Congratulations on the new gig, Peter V’landys. But you’ve dropped the ball with grand final entertainment
Peter V’landys?
This columnist has had a lot of fun over the years blowing raspberries in the general direction of much of the insanely breathless coverage he is afforded for his every move: “V’landys, he’s done it AGAIN! Las Vegas matches are taking America by storm! He’s bigger than the Pope! He has the Queen of England’s telephone number!”
Against that, however, in the week when he takes over as executive chairman of the whole shooting match of the NRL, it is equally fair to note that he is a very good operator and, with former chief executive Andrew Abdo, has done more to genuinely professionalise the sport of rugby league than anyone – with the possible exceptions of John Quayle and Todd Greenberg, back in the day.
If you wanted to argue for the virtues of having a benevolent dictator running a sport, he’s a good argument in your favour, taking – for all the hoopla and carry-on – quick and effective decisions that in days of yore might have taken months, if not years, to guide through various committees. So good luck to him. But …
NRL should be so lucky to have Kylie, anyone
But we now resume our normal programming!
This week’s major issue in league has been the amazing lack of a big-name singer at the NRL grand final next weekend, at the very time that the AFL has jagged no less than Kylie Minogue to do the honours. It is all very odd, in such a professional game, to have such an unprofessional outcome, yes?
We have it from the performer Toni Watson, professionally known as Tones and I, that her management was negotiating with the NRL as recently as September 5, before the whole thing fell through because of her refusal to sing her hit, Dance Monkey.
Sorry, what? The grand final is next week, and as recently as three weeks ago, the NRL was still faffing about trying to work out who would do it. By contrast, the AFL had locked in Kylie way back on March 30!
In the face of the debacle – big-name performers are a tradition in both codes, following the American Super Bowl lead – PVL has unleashed spin that would do Shane Warne proud. Tell ’em, Peter: “Our game sells itself. People come to watch rugby league. They don’t come to watch a pop concert.”
Yeah, nah. While the hard-core NRL fans are indeed there for the football, huge swathes of the mob are there for the buzz of the whole thing, and a great show keeps them engaged. Channel Nine has every right to be angry. But go on, Peter.
“No one’s going to really notice if you’ve got 11 minutes of a singer. You don’t buy the cheeseburger for the pickle. Some like the pickle and some don’t. And that’s how I believe the 11 minutes of entertainment is.”
Peter, for that to stack up, you’d have to have no huge singers for the rest of your time running the show, for years to come, and we both know that won’t be the case. Someone will have their arse kicked for this right royal stuff-up, and next year you’ll have someone locked in by March 29, at the latest!
But again, do go on, this time on how you’d rather give a million dollars to the juniors.
“I’d prefer to see 20,000 underprivileged kids who can’t afford to play rugby league play rugby league, rather than spend a million dollars on 11 minutes of a musical performance.”
Again, Shane Warne would be proud. Talk about SPIN! You’re the guy, PVL, who wants the game to go global, who took it to Las Vegas for the sheer pizzazz, who wants the NRL to be part of a complete entertainment package. But suddenly, money spent on pizzazz – hold the anchovies – is wasted money, and some development fund for underprivileged kids is going to get a million dollars they wouldn’t have previously got?
I call bullshit, I call spin, and ask the bunker to look at it again on the Harvey Norman replay for Chemist Warehouse!
Enough, PVL. Scramble!
Send out for Hugh Jackman to come home to Sydney and do Sweet Caroline – practically an NRL anthem these days – the way he did in his Neil Diamond tribute film from last year, Song Sung Blue. “Sydney boy comes home, and blows the crowd away!”
Or get the same mob who did the tribute to John Farnham to at Rod Laver Arena last weekend to do You’re the Voice, maybe with Celine Dion piped in. Sydney would lose its nut!
Or get Paul Kelly doing How to Make Gravy – or anything else in his repertoire.
Or get, as I once discussed with you, Olivia Coe Fox doing I am, You Are, We are Australian, with Indigenous verses. The NRL has been fabulous on Indigenous matters, in no small part led by you, and she’d fit perfectly.
CARN, PVL. Adapt! Think! Move!
One way or another, you can’t have dead air before the NRL grand final.
You’re welcome.
The day Bozo destroyed the infantry
You will note something of a bitter blue going on over the future of Paddington’s Victoria Barracks. The federal government wants to – without knocking down any of the heritage buildings – withdraw Defence and open it to the public for alternative use, including housing.
It has caused a good deal of angst, particularly from those with fond memories of their own time there while with the Australian Army. Their numbers include my mate, Ken Grover, who was captain of the North Head School of Artillery rugby team when they played the Infantrymen of Ingleburn at Victoria Barracks in the grand final of the services comp at the height of conscription for National Service in the winter of 1969, when Vietnam was the big noise to the north.
Ken, a first grade winger for the Norths Rugby Club, had a handy side, including future rugby league Immortal Bob Fulton and Balmain Tigers premiership player Keith Outten. Besides all the top brass watching the game on the balcony, a crowd of no fewer than 3000 turned up to watch.
