My preferred cure for jetlag is to arrive in the morning and spend a fair part of the day outside, resetting your body clock, then have as normal an evening as possible, before going to bed about 10pm. In most respects, my schedule fitted this plan perfectly. Leaving Paris on Monday evening, I got into Brisbane this morning (Wednesday) and the day was suitably sunny. With the State of Origin starting soon, there’ll be no problem about staying up.
The only unusual feature is that my normal Wednesday includes karate training. I can now report that this is a complete, if problematic, cure for jet lag. Whatever term might describe my post-training condition, it is not jet-lagged.
GO MAROONS
John Quiggin 
Rugby repeats itself, though no two economists agree quite how…
Some pleasure in Queensland’s pain: Blues take series with convincing win
My momma told me that if you want to win in football you have to run hard. I don’t think the Maroons ran hard much.
forest, you shouldn’t believe all your momma said.
Our forwards made better ground than in either of the two earlier matches. It was our little guys who couldn’t do much. The surface at Stadium Australia is substandard. The idea is for the little guys to step around the big guys, which last night they couldn’t do.
Then there was the refereeing. Wayne Bennett said it in a column last year. If the ref accidentally favours us (meaning the Broncos or Qld) they get dropped. So psychologically they usually don’t. The ref in game 2 probably got it about even. The result – the NSW squeals like a stuck pig and he gets dropped. We don’t complain about this. There is no point. If we do we are labelled whingers.
Consider last night:
1. First tackle Slater gets thumped and loses the ball. Video replays show his backside was clearly lifted above the horizontal. This is an automatic penalty against the tacklers. Too bad the ref didn’t see it. NSW gets the ball and attacks in our red zone.
2. Again in our red zone a NSW player lost the ball backwards as a Qld player went to tackle him. The TV showed clear air between the Qld player’s hand and the ball. Qld jumps on the ball. The ref rules a Qld knock-on and again they are at ourn throats.
3. A NSW player loses the ball over the line scoring a try as his elbow hits the ground. A careful look at the video shows a Qld hand in there. If they looked again they would have seen that the Qld player had his arm around the torso of the NSW guy. As the NSW guy hit the ground and the QLD guy’s body went over the NSW player’s body in the momentum of the tackle. A millisecond before his face hits the turf he unsurprisingly straightens his arm which levers out the ball. It should have been ‘lost forward’ by the NSW player and the ball given to QLD. Instead it is a penalty against QLD.
4. Most blatant of all, Minichiello takes Singh out as he was about to press the ball and score. Yes, we got the penalty, scored in the corner and converted. It should have been a penalty try in front of the sticks. In any case Minichiello should have been sin-binned for 10 minutes for a professional foul.
There were two or three more, but if any of these instances had happened against NSW there would have been calls for the ref’s scalp.
NSW always look bigger, stonger, faster, more skillful, throw the ball around more, run better angles, kick better and goal-kick better. Mostly the officiating is worth at least 6 points per game to them. They have four times as many players in the NRL to draw from. Still we have managed now to win 35 to their 35 with two draws.
I don’t know how we do it, but if we continue to play half the games at Stadium Australia we will inevitably fall behind.
My momma knows about foozball, she is the nicest, smartest woman I know in the whole world.
Brian, you are right about Queensland’s backline. I reckon they were slacker than a houndog on a hot summer day. Lieutenant Dan could have run better – even after he got back from Vietnam.
The reason the talent pool in Queensland is so small is because you all breed ’em real slow like.
As my momma says, whinging is as whinging does, and it ain’t real pretty.
As I predicted, forest, if we tell the truth we are accused of whinging. Tallis found this when after three blatant refereeing mistakes in the same movement he called Bill Harrigan a fornicating cheat. Bill, instead of recognising the truth took offence and shot the messenger by sending him off. The ref had a ‘good game’ the other night because he pleased the NSW coach, the NSW players, their management and fans. Also the Qld captain, the mild-mannered Lockyer, chose not to tell him the truth.
You still don’t get it about the Qld backs. They are fast, small and slippery. But when you put them on skates they bang straight into the big guys who can stop then quite easily.
The authorities will keep going back to Stadium Australia for two reasons. First they can fit in about 30,000 or so more in the stadium. Second, NSW have a better chance of winning. You must understand that NSW always have the numbers on the decisionmaking bodies. They are single-minded and one-eyed. Any-one who points out the truth is automatically a whinger. I’m close to walking away from the game, because we get a better go in AFL and Union.
The breeding comment is so stupid I won’t comment.
Before this post disappears, I thought I’d mention that there was an interesting article in the Courier Mail by Wayne Bennett today. He pointed out that since the 2000 series whitewash, culminating in the record 56-16 victory to NSW in the third, 12 matches have been played. Guess what. NSW have won 6, QLD 5 and there was one draw. When you consider that we should have won the third in 2002 when Lockyer regathered a kick and grounded the ball centimeters inside the dead ball line, only to be deemed to have knocked on by the video referee. Bennett says he scored, every-one saw it and it’s the truth. But the record shows otherwise. That match was drawn, so it should be 6 each.
The prospect of a 10 year NSW dynasty has been announced many times since their first series clean sweep in 1986. The last time we heard the dynasty announced was after game 2 in 2003. Since then it’s two all, but we’ve scored 80 points to their 69. There’s hope yet!