We are proud, a little bit giddy and alot intoxicated to announce that this year, you have something to look forward to in the sad lull that comes between the Rugby League Grand Final in October and the supercrazypartyfuntimes intense competition of the rugby league World Cup. And isn’t that gonna be a great contest? Almost as compelling as the Commonwealth Games! Can you feel the excitement??

Anyway, that something is the 2008 Oh Errol Awards. We like to call them The Errols.

Today we will announce the nominees in all seven award categories. The lucky winners will receive their Errols at our glittering and illustrious awards ceremony in the Erskineville Bowling Club (beer on tap, food provided from the Chinese Bistro window). Hold onto your hats, bitches. Hereeeeee we go!

The Marlon Brando (the later years) Award for the Fattest Man in League

That’s right boys, this could be your future. Living as an eccentric recluse on an remote tropical island. Daily battling out-of-control bloating and the urge to wear nothing but muu-muus. Creepy companion midget is optional.

Past winners include Arthur Beetson and Daryl Brohman.

This year’s lucky nominees are:

We here at Oh Errol are nothing if not dedicated journalists. Committed to bringing you the most important news from around Australia and beyond.

And is there any news more important than hot mans in the NRL? I say no. Thanks to Bobby our reporter in the field, it has come to our attention that this weekend we will be treated to some fresh Canberran meat. Yes I am aware of how creepy that sounds, but I enjoy my sentence regardless. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Raiders young buck (Bobby’s words) Marc-with-a-C Herbert!

Look at that hair! Its strawberry blond deliciousness. He is thisclose to having a 1970s mop. Keep growing it baby! We are enthusiastic supporters of hair here at Errol. Hair love! The more hair, the better. On your head anyway. Although NRL players, may I just remind you that men are SUPPOSED to have body hair and religiously removing yours so you look like hairless cat is positively unattractive. No woman wants to hump a hairless man. No woman whose existence we approve of anyway.

Anyway, yes…MARC HERBERT! I hope for the sake of our eyes (and pants) that Captain Urination spends a lengthy stint on the sideline. We need more luxurious manes in rugby league. Although to be honest, no one can ever begin to come close to Dessy Hasler. BEST.HAIR.EVER. I’m convinced he’s got Kennedy blood running through those veins.

Readers, I’m also happy to report the future of NRL Hotness is looking bright. Incandescent even. I didn’t think Prince Scott the Caramel could get any more awesome, but he has. You see, he has been keeping his eye out for hotness north of the border. We didn’t even ask him to. He’s so pro-active! Keep this up and he may even join Brownie as an Errol intern. Lucky! So future intern, what have you got for us this evening?

“He is a freak,” said premiership-winning captain Prince. “I just shake my head.

“I have been doing weights for seven or eight years now and I haven’t got half the body that kid has.”

“I haven’t seen him play yet, but seeing him train in the gym with us, he has definitely got an athlete’s body,” said Prince.

Translation = THIS KID IS HOT.

Straight man code is so easy to decipher. You guys totally need to up the cagey factor if you wanna get one by us. It’s almost sad.

Anyway, Scotty… in your eagerness to describe the kids muscles of granite you forgot to to tell us his name. If you weren’t so busy eye raping him you woulda said “his name is Kayne Lawton.” You disgust me Prince. Objectifying a teenager like that. Have you no shame?

Seriously though, holy mother of GOD. Eighteen?? How is this possible? Wow just….wow. Hot Bitch Cooper, baby, you have an heir to the throne.

And finally, in the requisite human interest story that always concludes the news, let us talk about John Williams. Props to the mama and papa Williams who not only gave us The Hot Pioneer, but also produced the physical perfection that is his brother John. I would like to take this opportunity to say that my best mate knows the Williams from around the traps and thought I did too. We recently had a conversation that went something like -

K- You know who I love? The crazy bearded winger at Manly. David Williams.
S – Yeh we know him! And his brother! You know him Kiki…Hotdog! He plays for the Cowboys.

