swine flu and jumping castles: sassy's dally m recap

So I know some of you all may have missed the Dally Ms on Tuesday night, because … well, most probably because you had more important things to do, like googling ‘cancer’ to see if that funny feeling in your throat is deadly or listening to Faith Hill albums. WELL YOU MISSED OUT.

Didn’t you know that Events Involving Rugby League are always always worth watching? Because anything ridiculous or awkward that can happen in life will always always somehow happen to league. Don’t believe me? Well you can piss off and try and find another sport that has had an INTERNATIONAL MANHUNT in the last two years. I rest my case. It’s just … destiny. The same way that if there’s an aging bogan or an underage boy in the vicinity they will ALWAYS manage to find Kiki and me like magnets.

Luckily, Lozzy and Kiki came over to mine to watch the spectacular with me, and I’ma recap all the important parts for you. Don’t worry, you can repay me with thankyou gropes.

Unrelated note: how beautiful is Simone Ennis? So beautiful.

So we start with super-glamorous shots of all the schmicked up footy players and their dates arriving at the State Theatre. God I love footy players in suits. It’s one of my top ten favourite things. I love the way they keep looking around uncomfortably and pulling at their collars. It’s so deliciously awkward. Kinda like when they make Serena Williams wear a formal dress to the ball after she wins a Grand Slam and it looks like she’s just been wrapped in chiffon against her will. Or watching a dog walk on its hind legs.

Apparently the theme of the ceremony this year isn’t ‘irony’, cause Greg Alexander starts the show walking up the aisle talking solemnly into the camera while some kind of Space Odyssey: 2001 orchestral music plays super loudly in the background. Bet there’s at least one guy sitting in the audience praying and thinking ARE THE DALLY MS CANCELLED? ARE THEY GONNA SCREEN STAR WARS INSTEAD?

No, my sad friend. What they are gonna do is get an orchestra to play while we watch slo-mo league highlights. Because nothing says ‘league’ like an orchestra. Right? Personally, I was hoping for interpretive dance. Everyone loves interpretive dance.

So then Laurie Daley and Warren Smith get on stage and Warren’s got this crazy Napro Livecolour Just for Men shiny maroon hair for some reason and they’re bantering like it’s the Loz & Waz comedy hour and Lozzy is just sitting on the couch looking at me like ‘what the fuck? You got me over here to watch this?’. I feel like any second they’re gonna tell me to enjoy the rest of my cruise and try the prawn cocktail.

I totally freak out when they read out the Rookie of the Year nominations because, well, they’re Dan Dan Mortimer, Josh Dugan, Jarrod Croker, and Jamal Idris. Lozzy takes the piss out of me mercilessly after I actually wail ‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I LOVE THEM ALL’. Apparently in my mind I decide the awards. Crokes’ skunk striped black and white hair from last week is all just dark brown now … did David Furner make him dye it? I’m guessing yes.

Jamal takes it out and ambles up to get his award, lookin all sharp in his giant suit. Apparently he wears his hair out for formal occasions. Pigtails are only for sporting activities. We all lose our shit because … well because he’s Jamal. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE? HE’S AMAZING. HE’S DOING HIS HSC AND HE HAS A MOUSTACHE. You don’t see that every day.

He also tells us that he chose league over javelin cause “you get to hit people, and you can get hit. It’s more fun hey.” I’m gonna put it out there that there would be a much bigger audience for javelin if you could hit people. It would be so … Roman gladiator. As if you wouldn’t tune in if there was a chance of a competitor getting a well-placed javelin through the thigh. It would be CHAMPAGNE TELEVISION.

The Polar Bear and his lady. Pic. Gregg Porteous

What was my point? Oh yes, next Ben Hannant wins the front rower of the year award and looks all happy and chuffed about it. It’s adorable. Good for you Benny! Even though he’s a Queenslander he’s impossible to hate. I think it’s the lovely blond hair. That and the fact that they call him a polar bear (that totally won Lozzy over. If there’s anything she loves more than a larger man, it’s an animal reference … preferably a LolCat). Needless to say Lozzy is now all over Ben Hannant’s swagger.

I have this sneaking suspicion that the Dally M peeps were all happy when they realised Hannant won this award … cause dammit if he didn’t deserve it. Not only did he get outed on national television by the commentators for having the runs, he was also the first player in the NRL to get SWINE FLU. Sucks to be Ben Hannant in 2009.

Just quietly – how totally and completely rugby league is it that players got swine flu? Seriously, is there any other sport in the world that had to have players quarantined for swine flu? OF COURSE THERE ISN’T. Because ridiculous shit like Swine Flu quarantine scandals only happens in league. Shit like international manhunts, and players having to be taken off the field with the runs, and naked hotel corridor scandals, and that time Billy Idol’s mike didn’t work. It’s one of the things we love most about it.

We seriously called it about four weeks before it happened that at least one NRL player would get swine flu. Not any other Australian sport … just league. We were so convinced that on the morning when the news broke Lozzy and I literally ran in and jumped on a sleeping Kiki yelling WE KNEW IT. BEN HANNANT HAS SWINE FLUUUUUUU. Best alarm clock ever, right?

