We guest-edited a magazine. It’s out now! They have it at Borders!
There’s a Roosters Club in Focus special, Hindy, Jamie Soward, Michael Jennings, Lote, Jamal, Duges, Gordie, MG + Carty … look it’s just awesome, okay? And if you love us at all, you’ll buy it.
And as a loving tribute to our cover star, Hindy, here’s a little story I ripped off from Errol bestie Joker’s Wild:
I went down to the NSW training session at Kingscliff this year and got some autographs from some of the lads.
While I was waiting to get Hindys scribble, a little kid stuck his jersey up and said “Can you sign this?”
Hindy said “Can I sign that what?”
Kid said “Can you sign this please?”
Hindy: Gentleman, footballer and teacher of common manners
GUYS WE HAVE EXCITING NEWS. If you completed the survey we sent around a while ago, or are a subscriber to the NRL One Community website you would’ve seen the first ever issue of the brand new newsletter The Heart of the Game appearin your inbox today.
Exciting! It’s so shiny and new and pretty. We’ve been contributing content for the first issue and there is so, so much good stuff in there:
We talked to Nathan Hindmarsh – one of the nominees for favourite son this year
More importantly, why don’t you do your bit and become breast aware? One Community and the McGrath Foundation want to make 10,000 men and women breast aware before the end of women in league round. All you have to do is click on the giant heart. You know you want to. Who doesn’t love boobs? No one, that’s who.
As you know Kiki and I love spending our weekends roaming about at NSW Cup matches, soaking up the atmosphere, sharing a beer (just the one, cause we’re professional), and interviewing the crowd and the players. This weekend we hit up Leichhardt Oval to watch the Balmain Ryde Eastwood Tigers take on Wests. Why Leichhardt? Well obviously we like any opportunity for a Tim Sheens sighting. But more importantly:
a) it’s beautiful and we think the hill with all the trees on it looks like something out of Rivendell in Lord of the Rings;
and
b) We wanted to appease all the ladies who wrote in to say LEE BENNETT FROM THE TIGERS IS SOOOO HANDSOME. We like to give you what you want. We’re considerate like that.
So here’s the latest video direct from the NSWRL youtube channel, featuring Lee, Paul Sironen, some enthusiastic singing, and A Really Awesome Bride and Groom:
Oh my sweet baby Morris-twin Jesus, it’s a FOOTY MIRACLE.
mmmmmm miracle.
Somehow – I have absolutely no idea how – I have fluked myself to my first perfect round of tipping …. ever. Eight out of eight, bitches! This means, of course, that footytips is giving me a free Whopper. Which I totally plan to collect, even though:
a) there are no Hungry Jacks near me except the one I go to when I’m drunk on Oxford Street opposite the Oxford Art Factory
b) I don’t like Whoppers.
It’s the principle of the thing, you know?
Also if you break it down by calories, it’s pretty much like footytips are giving me a whole day’s worth of free food, which for a blogger is the greatest gift a footy tipping website can give. So yes, I am going to that Hungry Jacks, and yes, friends, I am going to EAT. THAT. WHOPPER. I am also going to enjoy it … because it tastes like VICTORY.
In other news, Errol tippers are apparently all brilliant, because:
Paull Young
Paul Taylor
ohmyloz
and Amy
all also got 8 tips from 8. Some might say that’s because it was an easy round. I say it’s because we all have the brains of rocket scientists. If you’re wondering why Kiki didn’t manage to tip a perfect eight, it’s because she tipped against my Roosters. Just sayin. Which brings us to the leaderboard after round two:
Finally, one of the boys has made it into the top five! Good work Youngie!
This will probably be the first and last time I am ever first in tipping, so let’s all take a moment of silence for the peak of my tipping career. It’s gonna be all downhill for me after this. Like Kate Hudson after Almost Famous and Katherine Heigl after Knocked Up.
And now I’m gonna leave you with the NRL Ladder:
I was planning to draw a big red white and blue arrow to the Roosters at the top of it, but then I realised it’s round two and I don’t want to jinx the poor bitches, so … that’s all.
We’re doing something a little different this week. Instead of shirtless men for your Monday Funday, let’s talk about the pink-shirted men: the refs and the touchies. You know, the ones that you always unwillingly clap before the Grand Final each year. From the perma-bronzed Solarium king Shane Hayne to everyone’s favourite ranga ref, Brett Suttor.
Yelling abuse at referees and touch-judges is a time-honoured rugby league tradition. At Parramatta, it involves small children yelling out ‘I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, TOUCHIE!’. At Kogarah, I’ve heard “oh good work … ya hemorrhoid!” which has to be one of my favourite moments in life. Ever.
And when the game’s over, you head to the leagues club and discuss in depth all the ways that the refs cost your team the game, right? Well let’s do it online.
