You gotta schwa your Queensland place names
Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a weekly newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
Around the grounds
Sharks 44 defeated Titans (M) 0. I have successfully simulated the mental state of a Titans fan in my mind palace. Loading Kayo a quarter hour after kickoff, I silently predict the Sharks will almost certainly be up by 12. After pressing ‘from live’ at exactly 6.17pm, I am shown a replay of Samuel Stonestreet scoring a try which is inevitably converted by Italian international and former Falcon, Daniel Atkinson. Moeaki Fotuaika gets binned on the next set after the kick off for a high shot on Cam Mcinnes. It takes the Sharks less than 90 seconds to cross the line. They don't even need to pass all the way to the wing. Daniel Atkinson converts. It goes on like this. Gold Coast won four Queensland derbies in 2024.
Pride 38 defeated Falcons 18. That’s the minor premiership wrapped up but we’ve seen similar quality teams come unstuck late in the season, so this is by no means over and done with. High flying teams often find their best players poached to bolster late season NRL campaigns and we’ll have to see if Clifford’s return to the big time this week hinders Northern’s march to the title.
The Falcons opened hot, scoring two quickly, but the Pride, as is their wont, were patient and eventually the game came back to them. By the second half, the Falcons weren’t interested in making tackles and after three tries in six minutes, it became processional. There’s nothing special about what the Pride are doing, they’re just better at it than everyone else.
Broncos (M) 42 defeated Cowboys 18. What was once the highest rating derby in the sport has been relegated to the middle slot on PTV-exclusive Saturday. Considerably more attention and excitement was paid to the Dogs-Drags Fossil Bowl. Welcome to the 20s: 2015 is well in the rearview mirror now.
Like its timeslot, the game was strange. Statistically, the Cows and Bronx were level in most categories, with a slight yardage advantage to Brisbane and more substantial scoreboard advantage by full time. The sides seemed prepared to play out a conventional arm wrestle. It was 18-all with 18 to go and surely we were in for another close classic, defying the TV execs who deemed this surplus to the requirements of a mass audience.
Whether North Queensland should be worried that they couldn’t handle a team that played at their best for at most 30 minutes, will depend on whether you think those handling errors, a bug in both Big Games this year, are replicable in other matches. No errors, perhaps no problems, but good teams are rarely incapacitated so easily and dissected so efficiently by mediocrities that won’t be playing finals, even if those mediocrities have spent most of the season delivering well below their best. More concerning than Brisbane having to dig deep into the talent well to find victory, with Kotoni Staggs and Reece Walsh drawing the most water, was how unlikely the Cowboys looked like scoring when opportunities were proferred. While the Cows were losing the battle for territory, there were still opportunities. A second half shutout might be the worst omen of all.
Eels 20 defeated Cowboys (W) 6. Tillett and Manzelmann worked together to size up the Eels’ left for the only points of the afternoon and that was the only clever bit of work the Cowboys put together. The rest of the afternoon was a frustrating series of penalties, errors and frailties in attack and defence that undermined anything that North Queensland could have put together, never mind the 300m deficit and 45% possession. It was an effective performance from Parramatta, one their opponents could only dream of producing.
Interesting that Ricky Bobby Henry switched Blackwell and Goldthorp. Blackwell looked better at fullback in BMD than at wing in the NRLW but moving aside the England international for that seems a big move. Then again, I feel like we assume Goldthorp is good rather than seeing it or feeling it. Having Goldthorp involved a bit more with the ball and taking more carries seems like an improvement but this can’t be the optimal arrangement of talent.
Broncos (W) 44 defeated Titans 4. Yes, yes, well, we all saw this coming. The congenital heart failure. Very normal stuff.
This was a pillar to post flogging of the Titans. Every Gold Coast player either found themselves contained, without the ball and/or on one of the worst days of their career. Tackles, whether the tackler was world class or not, refused to stick. All the bullshit the Broncos tried came off. Nothing the Titans attempted seemed to work, scoring their only try with a belt and braces approach to grounding the ball, just in case, this being the one in ten million chance it matters except it didn’t. Given Sunday was so at-odds with every other Titans performance it is possible to imagine, are we just going to write a 40 point smashing off as a weird one-off? The Broncos surely aren’t going to get this opportunity every week, and if the sun did happen to shine so brightly that regularly, Brisbane have generally not shown the kind of consistency to make this kind of hay. The Ponies need a 5-1 finish to the season to lock in finals.
Dolphins 34 defeated Warriors 32. Let's put aside the incredibly weak penalty try for one moment, this had Dolphins embarrassing loss written all over it. And yet what a win. That's the beauty of the golden point/2 point field goal walk off. The drama exceeds any rational assessment of the 80 minutes that preceded it, especially considering how badly the Dolphins played in the final third of the game, unable to even briefly stem the rising tide of the Warriors. A slightly better game from Tabuai-Fidow renders all of this moot.
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Queenslanders in Paris
You may have heard of a small sporting event called the 2024 Summer Olympics, which was held in Paris over the last two weeks. I, personally, found it extremely compelling. Australia’s team did pretty well, winning more gold medals than any previous Olympics and falling five short of the record total from Sydney.