Next up Anthony Watmough takes out second rower and the Errol gallery loses their damn minds. I have no idea when it happened, but at some point in 2009 we all became complete Watmough freaks. Just absolute bandits for some Watmough. TEAM WATMOUGH! *high kick* Maybe it’s because he’s always lovely and polite to us/remembers what we do/gives us awesome career advice? Who can say. It might also be because of the way he carved up the Queenslanders in game three of State of Origin this year. Either way, we all squeal with joy.

Plus, he looks seriously dashing. Points to Watmough for the best suit and best tie of the night. Who would’ve thought a forward would win that award? Amazing. He also jokes that he plays well just so he doesn’t piss off Des Hasler, and that makes us happy because we kinda suspect it’s the truth. Des can be a terrifying, terrifying man.

Warren Smith tries to introduce David Gallop to give a speech and …. um, has anyone seen DG? Anyone? He’s, wait, he’s on the way? On the way from where? Is he peeing? Is he drunk in the corridor like Kiki suspects he is?

[I imagined him clutching a bottle of whiskey, sobbing and refusing to go on stage. I CAN'T DO IT...DON'T MAKE ME DO IT! - K]

Bet they’ve never lost the head of the AFL at the Brownlows … oh, league. You are so special.

About twenty minutes later someone finds DG and shunts him up on the stage to give the Most Ironic Speech Ever:

“We’ve seen our players do extraordinary things this year … “

Nate Myles I believe this is directed at you!

“… and they deliver so consistently.”

This one’s for the Roosters, right? They have been bloody consistent this season. In a lot of ways.

We get some crowd shots of Jamie Soward looking completely furious and about to give up on life and/or start a shooting rampage. Possibly because there’s no booze. That’s right, this year the players have been squished into little seats at the State Theater. No moving, no food and no booze. It’s like the awards equivalent of being grounded for bad behaviour. This is not surprising. Even winning TWO awards doesn’t help.

Have you ever seen a happier man? Unlikely. *cough*

Nathan Hindmarsh and Fui Fui Moi Moi are all tucked in their little seats next to each other like dates. They make a lovely couple. Hornbag’s skin looks lovely and glowy. The Mozzies look like the cutest twins in cute-town, as always. Brett Kimmorley’s broken cheekbone is tres upsetting and has given him a crazy-zombie-red-eye. If I was him, I would’ve worn a nifty little formal eyepatch. Maybe one with spangles on it. Like Gabrielle!

We’re getting closer to the big announcement, when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd struts out on stage. Of course he does. Of course K.Rudd has nothing better to do on a Tuesday night than attend the Dally M Awards. God knows he wouldn’t be fine-tuning the proposed ETS. He’d much rather be drinking beer shirtless with Billy Slater or presenting footy awards. I love our country so much sometimes, and this is one of those times.

Pic. Brett Costello

The camera gives us a shot of Kurt Gidley, who for reasons we haven’t quite figured out, is wearing an amazing shiny metallic grey suit. He’s either planning on a trip to the moon later, or has built some kind of time machine for a trip back to Studio 54 circa 1981. I like it.

We take bets on who’s gonna win the thing, and – more importantly – on when Tiny Dancer Sowie is gonna blow. My guess is that he’ll leap up, punch Brandy and run for the exit within the next five minutes.

Straight after this, I am not exaggerating, the BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN happens on the tv. I shit you not. Someone who is apparently from ‘Australia’s got Talent’ gets up on stage and starts singing the Josh Groban song ‘You Raise me Up’. Then …. I also shit you not, they start showing slow motion footage of footy players out in the community doing various good works. It doesn’t sound that good, so far, right? Well that’s because I haven’t told you that part of the footage is of Shane Shackleton leaping on a jumping castle for deadset thirty seconds. With children. In slow motion.

THIS:

PLUS THIS:

= HILARITY.

If you haven’t seen the Love Shack leaping in slow motion on a giant inflatable jhumping castle set to pop-opera, well then, my friends, you haven’t lived. I lost. my.  damn. mind.

Finally, after the shortest, dryest, booze-free awards ceremony ever, the winner is ….. *drumroll* … JARRYD HAYNE.

Kiki and Lozzy yell out AT LEAST IT’S NOT THURSTON. And it’s true. It makes our sky blue hearts happy that a NSW player won it. If Queensland won anything else this year we would’ve exploded with rage.

Hayne decides to totally tug on my heartstrings by kissing his mum on the shoulder (HIS MUM IS HIS DATE. CUTE) then telling the whole of Australia “I feel like crying”.

Crying from happiness, I presume. After all, he’s just won the Dally M player of the year … and he made it through the whole of the 2009 season without getting shot at. That’s pretty sweet.

I’m so touched that I don’t even correct his grammar when he says “it blew my mind away. I’m so gracious I went on that tour [with Fiji]“.

He poses with the rest of the Dally M team of the year – including Michael Ennis holding his award like a giant penis – and in true rugby league style, the ceremony ends with a giant explosion of confetti that scares the absolute shit out of Jarryd Hayne. He leaps about two feet and almost chokes himself with his medal. It’s amazing.

Pic. Steve Christo

It could only be more league if the confetti had somehow poked the Dally M player of the year in the eye and/or given him swine flu. Don’t you think?

Till next year kittens x