The Chaser Report - MATILDAS DEMOLISH THE FRENCH

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

It's been 3 days since the Matildas beat France in a penalty shootout and we're still on a high from the win. Courtnee Vine is a national treasure. Mackenzie Arnold deserves a medal of honour. Dom shares how he strong-armed the politicians into getting in on the Matilda-fever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And what an incredible weekend it was. I mean, admittedly, we should probably post this as yesterday's episode, but we wanted to get to the podcast Talk Back. That was our top priority, so that's why we posted that. But no, we're just reacting now today to Matilda's Mania, Charles,

the biggest audience for any television event since Kathy Freeman, and won gold in 2000. What is it about having women actually competing in sport and doing really, really well? Yes. Guess what? We do care. We care more than we care about the men.

Demonstrably so. We've now got the stats to prove it. Statistically, so, yes. But nobody really cares about women's sport, though. Oh, yeah, clearly. I think that's just sort of like the woke feminazis that you write all the columns and watch all the TV that bumps up the ratings.

Like, if you drill down on those and exclude all of the sort of women, then the ratings would be like half. And the kids, the inspired kids who embraced this. There'd be literally half the ratings of what it was. You know what the most underwhelming claim has been, though. We're in full credit to the materials. We're going to rave about them. But they've been saying, biggest streaming event ever.

I mean, come on. Who keeps your shit about that? Oh, but I've got a story about that and how fucking shit. Shit, the 7 plus app is. Hang on. After this. Okay, so the game's going on. Stupidly, my son's basketball, which was like the crucial match before the finals,

was scheduled for 5.10pm on Saturday. So I had to go out to fucking comment stadium and watch fucking children playing basketball in a thrilling match. Do they not love their country? I know. Who scheduled that? Which idiot schedule? Was it the only time they could book? Well, I think a man scheduled it, to be honest.

Yes, a man scheduled it. Yes. Thought, oh, it's a free afternoon. No major sporting events on. It will finish it up before the NRL. Anyway, point in, so we only got home at about six years. We thought, oh, well, we'll only get the last half hour of the game. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it is to watch Shoggle.

That was the worst soccer game ever. It was fantastic. It was painful. It was so exciting, nil all draw, full of drama. Neil all draw But like I literally wanted to go out And conduct an entire riot

After the Like the tension Of the last sort of half hour Where you just It was just unbearable That is why That is why The world loves football

Because it's just incredibly exciting Intentz Like I tweeted After the thing finished I said congratulations Everyone who's still alive That was a full kind of cardiologist Because my heart was just pounding

And all these people replied saying Yeah I was wearing a Fitbit, and my pulse went bananas during that thing. So, but luckily, Channel 7 managed to swoop in, at least at our house, and really save us from too much stress. Because what they did is, just as the penalty shootout was starting, they decided to stop broadcasting. Like, the stream just cut out.

It just cut out. It just cut out. French sabotage. Yeah, that's right. And then every time we tried to log on, it was going, oh you want to watch Channel 7 news and it was like no we don't want to watch Channel 7 news well this is just Channel 7 not realizing how big it was going to be

even though they had record ratings for the last game on Wednesday so we ended up watching the penalty shootout on my phone on your phone yes because that was the only channel like 7 plus app that we could get to work that could stream it so I went out of the pub right because I thought you know they'll have televisions there and it was brilliant it was absolutely packed local pub It's normally a very quiet, sleepy place where they show...

What did you watch? They show the NRL with the sound down. That's an normal Saturday night. The Matildas was on every screen in the place. It was just fantastic. And some prick had booked the table that we could get. We got the last table in the place. Some prick had booked it.

Who even knew you could book tables at a pub? 7.30pm on Saturday night when the Matilda's are on. 20 minutes before full time. So we had to adjust as the vital... We had to get up from the table. But in that situation, I think... think you just don't respect it. You say the soccer's going over time, therefore we're going over time on our table. Look, the guy was very apologetic and I appreciate that. But still,

who books? Who books a table in a pub? 20 minutes before full time in the greatest football match in the country's history. I think the government needs to intervene. I think table bookings should be made illegal in pubs. Yes. And I think there's a whole lot of things that the government could do as a result of the Matildas, you know, just not being legislated enough. Like, they need to step in, you know, we've got the public holiday coming up. Potentially. We've got, I think, in tables not being booked in pubs. You know, there's lots of government things that they should do.

Well, you know what he came up and, but he was basically terra nulliasing me, wasn't he? Yes. He's going, oh, no one's at this table. There's nobody here. They ended to recognise the original owners of that table. My continuous occupation since 6pm. Yes. When the game started, which is when any decent human being.