Sunday’s games were a festival of tries from forward passes – like Benji Marshall to Jason Schirnack for a try against the Roosters at the SFS. Plus over in Parramatta everyone’s favourite head of hair Dessie Hasler CRACKED IT after Manly lost to the Eels and the refs awarded a try to Joel Reddy from a blatant forward pass. EVEN I COULD SEE THAT, REF! (And as we all know I need nerd spectacles).
Exhibit A – nerd
Dessie kindly offered – cough – this:
“I’ll personally pay for those two touchies to visit OPSM and get a check-up because I didn’t know we’d reverted to gridiron – not once, but twice – at a pretty critical part of the game.”
So get in and comment, kids. Worst refs call of the year so far? Worst of 2009? Get into the comments section and unleash your anger. You can even have a rant about Monday/your work/the fact that we never ever blog about your team. A little venting heals the soul.
So the NRL launch this week didn’t just involve your team captains standing awkwardly in front of Sydney landmarks. It also involved a Brand New NRL ad. It has everything you could want, if what you want is lady-farmers, a sculptor, an old man at a busstop and stuff about FEELING ALIVE. Comment and tell us what you think, why don’t ya?
Alternatively, if you don’t care, watch this awesome NRL promo from 1989, also known as SASSY’S FAVOURITE YOUTUBE VIDEO EVER. (It really is, I have it bookmarked and everything):
So what do you think, babies? Like the new design? We set the interns to work over the last few weeks in their custom-made Errol hotpants to spruce up and repaint.
oherrol.com, now with NEW HAT!
By ‘interns’, we may also mean that the awesome Charlie Gearside from Bad Blumau lent us his web skillz and redesigned our humble blog. He’s now on holidays in Europe – possibly because dealing with us drove him to leave the country – but hit him up if you ever need a smart, speedy and hilarious web designer.
Because we have the technological kiss of death there might be a few teething problems – just comment if you find anything broken / confusing / with tomato sauce stains on it and we promise to a) fix it, and b) repay you with thankyou gropes for giving us the heads up.
Today is a very sad day. Not because it’s Christmas, although to be honest, something about Christmas does kinda give us all a case of the wretched melancholies at times. We’re sad cause it’s the time of year when we and the interns have to scatter out of the Errol office and …. actually survive without each other. IT’S ALMOST INHUMAN!
I am also traumatised by the fact that when I went to buy some last minute stuff at the fruit shop in Bondi Road I was confronted by a man shopping in nothing but speedoes. I mean, yes, I am also guilty of often not wanting to wear pants. But it’s a really hot day today, and I am fairly sure Jesus did not intend the Eve of his birth to be celebrated by fat hairy men whacking on speedoes and sweating all over the mangoes in the Bondi Road Fruitologist. Gross.
Right now Kiki is back home in the Hills preparing for a big ole Irish Catholic Christmas extravaganza, Lozzy’s flown back to Brisbane to spend time with Queenslanders (ugh) – also known as her relatives – and I’m at my parents’ place having a heated discussion about whether bacon and egg rolls are an acceptable meal to serve on Christmas Day. I say yes.
I am also doing important things like annoying my dog:
Poor Dolly Parton.
Tomorrow I imagine we’ll all be doing the same thing, namely, eating and drinking until we pass out. Happy Birthday, Jesus!
Needless to say it was a hell of a year. First column in Rugby League Player, first video appearances on nrl.com … first time Sassy ever left the pub early (just to watch the Four Nations).
Thank you all for being such loyal readers, commenters and perves … can’t wait to see you next year.
Wanna know where we’ve been lately? Well for reasons that no one really understands, the NRL have been letting us loose at some One Community functions recently to interview the players and guests for nrl.com. Seriously. Yes, we have fake interns and all, but this is for real.
KIKI AND SASSY ON VIDEO ON NRL.COM.
Amazing, huh?
So far we’ve met the inspiring people, players and clubs nominated for One Community awards at the awards gala in November, and been out to the NRL Players’ Charity Christmas Party at ANZ Stadium. They let us near children. Amazing! We’re more used to people pausing while they try and figure out whether it’s safe to invite us to baby showers or kid’s birthdays, or whether we’re gonna turn up with a bottle of gin and proceed to get drunk and somehow taint the child with cynicism before it’s even born.
WELL THE NRL DON’T THINK SO.
We swore in advance there would be none of this business.
Little do people know Kiki was actually a local superstar Spice Girl impersonator as a teen and beloved by children all over the Hills district. Sassy, possibly because she looks like a life-size cartoon, is kind of a hit with kids, and even has an awesome new little kid boyfriend from the Chrissie party. His name is Lewis and he’s a total dude who rocks black skinny jeans and Havaianas like a mini-hipster. They enjoy balloon fights and share a love for Ben Hornby.
Needless to say we had the Greatest Time Ever eating tiny tiny sandwiches, getting lolly bags, even playing footy games out on ANZ stadium with some awesome kids and NRL players AND ELVES.
As for the One Community awards, as if we weren’t overwhelmed enough at being on camera for the first time since we were about 12 and meeting all the incredible community workers, WE ALSO MET DELL. If you watch the video closely you can totally see us freaking out. We also met the coolest CEO in league, Michael Searle, and invited ourselves to come meet the Titans. CALL US, SEARLEY!
