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Oh, kittens.  The Errol office is so sad at the moment.  It’s semi-finals time in the World Cup, which means that all the teams we met and fell in love with on the footy field are gradually packing up their bags of boomerang souvenirs and VB accessories and heading home.  

Papua New Guinea have been booted after coming fourth in the pool of death. Tonga and Samoa have taken their wardances and gone home. The Frenchies are returning to (a probably frosty reception in) France. Perhaps they can use their wooden spoon to make a nice souffle to cheer themselves up?  I hope so.

And Kiki is busy drying her tears at the moment, but once she manages to stop crying into the keyboard, she’ll also fill you kids in on the Errol trip to the Gold Coast to watch the Irish Wolfhounds play Fiji in the quarter finals, and saying goodbye to our adopted Irish team.  WE MISS YOU ALREADY BABIES.

Sif all that wasn’t bad enough, we also lost Errol favourite Corporal Campese from the Aussie team.

I feel so uncool.
Pic: Ian Hitchcock

In a tres dramatical incident, T Camp was poked in the eye by Neville Costigan in the Australia-PNG match, and had to bow out of the rest of the World Cup.  Poor baby could have gone blind.  I’m not even kidding.  A footy career ended by a poke in the eye.  YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.  

So now it’s all come down to Australia (sans Terry), New Zealand, England … and Fiji.

It feels a bit like the end of holiday camp. All our friends’ parents have come and picked them up already, except because our mum is running late we’re left sitting on the steps with the kids we weren’t even friends with anyway.  Making awkward conversation about if we’re coming back next year, remembering how someone said they wet the bed and we kind of believe that they do.  Avoiding eye contact, exchanging email addresses even though we’re totally never gonna write to each other. 

Sigh.

I’ve think we all know by now I have a problem cheering for the Australian team. Not even seeing Toops and Fitzy on the bench can change that. And now that Baby Hayne has announced that playing for Fiji has changed his life and chased away his demons I am 100% team Fiji.  What’s not to love about a team that can make the semi-finals and provide informal therapy?

Are you there, God? It’s me, Baby Hayne.
Pic: Phil Hillyard

Remember how I called the World Cup a soap opera? Aside from a good demon possession, there was only one thing the cup was missing: a redemption arc, and someone finding God.  DING-DING-DING JACKPOT!  Thanks to Baby Hayne this is now officially the Most Dramatic World Cup Ever. I love it. GO BABY HAYNE, GO!

And really, how can you not love Fiji? This is the team that sings in harmony on the football field. Those bitches are talented.

They also freely admit to being unfit. ME TOO! Athletic ability is totally overrated.

Darren Lockyer says their biggest danger is that they play ad-lib in attack.  ME TOO!  Well, ok, not in ‘attack’ as such.  And not in any sports of any kind.  But I still think planning is totally overrated in general.  I care not for preparation and gameplans.

While we’re talking Locky, he also doesn’t seem to remember who’s in the Fijian team.  This worries me.  Are you feeling ok Darren, baby?  Just the other day you couldn’t remember who was in the English team either.  Has he taken more knocks to the head than I realised?

Pic: Peter Rae

If I’m not mistaken, Daz also turned up to the Fiji-Australia photocall without his shorts.  At least that’s what the Herald says.  Just look at the ones he had to borrow.  Are they … clown shorts? Oh my god, are they CULOTTES?  Green and gold culottes?  Maybe they had them made when they were making Steve Price’s custom green and gold bucket hats.

I am becoming a bit concerned actually that Darren may be losing his damn mind.  If someone doesn’t get him some Omega 3 and write the boy a list of who he plays for and what to bring to the game I honestly think he we might see him run out to play Fiji completely pantsless, play the ball backwards, then accidentally tackle Billy Slater.

And if you think I’m a little harsh on Australia, I apologise.  I know Greg Inglis is all put out that the Kangaroos don’t get enough love. 

I think we thoroughly deserve the praise that we should be getting but we’re not.

Firstly, that sentence is intense. Is he using the subjunctive? I think he may have created some new kind of grammatical structure.

But also, I’m sorry, Gregory. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, even though you chose to become a dirty Queenslander. You’re right. It is a little bit unfair. And it is a little bit to do with the team being so good.

The Kangaroos are the Roger Federer of rugby league. Too professional, too efficient, too … Swiss. Footy is all about emotion, and the Aussies just don’t give me any at the moment.

But now that I’ve said that … suck it up Inglis. SUCK IT UP. You’re about to (probably) win a World Cup.   You’ve won a premiership and an Origin series. People have called you the best player in Australia.  Um, what more do you want, mate?  So a few people think the team’s boring. At least you didn’t get POKED IN THE EYE.

There is far too much whinging going on and I don’t loike it. Inglis thinks no one loves him (in at least four tenses). England hate the refs. Ade Gardner hates the grapple(don’t we all?)  Benji Marshall is all offended that the English turned their back on the Haka.

