THE LEBANESE CAMPESE

If I had an AK-47 I’d be celebrating Taliban style by indiscriminately firing it in the air, singing “ayi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!” while hopping from foot to foot as an expression of my joy at Hazem El-Masri’s thirty four points against the Tigers. Over the last 10 years, the boy from Tripoli has matured into a grizzled NRL veteran. What makes him stand out from the riff raff are not any obvious physical traits. He isn’t blessed with towering height, lightning pace or ogre like strength but it’s the speed between the ears which puts him above the others. The man with the magic boot and twinkle toes. He pirouettes across the field like an adamantly heterosexual ballet dancer leaving the opposition grasping thin air in his wake while booting the pigskin through the posts from all over the park with his unerring right boot.