old shows more emotional maturity than you, the ostensible grownup.
Parenting, it seems within my limited experience, is an unending series of small humiliations until you are blessedly shuffled off this mortal coil. There is love and triumph and relief but mostly, it is humbling yourself before the human condition. Do you have any idea just how much shit I have had to clean up? Worse, I feel like I have gotten off lightly on the fecal front, so if nothing else, this experience lends itself to a degree of self-awareness, a wider perspective on life and a deep understanding of the effects of fatigue on the human body.
From time to time, the NRL causes me to, using the parlance of our times, “crash out”. This is not merely being upset or frustrated but finding yourself on the express train to a psychotic break. The 2023 grand final was diappointing in the extreme but that was the kind of disappointment you sign up for when you get into sports. This kind of crash out is much worse. The emotion overwhelms and threatens the tether to reality. We are beyond rationality. Many a radicalisation has started here and when you contemplate retributive acts of terrorism against Phillip Street, it is time to take a deep breath and have a lie down.
When you spend as much time on this as I do, it is very easy to get too wrapped up and lose sight of the forest for the weird-looking parasitic plants harvesting all the nutrients from the idiots that thought we were all in this forest together for the betterment of the ecosystem. The 2019 grand final was such a moment, as the Roosters’ trainer was man of the match. The postponement of the 2021 World Cup, with the background of the godawful six again season, was another. The 2021* NRLW semi final similarly triggered me for reasons I don't even remember. Ashley Klein sending off Kalyn Ponga was the most recent.
Within a day or so, I was concocting conspiracies of V’landys’ very real influence on the media, the denial that the NRL issues specific instructions to the referees on how to manage games, Ash Klein’s insane commitment to the bit and the Assassination of Archduke Tolutau Koula. I realised that while this may have some truth to it, it is also too crazy to be able to express, even in this newsletter of crankery. Declaring open season on referees was probably not going to be productive. I recalled my own maxim: rugby league doesn’t love you.
It was time to have a lie down.
The time spent away varies. I got over the Broncos being “dudded” in 2021* by not watching the women’s grand final and that was it. I took the last eight weeks of the 2021 regular season off but watched the finals. The Klein incident was likely in the ballpark of I am too pissed off and I don’t want to hear any of your stupid fucking opinions about this and normal business could resume after the weekend once everyone else had moved on to something else.
This enforced vacation only applied to the professional tier of the sport. I don’t have an issue with the community game. The Ipswich Jets’ roadshow was coming to Dayboro, one of a dozen cosy towns on the limits of the Southeast that delineate city from country, and an easy half hour drive from home. Following the kids nagging me about going to the footy1, this seemed ideal.
On a cracking Sunday, we had lunch at the bakery in town, went to the game, had the easiest time in the world parking thanks to the pleasant volunteers from the Dayboro Cowboys, sat in an amphitheatre at the foot of Mount Mee and watched a catastrophic upset. One of the worst teams in rugby league overcame one of the best teams in Cup, a stunning victory in the mould of Tsushima or Midway, masterminded by their former coaches, the Walker Brothers.
The Cydesdales held the ball for most of the first thirty minutes and decided the game then and there. The Jets’ Lachlan Ilias, showing the skill that has brought him to Dayboro, took nearly forty minutes to engineer a try by repeatedly running his edge out of space. Julian Christian cussed out the opposition loudly enough to hear it from the sidelines. Western’s backline had one of those games they’ll tell their kids about.
There are worse ways to spend a weekend than letting your children safely run around somewhere not near you, enjoying a flat white and surprisingly high quality football in peace and quiet, with green vistas and fresh air. With a semblance of balance restored, it was time to return to the NRL and get into the content mines. Now to take a big sip of water and check the news:
Broncos host accused war criminal, Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith after shock Dragons defeat
Ben Roberts-Smith was a surprise visitor to the Broncos’ dressing room after the club’s shock loss to the Dragons, with the Victoria Cross recipient revealing the touching reason for the invite.
Excuse me?
What a week
A lesser writer would make an appeal to you to subscribe to improve their mental health. I am lesser still than that and won’t even link it to my mental health.
The Broncos have crossed that line between everyday villainy and cartoonish super-villainy
Being a Broncos fan requires a degree of making peace with evil. The Broncos are the richest in a sport whose politics do not venerate the wealthy. Worse, the club is owned by the Murdochs, whose own politics have made the world a worse place to live in ways unavailable even to the average billionaire.
