| Matt Facts: Matthew dislikes drinking cold drinks from coffee mugs. He also hates plastic forks. | | Did you Know? Toothpicks are overrated. | | Words of Inspiration: "You can tell a lot about a fellow by the way he eats Jelly Beans" – R.Regan | | Did you know? There are no Pez Facts. Pez is, in fact, not factual. | | Matt Facts: Matthew's fortune cookies always predict success. | | Words of Inspiration: When I'm sad I stop being sad and be awesome instead - Barney Stinson | | Did you know? "Buf­falo buf­falo Buf­falo buf­falo buf­falo buf­falo Buf­falo buf­falo” is a gram­mat­i­cally valid sentence. | | Matt Facts: Matthew is best served on the rocks with a slice of lemon. | | Words of Inspiration: "Life is futile." | | Did you Know? Dinosaurs and Dandelions is the name of a popular blog that has been around since the 15 April 2010 | | Matt Facts: Unlike some people, Matthew only celebrates his birthday once a year. | | Words of Inspiration: "I'll be back" - The Terminator. | | Did you Know? The two modern breeds of Cocker Spaniel, American and English, are thought to have been descended from only two dogs? | | Matt Facts: On the second to last full moon of the year, Matthew develops an itch on his right shoulder. | | Words of Inspiration: “You can do it!” - Rob Schneider, in every Adam Sandler movie ever | | Did you know? Lettuce is often eaten raw. | | Words of Inspiration: "Science is always at work and never sleeps – just like Rust" | | Did you Know? When you dream, every­thing you see in that dream, you’ve seen before in real life. | | Matt Facts: Matthew officially endorses the Cadbury's Moro bar as being delicious | | Did You Know? A tadpole is also called a 'pollywog'. | | Matt Facts: Matthew has his own Facebook fan page. Creepy. | | Did You Know? Cats sleep for 70% of their lives. | | Words of Inspiration: "End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it." - Gandalf. | | Did you Know? This is the end. The journey ends here. Then it starts all over again. |

Friday 23 April 2010

A Rugby League Rant

Well, it's not going to be the usual subject matter, because most of you don't really give a shit - but I'm overdue for a post on my favourite sport, especially after what happened YESTERDAY. But anytime the NZ Herald has my favourite sport as its headline, then you know Dinosaurs and Dandelions is overdue for a League post. The second half of this post is what I was angry about earlier this week, the first half is shocking breaking news - delivered only days later than everywhere else.

Scandal!

"What's the difference between the Melbourne Storm and a toothpick? The toothpick has two points."


Ahem, so basically, if you haven't heard, the Melbourne Storm have been cheating bastards for the last five years until the NRL finally caught them and threw the book at them last night. This is disappointing because the Storm were the perfect example of how a team can be continuously successful over a period of years in a Salary Cap environment. Now we know they were cheating, well, any lessons learned from their organisation are pretty much null and void.

The Crime: $1.7 million over the $4.1m salary cap, spread over five years.
The Punishment: Melbourne were stripped of their 2007 and 2009 premierships, their 2006, 2007 and 2008 minor premierships, all competition points they had in 2010, the right to earn competition points in 2010, the $1.1m they have been awarded in prize money in the last five years and fined $500,000. Ouch.

The fallout is continuing but already Melbourne have fired several staff members and Brian Waldron, the Storm's former CEO, has been fired from his position as head of the Melbourne Rebels rugby union club. The NZ Herald is still providing live updates on the scandal.

Can Cleary Coach?

I pretty much blame Ivan Cleary for the Warriors loss to the Panthers on Sunday. All week the build up was "The Panthers will be the biggest forward pack the Warriors have faced all year". So of course the Warriors went into the match with only three props and two backs on the bench. I'm sorry, but what. the. fuck?

Predictably, the Warriors were out muscled at the play the ball by the Panthers, couldn't dominate the tackles and lost 40-12. If Packer wasn't playing and training well then sure, drop him, but by gawd don't replace him with a 80% fit Jerome Ropati. Especially when the pack is already missing Mannering, Luck and Price.

This weeks Warriors v Storm game should be interesting. Will the Storm bounce back or be a unmotivated mess? Can the Warriors actually play? Find out all this and more at 8pm on Sunday!

Miscellaneous crap

It will be good to see Clinton Toopi back in the NRL when he comes out for the Titans this week. I have no idea why the Warriors didn't grab him last year and use him in a similar mentoring role.

Mad props to TV3 and Campbell Live with last nights coverage of the Melbourne Storm. 3News mentioned the story shortly after it broke and screened most of the press conference on the Sports News. Campbell Live then had raced Dean Lonergan to the studio and had the voice of rugby league on the phone. This was despite the NRL holding its press conference at 4pm Australian time/6pm NZ time, a very inconvenient time slot for the NZ news staitons. Pity Lonergan is such a meat head.

Who the hell is  Hep Cahill? Is he any good? He always makes the NZ side in Rugby League 3 for some reason. Very odd. Maybe we will find out soon enough as Melbourne are forced to rely on cheapies like him to make up their squad.
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