Um, no. No I don’t. Sure my memory is god awful (thanks vodka), but I’m preeeetttty sure I would remember a) a man called Hotdog and b) my eyes seeing THIS -

And that concludes the news for tonight. Go fuck yourselves, San Diego.

Hot Naked John thanks to the lovely Artie at FM Forums.

After the overwhelming success* of my footy observations last week, I’ve decided Errol needs more posts about love. And with all the pissing on people and scandal this week, we need it more than ever, right? So every week, if I remember, you’ll get another heartwarming exploration of what it is for a man to love another man. Yes, that loveliest and most fragile of all emotions, manlove.

This week is dedicated to Benji Marshall and Scott Prince. The finding of love, the testing of love, and the tyranny of distance.

* by ‘overwhelming success’ I mean ‘I found it funny’. Also Intern Brownie loved it. He said he had something in his eye, but you know he was totally having a cry. That big softie.

There was a lot of excitement in the air in the lead up to this game. A lot of Kiki the cripple’s excitement was probably because she hadn’t left the house in three weeks, had an intense case of cabin fever, and was completely desperate to see other people, to drink beer, and to abuse something or someone. But our hearts were also full to brimming with nerves for our baby blues and steely determination to take out this year’s State of Origin.

With Kiki clad in her very Jack Gibson-esque caramel vintage fur, and me rugged up in knitted cream beret and giant blues scarf, we set off – looking adorable – on the Hills Bus to do our bit to secure victory by drinking, abusing, dancing, cheering, and mocking hideous and hateful Queenslanders. Clearly we are an integral part of the NSW team.

If you’re wondering, yes we do do everything together. We’re creepy like that. We’re also blogging together right now. Because we’re nerdy like that.

The omens from the Gods were all pointing to success. We had cold beers in our hands and a pub carpark full of adorable mans dressed in blue to flirt with. There may be a mandrought, but when you corral all the colts it sure don’t seem that way.

When I (like an idiot, but not yet a drunken one) lost my cashed-up wallet in the crowd I was rescued by my own Origin angel. Adorably, his name was Mick. Mick the angel, dressed in a Blues jersey, who tracked down my wallet, tracked down my parents through Sensis and tracked down my mobile number to deliver it to me outside Gate K just as the first whistle blew.

Bet a Queenslander wouldn’t do that, bitches. They probably would have taken my eighty bucks and spent it on cans of Bundy for themselves and their girlfriends and/or sisters – who may be the same person – and Queensland stubby holders to put them in. You know it’s true.

After the origin miracle and two Smirnoffs we settled into the stadium to find something even more miraculous: the cavernous shithole that is ANZ was full of blue TRY signs, blue jumpers, blue wigs and blue pride. It almost had an atmosphere. Almost. I was so excited I almost peed a tiny bit. True story. Especially to see my baby Roosters Mitchell Pearce and Braith Anasta play together: LOOK HOW CUTE THEY ARE.

I know we all already know that the mighty blues were beaten, but let’s relive it in point form anyway. And I warn you in advance there won’t be much talk about football, because we don’t wanna talk about it, kk? All we have to say is THAT PASS WAS NOT FORWARD. Also, maybe if we had K Rudd hanging in our dressing room, things would have been different. Hmmmm?

* At only two minutes on the clock, we saw what everyone, deep in their heart, longs to see at Origin. A fight. Some biff. Big old anvil Petero Civenociva tackled Ben Cross with a high forearm to give away a penalty and the boys rushed from near and far to push and shove and throw a punch. Is there any sweeter experience than standing as one with 80,000 others to mime punches and scream ‘FIIIIIIIGHT!’ in the guttural animal tones of savages? I say no. Apparently I even scared Kiki a little with the intensity of my bloodlust. Who says there are no surprises in long-term relationships?

At the time, we actually thought it was a high tackle on Danny Nutley, and once the pro-violence group hysteria subsided we had to spend a good five minutes discussing when and how this mystery Danny Nutley selection wasn’t reported in the papers. Also isn’t he retired?

