update from kikiland + axemen awesomeness

Hello all!

I know I’ve been totally absent of late, I’ve been a tad busy. For those who didn’t know, I’m the new Assistant Editor of Rugby League Player magazine. The pic above is an artist’s rendering of me hard at work. How good is my sweater vest! Anyway, I’ve been running around like a headless chicken trying to get stuff organised for our next issue. I’ve only been there a month but I’ve already got to do awesome things like

a) grab Sassy, jump in my Jeep and drive out to Penrith. Then hang out for 2 hours in CUA Stadium with the adorable Michael Gordon, interview him and then force him into an American Apparel t-shirt I picked out. Happy to report he is just as awesome as we expected. He also repeatedly took the piss out of me which obviously makes me love him even more.

b) somehow convince Errol fave Robbie ‘Nips’ Farah to sit down with me for over an hour and give me an awesome interview. He didn’t even object when I yelled STOP LOOKING SO UNCOMFORTABLE ROBBIE across Norton Street during the photoshoot. Keep in mind he knows all about Errol, his Nips nickname and even admitted reading our post on Ready Steady Cook. Robbie, you are such an awesome human.

c) spend Friday morning at Rabbitohs HQ, interviewing CEO Shane Richardson, community manager John Hutchinson and the hilarious media manager Jeremy Monahan. Seriously kids, I was wide eyed with wonder the whole time. Obviously working in footy has given me a peek behind the scenes, but this was on a whole new level. When Mr Richardson was talking I actually got goosebumps. Okay, I’m kind of tragic but I swear IT WAS SO AMAZING.

Now onto things that aren’t me.

The Jacksonville Axemen are our second family. For the ignorant amongst you, footy does exist outside the NRL. They have a national league in the USA. Yes, really! Apparently there are other teams in the league, but we care not for them.

The Axemen and their fans are some the best humans we’ve ever come across. The owner, coach and captain is Spinner Howland. He’s from Queensland (ew) but is basically like our Dad and says things like ‘fair suck of the sauce bottle girls’ with no irony. He also didn’t even care when we stalled his truck in the middle of the highway and he had to bolt out of work to rescue us.

We’ve been to Jacksonville twice, read about our first time here. At this time last year we were in NYC about to watch our boys play the Grand Final against the New York Knights (also known as the Melbourne Storm of the AMNRL. aka wholly unlikeable and possibly evil). Example – they got t-shirts made saying ‘Yes, we did!’ and put them on as soon as the game ended. See! Hateful!

I googled ‘evil knight’ and got this

Sassy and I may or may not have got into a massive fight with the owner of the Knights that involved me yelling OI DICKHEAD and shaking a chain mail fence. It resulted in him scurrying away like a pussy. But that’s a story for another time.

Anyway, once again the Axemen have had a shit hot season and ended up in the big one. This time it’s against the New Haven Warriors. I’m sure they are lovely blokes but I hope the Axemen rip them to shreds. MAKE EM HURT BOYS!

We ask that you please tweet at the Axemen with your support. Here are a few reasons why you should get behind them -

Spinner has no hair but a lot of heart

Matty ‘Montana’ Clark is tough on the field, hilarious off it.

Jay DeFau = AMAZING HUMAN

They are in man love.

Craig Howitt has a ginger beard, does retro stretching and once got arrested in airport for impersonating a tiger.

Nick Shea is from Boston. He says ‘wicked awesome’, has Kennedy hair and plays like a man 3 times his size.

They have faces like this.

AXEMEN FOR PREMIERS 2010! WE LOVE YOU BOYS!

The finalised team list for the GF is as follows

1	Kenny Britt
2	Josh Longenecker
3	Matt Thornton
4	Zac Matta
5	Dylan Beaver
6	Brent Shorten
7	Luke Gray
8	Craig Howitt
9	Apple Pope
10	Matt Clark
11	Bob Knoepfel
12	Taco Pope
13	Adrian Grayson
14	Richard Alleger
15	Spinner Howland
16	Marc Hanke
17	Matt Schell
18	Jonathan DeFau
19	Jaime Uyttewaal
21	Nick Shea