Test Cricket - Australia vs the Hobbitses

 Some hobbitses fighting over the precious.

The New Zealand cricket team and its fans have taken a well earned break from sheep shearing, wine guzzling and Lord of the Rings ‘hobbitses’ role-playing to pop over to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to play some good ol’ fashioned proper sport that doesn't involve sheep, wine or hobbits.

This is the second Test in a trilogy of fantasy matches featuring these gnome-like hobbits battling evil warlords (the Australians, stay with me) for control of a magical place called the MCG.

As it turns out, the newly designed activity program for hobbitses at the MCG does in fact allow for all of the important leisure pursuits that New Zealanders enjoy.

The MCG Fun Curators have decided that fans should no longer have to choose between attending a Test Cricket match or maintaining basic hygiene standards, because now the MCG offers a barber service.

It is not clear whether it is for sheep and hobbits as well, but I saw a human-ish looking man in the barber chair having his sheep-like beard tended to, so he could sit back and watch the match in the blazing Melbourne sun/wind/rain/hurricane (depending on the time of day you choose for your manscaping). This is the new cricket. This is men living their best lives. It’s a great time for sheep shearing hobbitses to be alive.

The MCG has stepped up big time his year. There are a variety of goods and services on offer at the ground that you wouldn’t normally expect from a day at the cricket. You can get a shave, get a haircut, shear some sheep, indulge in some fush and chips, play some rugby probably and do some Haka, I don’t really know. Nevertheless, exhausting day!

Credit to the boys, the creative types at the MCG, they really are making the Fushy Chaps (my nickname for the drunk New Zealand larrakins who made their way across the fishy ditch to the Test) feel right at home. The Chaps are loud, and singsongy. Never mind ’alcohol free areas’; I’d need a New Zealander free area.

Where do we even draw the line with spectator entertainment at stadiums these days? I’ve got no idea, but I also have an idea, Cricket Australia. How about Pay to Play, where for a few hundred quid (going to charity) you get to field for Australia for 5 minutes? I didn’t say it was a good idea. I’m sure the Australian captain Tim Paine would more than welcome a drunkard twit running around his outfield tripping over their hobbit feet. Stupid hobbitses.

The Australian captain has been awfully perplexed lately at the Umpire Decision Reviewing System, the DRS, and rightly so. To be fair, the meaning of the acronym DRS should change with each ref decision. For example, Didn’t Really See, Dat Ref Shite, Didn't Review Shite. The reviewing system needs a systemic review.

Anyways, it’s looking like a win for the Aussies. We wants it, we needs it.

I went to rugby. I blogged.

The other night I dusted the spikey icicles off my season pass and dragged my seasoned arse to Canberra's numero uno football stadium. I was wildly anticipating an evening of watching my Super Rugby team, the ACT Brumbies, get their (foot)balls handed to them by the Wellington Hurricanes; a team that is, generally speaking, considerably better than my team. 

It was never going to be about Having Fun or Enjoying Oneself; one just has to support one's team through thick and thin, rain or shine, snow or hurricane, Chief or Crusader, self-annihilation or crushing smackdown. You have to be there and just go with it when we are playing a New Zealand team.

ACT Brumbies versus Wellington Hurricanes. Let's take a look at the matchup on e-paper. A free-roaming feral horse, an animal known for its random roaming usually through alpine countryside for no particular reason, versus a hostile weather system known for its wanton random destruction of stuff in its path.

Well it seems to me that everyone involved just needed to sit down for a planning morning and focus on developing some type of strategic plan for getting through the game with maybe some scones and jam for morning tea if you don't mind. None of this fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants entertainment; that's not want the people want.

As it turns out, the wild horse gave the hurricane from UnZud quite a run for its money. Alas, as they say in the classic sports broadcasts, "Are you not entertained?! Are you not entertained?! Is this not why you are here?" Or maybe that was a quote from the movie Gladiator. It's hard to say.   

At kickoff, the opposition started as a Category 4 storm with sustained winds, causing heavy rains that were expected to continue for several hours. Linesmen were down, sponsors were airborne, and there was all kinds of carnage going on at that place that sells cold hot chips, which was potentially not hurricane related though.

Wild horse fan, Jimbo, saw all the action, saying “Everyone was warned to expect catastrophic flooding, and I think we got 6-8 metres of storm surge. Now my cold hot chip are wet”.  I think Jimbo may well have had a few.

But before you could say “that’s a ferocious battering, squire”, the strong gusts stopped, the eye of the storm passed, and the cell was fairly quickly downgraded to a tropical storm. And then it turned into a little rain shower as it continued to make landfall. My team won, which made my head spin on its axis and explode in astonishment.

As the game went on, I turned my attention to all the similarities of professional rugby union and my work as a public servant. Playing for a professional public servant team is a dream for thousands of people. But behind the glamour is grinding hours of hard work:

Desk work
Look, I did see a slew pf people with clipboards parading along the sidelines at the footy. It's hard to say what they were doing, but they looked like they were of great significance; they had pens and they were ticking things on paper. And if ticking things on paper for no good reason whatsoever doesn't constitute a desk job then I don't know what does.

Applause
Every morning, as I jog out of the elevator with meaningful purpose on my face, there is a throng of people who cheer my sudden presence and clamour for a glimpse of me as I head to my position on the floor, and then spend the day marvelling at my skillset - what a skillset! - when I use the printer, and cheer loudly - what a great delivery of that email!

Near the end of the day, they yell loudly - hurrah! - urging me on, to keep doing the impressive things I do. I didn't want this. This life, this dream life, was thrust upon me. I can’t make it stop. They idolise me. Occasionally, after work, I hang around to sign autographs.

Blood bin
Like rugby players, as soon as we have a piece of trash that needs tending to, we can leave the field of play to place it in the blood red bin. But only if it can't be recycled.

Offside
This occurs when you eat your packed lunch before lunchtime. It's not really in the spirit of the game, but some people do it deliberately - and get away with it - when the ref isn't looking. What's that? That doesn't even make sense? Well, look, the cyber universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

Nutrition
Every public servant player knows the secret to maximise on-field performance: 'tis cake. 'tis always cake.

Scrum meetings
A key part of the day. Unlike an actual scrum, which rugby players use as a method to restart play to gain possession of the ball, public servant players pack down closely together just for the hell of it. 

The average acceleration at which a public servant player moves forward, out of a scrum meeting, is 29.2.54m/s2. What's that - that doesn't make sense either? That's not really relevant? Much like the minutes wasted in rugby scrums, many scrum meetings are also an officially sanctioned waste of time.