It's at 5. No, 5pm, sorry. We've been there from 5 p.m. Yeah, even longer. It was 6.30. You booked it for 6.30. But the same point remains, right? Oh, okay.

6.30, 20 minutes before full time, right? Right, okay. And then the game went on until about 20 past 7, just went on forever. The longest penalty shootout in World Cup history, men's or women. Oh, really? Men's or 20 shots it took to resolve that one. Jesus. And so it made me think, Charles.

I mean, I was already at RPA in the Hartwood by then, yeah. Of course you are. You're tickets a week as far. But, no, but so to the government, you know, like, Dom, you're a bit of an expert in getting government to change rules, aren't they? It's true. You're, it's true. And so, having gone through that experience, I thought, I've got to start planning now. But when I'm going to watch this match, where I'm going to watch the Matilda's playing. Yes, of course.

I've wanted to get onto a better situation so that some prick wouldn't turn up half, 20 minutes before full time and kick me out of the chair. Well, could you, why couldn't you just book a table at the pub? I could have. That's true. But I thought I'd go bigger and better. Yes. So I tweeted shortly after full time, excuse me at Chris Min's MP,

Premier of New South Wales, by the way. Yeah. Can you open the Sydney football stadium? Yes. So 40,000 of us can watch the semi. I promise the bars and food outlets will make money. Yes, that's right. And then...

Just appeal to, you know, the profit... That's right. I just wanted Miravale, the company who runs the catering at the stadium to make a Motsa. And, you know, they have my three favourite words. It's cheeseburger spring rolls. It's good stuff. Cheeseburger spring rolls.

Yeah. That's why I wanted to go there. I think Maryvale's only in New South Wales only. Yes, it is. Oh, they're in Victoria now, but yeah. People don't know what a Merry Vale is. You've got to, it's a big, massive catering company that bought all the pubs in Sydney, basically. Yeah, and what they do is they make it feel completely different, but somehow exactly the same as every other

Maryvale sort of establishment. So it's got, it's completely unique. It's very, it's very schmick and unique. in a generic and reproducible way. But you sort of know that it's Merrival because it's about five times the reasonable price. Yes, that's right. So how much is a cheeseburger spring roll? When you're at the stadium, the prices seem normal because you're at a stadium.

So I think I got a burger and chips when I went to the France versus Panama. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think I got a cheeseburger with fries for $22, $23. Oh, my God. That's a lot of money. But for Sydney pub prices, that's normal. Yeah, that's totally normal. So, and so the reason I suggested this was because I watched the crowds down at Tumbleong Park at Darling Harbour, all the live sites.

They're sitting politely on the ground, on the grass. That's not for me. I want tiered seating. Yes. I want bars. Yes. I want a massive screen with uninterrupted view. That's what I want.

Incredibly horrible toilets that stink. Not at the new football stadium is brand new. Oh, really? It was Gladys's folly. She knocked the old perfectly good one down and built a new one. So it's actually very nice. How did they get rid of the toilets? There would have been a toxic hazard.

I think we had to... Mind-blowing proportions. I think they had to... Nuclear weapons. So anyway, so I tweeted Chris Means, please open this in football stadium. Yes. I got to reply the following afternoon,

Sunday afternoon, great idea, done. To me... To my Twitter. Reply to me at Dom Knight. Oh, Dom. Chris Minns, Premier New South Wales, great idea, done.

Basically, you're the spengali of New South Wales politics. I'm the influencer. I'm the brains trust of the state. You're basically the sort of... You're the chief of star. to the Premier of New South Wales.

And in that capacity, I'm entirely willing to abandon the Sydney Football Stadium and go and watch it in a corporate box premier. If you need me to serve my state in that capacity, I'm willing to go and do it. But it just made me think, I mean, what extraordinary power I now seem to have. A lot of people tried to get on the thread. Why wouldn't you have asked the Premier, can I have tickets to the actual game? That's sort of my subtext, I suppose. But a lot of people got onto the threat and said if we're granting, like, policy ideas from Twitter,

can you, like, honour the deal with the teachers that you promised, Chris Minns? Can you, like, all these people want a public service pay rises, to which I say, get your own threat. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser report. So this is the thing, Charles. Nobody, nobody can get tickets to this thing, right? I've been trying on the resale website for weeks to get tickets to this thing. No one, I don't know anyone who's going.

It is absolutely exclusive. It's the hottest ticket in town. FIFA was selling them for $1,300. Oh my God. $1,300 on Saturday night. I had to look. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, I'm going.

You're not. I'm going. You are not. Yeah. You don't even like soccer. How fuck did you get tickets? Is this a Labor Party thing? No, no.