But now that I’m sober, I still say it’s an easy mistake to make. I bet everyone has confused Ben Cross and Danny Nutley at least once in their life. How often does a hairline like that come along anyway?

  
See?

* Best of all, it was only minutes before we got to see it again. This is what has been missing from Origin, I say. NOT ENOUGH FIGHTING. In one moment of sheer sporting brilliance, Hot Bitch sprinted from the other side of the field to join the melee, and snapped Brent Tate’s head back with one swift grab of his ridiculous neck brace. This ensured he stayed vertical and could be more effectively pummelled by other New South Welshman. Now that is some smart thinking. I am also 90% certain that Craig Fitzgibbon had Pasty Greg Inglis in a headlock and I could die of joy at the memory of it.

* I should also say, as a general observation, I did not expect to be as overwhelmed as I was to be seated so very close to greatness. And by greatness, I mean the quivering molten human charisma that is Hot Bitch Cooper. You know whenever there’s a break in play and everyone is kinda exhausted and wandering? Not our Hot Bitch. He’s still standing there in ‘ready’ pose with all his muscles poised, sniffing out action, completely and utterly focussed. Like some kind of insanely hot football playing panther. Apparently hotness never rests.

It’s fair to say virtually nothing shuts the two of us up, but when he appeard on field, lust did. For at least four minutes. We just sat in silence and contemplated The Man; staring and thinking slutty, slutty thoughts. After a while, to be honest, we almost felt bad for raping him with our eyes. We exchanged a guilty look and wondered if we were somehow violating his human rights. I half-expected him to turn around and plead ‘I AM NOT A PIECE OF MEAT! I AM A MAN!’

When he scored the Blues’ only try, there was a frenzy of clapping and ‘GO HOT BITCH’ from our section of the stands, and since people with broken elbows can’t clap, a lot of foot-stomping from Kiki.

* Aside from the joys of close-up Coops, our D reserve seats behind the goalpost also offered a special blend of football fans from North and South of the Tweed. To our left, lovely gentlemanly St George Dragons fans. In front, a row of footy-lovin lesbians, and about twenty people dressed in matching blue plaid and facepaint. One aisle over, a man dressed as Where’s Wally? In one highlight from the closing minutes of the game, Where’s Wally and a group of teenagers erupted into mob violence in the stands and four men were arrested by police. Good times.

And to our right … wow. Where do we begin? How about: two ladies who embody every reason I have ever pitied or loathed a Queenslander.

Lady number one we shall christen “speak no evil”. Truly she did not speak. Not one word. Instead, she stared vacantly with mouth agape, in her Maroons jersey, strappy black kitten heels, and Amy Winehouse eyeliner. I’m a firm believer that those shoes are never the right choice, but surely even less so when you have feet like a hobbit. Are there no pumice stones in Queensland?

Lady number two more than made up for her though. “Hear no evil” spent eighty full minutes on her feet screaming ‘Queenslander’ in what can – political correctness aside – can only be described as a Deaf Voice. Even the Dragons fan to our left started contemplating physical violence fifteen minutes in, and he was at least thirty-five times nicer a person than we are. We felt mightily validated in our bitchery.

In the scheme of things, I guess they did need a win more than we did. When your hair and teeth are the same colour, you really deserve a little joy somewhere in your life.

* Injuries can make you laugh, and make you cry. Michael Crocker made us do both when he charged towards a kicking Mitchell Pearce and was knocked out by a football to the temple. I had previously thought nothing could be more hilarious than Dallas Johnson in Origin game one. I was wrong. The crowd rose to their feet and cackled as he staggered and side-stepped and swayed off the field like a Pantomime drunk. Every time he tried to stand his right leg buckled in a quivering Elvis impersonation, but old Mick just kept on trying. Who would have thought a ball to the head could bring so much joy? It also makes us happy that others are as cavalier towards head injuries as we are.

Hang in there, Mick mate.

