The bright melodies of the piano tumbled through the room to fill the spaces between the morose clinking of glasses, grumbled conversation and scuffing of chairs on the saloons battered wooden floor, but even as it cascaded over the gathered men it could not withstand the oppressive heat that flowed from outside and through the walls like they weren’t even there. Those that clustered in this old gold town lived in a purgatory between past glories and the hope of future fortune, but today the town struggled to survive from one day to the next against all that the world and it’s uncaring inhabitants dared to throw at it, living on scraps and false victories.
There was the faint sound of a scuffle outside, struggling valiantly to be heard over the noise and cacophony of the saloon, which drew a few sideways glances towards the still saloon doors that acted as flimsy sentries against the outside world. Then, suddenly, they were thrown open and in burst a scruffy young rogue. This on its own did not command any special attention, the town was full of ruffians and thieves looking to find their way, mostly boys too young to remember the good old days. A large number of the occupants turned back to their drinks and conversations, but those more observant took a slightly closer look. This was no boy, there was something darker in his beady little eyes, something that spoke volumes about the hurt and pain in the universe.
The piano stopped.
“Has anyone seen Shane Warne?”, he yelped aimlessly into the room. There was no response. He grabbed a nearby chair, dragged it to the doorway and stood on it so that he could see above the heads of the congregation.
“I said has anyone seen Shane Warne?” he tried once more, a little louder than before.
“You’re joking, mate”, replied a non-descript man sat in the corner. “He hasn’t been seen around here for years.”
“Well that’s f&$ked it all to f&$k then”, the boy-man spat. His face darkened into a petulant scowl and he chewed aggressively on his gum, looking about the room. “England are about to become f&$king number 1 in the world and we’re completely f&$ked.”
The crowd grew quiet. Together they had endured disaster followed by calamity, but this...no...this was too much. It was the final sign that their world had abandoned them, that the old days were gone forever and all that stood before them was despair and desperation. After a few seconds that stretched for hours, the dirty silence was broken by the scrape of a chair across the battered floor boards. The crowd turned to see a man standing over the poker table, his black hat low across his brow and his clothes hanging from him like rags caught on a barbed wire fence. He moved his hand slowly to his head and removed the hat, to place it delicately next to his cards and chips. A gasp pinballed it’s way through elements of the gathering. The ‘man’ that stood before them was a facsimile of a man, an almost person, a robot that may have remained undetected from the corner of the eye but which did not stand up to the direct scrutiny of reality.
“I’m right here, Punter”, it spoke. Now the entire mass gasped in astonishment. None dared to think it true, that this thing could be all that was left of the hero they had worshipped for so long. It was another kick too much to bear. The saloon doors swept open on their own, forced apart as all ambition and aspiration burst from the room to race into the empty sky and away forever.
“Warney?”, the boy-man was as disbelieving as the rest.
“Yes, Punter, it’s me.” Only now that he was standing could it be noticed that the floor beneath his chair was scattered with numerous empty moisturiser and fake tan bottles. His belt studded with diet pills instead of bullets. Regardless of his scepticism, the boy-man was desperate. Something had to be done.
“Have you seen Tugga?”
The crowd parted instantly and a line of sight was established between the small interloper and a seat at the bar. Hunched on that seat was a grizzled hombre, his dusty clothes looked worn and battered, as though he had fought through a thousand wars just to get to this point, looking for some peace and somewhere to drink. His hand gently and deliberately lowered his whisky to the bar top, the two meeting with a faint dull thud. Slowly he turned, his squinting, wether beaten eyes casting a withering stare that would have any reduced most normal men to their very component molecules.
“Tugga, thank God I found you....mate, I have to tell you....I’ve really got us into the s£*t this time, f&$k it. Pup's bloody captain and all.”
The man at the bar continued to stare, the air itself evaporating before his steady gaze.
“I’m telling ya Tugga, we have to get the old team together again...just one more time.”
You’ve all seen this movie before. It’s an old boys classic formulae, and maybe the only one left for the rest of the world beyond these drizzly shores.
- Tugga reluctantly straps his pads back on one more time, even though he struggles to walk and can’t get out of bed most mornings.
- Warney goes back to his own place and, while Liz is sleeping, goes into the basement, takes a key from around his neck and unlocks a old trunk full of beer, cigarettes and baked beans.
- Punter finds JL working as a human crash test dummy and he immediately says yes before running around in circles for 15 minutes.
- Tugga has a long talk with Haydo’s over a campfire in the Queensland wilderness before they are attacked by 5 giant feral pigs which Haydo’s takes out with his bare hands
- Tugga finds Damian Martyn doing whatever it is that Damian Martyn does (this section only appears in the Directors Cut)
- Punter has to track down Junior who hasn’t spoken to Tugga for years because of <insert some crap family argument here, unlikely to be sleeping with wife>. Punter must help the two reconcile their differences but in fact makes things worse because of his astonishingly bad interpersonal skills. Eventually, gambling debt forces Junior to accept the offer and he and his brother have a manly but emotional hug on the SCG square
- Punter tracks down Gilly, who has taken a job with NASA. He is responsible for launching cricket ball sized components from Cape Canaveral at the International Space Station since the closure of the Space Shuttle programme. His tools of choice are a Puma Ballistic cricket bat and a stock bowling machine set to “Andy Caddick”
- Punter flicks on the TV to see Binga still playing in the Big Bash for Sydney Lollapalooza
- Punter turns to a satanic cult so that he can descend to Hell and save Dizzy from his desk job as a minor demon
- Tugga stakes out Pigeons hairdresser (which he has been using since 1983) and eventually corners him. Pigeon says that he loves his new job, hammering the same rivet into the same piece of metal 100 times a day, but Tugga tricks him into stepping over a boundary rope he has laid on the footpath outside the barbers. Pigeon immediately starts foaming at the mouth and must be pointed at an English batsman before the entire population of Wagga Wagga is decimated
The last scene is the old boys all striding out onto Lords, the English fans booing and the travelling (from South London) Australian supporters are cheering like mad. What happens next? Well, these days we wouldn’t find out until the inevitable sequel but, as long as the entire CGI budget isn’t blown on making Warney look like his old self, it could be a ripper.
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