The sound of a tune being changed

Ever since NRL bad boy Todd Carney joined the preferred club of the Daily Telegraph’s propagandist-in-chief, Phil “Zzz” Rothfield, I’ve been waiting for a steady tide of positive coverage of how Carney is a changed man, Dally M frontrunner, leading humanitarian and philanthropist and so on ad infinitum.

And so it begins on February 3, as James “Snivelling Toady” Phelps pens an article in the Telegraph that manages to convert a decent Cronulla debut by Carney in a trial match against a one-third strength Manly into something akin to the second coming.

According to Snivelling Toady, Carney “proved beyond a doubt that he could be indeed the man to save the Sharks” with a two-try performance in a 38-6 demolition of “a near premiership-strength Sea Eagles out-fit [sic]”.

Impressive stuff, no doubt – and that’s certainly a hell of a score line against the reining premiers. However, my doubts started when I glanced down at the list of scorers. The hapless Sea Eagles’ only try scorer was one “M Jowett” – not a player I recall starring in last season’s grand final, to say the least. The successful conversion of said try was knocked over by someone called “S Blanch” – again, not one of the blokes I recall lining up a lot of touchline conversions for Manly in recent times.

So I decided to hold my nose and pop over to the Sea Eagles’ website (don’t worry, I’ve deleted my browser history) to check out this “near premiership strength” side they picked for the trial.

Well, it should be said that Manly did indeed pick 10 of the players who contested the grand final. However, what the Telegraph’s Carney hagiography failed to mention is the fact that these 10 made up less than a third of a 31-man squad (I assume they were all men, though in the case of individuals like “Jason Annear” and “Liam Higgins” I’m afraid I’ve only got first name conventions to go on).

Given Manly are also two weeks out from the world club challenge in the UK, and that their new coach said in advance of the trial “our first grade strength players will only get 20 to 30 minutes”, and that Cronulla scored most of their points in the second half, I’m going to hold off for a little on my own “Carney is back” conclusion.