Unfortunately the memory of those lolz wasn’t quite enough to ease our pain when our Baby Jarryd Hayne was knocked out in mid-tackle on a Queenslander. As he lay face down on the field we yelled in unison ‘OH NO IT’S BABY HAYNE!’ Put down your knitting, Hornbag! You might be going on!

A polarfleeced spectator turned around at that point and mockingly asked ‘ … baby?‘, but that doesn’t change the fact that he spent the rest of the game calling him Baby, too. I can’t wait till this nickname takes off Australia-wide. Go Baby, go!

We are also heartbroken that Caramel Scotty Prince has broken his arm. No one at the field even knew he was injured, he just … disappeared. Kiki likes to think the injury was a show of solidarity with her broken arm and they can now nurse each other back to health. I can’t figure out if he would prefer that to Wally Lewis, who actually did nurse him backstage. They looked super sweet together as Wally consoled him and pinned up his sling and helped him into his magenta dressing gown. Even when they’re Queenslanders you just can’t hate those two crazy kids.

(Don’t worry Steve Price, we can’t hate you either. You’re just too damn lovely).

* We also have a new Origin hero in the form of Ben “I’m not Danny Nutley” Cross. Not only was he the spark to the fire of the first fight in the game, he also played a starring role in the third one. The fight erupted when the missing link in human evolution that is Nate Myles threw Cross to the ground in a spear tackle. But our new baby Cross, despite being thrown onto his skull, just leapt to his feet and threw five amazing and hilarious uppercuts to a doubled-over Brent Tate.

THAT’S IT! GIVE IT TO BRENT TATE!

If you’ve never seen a stadium full of people cheering and miming uppercuts, then you haven’t lived. It was amazing. Especially when we realised everyone hates Brent Tate. Knowing that restores my faith in humanity.

Note: I was considering including a picture of Tate, but we just don’t want his head on our blog.

* And finally, in the grand tradition of football, we drowned our sorrows afterwards. It was like a wake. Our hearts were sitting in our chests in a million little pieces. Thankfully vast amounts of Tooheys New and a cover band singing ACDC consoled us somewhat.

And as we set off on the 11.30 pm drunks only express from Homebush we also met five winners from Queensland who miaowed like cats, ran an auction to buy a bra for their lovelorn single friend to practice on, offered $14 to me if I would kick their ringleader in the nuts, and finally produced a replica Origin shield from thin air, signed by Danny Buderus. How is that possible? I think they stole it. It was also only the tragic lack of a felt tip pen that stopped the boys getting the transit cops to sign alongside it. The combined effect was that my heart healed a little bit, so thank you mystery boys. Can you believe people say Australian men aren’t charming?

We capped off the night with a visit to the always-classy Empire. This makes two visits to the Empire in six years, which I think is far too frequent. Don’t tell anyone.

It looked like origin had vomitted in there. Vomit made up of country boys, footy groupies, and maroon jerseys (suprisingly, no carrot – there’s usually always carrot). We were entertained by an under-20s footy team from Canberra, who squired us about, and seemed to enjoy the charms that Sydney has to offer. (Matt to Kiki: “nobody kisses like that in Canberra!”. I believe you on that one Matt). Wendell will be so disappointed he wasn’t there to watch.

In conclusion, they say tragedy and disappointment build character and teach life lessons. What we’ve learned from this experience is that two of Queensland’s most freakish players – Inglis and Folau – are, in fact, from NSW. This makes us kind of enraged. But we also learned that there is a silver lining to this awful cloud: at least Queensland can’t call themselves bloody underdogs anymore.

I’ve decided this will now be a regular thing for our little bloggy. Too much hilarity happens in rugby league to be encapsulated in just two recaps a week.

Lets talk about Sonny Bill shall we? What a week he’s had! Chock-a-block full of whinging, punching and some spectacular verbal diarrhea. On last weeks Footy Show he did an incredibly ill advised interview with Phil Gould, attempting to explain to The People why 400 grand a year just isn’t enough for his hot ass to live on. I’m starting to wonder just what sort of mentally challenged publicist SBW has hired.

