Matt Zurbo discovers the birthplace of Nick’s Collingwood page and a few things about Joffa, Bucks and Eddie.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 44: The Final and Opening Siren
December 3, 2012 by 11 Comments
It’s the last stop of our encore performance of Matt Zurbo’s Off Season Odyssey.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 43: Larry
November 30, 2012 by 8 Comments
Junior legends: If I had a drink in my hand, I’d raise it to all the former champions. To the places life takes them. To people already past their prime, which they reached as young teenagers.
Almanac Rugby League – Off Season Odyssey Part 41: Friday on Thursday
November 28, 2012 by 5 Comments
Rugby is tough, relentless. Teams run to patterns and plans. Weaknesses are exposed. It’s hard man’s chess, where players like the Storms’ Billy Slater are knights, able to cut at angles, and jump over you to find space.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 40: The Suns and Cruising As If In Commodores
November 24, 2012 by 8 Comments
We continue the encore series of Off Season Odyssey, with Matt Zurbo in the Islander community of Umagico, where language carries a culture.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 39: Cargo Barges Passing
November 23, 2012 by 10 Comments
There is no worse feeling in football. None. To be left on the woodwork. To be unspent. Even injury is better. Coaches who leave kids on the pine for all bar 15 minutes don’t understand the game. They aren’t coaches. It’s that simple.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 38: The Wet
November 22, 2012 by 5 Comments
In our encore performance of Off Season Odyssey, Matt Zurbo lobs in Port Douglas for footy training.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 35: I’m Stuffed
November 19, 2012 by 11 Comments
Continuing our encore of Matt Zurbo’s Off-Season Odyssey, the old dog finds himself in the Daintree with six dollars to his name. What’s worse, there’s nobody to have a kick with.
A Beaut Old Ute
November 13, 2012 by 5 Comments
A Beaut Old Ute. Guy drives a faded cream WB Holden ute, with a motor that sounds like knuckles and oil. It’s been used, abused, for work, for fun, yet has a shiny steel skull for a gearshift, and little shiny skulls for door locks. He maintains the thing. Hard work and function, the [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 34: Punting on a punt
November 7, 2012 by 5 Comments
Eight solid hours of driving through 35degree heat and I hit the ferry well after dark. “Didn’t think I’d make it,” I say to the bloke who steers me on. “Last one for the night,” he smiles, and I cross the Daintree River into the tropics. The ute is still fizzing and popping [Read more]
A Corker Grand Final
October 25, 2012 by 2 Comments
How damn brilliant was Jetta taking on Rioli? Something for the ages.
It was like the fight everybody wanted. Everybody expected. As if the two of them had no say in it. As if it wasn’t just a piece of play, as if it wasn’t just a race. There was ownership involved.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 33: The Real Plugger
October 19, 2012 by 2 Comments
It’s belting down rain on the highway. On the everything. I have two days to get 1,600kms, which is going to take every cent I have. I’m over music, it’s all starting to sound the same. I love driving. Even when I’m hating it, or fighting it and sleep. An open road, a purpose. [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 32: Masters of Stories
October 17, 2012 by 1 Comment
I’m driving through Air Force bases, and Army bases, and American Military bases and palm trees and R.A.A.F museums, when I hear Townsville Sharks Masters Footy Club are having a training run on a stinking hot Sunday morning. I’ve been on the road for a day and a half, and still have to get [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 31: Soothing Rain
October 16, 2012 by 4 Comments
Lucy’s hurting. It breaks my heart. She comes over, all warm smiles, to pick her boys up from where I’m staying the night, just outside Charter Towers. Her ex-husband is camping in the bungalow until he sorts his shit out. It’s been his turn with the kids for a day or two. He’s vanished [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 30: A Legend Called Uzz
October 13, 2012 by 11 Comments
Shortcut, Gladstone. The road winds, just right, through rolling hills and eucalypts. It’s beautifully empty other than the music in the deck and kilometre long coal trains that weave into and out of riding side-saddle with me. They look as if they were made with everything else: the volcanoes, the rocks. Natural. I grew [Read more]
AFL Grand Final: Half-time Legends
October 12, 2012 by 9 Comments
It’s half-time in the big one. The game’s a bottler. We’re all happy little Vegemites, excited, hairy, overgrown children, bundling out of Roland’s beat-up Grand Final shed to piss, fire up the barbie, wince at daylight, and kick the footy. “You in it, Dippa?” I ask. No idea how he got the nickname, he [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 29: Full-Backs
October 12, 2012 by 3 Comments
It’s late. I’m all over the road like a goddamn zombie. My left wheel keeps hitting the gravel, I’m constantly falling asleep. I can’t even remember where I’m heading. A central Queensland mining town, I think.
Off Season Odyssey – Part 28: Starting Late
October 11, 2012 by 15 Comments
Starting Late. If. If this Off Season lasted forever I’d hang around at each town, each truck stop and city, until I really got to know the people, the place. I’d stay until that person who I was sure, given time, would be a good mate, became a good mate. If time could be [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 27: Gods, AFL Footballers and Human Beings
October 9, 2012 by 7 Comments
The Gold Coast is L.A. with cane toads. A paradise they’ve layered a blanket of bitumen over, then pinned down with big boats and shopping centres. It oozes money and ex-Victorians. At its heart is Broadbeach. A wonderland of towering, round-edged, honeycomb apartments, swimming around a sea of top dollar restaurants. There are [Read more]
Off Season Odyssey – Part 26: Bread and Sports
October 8, 2012 by 7 Comments
Somehow, while heading towards work on the Gold Coast, the ute stops at a pub. Well, I never! How could it not? The town is high in the mountains, full of trees and old school buildings, which make it look much smaller, more forgotten than it is, in good ways. The pub’s the St.Kilda [Read more]
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