While watching a human interest package about bronze medallist discusseur, Matthew Denny, who is from Allora (pronounced al-uh-ra because you gotta schwa your Queensland place names, no matter how hard it makes to search), I wondered how many of our new favourite athletes that we won’t think about until 2028 were from Queensland.
To be clear, there are more medallists than medals won. The women’s 4 x 100m medley team won one (1) silver medal but it was awarded to eight (8) medallists. Ditto women’s water polo and basketball. This is not weighted by degree of accomplishment. The three gold medals won by the Fox sisters count as two overseas medallists, as they were both born in France.
I didn’t quite have the will to sort through where athletes were born, as opposed to discovering where they are from. It seems like the official IOC/AOC information is supplied by the athletes themselves and was not always complete. Consequently, I haven’t put the men’s K2 500m kayak team under Queensland’s banner, who were born in South Africa and New South Wales, even though they both claim the Gold Coast as their hometown. There’s probably a pretty interesting undergrad thesis to be written in tracing where athletes have come from and how that has changed over time, reflecting Australia's ongoing socio-economic evolution.
Within Queensland, the overwhelming majority of medallists came from the south-east tri-city, with 19 births of 25 medallists. South Brisbane was the most common town of birth (shout out my fellow Mater babies) and the greater Brisbane metro area claims 12, Gold Coast six and the Sunshine Coast one. Regionally, Toowoomba had two (Denny was born in Toowoomba, is from Allora) and there was one each born in Gladstone, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns.
But the Gold Coast is interesting. I could easily find another nine medallists not born there but have a connection there now, through short or long term residence and partly because of various Institutes of Sport facilities there. Keegan Palmer gave Elanora skate park a shout out in his post-final interview, a place where Alisa Trui also hangs out as a resident of Palm Beach, which is three Olympic gold medals (Palmer has two now) from one concrete playground in the 4221.
One of the secondary theses of The Maroon Observer (these theses are now listed on the About page) is the long stretch of suburbia from Springwood to Tweed Heads is important. It may not be interesting but there are a lot of people that live there and through sheer weight of numbers, those people will impact the course of the nation in ways we do not yet understand. The Gold Coast is never going to be a mining hub, like Brisbane or Perth, nor a centre for finance and law, like Sydney or Melbourne, nor have a gritty blue collar manufacturing belt with rusted-on Labor voters. As agriculture becomes a distant memory, the greater Gold Coast will exist economically for the benefit of tourism and real estate, with its attendant vices, rent-seekers and politics, but lacks the substance of a real city in popular imagination.
There’s a story to be told in how the Gold Coast has a poor or no reputation in a cultural space while having a bigger hidden contribution. XXXX and VB are the most popular beer brands in the country but a huge portion of the nation’s actual product comes out of Carlton’s facility at Yatala. The Titans and Suns are jokes but a disproportionate quantity of the nation’s elite athletes are born, developed or moulded on the Gold Coast. A good postgraduate thesis might yield more examples.
I wrote more about the Olympics at SSWOS:
Perth Bears
It’s locked in, a done deal, dare I say, a fait accompli?
The Bears’ long wait to return to top flight rugby league is over with the Western Bears now made official.
Months of protracted negotiations finally reached an end point on Friday afternoon with officials from North Sydney and Western Australia’s bid team signing off on the historic agreement to resurrect one of rugby league’s most famous brands.
Let’s skip ahead to the real details:
It is understood the agreement between the two parties include:
– An adaptation of the Bears logo;
– One heritage match in NSW with the hope it will be against arch rivals Manly. The match could be played at North Sydney Oval, Allianz Stadium or on the Central Coast where they will wear a traditional North Sydney jersey;
– The main colours will be red, white and black, however there will be a tinge of yellow too which again pays homage to the former Reds outfit. The Reds may have their own heritage jersey;
– A pre-season game at North Sydney Oval;
– North Sydney Bears to remain the main feeder club to NSW Cup for the NRL side.
None of which is really new information, or even anything that the average Maroon Observer reader wouldn’t have been able to predict six months ago. It took three alleged journalists to get the byline on this, in which a hidden gem of accidental comedy was hidden:
Because of strict nondisclosure agreements with the NRL, neither side was able to comment publicly.
Ah. Begs the question how this ended up in the News Corp papers then?
There is still the little matter of due diligence and process to follow, not that anyone actually cares, least of all the people writing the stories or making the captain’s picks. Dean Ritchie (in an article that I’m not going to bother linking) says there are 11 expressions of interest and that they come from PNG, Perth, Brisbane and New Zealand. He has no further information, or utility in general, to offer anyone.
Intermission
Duffy (pretty good acceleration in the first GIF, lobbing cutout pass in the second), Chester and Clifford all played well but Pride winger, Jensen Taumoepeau, seen here dancing past fifteen Falcons defenders, caught the eye a number of times.
