Highs and Lows

This past week was an absolute roller coaster of emotions for the Red Hill Rants crew. Elation, disappointment, anger and amazement were all experienced throughout the week of Rugby League.

Let's start with the positive. Jim and I were on hand to witness history in the making. We saw possibly the greatest display of domination by a QLD team that has ever occurred. There was not a player on the field that can honestly say he was outmatched by his counterpart. I'll be honest, the second half was a little blurry for Jim and myself as we immersed ourselves in the party atmosphere in the stands and may have been slightly inebriated. I've never been a part of anything like that before - a good 48,000 of the 52,400 present were Queenslanders and the camaraderie among our section of the stand was insane. In that 80 minutes, we went from random individuals to old mates from way back who had known each other for years. We were all united for the same cause - unleashing a flogging on to the NSW team like never seen before. The scenes at Caxton Street were of total jubilation - my hand and shoulder still hurt from giving and receiving an inordinate amount of high 5's. I can honestly say that I'll be heading to as many games as possible in the future.

As for the low's, these come in 2 forms. The first being the Broncos limp display against the Panthers after their demolition of the Rabbitoh's the week before. There were a number of issues - firstly, the amount of handling errors was unacceptable even for an under 11 side. Simple errors like that just shouldn't be made by professionals. The next was the forwards inability to lay the platform for the backs to do their thing. For some reason we decided to pass 2 and 3 times before the hit up, thus gaining less ground and forcing kicks from our halves deep in our own territory. Nick Kenny and Sam Thaiday were the only exceptions - Kenny had a solid game upon his return and Thaiday showed why he is a shoe in for the QLD side. The bloke was backing up from Origin Wednesday and tried his absolute best to conjure a win for the lads. To no avail it turns out.

The other negative was the refereeing. I'll be honest, I've made sailors blush with some of the language that I've sent in the ref's direction over the years. As I've gotten older I've become more accepting of errors because they do happen. What I've got no time for was the lack of a video referee referral in the Yow Yeh try. On the replay you can clearly see that both referee's were some distance from the play yet they decided instantly that it was a knock-on. The replays were quite clear in showing that Yow Yeh hit it forward himself and regathered for the try. Don't get me wrong - we probably would have lost regardless but really, the video referee exists for a reason, use it. I'm all for ref's backing their judgement and often they are right but in this case, it was a horrible decision. Henjak must have the patience of a saint when commenting on referee's - see this for proof. Hell, if I had 10k to spare I'd donate it to the Broncos just to see Ivan let fly about the atrocious decisions. Gavin Badger probably won't even be stood down for next week - time for referee boss Robert Finch to be given a kick up the backside. I don't like quoting other blogs but this bloke has it spot on.

So all in all I'd say it was a positive week for the Red Hill Ranters. Definitely looking forward to our game against the Eels next week - surely we should take the Panthers game as a reality check and blow Parra off the park.

Until next time readers,

Waldo.