On the substrate of grime, cheating and violence against women commonly associated with the National Rugby League, add strata of success and arrogance, the Super League thing, getting every Friday night game, rehabilitating Matt Lodge, Ezra Mam and yeah, we get it. It’s a real shit tiramisu. They hate us.
Friday nights are scheduled the way they are because the Broncos are the most watched team in the league, something like Super League had to happen, I wasn’t thrilled with Matt Lodge, he sucked, he’s now been at six NRL clubs and everyone has forgotten why they were pissed off in the first place, and other than the cosiness with the Courier Mail, News’ ownership is so arms-length that it barely has an impact on the day-to-day. We all make moral compromises somewhere. That’s life. No ethical consumption, etc, etc.
Having “war criminal” in the same headline as “Broncos” is a depth that even the White-Seibold era did not manage to plumb. The whole story, as reported by the Courier Mail, as follows:
Former Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has made a surprise appearance at Suncorp Stadium.
Roberts-Smith was spotted in Brisbane’s dressing room after Sunday’s shock 30-26 loss to the Dragons.
The Victoria Cross recipient has a relationship with Broncos welfare manager Adam Walsh, who is also a former SAS soldier.
The Broncos became the first team to lose to the Dragons this season.
Roberts-Smith was invited into the sheds after the game and said he was grateful for the Broncos’ hospitality.
“The Broncos invited my daughters today because of all the things they have been through and we were very grateful,” he said.
Roberts-Smith has been charged with five counts of war crime murder. The former soldier is expected to fight the charges.
The Ninefax papers followed up with:
The Broncos refused to comment on the matter, but sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed Roberts-Smith had not been a guest of the club, did not visit the club’s chairman’s lounge during the game, and that most of the players had no idea he was in their inner sanctum.
Senior figures at the NRL were unaware Roberts-Smith had been invited into the Broncos’ sheds, but later said it was a matter for the club who they wanted to invite to their dressing room.
Setting aside the culture war, the absolute best case scenario for the Brisbane Broncos’ front office is that they don’t have control over who is around the players. At some point, long before game day, someone should have asked what this guy, who is charged with several counts of homicide-related crimes, would be doing here - imagine how anyone on a murder charge would be treated! - and who approved his kids getting passes. It’s not like “Roberts-Smith” shouldn’t ring alarm bells.
Note the carefully curated non-comment from the club that specifies the places he wasn’t, suggesting access to other places that fans who aren’t accused of war crimes aren’t usually allowed.
The worst case scenario is that the club is supporting an alleged war criminal through his trial and, by association, so are the fans and sponsors of the club. I, for one, did not sign up for that. The courts will rule what they may but I would humbly suggest a man who fought multiple defamation cases, backed by the richest and most powerful people in the country, and lost them all so badly that he is now the target of a criminal action may not be a PR slam dunk.2 If his children have suffered, I can think of one man directly responsible for that.
I consider myself smart and I spend a lot of time around people who are also smart, so despite my self-conception as an irony-poisoned cynic, I find myself floored by acts of stupidity more often than I would like (sometimes by those very same smart people). This genre of idiocy more galling to me than just about anything else.
Cast your mind back to 2019 when bushfires ravaged the nation. Scott Morrison famously claimed that he, in fact, “doesn’t hold a hose, mate,” and refused to return from holiday in Hawaii. Eventually, he was badgered back to Australia, where he was the most hated man in the country.
What was infuriating about this historical footnote is how stupid it was. We all understood that you personally do not fight the fires, Scott. We all understood that your presence in Australia is purely symbolic. We also expect our leaders to show empathy and provide reassurance in times of crisis. How does a man, whose background is in marketing and has risen to the top job in the country, not understand this?
In 2021, two years after this incident and as Morrison’s government was in the process of fumbling the pandemic off to the states, the Parramatta Eels tried to steal the then-Prime Minister from the Sharks, in a widely panned post that is still up on Twitter. The Eels would later sign Jack de Belin, who had been recently acquitted of rape, and be sponsored by James Hardie, who fought paying out compensation to victims of asbestosis. They’ve made some shocking decisions there.
This example of the Eels’ stupidity is ordinary, run of the mill, NRL idiocy, like writing a character reference on club letterhead for Brett Finch. What the Broncos have done is worse by several orders of magnitude.
Morrison was the prime minister. De Belin was found not guilty before being signed by Parramatta. James Hardie are at least paying money to launder its image. What is Ben Roberts-Smith or his kids bringing? Who is that for? How did you let this happen? Do you have a basic understanding of what’s going on? Am I taking crazy pills here?
As a result, I did something I never do: I emailed the club to complain. It would be nice if everyone involved in this fuck-up was fired but I expect this is the last we’ll hear about it.