Can’t we all just take a leaf out of Flossy Nightingale and Sam Perrett’s dayplanner and have a nice waterslide?

So I have an apology to make. There has been no World Cup news from me for aaaages, and I’m sorry kittens. I know, I know, you’re all jonesing. But you see I have been extremely busy doing Important and Urgent things, like giving myself pedicures, buying spangly cardigans from St Vincent de Paul, and getting drunk and going to see Richard E. Grant in My Fair Lady. By the way yes, I LIKE MUSICALS. MUSICALS AND RUGBY LEAGUE. I’m pretty much a renaissance woman.

And now cause I’m sleepy from sunbaking, let’s just go over the important bits, shall we?

AUSTRALIA … NOT LIKABLE ENOUGH FOR A DECENT TITLE

New Zealand played England. Australia played England. England lost. Twice. And the truth is … we didn’t really care.  About any of them.

But I’m kinda starting to think maybe someone has tipped off the Aussie team in particular that the kids here at Errol HQ care not for the Kangaroos, because it seems like those bitches have been working overtime to win us back.

After trying to lure us back by pimping out the adorableness of Prince Scotty the Caramel on the field (… almost worked, but not quite. HI SCOTTY!), they upped the lovable factor by naming Terry Campese in the squad to play Papua New Guinea tonight. Or, as we like to call him, Corporal Campese of the Light Horse.

When we suggested Terry can rock a hat, this isn’t what we had in mind. 

And in what is kind of like the footy equivalent of sewing knives in your suit sleeves or hitting below the belt in boxing, then those crafty bitches went and did this:

DO THE JITTERBUG!

Damn you Kangaroos! LOOK HOW CUTE THAT IS. Four Kangaroos cruisin’ around in their tiny pink jeep, like Derek Zoolander and his freewheeling model pals. Drinking orange mocha frappaccinos. Singing to Wham, frolicking in petrol stations.

 
The only difference is that I’m pretty sure that little pink Jeepy, or mini-moke, or whatever those crazy Queensland folk call it, is working a wholllle lot harder than Derek Zoolander’s Jeep.  That poor little engine is pushing around four International league forwards.  WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CARBON EMISSIONS?  In other news, is Brent Kite throwing gang signs? For serious?

Either way, I’m almost starting to … care. This is horrifying. But fear not children, everything will be ok. Just trust Aunty Sassy and look at the Queenslanders. FOCUS ON THE QUEENSLANDERS.

… gasoline fight!

ABORT ABORT! Ok, I’m back to mild distaste and indifference now. That’s more like it. Let’s have a quick gin and get back to things we actually care about.

THE WOLFHOUNDS GET THEIR ROAR ON 

We’ve been on Team Wolfhound since the World Cup started, and now that the Irish boys have decimated Samoa and topped their pool, everyone else is too. ABOUT TIME, BITCHES. You know it’s lonely out here sometimes, being totally cutting edge like we are. *flicks hair*

And WE ARE SO PROUD OF OUR MANS. Not just because that was some fucking entertaining footy, but because they had a blinder.  WE KNEW YOU COULD DO IT, BABIES.  Pat Richards grounded three tries, and kicked enough goals that I’m actually rethinking whether the Irish will have to bring in some kind of Priest to exorcise the bad spirits from his goal-kicking Leg of Doom.

As we suspected, Wayne Kerr is a foolproof good luck charm whenever he’s named in the team.  At the very least he has a 100% success rate so far.

And everyone’s favourite hot ginge (sorry, Prince Harry) Sean Gleeson almost made Kiki spill her drink in excitement when he ran in his try.  We’re only a lil bit sad that we couldn’t make the trek out to sit with the Blarney Army again.  We love those crazy kids.

Disclaimer: may not in fact be Sean Gleeson

I would love to analyse the game for you, but I was a little nervous on the boys’ behalf, and I may have been drunk SO THIS IS WHAT YOU GET. And the end result is that Lozzy, Kiki and Marlo are jetting up to the Gold Coast on Monday night to watch the Errol-approved Wolfhounds take on Fiji for a spot in the semi-finals.

I have a weird feeling that watching the game back at Errol HQ with Intern Danny Wicks and work experience boy Lachie while we hold the fort is gonna be stressful. As if it’s not tricky enough on a normal night trying to make sure Danny Wicks doesn’t eat all the chalk from the stationery cupboard again and deflecting Lachie’s questions about why people call Intern John John ‘hotdog’ and where babies come from. Now I have to choose between our Irish and the Fijians.

HOW CAN YOU CHEER AGAINST BABY HAYNE? It just Doesn’t Seem Right. I also have to make a really tough decision between whether we go for Irish Whiskey or vodka pineapple (my Fiji happy hour drink) for after-work bevvies. My life is so hard.  Perhaps I shall have both.