Yeah, I added Chris Minz, but I DMed him here. No, no, I agreed to go to the semi-fi. finals well before my sister-in-law just happened to get them like you know in the lottery you're kidding and and she said oh do you want to come and it was like and it didn't seem likely well like we didn't even know whether it was Australia was in the right side of the drawer or whatever you just went semi-finals the well-come of course you did yeah we went yeah okay we'll come but we were sort of going yeah but it'll be a bit of a social obligation because it'll probably be something like france versus columbia or something yeah and and instead we've got

tickets to the greatest sporting event in the history. And guess what? I just realized I was also at the Kathy Threeman thing. I was there. You can't even pronounce her name. I was not Kathy Threeman? I was it. I totally was.

I was there. How? I had tickets. How? My aunt got tickets. Yeah, yeah. I had high-powered connections. Yeah, high-powered connection.

No, no, but no, we were just in the, like we did the lottery and we won. I mean, this is typical, Charles. I come in and say that I, a member of the public, have tweeted Chris Mins and somehow gotten a reply. To claim what it was something clearly the government was going to do anyway, right? Yeah. Because Dan Andrews did it for the last game, so we're just playing catch up. But let's emphasise that.

And you're going, yeah, look, you know, I'm going to the fucking game. And you don't even care about soccer. I care. Oh, you do. What's the offside rule? The one thing, no, the one thing that I would say, Dom, is that, the Channel 7 commentate, like being there will be less confusing than watching it on Channel 7. Yes.

Because Channel 7 has, I think, the worst commentators in the history of the universe, right? So what they did is they failed to explain anything that was going on the entire time. And for somebody who, like my kids play soccer, I played soccer, I still don't understand soccer at all. He's a test. Do you understand why one of the penalty kicks was disallowed? like one of the McKenzie Arnold saves. Yeah, that was because she didn't have her foot on the line. Okay, good.

So you got the basic one. Yeah, but... Do you understand the offside rule? Everything in soccer is offside. Every time anyone scores a goal that looks completely reasonable, it is definitely going to be offside. You've got the gist of it. Yeah, it's basically hard work.

I'm a soccer referee. Oh, right. I'm a qualified soccer referee. Do you understand the offside rule? I do. Oh, really? I mean, they do keep changing it. But, you know, I understand it.

Yeah. Right. Unfortunately, if I start explaining it, it would be so boring that you're not only this episode, everyone will stop listening, but the entire podcast will fail permanently. But look, what I would say is when the penalty shootout came, the Channel 7 commentators, I think just forgot to explain what the rules of penalty shootout is, right? So they just didn't tell you. So we had to Google, oh, it's best of five or, you know, first of five, whatever the rule is.

And there was no sense of, you know, is it, you know, you're going to be ahead by two or by one. And they didn't mention it. So they never told you the stakes. No, they never said, they never said, if she misses this, this is it. Yeah, if she misses it, this is it, really. Whereas apparently on Optusport, because my sister was watching on the Optus sport feed, they explained everything. And they had all these trendy words, like, P-K, like, it wasn't a penalty kick-out,

or it was a P-K or something. I mean, yeah, P-K, apparently, on a kick. I was watching Optus because I'm a football fan, which means I actually pay for Opta sport. Oh, my God. So I can watch the English Premier League all year. Yeah. And the funny thing is the commentator's English where the host nation at the World Cup

Optusport couldn't manage to find by the Australian commentator, which is why they know the rules, I presume. Well, but one of the commentators is honestly true on the Channel 7 feed. At the end, they'd just won. It was the most significant moment in Australian history.

And the commentator, the best you could come up with was, I'm out of words here. I really just don't have any words. It's like, you have one job! You have one job! job to have some words about this moment. Charles, she was a Channel 7 employee. Yes. At the

point where she hadn't murdered anyone recently, she was employee at the month. You probably is going to sue me for defamation, isn't he? I cannot believe that you're going to that game. I'm going. If anyone's sick, please. Please. If anyone's sick on that, please. Do you want me to slip somebody

some COVID or something? There's a new strain. There is a new strain. Maybe I could yeah, because I want my wife to come, but maybe my sister-in-law who got the tickets. I mean, I don't want ill on her. She's done an amazing thing. But if there's a ticket going begging, Charles, it would be a shame for it to go to waste, wouldn't it? Yeah. Well, what we're planning to do is having an early dinner in the city and then catching the train out. Oh, you never make it. You're going on Sydney Public Transport.

Oh, yeah. May, she should start walking now. Well, I better go. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the iconic class network. How the fuck did Charles get tickets? If you got a ticket, just send me an email podcast at chaser.com. That are you? Just I really want to... You're just sounding desperate now, Don't. I'm completely desperate. Can't you tell?

We've done an entire episode about this.