Upcoming Slate
NRLW - Broncos vs Raiders at Totally Workwear in Coorparoo, Saturday 11am
While the Sharks of all options begin to run away with this competition, here’s a match up between two sides that I thought would be mid-table at worst but so far only have two wins between them. Last season’s meeting was an emphatic 40-8 victory for Brisbane over Canberra, at this very ground. The Raiders beat the Tigers and then lost to the Knights and Sharks. The Broncos lost to the Eels and Roosters and beat the Titans. These form lines are not at all clear but maybe we’ll luck into something exciting. Tip: Broncos.
NRLM - Bulldogs vs Dolphins at Salter Oval in Bundaberg, Saturday 3pm
If the charge against the Dolphins is that they play to their opponent’s level and the consensus seems to be that the Bulldogs are pretty good (I still don’t quite believe it but I also don’t watch them very often), then this should be a classic for the good burghers of Bundaberg. Last year’s meeting, at this very ground, was one of the Dolphins’ proprietary Frustrating Losses™ that they seem to love deploying instead of Comfortable Win Closing Out A Game After Establishing A Decent Lead. Tip: Bulldogs
QRLM - Seagulls vs Blackhawks at Kougari Oval, Saturday 3pm
This game, as unexciting a prospect as Wynnum may be, will have an outsized impact on deciding the finalists for this year’s Queensland Cup. A Blackhawks win pushes Wynnum to need a last round win against the Tigers and some results to go their way. A Wynnum victory puts the Capras and Hunters into precarious positions, unless they too can pull out wins this week. A draw and a Magpies win is all that keeps Souths Logan’s season going. Tip: Blackhawks
(Tips 34 / 68)
Watch Guide
Notes
There are nine teams left in the Queensland Cup hunt. With two games left, Souths Logan, Easts, Tweed, Mackay, Ipswich and Western are too far adrift, although the Magpies would need a series of increasingly unlikely results to go their way to have a mathematical hope. Wynnum and Townsville will play in the final round, which will likely decide who makes the finals, although there are five teams on 9.5 to 10.5 wins.
I may have missed the announcement but according to Ticketek, the grand final is Sunday 22 September, 5.30pm. Curtain raisers will be provided by men’s and women’s City-Country matches.
Not much of a story yet but potentially one with big ramifications: Foxtel on the block as News Corp confronts reality. The decisions to give up on the digital strategy, which would have given the NRL some stability come what may, and then to bail out Foxtel during COVID are looking stupider with each passing day. V'Landys hasn't demonstrated the even cursory level of understanding of the media market that this newsletter has and the clubs are too short sighted to be gifted the power they have in the game. None of them should be in charge of a chook raffle, let alone a billion dollar enterprise. Book your flights to Vegas because it's unlikely you'll be able to afford being - or want to be - a NRL fan once private equity gets involved. Having said that, hard to imagine a much worse experience than Kayo. Yeah I'm definitely going to watch a “sweet doco” you assholes.
Dolphins: Kodi extends to ‘26, TPJ to Catalan in ‘25 to join an all-star line-up of what about these blokes, Euan Aitken to Souths for 3.
Hall of Fame: Renouf, Thurston, former Bronco Benji Marshall, and Norths greats Slater, Smith, Cronk and Inglis are all in. Can't say that I’m particularly surprised by any of those choices, although it’s a complete mystery as to what eligibility criteria or decision making process are being deployed. The decision to skip a news cycle of Les Boyd discourse is strategically poor. The next Immortal will be announced next week (brace yourselves for how cheap and mean it will feel) and the papers are already hinting Smith.
Brains: Sea Eagles and eo launch breakthrough concussion treatment. Weird and almost certainly a scam. I can’t understand a mechanism of action here that an ice pack doesn’t achieve. Also, can’t help but note that they say, “Physical activity can increase the body and brain temperature up to 40°C or more” when I’m sure if your brain was over 40, you would need to go to hospital.
Greg Alexander thinks Penrith would've won ten-in-a-row without a salary cap, forgetting that fig leaf was the only thing stopping him from being well down the depth chart at a big club and spending his career in third grade except when the Origin backup got injured.
‘Stood up to bullies my whole life’: Peter V’landys’ searing attack on Mark Latham at Rosehill inquiry. Searing, a searing attack. This I gotta see. Oh it’s literally nothing, just PVL’s hands shaking (and sweating, obviously) as he calls Latham a bully, which yeah we know. The Guardian did not have anything better. I had a whole spiel written that I had to cut for space. You missed very little.
Stinky Pete Badel, the JK Rowling CLONE (but probably less mouldy), is back and tried to stir up something, anything, so he could feel that rush again. He chose his topic poorly and opted for NRL related AI slop that no one without severe mental difficulties caused by a railway spike in their amygdala or brain damage directly caused by trying to get high off carbon monoxide paid any attention. This is definitely not a SCANDAL that's ROCKING the NRL.
Further reading: Where Facebook's AI Slop Comes From. That the answer is not ‘The Courier Mail' is frankly crazy. Related, that I also happened to read last week: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?
A-List celeb is a Phins fan. You'll be ROCKED to learn it's not Peter Dutton.
(It was Drew Barrymore)