CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

In heartbreaking news for anyone with a lifetime of nostalgia to misplace, Channel Nine has confirmed that network executives have decided the NRL Footy Show concept will not return in any format in 2019.

The network released a statement confirming it is moving to revolutionise its rugby league coverage after another year of disastrous ratings, which many producers put down to the fact that they haven’t been able to top the hilarity of the programme’s 2001 variety segment that saw all members of the panel nearly pass out from the sheer pain that came from peer-pressuring each other into eating North Indian ghost chillis.

After being pushed to a later time slot following the network’s live Thursday night NRL coverage, and replacing the late 1990s ‘wall of knowledge’ with a bunch of other players who maybe played a couple Origins at best, media commentators have today decided to blame Erin Molan.

Molan, who was an on-and-off feature of the Footy Show from 2012 until 2018 when she retained the sole host position, is being pointed to as the main reason this show, that hasn’t really been that good since the turn of the millennium, is being cancelled.

Funnily enough, Molan, who was gifted one of the hardest gigs in television in a desperate bid to win over female fans for a franchise that only introduced female teams this year, is probably the only member of the panel that has some sort of job security going into the future.

While some devastated fans are drawing correlations between the show’s ratings slump and the decline of panelists who were actually talented ex-footballers and therefor able to analyse the game properly – it appears the most commonly accepted theory is that the show became shit when they pulled back on stunts that resulted in vomiting – and opted for six different segments per episode lampooning 20-something-year-old footballers being in love with their missos.