BTB19 DAILY June 23

The PodBoffins are called back early to outline how the BTB19 Player Draft will unfold this season. Clarified or confused the issue is the question. Meanwhile, one of the Boffins has got too much sun over the French summer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

You be able to spit nails, kid. And the guy says you're gonna hit lightning and you're gonna drop thunder.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Hello, hello, hello, all you beat the ballers out there. You are official 48 locked and loaded in what will be our biggest season yet, I have no doubt about it. And it's great to be here with you today. I'm Ron Warren, of course, for you rookies out there, and there's a handful this year. Yeah, too right there is. It's great to see some new faces, a bit of fresh blood around the place, and it'll be interesting to see how they go in the player draft.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

What in the blue heavens are we even doing here? My goodness, I was down there at Shadow Vermafeet and uh having a great summer, and uh I've been called back.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Well yes, Carnival's called us back. Apparently Bruce and the heavies above are all putting on a bit of pressure. It's time to get this season underway. We've had a bit of a break.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah, but we normally get at least another week. This is our downtime. We're getting work to the ban. I must say looking at you there, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

You seem to have gone from that tan of the fourth day test pits to something you might find in Mumbai or Bangalore or somewhere like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

For starters, they don't even call it Bangalore anymore. I know, but it's still one of my favourite words. And secondly, it's been bloody hot over there, I tell you what, it's been nudging into the forties.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Well you do look like you could claim benefits at the moment, I tell you what, mate. You're sitting there uh very, very dark, shall we say.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, mate, then you're a little bit crinkly, like a shrivelled up walnut, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I think he's got a couple of them. Very far keen funny, yeah. Good on ya.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

No, well, I don't enjoy being called back. Well that's the way it is. If you're part of the crack commentary team that is the Pod Boffins, you are where you are expected to be on time and in a good mood, thank you, Ben.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Uh my mood's fine, except for that flat, but anyway, why are we even here?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Well, we're here today to talk about the player draft that's upcoming. As you know, and as I said at the top of the show, we have a handful of rookies, so they need to know what's going on. But to be totally honest, there's probably a bunch of blokes in the tour already who needed a little bit of help as well. I love this time of year. A dead set love it to see what the teams are gonna do. Well you're gonna need a little bit of help, aren't you, because the shooters, pew pew and all that stuff, they stunk it a big team last year. Yeah, well it was it was Benzler's first year and he did pretty good as Skipper, and I'll tell you what, they went bloody good in the Mum's Bum Cup.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, but there's a shitload of contests before that, you moron.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah, I know, and we're gonna address that this year. We've been in the war room, the shooters' war room, and uh we're looking at who we're gonna get and who we're gonna pick up. Alright, to get back on track, this year's player draft is different. As we know, Carnival likes to throw in a wrinkle most years, much to the captain's uh chagrin, shall we say.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I don't care how they cook their chickens, Mutt. The captains are dead set, not happy about this at all because their players are picking the draft this year.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Thank you, Mario. That was gonna be the big reveal.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Well, sorry about that, Mutt.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

No worries. All right. So what's gonna happen this year is the captains are gonna pick marquees. They're going to select four marquee players from their current teams. That'll be a bit hard to do from the shooters and King Browns, I'm tipping.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I don't think they've got four they want to keep, do they? King Browns are just fan, thank you. It's uh saving Privat the skipper. He's gotta make a big selection on who just to throw back into the player draft. He wants to keep them all, as we know. He's a bit of a hoarder. A bangler hoarder. But we'll be just fan. Yeah, yeah, we've got plenty we can pick from too.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, you got plenty you can pick from, mate, but do you want to pick from them?

