CDRL FINALS PREVIEW
CDRL finals kick off on Sunday, with no clear frontrunners in sight
STYLES make fights.
It’s a common phrase among boxing circles, used to describe the multivariate nature of the sport.
Essentially, it means that anybody has the potential to be anybody else, regardless of skills or performance disparities against common opponents.
“Styles make fights” means a fighter’s individual style can change what is an advantage and what is a disadvantage in a fight and ultimately affect the outcome, which may have initially been thought of as a foregone conclusion.
The same analogy could be adapted to the Cairns District Rugby League finals series, which kicks off this Sunday at Barlow Park.
The series shapes as a mouth-watering contest, with each of the five clubs – Mossman-Port Douglas, Innisfail, Yarrabah, Brothers and Atherton – playing their own brand of football.
You have the razzle-dazzle, off-the-cuff or “unstructured” footy of the Sharks and the Seahawks, which has proved tough to stop all season, against the more traditional, or “structured”, styles of the Leprechauns, the Roosters and Brothers.
Let me explain the boxing analogy in more detail.
Foreman destroys Frazier and Norton every time.
Ali went through hell in winning and losing to both Frazier and Norton.
So you’d think Foreman would destroy Ali easily, right? Well, it’s not that simple. A bruiser like Foreman against a swarmer like Frazier, who gave Ali mountains of trouble by constantly closing the distance, could easily push little Frazier away and tee-off at long range.
Foreman also dominates against a slightly faster, but less durable, bruiser like Norton.
But, against a fast, classic boxer like Ali, Foreman’s bruiser style, although methodical, was not as effective.
In the last three rounds of the regular season, Yarrabah got wins over Atherton and minor premiers MossmanPort Douglas before losing to Innisfail in their last game of the season.
Yarrabah will take on Innisfail again this Sunday.
Over the past two months, Atherton has pushed top-five powerhouses Mossman-Port Douglas, Yarrabah and Innisfail to their limit, losing by four, six and four, respectively.
But in the same period they defeated Brothers.
The Roosters will take on Brothers this Sunday in an elimination match.
Who wins? It’s anyone’s guess.