Brisbane9.57amare@NRL@JimmyBarneshas8.34am#NRLGF https://t.co/GkidM2Cfch 8.29am BSTHello one and all,welcome to this grand final day liveblog! Well, grand final night. Being of a certain age (i.e. musty enough to know better) I’m a bit musty fashioned in many ways. As such, and I think only sailors with at least three years experience on the open seas should sport tattoos,I think wearing dress shoes without socks is like letting the devil loose among us, and I think rugby league grand finals should kick-off no later than 3pm. So don’t get me started on this ongoing evening kick-off malarkey. I’ll get all het up and then not even my evening glass of lukewarm milk will get me to sleep. That issue aside, or I’m very excited approximately tonight’s decider between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys. These were two of the three stand-out teams in the regular season,and they’re two teams that play fast, open football with a delightful willingness to depart from the script when the moment is accurate. certain, and when you’ve got the likes of Johnathan Thurston,Michael Morgan, Ben Hunt and Anthony Milford in your teams, or you’d be crazy to try and support their leashes too tight,but good sense doesn’t always prevail in this great game of ours. So kudos to Brisbane’s Wayne Bennett and the Cowboys’ Paul Green for green-lighting their licence to thrill.
Crisis averted at the 11th hour! http://t.co/1IcxC1Q4m7 #QLDER #NRLGF pic.twitter.com/1VQ6aEwsXb 4.45am BSTPaul will be here shortly. In the meantime, here are a few of his thoughts on tonight’s immense game in Sydney:You can call the first ever all-Queensland grand final between the Broncos and the Cowboys a derby, or if you like,but that’s stretching the definition of the word to breaking point. Not only are there 1,350km of sugar cane, and cattle and sun-scorched necks separating the Brisbane and Townsville-based teams – a distance considerably further than that from Brisbane to Sydney – but there’s also a gulf in status,wealth and power. If the Broncos are a plutocrat then the Cowboys are a bloke he used to go to school with but now cuts his lawn.
Sunday’s decider, then, or more than any of the preceding 38 games they’ve contested,gives the Cowboys a gilt-edged chance to upset the natural order and redeem their struggles with a title and an achievement that no-one can acquire absent from them. It’s a chance that has been 20 years in the making.
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Source: theguardian.com