Nine-inch nails

Power. Control. Composure. Parramatta. You read that right. Drop an Eel in the middle of Auckland and it turns into a Cowboy. I suppose it makes sense that a club with the reputation of finding it hard to stay the distance has made the short form of the game its own, and Mr Batsy says Mr Norman perhaps takes opposing teams out for a night on the town the day before a match, but let’s not be snide. It’s a new year, a new game, everyone looks as bright as a new penny under the Auckland sunshine (?) like it’s the first day of school. New clothes, new shoes, new haircuts, everyone looks a bit “different” after the holidays - older or fresher? a different training regime? or nothing more than the new haircut? I will have to stop calling Clint Gutherson “Hipster Boy”, for example, as I now believe “a Trendy” is the more correct term. Then there’s the one who you realise isn’t just different but actually a new boy. He came to Parramatta because the burden of having to introduce himself as the I Luv CoffeeBurleigh Bears Co-Captain had become intolerable.

The future, and the Auckland sun (I’ll say it again, ?) was so bright
I had to draw the lounge room curtains against the glare so my eyes could adjust to the new order and ease in to the rhythms and flows of the winter code. I’d made the effort of course for a look in on He Who Must Not be Named, who didn’t feature much in the end, grubbering one to the Trendy for a try instead of grubbering it to himself, and leaving the big run to How Much Can a Burleigh Bear. I had a whole $4 on a Parramatta win (against the Dragons, this whole thing was against the Dragons by the way), the dregs of my 2016 investment in the NRL season, now a magnificent $6.53. I imagine my final winnings will be a play off between compound betting and shortening odds, but I’m all in.