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Oh, there were some good seasons there. Copy that Kondo had a great year. Oh, I think uh Major Morta, he stood up, you know, he got selected as a marquee straight out of left field last year. Benzie he likes to get creative and he got very bloody creative there, let's be honest. But he stood up pretty well, Morta. He might go back in there again.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

All right, then who are you taking after those two?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Uh I'm not divulging our secrets. Thank you very much, Mario. Okay, so this is the way it's going to work. So next Tuesday we have a draft preview show and a wrap-up for Beatle Ball 18. The tour was sensational, let's be honest. Great time over in Adelaide.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Thank goodness the weather held out for us. It was looking abysmal there, like we're gonna have to go in an arc or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Yeah, it did. It wasn't it was great in the end. The Sunday was beautiful. I mean, a bit cold, and there was the boys weren't happy about the 7am hidoff, but you know, we tightened the screws a little bit this year with the hit-off, the late hit-off on the Friday and the early one on the Sunday, after a couple of days drinking, you know, it was a real wake-up call because the year before our tour had been a little bit too easy. You know, the courses were nice, past 68s, past 69s, uh, the weather was great, and it was all a little bit gentle. T off times were fabulous, but uh this year it was a real test, and I tell you what, uh what a result it was, hey yeah. Duel winners for the second time in the history of Beat the Ball. Number 78, on trend Wes. He held hands with number 82, General Buckley's. And if you saw some of the photos of Buckley's on that morning of the Sunday, Ted said you'd swear he wasn't gonna make it through the eighteen alive, let alone win the bloody thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

King Ban Staff Bontaff. It was great to see Wes up there, you know Chucky Norris. He was up there standing proud in that green jacket. You know the cattle dogs. We've had a stack of winners, mate, over the last few years. We've had four or five winners.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah, you have, but that's gonna become a problem for Lonro Leber, your beloved skipper, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

I love you, Leber, you're just getting in quickly, Leber for the year, love you.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, well he's got a problem, doesn't he? Because he's got about a handful of golfers there that have all had their handicaps halved as per the Mum's Bum Cup away, and uh whether he keeps them or can afford to keep em all because he'd need to have a fairly big lead with the catalogue, you think, with the core of that group uh going into the Mum's Bum Cup weekend. That'll do, Pig, that'll do. My sentiment exactly. We'll talk about all this next week when we get into the nicks and knacks of the player draft, and we bring it to you live from Madison Square Garden. It should be unreal.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

I love it, Balboa Creed, you know, my favourite movies and I was growing up. Who are you kidding? You're about fifty when you saw him, lying bastard.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

You're actually getting a little bit smaller. You've got a little bit of uh the Benjamin buttons about you, even in that chair. It's painful to look at. Uh do you want me to get you some ice or uh something? Can we rub some yogurt into your skin or whatever? Well you'd like that, wouldn't it, very much? No, it's not in a nonsexual way. I just wanna he is, he's he is, mate.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

He's shriveling up. I'm telling you, the little chestnut, he is becoming a dark Benjamin button, a little black Benjamin button. He's just fading away in front of us.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I am not, Bozos. Get back on with it. Ron, can you take over here or what?

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yes I will, and I don't appreciate that tone by the way, but I'm gonna carry on. So what will happen is the Marquee draft will be first up, and that's where the skippers they get to select four this year. Generally they only get to select two, so all this uh pissing on Craig's Carnival from high. Uh, let's be honest, he's given him a fair crack. He said basically said to him, You can keep half your team, boys. So what do you want? It ain't gonna be enough for the Wranglers. No way in the world. We are ripping you boys limb from limb this year. Ben's a last year was too nice in the draft, we know that, but I have seen a stoely edge underneath that cool, calm, loving exterior of Ben. And I'll tell you, he's coming hard for you this year. He is going to set up a team from scratch, and I think he's just gonna cut and burn. And there's a few boys that should be worried in that team. They might be finding their third team in three years. That must doesn't matter, though. Most of the players on the tour have been uh in a multitude of teams. Even Carnival, the number one badge pick, he's been in three teams. Some players have been in three or four teams. It doesn't really matter. I mean it's all for fun, don't forget, fellas.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yes, but there is a competitive streak under all of us. You know that.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Especially after those boneheads from the Wrangles last year rocked up to the champions table wearing those silly bloody t-shirts back to back. That was arrogance personified.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, cheer right. Everyone was looking around. And what about the King Browns? They couldn't even get a table. My god.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yes, well, from my memory it was the only Chinese restaurant that was open in Adelaide uh CBD region on a Sunday night, go figure. Well, they didn't have bloody pubs open up till midday on the Saturday. It was like living in a backward backwater, you know, thank God for the casino. What's that? Oh, it's a big place where they've got lots of gaming tables and poker machines and stuff. That's not important right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