I need a lie down.
Intermission
The broadcast didn't pick up the kid doing sick wheelies on his ebike down the sideline.
Around the grounds
New South Wales 12 defeated Queensland 4 (W). Pick your poison: series sweep with a total margin of 17 points compared to a 2-1 series with a 36 point margin. It’s probably about the only thing you want to take away from this particularly low ebb. That and I can’t believe it’s taken the Blues this long to get here. Not expecting much different next year.
Dragons 30 defeated Broncos 26. This was entirely foreseeable, if on the unlikely side, and anyone trying to sell you on this being the biggest upset of the season doesn’t know ball. I didn’t watch the game, because I have self-respect, but was annoyed at having to delete my snarky question as to whether the men’s Dragons or women’s Dragons would win a game first. The men managed it, by the same score, in equally annoying fashion, as they did last year.
Raiders 26 defeated Cowboys 12. Let’s hear from the fans:
It was equally pleasing to see this defence put the clamps on Scott Drinkwater so clampingly. He’s given better sides more difficult times, but Canberra controlled him in two ways. Firstly their middle did not quit in defence. The Raiders worked hard to win contact and reduce the chances he had to run. They remained aggresive throughout, and their ability to fill in to the backrow spot when Young or Hosking had to make an extra effort was pleasing. The centres and wingers too were extremely effective at identifying Drinkwater as the ‘out-the-back’ man in defence, and jumping him as he got the ball. Timoko and Tamale should be hailed for this.
Upcoming slate
I am undecided how much NRL I can stomach this weekend. Oh, Saturday is all Queensland derbies? Presumably for Queensland Day, which I'm guessing the state government had a hand in, what with Mega Round and other cringe (they massacred my idea). Christ, they got the AFL and netball on board too. Great, that’ll be fantastic during the Origin sludge fest, especially Broncos-Titans. Fine, I’ll probably watch that.
The Queensland women’s premiership also gets underway this weekend. Last year, Easts Tigers swept the women’s statewide competitions and they’ve already won one of the junior comps this year. Burleigh won the other and Souths Logan have been strong, so expecting some combination of those three with a North Queensland team to be in the mix.
Keep an eye out for Wigan, fresh off their Challenge Cup annihilation of Hull KR, smashing the everloving piss out of Catalans in Paris. The Stade Jean-Bounin holds 20,000 people and is next door to freshly crowned European champions, Paris St Germain.
Thank you for reading The Maroon Observer
Asking if you enjoyed reading this newsletter seems bold, given I had an awful time writing it. Nonetheless, with a round of club newsletters about to drop over the next couple of weeks, you may want to consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges.
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Thank you to Rebecca for upgrading to an annual subscription this week. If I’d known there were women reading, I… wouldn’t have done anything different. The newsletter is what it is. Welcome aboard.
Stats pop
The NRLM, QCup and NSW Cup now have advanced metrics pages that are available to paid subscribers through The Almanac. The women’s will come about during their respective seasons when half a dozen rounds have been played. If the pages haven’t been updated to round 13 by the time you read this, they will be shortly after.
For the Big M, I have also included a link to a spreadsheet that has a lot of detailed season-to-date data with some simple filters if you feel inclined to make some historical comparisons, e.g. “with a net possession flow of -4m34s, since 2019, only two NRLM teams have given up as much ball through 12 rounds as the 2026 Broncos: the 2020 Broncos at -6m22s and the 2021 Bulldogs at -3m37s” (this is bad) or “since 2003, the 2026 Panthers have the ninth best net metre flow at +292 in the NRLM through 12 rounds but the 2026 Roosters are ahead of them in seventh, gaining, on average, 321 more metres than their opponents. By comparison, the best non-Vlandoball mark was set by the 2007 Sharks, at +234” (this is good).
Next will be to work on player ratings for Super League and see if I can find a useful way to do international rankings3. Club pages will get an overhaul during the off-season to incorporate proper WARG calculations and advanced metrics. An Origin page will also make an appearance at some point. Maybe once Wikipedia is updated with Queensland-NSW results from 1893 to 1907.
Nickelware
One of the great things about maintaining your own stats is that you can tabulate what’s important to you. That’s really what nickelware is all about.
The other fun thing is that if you don’t like the way something goes, you can just delete it from the record. Want the Storm to have two extra premierships to annoy people? Done. Want to take even more premierships away from the Storm because you think there’s still something fishy going on? Sure. Ashley Klein has an AI hallucination about how workplace health and safety operates4 during a game? Struck from the record.
