After releasing The TRUTH About Rugby League last year, the unhinged FB NRL Fan (Dane Eldridge) returns with Facebook Rugby League’s 2022 Digest which is out now!
This book is a follow-up to The Truth About Rugby League. What do you think the FB NRL Fan learnt about footy during 2022?
Firstly, FB NRL Fan would claim he already knows everything about rugby league. But if you pressed him for an answer, he’d say 2022 was the year the game’s self-interest became more forceful than Junior Paulo’s thighs. Clubs were begging for handouts, coaches were suing clubs, and players were squealing for more cash. It was like Super League mixed with millennial entitlement and Khoder Nasser. The game was engulfed in a typhoon of greed, and EVERYONE wanted their slice of the pie and their dessert too. What’s next? We start paying referees too?
As a writer, how did you tackle the 2022 review? What angles did you have initially, and did any events during the season change your plans or give you new ideas?
It usually begins with an earnest aim to focus on the footy, but that always flies out the window after Ricky Stuart’s first press conference. The beauty of the rugby league soap opera is the script writes itself; what can begin as a conventional story is usually flattened by contract tampering or Tom Dearden’s ruptured testicle. In short, FBNRL Fan wanted to tell a story about his own pathetic life, but ultimately became distracted by a Twitter thread about Ashley Klein. And here we are.
The recent Pre-Season Challenge was a complicated farce. How would the FB NRL Fan make pre-season footy more meaningful?
FB NRL Fan hates ‘rules’. All this stuff like “get on your feet before you plant the ball”, “don’t touch the neck or head”, and “brush your teeth at least twice a week” – it all suffocates his liberated way of life. He reckons the only way to make pre-season footy more meaningful is with less rules – less gimmicks, less complicated points systems, and less Souths. That’ll bring the fans back.
Which teams do you think will dominate in 2023? And who will struggle?
Canterbury has really released the handbrake on the Amex in recent times, haven’t they? If they can avoid the clutches of the salary cap auditor, there’s no reason they can’t sneak in to the top eight. The Roosters are in a premiership window too. Not because of shrewdly-timed squad turnover, but because the cap auditors will be too preoccupied with the Dogs. I also can’t look past red-hot Brisbane, Souths, the Cleary Mafia, and Wayne Bennett either. Perhaps I’ll just back 16 teams in one huge multi. This will include every team except the Titans.
Any plans for a third book?
Bloody oath. Resisting the movable feast of rugby league is beyond the faculty of any man, even an online ingrate like FB NRL Fan. Sure, he might take a short sabbatical for his tech-neck, but with Ashley Klein doing at least two games a weekend, it’s only so long before his blood sugar peaks again.
Twitter: @FacebookNRL