I know what a casino is, mate.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I nobody told me that Adelaide had a casino. You were too busy up fondling mole's balls, weren't you, Mario? Having a good look at yourself in their shiny surface. I was not, mate. I touched no balls at all over the weekend. What about golf?

SPEAKER_02 7:55

We had a hit, don't forget.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Okay, I touched those balls. They had dimples in them, and they weren't connected to anything.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

So you prefer the smooth balls to the rough balls. Is that right, Mario?

SPEAKER_02 8:05

I don't like balls at all, mate. Don't it was the Malls Balls tour, fellas, so Mario probably just went up there and hung around in Rundle Mall and uh Fundled a big set of silver vertical balls. Whatever, each to their own. So we've got the marquee draft, so the skippers will pick their four players. Now that will leave the rest of the players from the 48 man strong touring party this year in the player draft itself. Now how's this? It was introduced last year. Step two of the drafting process is the marquees and the skippers again, they will then be able to look at that pool of players who are left over who were not selected as marquee players, and then change a marquee player out for one of those players if they like. Yeah, it's a great rule that one. I don't mind it at all. So that that means for instance, if Benzabe picked his four and then he saw the player draft, all the players that weren't selected as marquees, he might think to himself, Oh, I like the look of that guy. I'm gonna bring him in, but he has to dump a marquee. And so the step up for the player is of course he becomes a marquee player, one of the key men in that team for the upcoming season.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Haha, this would have the Wranglers absolutely terrified. It's not something we're looking forward to, put it that way.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Alright, so once that's done, they will have their marquees set. And so then we will have the player draft itself. Now, this year, as I said at the top, the players get to select the team they wish to go into. Now, for the rookies, it's quite difficult, isn't it? They don't really know uh anything about any of these teams. Uh there are teams that they will gravitate towards because they've got family, friends, or mates in those teams, and they'll try and get in there. But after a random draft of those players left in the player draft itself, uh, you could be the last pick in that and you don't get to select which team you're going into, you just get put into it. Oh my goodness, the tension and pressure, it's all gonna be running so high. The nerves, it's gonna be I'm already nervous, I'm sweating, look at me. You've been like that for years, man. Yeah, sometimes it's just a little bit anxiety, alright, Mario. Thank you. No need to bring that up. All right then. So how on indeed are they going to decide what order the players get to pick from? Completely random draw. It will be done via a spinny random wheel, and each player who is left in the player draft will be allocated a number, and then that order of numbers will come out, and that's the order that they'll be picked in.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, but how are they going to know or tell anyone who's up and who's not?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Carnival will be contacting the boys in the player draft saying to them, uh, hello, how are you going? I suppose he might shoot the breeze a little bit to, you know, ease them into it and say, You're up to pick which team you are going into, and these are the teams available to you. Now, for instance, if you're the the first pick in the player draft, you're gonna have all five teams to pick from, aren't you? So that's really nice. But as we get lower and lower, the teams are gonna fill up. So this year, the teams with 48 players, five teams, there will be ten players in the shooters, the King Browns, and the Cattle Dogs. The other two teams, the Crocs and the Wranglers, will have nine. Not very fair then, is it, really? Oh, it's fair enough. Everyone as we know the points scoring is averaged out across the season. The only time there is an advantage to these teams, and don't forget, they're getting the extra picks because they were the most shit house of the shit houses last year, those three. They will go into the Mum's Bum Cup with however many players they've got. So uh there is no averaging out of scores once there. If they've done well to bring all ten players and get them two tour, well they should get up get the ten chances at it. And they need it, let's be honest. The King Browns have never won the thing. Ah. That's right. Dig the thumb into the bullet wound. Yeah, it's always a comforting thought, isn't it, to know that the King Browns have done sweet FA over the years except collect wooden spoons.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