Lets review the things we learnt in this car crash of an interview -

* SBW has ‘issues’ with the clubs management. ie – he doesn’t particularly love his bosses. Who the hell does heart their boss? No one, thats who.

* He hasn’t actually been offered a rugby contract of any kind. Nor has the ARU ever formally shown interest in him. At this point the choice of Union v League exists entirely in SBW’s head. Thus making all his public tanty throwing totally unneccessary. And extra annoying.

* He displays a somewhat tenuous grip on reality when he compares himself to the ‘average guy making $80,000 a year’. Who is this average guy earning 80 grand and when can I date him?

* SBW uses the good old “I’ve got to look after my family” justification. Despite the fact he is a single 22 year old with no wife or children. Can $400 grand a year not help feed your cousins SBW? Must be big eaters those Williams.

* In one of the best television moments in the history of the civilised world, Sonny Bill utters the words “people have to remember…I have feelings too”.

I swear to you readers, I actually slid off the lounge in a fit of incredulous giggles. I CAN’T BELIEVE HE JUST SAID THAT. Amazing.

Unsuprisingly, The People’s reaction to this interview wasn’t exactly positive. And this was predictably displayed in the press. And I think SBW was genuinely shocked that his Big Interview wasn’t the public relations success he had envisaged. But but…why don’t they liiiike me? I’m a good guuuuy! I swear! I’M JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

I honestly think Sonny Bill is probably a lovely guy and means well. But best intentions, road to hell etc etc. I think he just can’t understand why people find his whinging intolerable. He doesn’t get why The People just can’t sympathise with him. I think he is genuinely confused that people don’t understand where he’s coming from.

The problem is…he has been so famous from such a young age he simply can’t comprehend what it’s like to be normal. How can you be with all that constant adulation? Sonny, you are not just like everyone else. And you never will be.

Now lets discuss the delicious fall out from this saga. Sonny Bill’s palpable raaaage! LOVE IT! He was ‘hell in football boots’ last night against the Sharks. Bitch was pissed. Every tackle was fuelled by anger and it was awesome to watch. Usually he’s not one to start fights but last night he niggled till he could niggle no more. SBW and Greg Bird came thisclose to starting some midfield biff. Sadly the referee put a stop to that. Props to Birdy for going up against a pissed off Sonny Bill. That man has balls. And possibly a death wish.

The crowning moment occured when SBW stripped the ball from Ben Ross (as he has every right to). Ben Ross objected to this and pushed Sonny fairly hard in response. SBW reacted by jumping to his feet and throwing a cracker of a punch. WOOOO! I love biff. Is there anything greater? I say no.

SBW you are a naughty naughty boy!

Now! Let us turn our attention to the awesomness that is Scott Prince. I know hes a Queenslander but I still adore him. I love the fact the Channel 9 commentators have labelled him ‘The Surgeon’ due to his clinical dissection of the opposition. Why they can’t just call him ‘The Prince’ is beyond me. I am also on a mission to find to solve the mystery of his ethnicity. He looks like no man I’ve ever seen. So lovely and caramelly. Mmm…caramel.

Anyway, he is generally likeable and plays some amazingly watchable football. But this past Sunday against the Tigers he revealed himself to be even more awesome than I previously thought. As you all know, a bit of biff occured… albeit very confusing biff. More like a clusterfuck of pushing and shoving than concentrated violence. The ref sends off Tigers forward Bryce Gibbs and Titans hooker Nathan Friend (who is a total mini version of Andrew Ryan donchathink?). Princey is mighty annoyed, goes up to plead his case to the ref and then gives us the biggest footy lolz of the year so far-

“You’ve sent their dumb forward off and you’ve sent off our smart hooker. It’s unfair!!”

Even better, after the game the press asked Bryce Gibbs if he was offended by the comment. He responded with this -

“He’s always called me a dumb front-rower, even when he played here…. “

BRILLIANT! brilllliant! Scott Prince you are my hero.