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Sea Eagles are in a real pickle....
WITHIN hours of landing back in Australia after their World Club Challenge victory over Leeds, Manly were lauding it over the Rhinos. Star back rower Anthony Watmough, in supreme form at Elland Road, was leading the way.
The Rhinos were "beasts", he said, before complaining the Super League Champions' tactics to something out of "the 1960s".
After such a brilliant team performance, it all smacked of being more than a little ungracious.
If Leeds maintained dignity in defeat, Manly seemed to lose it in victory.
Which is why I can imagine a few sly smiles at Headingley this week as the Sea Eagles' season has unravelled even before tomorrow's NRL kick off.
The team's highest profile player, Australia and NSW full back Brett Stewart, has been charged with the drunken sexual assault of a 17 year old girl, while Watmough himself has escaped criminal charges after punching a club sponsor, apparently after making drunken advances towards his 21 year old daughter.
The NRL promptly slapped a $100,000 fine on Manly and barred Stewart - who has had to be cut from the game's $1million TV advertising campaign - from playing for at least the next five weeks.
Then the WCC referee, Australian Jason Robinson, revealed that Leeds' Kevin Sinfield and Matt Diskin had both complained about an alleged racist comment made by a Manly player at Elland Road.
Oh dear, what a mess.
I'd imagine that Watmough might not have quite so much to say just now.
STILL on the subject of Australians and alcohol abuse, I see the barman's friend Todd Carney is in hot water again.
The former Canberra man, whose move to Huddersfield was finally KO'd because of his distinctly chequered past - and present, for that matter - has now been banned from his own hometown after jumping up and down on some cars outside a pub.
Imagine the uproar if he'd done that in Lindley or Paddock?
Carney's going to be okay though, because he's got himself a gig playing bush football in deepest Queensland as he attempts to rebuild his career and, more importantly, his life.
Sure, it's low profile, but it's a chance for the former NRL wild child to take stock and throw himself into the full time job that's been provided for him by the Atherton Roosters.
And what job's this, I hear you ask?
It's in a pub, of course.
They're kidding, aren't they? Even the Giants wouldn't have classed that as a good idea.
THE Championship gets its first glimpse of Gallic flair tonight when new boys Toulouse take on Widnes in the competition's televised opener at the Halton Stadium.
But while the French will no doubt be hard to beat in the heat of the French summer, I am not expecting too much from them this evening.
With no pre season to speak of, they sank without trace in the Challenge Cup at the weekend, losing comprehensively at Sheffield.
It would be a major surprise if the Vikings, buoyed by the arrival of the media savvy Paul Cullen, did not dish out a bit of a pasting tonight.
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Weather for Halifax
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