They've got no trees out there at King Brown Town. Laugh as you like, Laurie. I can smell something changing out there. Don't you worry about it. BTB nineteen, this is our year.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

You can smell something too, and uh it ain't that. You're actually getting smaller, Benjamin Button. Uh do you mind if I put you up in the palm of my hand?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

You get those mitts off me. I am not.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

You have got way too much sun, mate. So how long? Tell me will the people have to respond? What if they don't respond?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Well, Carnival will send them a text message and they'll have about an hour to get back to him. If they do not get back to him in the allotted time slot that he has given them, they will then go to the back of the line. So everyone's gonna have to be nice and alert over the coming days. Uh it's a very exciting and it's gonna be very interesting to see how this plays out. But I know it's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, it does. I must admit I'm keen to see how this all folds, unfolds in the end. What if what if somebody gets their message and doesn't send back? They go from pick two to pick 26 or something. Oh my goodness. Well you better give them a day that this is going to happen. This will start happening from Thursday, I believe, Carnival has told me. Uh, and they will get the draft, and then we will have the actual player draft live podcast-wise from Madison Square Garden. Tuesday, we will do the look back preview, uh, look back at Beat the Ball 18, preview for Beat the Ball 19. Wednesday, we have the marquee player draft, and then Thursday we have the actual player draft itself. So it's going to be a massive week.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Oh, it's always a great time of year, mate, and it gets you so pumped up for this season. I can't wait to see who's going to be a cattle dog this year and who will not be. Oh, can't wait, mate. Can't wait.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Just wait on a second, will you, Mario? And then, of course, competitions kick off Saturday, July 4th. Saturday week. We are on like Donkey Kong. The Crocs, the Shooters, the Wranglers, the Cattle Dogs, the King Browns. They will all be in fierce battle as the tipping Triple B's pillar trophy event starts, the punter of the year starts, the Stable Wars, the Dally Ams. It goes on and on. And all vying for points to get the THC Premiership. To be sitting at that champions table having everyone pay for their meal come Sunday night of the tour next year. Oh, let's go, baby. Let's go. Get some of the rocky music in him. I'm gonna get into the gym and I'm gonna just start pounding, pounding, pounding.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

He won't be going to the gym, but I will be doing similar. I'm starting to feel a little woozy.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Where's he gone, mate? Ben has gone. The Benjamin Button has buttonholed right out of here, mate.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

I can't see him either. Is that him down there, that little speck? Oh, I can see him kicking his little legs and arms and and uh he's in all sorts. Oh, he needs rehydration immediately. We have to get him out of here and get him into some water. You know how they dehydrate shit and then it comes back when you fill it up with water? We're gonna do that with Ben. Let's get him, get him now. Anybody got a pair of tweezers? I don't, but uh thank you for listening, boys. We are back. There's gonna be heaps coming at you from this time until we start the tour. So sit back, relax, buckle up if you're a rookie. Don't try and understand it all at once. Any questions? Ask your mate who bought you in or whoever invited you in or ask Carnival. They will certainly help you out, no problems at all. Oh come on, you get you got him, Sandy. Have you got him? Give me a look. That's that's a bloody crumb, you imbecile. He's next to it, he's over there quickly before he diminishes and he exploit pops and goes, he becomes a dust mite or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Help me. Um shrink.