And of course a massive shout out to our ranga wranglers, Andy and Damien, and the gorgeous Trish and Janelle for hooking us up. Merry Christmas y’all! x
EXCITING NEWS, DARLINGS! The new edition of Rugby League Player mag came out this Monday, and it’s the 2009 Yearbook issue. And yes, this is pretty exciting on its own, considering it has sweet photo essays and you can win stuff and they have end-of-year awards (sure they’re not as hilarious and amazing as the Errol Awards, but what is? By the way the awards are coming … don’t worry babies!)
The point is: IT ALSO HAS A COLUMN BY US. Kiki and I wrote a double page wrap up of ‘The Year in Review’, complete with hilarious jokes about all the important stuff, like Robbie Farah’s nipples, tap-arse, Wendell, rangas, awkward run ins with Anthony Watmough and State of Origin bloodlust.
SEE? IT’S US! (complete with gratuitous picture of my nerdy reading glasses).
If you haven’t read it already – go! buy! IMMEDIATELY. You won’t regret it.
Oh yeah, in other news the Kangaroos won the Four Nations n stuff. If you missed the game, I can summarise it for you pretty quickly. For 60 minutes it was a competition, then for, um, about 20 minutes or so it just looked like this:
… but repeated over, and over, and over again ad nauseum till the buzzer sounded; then like this:
It was a Billy Slater hattrick, which meant the commentators went on and on incessantly about how well Billy was making up for The Unpleasantness during last years World Cup final against New Zealand. Do you think Billy just cracks it whenever someone brings that up? God knows I would. After all he only did it once, right?
OH MY GOD! THAT WAS ONE TIME!
Of course Brett Morris wasn’t gonna come off empty-handed. You know how it’s not really a State of Origin until someone gest punched? Well, in 2009 IT’S NOT A FOUR NATIONS GAME IF B.MOZ DOESN’T SCORE.
Let me rephrase: it’s not a Four Nations game unless B.Moz scores … then the stadium decides to play ‘Land Down Under’ so we can all rock out like massive nerds. Thanks stadium music selector-man! I love Men at Work! *hippie dance*
I do have to be truthful though: when the Aussie boys shaved their mos off last week, it kind of broke my heart. I was deadset struggling to support them through my sorrow. I couldn’t even manage to bother getting up at 6am on Sunday to watch them. Remember last time I left the pub to watch a game? Now that was dedication. I just can’t muster up that kinda devotion anymore though.
The only man holding onto my love is the consistently awesome Nathan Hindmarsh. Oh, Hindy. I adore you even though last week you totally looked like a serial killer with a shotgun. We also, apparently, have something in common. When we’re happy, we celebrate EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. By cracking open the champas and taking our pants off. No one can celebrate properly with elastic digging into their waist. It’s just Science.
CALL ME HINDY! LET’S BE BESTIES!
I’ma miss seeing that mo on my tv, siiigh. In all honesty, I’m also gonna miss the English commentary team. I didn’t want to like them … but they’re just So Damn Excited. They love life! And Brett Morris! And Sam Burgess! And footy! And the crowd! And ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ENGLISH SCORE A TRY! Their ridiculous excitement for life is totally contagious, and every time they come on I somehow find myself nodding and clapping in agreement with everything that they say, especially when they say things like:
“He is a MAN-MOUNTAIN, Greg Inglis!”
Well-spotted, boys. He really is.
But there is no way I could possibly sum up the glory of the Four Nations as successfully as Nathan Hindmarsh did in the Daily Telegraph:
BIGGEST EATER: David Shillington, hands down. I suspect he might be pregnant, he orders two of everything. And he isn’t shy when dessert comes either.
FUNNIEST STORY: We’d all ordered our food in Paris one night and Trent Waterhouse thought of a joke. He made himself laugh so much he couldn’t spit it out. When he got his mouth working, he asked Ryan “how’s your beef stroganHOFF”. We were all in stitches.
[not gonna lie, I loled. Oh, Trent].
MOST UNTIDY TEAM-MATE: Justin Hodges. I think he unpacks his bag with great vengeance and furious anger. I am pretty sure he wears a pair of undies for four days – forwards, backwards, inside out forwards and inside out backwards. I pity the man rooming with him.
DESCRIBE YOUR ROOM-MATE IN ONE SENTENCE: David Shillington is a softly-spoken 115kg cuddly bear.
[He also pops the collar on his Kangaroos blazer ... ooh, FANCY].
IS THERE ONE PLAYER WHO CHANGED YOUR PERCEPTION OF HIM FOR GOOD OR BAD? Sam Thaiday changed my perception of him for the better. And David Shillington has changed it for the worse – all that food that goes in has to come out and I’m looking forward to breathing fresh air again.
Let’s do the whole thing again in four years, kids. What do you say?
Image credits: All Four Nations pics via Getty Images
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