The grand final was hard-fought with a half-time score of 3-3, though the infantrymen were likely ahead on the knuckle, as Ken remembers it. Now knuckle was not quite Ken’s go. Built like a thermometer, but “fast enough to turn the light out and be in bed before it got dark”, to use Jack Gibson’s famous line, he was just giving his charges their half-time pep talk out on the field when he was interrupted by the commanding officer of North Head, Colonel “Pinky” Salmon, who had descended from the balcony to exhort his team to victory. A lot of services prestige is on the line.
“Come on, gentlemen! We need this win.”
To the astonishment of Ken, Pinky is interrupted by the team’s five-eighth, Outten.
“What’s in it for us if we win?” he asks.
“Three days in lieu,” says the good colonel.
“Make it six,” Fulton says evenly, “and it’s a deal.”
“Deal,” says Pinky.
Final score 36-3 to North Head Artillery!
Man of the match: R Fulton.
“Bozo,” Kenny recalls, “carved them up himself, and gave me passes so good my mother could have scored the tries.”
In the words of Bob Seger, these are “the memories that make him a wealthy soul.”
Quotes of the week
Raygun on the Jimmy Fallon Show, spruiking the Netflix documentary on her Olympics breakdancing routine: “I wanted to bring out some Australian moves and themes. I love our Olympic mascot BK, the boxing kangaroo, and I wanted to show that.”
Raygun, on the said doco, revealed that just hours before performing she was sobbing uncontrollably and asking herself: “What am I doing? What have I done? Should I be doing this?”
LA Rams coach Sean McVay on his Australian experience: “It’s almost like you try and do the Men in Black thing, where you say, ‘All right, hey I don’t remember what happened’. We’re not playing in Australia ever again, I hope.”
Leigh Matthews on the Swans: “Right now, if nothing further happens … I do think whatever angst the players have got about their teammates who were unavailable this finals campaign, who messed up when they shouldn’t have been messing up … I still think [as a teammate] you’d be saying, ‘Why would other teams want to recruit these blokes?’”
Succinct Swans coach Dean Cox after their implosion against Fremantle: “We fell short.”
Hawks coach Sam Mitchell after their tough finals loss to the Brisbane Lions: “If you want to strive for great things, you will open yourself up for all sorts of emotion – the greatest of joy and the deepest of pain. This feeling is the pits.”
Warriors coach Andrew Webster on the bunker after their finals elimination at the hands of the Knights: “I thought they were trying to find ways to take it off us.”
England’s Kiwi cricket coach Stephen Fleming does not think his side is too obsessed with beating Australia: “No, because I have an obsession with it as well. New Zealand has an obsession with it. We love it. We want to beat the Aussies … We have a deep desire to beat Australia in everything, as the little cousin. We are linked, and I’m incredibly excited about being part of it.”
Isaac Heeney, when mobbed by the media on his return to the Swans: “It was really nice to address the whole club, and I was really thankful they could give us their time and understanding, so yeah, it was really good.”
Jai Arrow in a speech at the NRL’s “stand with Jai gala dinner”: ”Rugby league can be a pretty brutal game, and we spend most of the year trying to bash each other, but when something bigger than footy happens, this game has a pretty incredible way of coming together.”
Socceroo Lucas Herrington on “versing” Brazil. “You want to verse the best players, and we know Brazil have got some of those players.”
AFL umpire Hayden Meyer on his contentious decision against Hawthorn: “At the time I was certain it was a free kick, after the game I was certain it was a free kick, and now I’m still certain it was a free kick.”
Unnamed source on why it is difficult to find someone to run against Gianni Infantino to be the boss of FIFA: “They would effectively be running against FIFA the institution. FIFA declared his candidacy, provides staff, aeroplanes and cars, even a personal video team.”
Lleyton Hewitt on the state of Aussie tennis: “We’re struggling at the moment. There’s no doubt about that, just with the numbers coming through, so it’s something that’s definitely got to be looked at … we should be doing a lot better than we are.”
Kylian Mbappe on Zinedine Zidane managing France: “He was the first to pick me up and take me to Real Madrid, to the training complex. I was 13 or 14, it was ages ago. And now he’s my national team coach. It’s like something out of a movie, but he’s top level.”
Team of the week
Wallabies. Take on the Springboks on Sunday night in Perth at 7.45pm AEST. As they say in the classics, this is when the rubber hits the road.
Davis Cup. Did you know that Australia just hosted Poland in Brissie, as part of this once fabled international tennis comp? Me neither. At what point do we say the new format has killed it stone, motherless dead? Because it has.
North Melbourne. Their 32-game AFLW winning streak is over.
Nick Daicos. Won the Brownlow Medal with a record 47 votes. Tenth Magpie to win and first since Dane Swan in 2011.
Newcastle Knights. From wooden spooners last year, they ascended – pausing only to jump over reigning premiers Broncos as they tumbled down the stairs – to now be just one victory away from being in the NRL grand final.
Lachie Neale. Takes his place in the AFL grand final on Saturday after his legal team successfully argued that he had an “exemplary record”. Which is surprising, because he has been fined EIGHT times before, including three for “striking the body of an opponent”.
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.