Almanac Rugby: Hands Up If You Saw a Wallaby Flanker Put an Argentinian Merchant Banker on His Ass This Morning?

 

 

You have to be on the ball don’t you sportsfans, and no-one is more on the ball than your correspondent Archibald J. Butterfly, the sharpest tool in a rack full of soft toys. Yes readers, old Archie doesn’t miss too much, and while you were all watching Big Dean Munn score his great comeback try in the corner, and carrying on about whether the pass went forward (it did, no doubt), I was noticing a little bit of push and tug out the back. So, as a man who’s always interested in a bit of pull and tug, I keep one eye on Munnsy making the break, and let the other one wandering marble roam 10 metres back behind the play, where I’d spotted some Puma having a good old pull on our mate Michael Hooper’s left arm.

Now most jokers like to pull a bloke’s leg, but over there in the land of macho beef and bullsh*t it’s arms they like to pull – well, that and a little bit more, but the bead-twirling missus says I have to keep it family friendly, so  here’s a nod and a wink, and use a bit of imagination, and I’m sure you’ll start to get a picture of what I mean.

Anyway, Hoops wasn’t in the greatest of moods today, what with being benched by Coach Chubby Checker and all, and he wasn’t gunna let any Diego Maradona lookalike tug him by the left arm, no bloody way. For Hoops knows as well you do fellow wearer of the green and gold, that if you’re playing away from home and you start letting a ball-playing bloke tug you, well, next thing you know you’ll be down at the River Plate stadium passing balls around with a bunch of blokes un shor Umbros, and you’ll have no-one to blame but yourself.

So Hoops, who prefers short Canterbury’s to Umbros, and likes his balls oval, did what any self-respecting Australian male finding  himself faced with a Spanish-speaking rugger bugger trying to tug his appendage would do.

He flattened the bloke.

No mucking around, no Si Senor and how’s your father Lionel Messi – Hoops just jumped in and did what Aussie blokes have done since Albert Jacka was jumping into German trenches on his Pat Malone and knocking off a dozen sauerkraut eaters before breakfast.

He biffed him. On the run. Planted the Argy plumb on his plump Puma posterior.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtYp-g-GdkY&w=529&h=328]

 

You can have a gander at the knockout blow in slo-mo over at itsnotnormalisit.com. It’s even more impressive at video ref speed, and it’s a try for all money, you can bet the house in that. The missus was kind enough to tape it for us so we’d have something to talk about with the blokes at work tomorrow, cause there’s not too much to say about the game itself, is there?

 

Geez it’s pretty to watch: Hoops didn’t even slow down to take aim. Just let fly, one haymaker, and boom! That was the end of that; and one Argy Burgy rugger-tugger who picked the wrong arm to pull found himself flat on his back over the sideline and dreaming of Juan Peron.

Now an Aussie bloke would be dreaming of Evita, not Juan. But an Aussie bloke wouldn’t find himself in that situation. That’s because Aussies blokes don’t run around tugging people on a footy field, do they, no matter how handsome the bloke might be – and Hoops is pretty bloody handsome, don’t you worry about that – nup, we leave that sort of carry on til after the game.

And anyway, even if he did forget and break the rules by having a sly tug at a limb, an Aussie bloke certainly wouldn’t have forgotten to duck.

But not old mate the Puma, who thought he could take liberties with a bloke dropped to the bench, and pull him as he pleased! Tonight the bugger’s paying the price isn’t he? Yep, I’ll bet the pale blue and white wearing tugger’s lying in bed watching Big Band Theory with a bag of frozen peas planted on his scone, and an old Vegemite jar of water and 4 dissolvable Disprin’s in his paw.

As for our hard-hitting hero Hoops, well he’s the toast of the town, and every sheila from Buenos Aires to the Falkland Islands knows his name, and most of them are keen to know him a whole lot better, if you know what I mean. Don’t you worry about that.

Good on ya Michael Hooper son! There should be a made in Taiwan plastic figurine of you in every Weet-Bix and Cornflakes box across the wide brown land. You’ve served your country well young man, and you’ve done us all proud.  A great big bloody Waltzing Matilda to you!

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1eGZhptUdI&w=420&h=315]