Penrith Panthers’ Nathan Cleary and Cronulla Sharks’ Sione Katoa will go head-to-head in the NRL’s season opener in Las Vegas – of course – on Sunday. Photo: NRL.com.
We’ve somehow ended up in March already and that means one thing, apart from the end of summer – it’s footy season.
All across this wide brown land, footy jerseys (or guernseys if you follow Aussie Rules), scarves, flags and beanies are being dusted off and ready to be proudly worn for the next seven months or so.
The National Rugby League kicks off this weekend, not in our wide brown land but on the other side of the world, while the whistle blows for the start of the AFL on Thursday 6 March.
These days I can take or leave a rugby league match, although I have signed up to Region’s footy tipping competition (I’ll need a miracle).
I don’t hold a strong allegiance to any one side but I do have a soft spot for the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Dear old dad was a huge Souths fan, from the day his cousin Jimmy Lisle pulled on the cardinal and myrtle – better known as red and green – in the early 60s and later captained the team.
The husband has the same colours running through his veins, as did his eldest brother and father (he doesn’t like to mention that the other brother supports the Dragons, except of course, when they lose to the Rabbits).
And just so I don’t get run out of town, I do also barrack for the St George Illawarra Dragons (but probably not when they play the Rabbitohs).
My sister and her husband are at the other end of the footy fan(atic) scale. They are such diehard Roosters supporters that they travelled to Las Vegas last year for the NRL’s first attempt at convincing the Yanks that our footy players are tougher than their footy players.
Their rescue kitten is named Teddy, in honour of captain James Tedesco. My husband – who wouldn’t cross the road to watch the Roosters, let alone cross the world – might say that makes sense ’cause the kitten’s a girl.
A Sydney Roosters fan stands out during last year’s Las Vegas season opener. Photo: Supplied.
Needless to say, the rivalry between the Roosters and Rabbitohs fans in our family is intense – some might say insane.
When No 1 favourite son was due, Nana Maggie turned her artistic talents to painting a mural on the nursery wall.
The husband begged his mother-in-law to include a special addition – a fairy dressed in Roosters colours. You would need to know Nana Maggie to understand that including any kind of football reference on her grandchild-to-be’s nursery wall really went against the grain. Luckily she loves her SIL.
He didn’t stop laughing until the brother-in-law’s first child was due, not long after South Sydney was kicked out of the NRL in 1999.
Nana Maggie was again called on for a mural in the nursery and a special addition – a bunny in red and green lying dead on its back.
Nana Maggie provided unique additions to the nursery walls of her grandchildren at the request of her SILs. Photos: Supplied.
It was a draw.
But then in 2009 the Roosters “won” the wooden spoon.
My scheming husband bought every wooden spoon he could lay his hands on and decorated the BIL’s house before he arrived home from work.
They were hanging from the front verandah, in his pillow, under his favourite chair, in his sock drawer.
Not content with that, he extended the humiliation to BIL’s workplace by getting a box – containing the rest of the wooden spoons, complete with shit-stirring messages on each – into the internal courier’s daily delivery. The BIL had no words and conceded defeat.
There’s still an intense rivalry between the two camps, especially when their teams meet, but they’ve both learnt the hard way not to get too cocky, at least until the final whistle.
It’s a bloody long season ahead and all I can say is may the best team win – although it would be nice if it wasn’t the Panthers again.
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