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Sledging Reds relishing spoiler role
Greg Growden | May 12, 2008
MONDAY MAUL
ALL over the Sunshine State, Queensland players past and present are dusting off their well-worn copies of A Thousand and One Insults so that they are primed for the week we all desperately wait for in Australian Rugby.
Yes, it's time for the annual Waratahs v Reds sledgefest.
This caper has been going on for years, but the scenario this season could not be any better. The Waratahs must beat the Reds in Brisbane on Saturday night to secure a Super 14 semi-final spot, and also possibly a home semi.
The Reds campaign is simple - beat the Waratahs and ruin their season.
For generations of Reds players, who have been brought up to believe that everything south of the Tweed is nasty and nauseous, nothing could be more tantalising.
It doesn't matter that the Reds will finish near the bottom of the Super 14 table.
If they can humiliate the Waratahs, their year will be made, and be described as an outright success.
But what makes the build-up entertaining is witnessing how the Reds prepare themselves for this is genuinely funny.
Each year, Queensland wheels out a tribe of past players, who in an attempt to psych up their team will become rugby's version of Don Rickles, hit the rubber chicken lunch circuit and in stand-up routines all over Brisbane try to outdo each other with their best Waratahs put-downs.
The King of Queensland-NSW Comedy remains Chris "Buddha" Handy; "The only thing NSW can beat Queensland at is in the number of former chief executive officers, presidents, coaches and bankruptcies."
Then Rod "Slaughter" McCall will come in over the top with the stinger: "The Waratahs are big-noting because they're from Sydney, pea-hearted because they wear those sky-blue jerseys, and impostors because they choke."
However, as McCall is now an Australian Rugby Union director, he may gag himself.
It shouldn't stop the onslaught though, with proud Reds gagster Dan Crowley bound to take up the slack.
For years NSW players refused to respond, until several years ago, Simon Poidevin had enough of this gibber, and went for the cross-court volley with: "It was great touring with Queenslanders because it always ensured that there were some terrific banjo players in the team."
Naturally that prompted an uproar up north, especially when it was explained to them.
But the Reds finally laughed it off, and gladly took on the Hillbillies tag. Others take it far more seriously.
One of the great debating points of Australian rugby is whether, in 1962, NSW opted against playing Queensland because they thought their northern neighbours were too weak. NSW officials have argued this is all poppycock and it was due to an overloaded Wallaby trial schedule that year.
But, from that day on, Queensland have used it as a rallying cry. A succession of Reds coaches have used the "snub" as a rev-up line.
A few years ago, when the ARU questioned the 1962 tale explaining it was nothing more than "a colourful marketing tool," the 1962 Queensland manager Barrie Ffrench fired back: "Mao Tse-Tung seems to have joined the ARU to rewrite history. No matter how many assertions emanate from NSW, the fact remains that the arrogant attitude of NSW in the 1960s and '70s aroused a lot of ire in Queensland, it could be one of the many reasons why we have moved so far ahead in playing standards, administration and solvency."
No wonder so many of us love this game. It's good for the soul to have a belly-laugh.
http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...444243763.html
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