With innovations like this, I still can’t believe I haven’t been considered for any of the going CEO roles.
Read this
Eye Test - Brisbane’s discipline is digging a hole they can’t attack out of
The Sportress - Six, Again: The Vlando line
Storm Machine - Game 754 – S29E13 Review
What You Get Is What You See - The best day of the rugby league year is here
Rugby League Writers - Fa’alogo In Defence, Young Down The Shortside & The Footy People Want
Our friends at SportsIndustryAU have started a Substack. One to check out if you want gripes about data inconsistency in Australian sport or a history of Docklands stadium.
Notes
Contrary to previous reporting, QRL’s City-Country is this Saturday with the women’s game kicking off at 11.30 and the men’s at 1.30 at Sunshine Coast Stadium. Up the Metropolitans.
Don't forget to get in early for your Queensland Day shopping. The shops are going to be total chaos if you leave it to Friday.
Record TV Ratings for Origin I. It didn’t break 4 million but people clearly love their slop. It ain’t changing any time soon. Conversely, Origin III hits big ratings, but series falls slightly year on year. Maybe finding the ceiling for the women's game? Or do they just need some set restarts to get going?
Country week venues announced: Ayr, Blackwater, Clermont, Gympie, Innisfail, Roma and Warwick.
As noted above, Wigan beat Hull KR in the Challenge Cup. Googling it the week before, one of the first results were concerns about the crowd numbers, which it turns out were justified, hitting an 80 year low.
Reliably informed that Bob's Bulk Booze does exist in Brisbane. Fans of cheap liquor rejoice.
Dunno what this means: “Some of the Gold Coast Titans' biggest stars have joined forces with principal partner, The Lottery Office, in a new TV Commercial for FutureBall, which recently launched as Australia's most 'winnable lottery.'“
Never has the question, “Did you have fun at the game?” been met with such resolute nays. “Why did you ask to go then?”
You can review this filing from the Federal Court or to take from a comment on r/nrl: “The imputations which were found to have been conveyed and to be substantially true were that:
(1) the appellant, while a member of the SASR, murdered an unarmed and defenceless Afghan civilian, by kicking him off a cliff and procuring the soldiers under his command to shoot him;
(2) the appellant broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement and is therefore a criminal;
(3) the appellant disgraced his country, Australia, and the Australian Army by his conduct as a member of the SASR in Afghanistan;
(4) the appellant, while a member of the SASR, committed murder by pressuring a newly deployed and inexperienced SASR soldier to execute an elderly, unarmed Afghan in order to “blood the rookie”;
(5) the appellant, while a member of the SASR, committed murder by machine gunning a man with a prosthetic leg;
(6) the appellant, having committed murder by machine gunning a man with a prosthetic leg, is so callous and inhumane that he took the prosthetic leg back to Australia and encouraged his soldiers to use it as a novelty beer drinking vessel;
(7) the appellant, as deputy commander of a 2009 SASR patrol, authorised the execution of an unarmed Afghan by a junior trooper in his patrol;
(8) the appellant, during the course of his 2010 deployment to Afghanistan, bashed an unarmed Afghan in the face with his fists and in the stomach with his knee and in so doing alarmed two patrol commanders to the extent that they ordered him to back off;
(9) the appellant as patrol commander in 2012 authorised the assault of an unarmed Afghan, who was being held in custody and posed no threat;
(10) the appellant engaged in a campaign of bullying against a small and quiet soldier called Trooper M which included threats of violence; and
(11) the appellant assaulted an unarmed Afghan in 2012.”
While I’d prefer a non-Elo solution, the lack of matches makes it very difficult to get a system that spits out the right answer: Australia on top, then NZ, then England, then Samoa/Tonga, then the rest.
It is very hard to accept the invocation of “duty of care” by someone who clearly pissed their pants after the WH&S training session they had earlier that day. The reality is that by the time the incident has happened, it is already too late. Your risk management approach has failed and you have not met your duty of care. Unfortunately, as the CEO of the PCBU, Peter V’landys (among others, including Klein) is as responsible for attempted industrial manslaughter as Kalyn Ponga.
Notwithstanding that workplace penalties reduce the likelihood of honesty and compliance in the future, and so work against an improved safety culture, the appropriate action would have been to stop the game, review the safe working method statement for the activity at hand, update it to reflect the new controls applied to prevent a repeat of the incident, conduct a toolbox talk to ensure all participants are aware of the revised approach and have them all sign on to the new SWMS, before resuming play. It would be as thrilling a TV spectacle as it sounds.