If you knew sushi like I know sushi, oh, oh... yuk!

A RECENT survey of so-called rugby league enthusiasts found today’s crowd members were moving away from the traditional pie, sausage roll and chips at the State of Origin and looking to more healthy cuisine.

While I, like most traditional rugby league fans, have been forced to accept the sport’s administrators softening the game over the years to the point where there’s no biff, no biting, no slapping and, with some players at least, no tackling, what this survey proposed is surely going too far.

According to this survey, your average rugby league fan would prefer to munch on a sushi roll while sitting in the stands at the footy as opposed to the traditional fish and chips, pie or hot dog and beer.

Sushi rolls? My mates wouldn’t even know what a sushi roll was let alone even think of chomping down on one.

Mind you, these days, by the time you’ve forked over $250-plus for a seat at the State of Origin, there’s little left in the sky-rocket to pay for food of any kind.

In recent years our mob has taken to visiting the local St Vincent de Paul soup kitchen on the way to the ground, it’s the only way we can afford a feed and still get to watch the game.

But back to the survey. Just who did these people talk to?

Going by their sushi roll submission, the only ones surveyed had to be sitting in corporate boxes... or commentary boxes.

Phil Gould does strike me as a sushi smoocher.

The survey reported that researchers had spoken to a total 293 spectators at ANZ, Allianz, Etihad and Suncorp stadiums (hardly a large number of punters by which to gauge wide opinion, but still) “to find out what they thought of the food on offer”.

By all accounts, Suncorp Stadium finished in front of Sydney’s ANZ Stadium as a better performer in the food and beverage stakes, which, having attended the Brisbane venue on many a sporting occasion, leaves me concerned for the fare on offer at the Sydney venue.

Just earlier this season, as we sat watching a Queensland Reds game at Lang Park, one of my mates returned to his seat with a small box of fish and chips and with a decidedly confused look on his face.

“How’d ja go?” I asked, leaving aside all respect for the English language but, after all, these are my mates.

“It was a case of mistaken identity,” he frowned.

“For the price they charged me they must have thought I was James Packer.”

According to the survey team, “They discovered that most footy fans are extremely unimpressed with the food and drink options at Australian stadiums”.

“At all venues, the price of food rated the biggest pain point with a mean score of 1.66,” it said.

It didn’t say whether the 1.66 was gauged on a score of five or 10 but I suspect it was out of 100.

I can only imagine what my old mate Slammin’ Sam Backo would have thought of playing in front of a sushi sucking mob on State of Origin night.

Sam rose to the heights of the game during the blood and guts days of rugby league in the 1980s when footy players ate pies and drank beer and women were glad of it.

I can just see Sam and Marty Bella trudging off the field, bleeding and sweating, marching into the dressing room and saying: “That was a tough game... I could really go a sushi and a chardonnay”.

Bring back the biff?

I’d be happy if they simply bring back the pie... and at a reasonable price.

❝

Phil Gould does strike me as a sushi smoocher.