The grand soap opera that is the National Rugby League doesn’t just give Parade a sporting competition to follow, it provides a cast of characters that supply drama, comedy and pathos from the first round until the last.

The mid-season transfers, the sacked coaches, the epic feuds, the brain snaps, the losing streaks, the winning streaks, the early morning altercations with bouncers outside seedy nightspots … it’s all part of the rugby league storyline.

And if the “just taking it one game at a time” and “we’re not focusing on the semis” and “we all gave 100 per cent” is infuriating, it is more than made up for by the game’s other charms – like 120-kilogram monsters who are described as “gentle giants” and 88kg halfbacks who want to fight every person on the field.

Parade will miss rugby league – all its eccentricities and subplots and strange tangents - when it ends in a week or so.

Cricket’s good, but it’s just not the same.

PARADE has some serious work ahead in the garden – and when Parade says serious, he means serious.

After the rain and now some sunshine, Parade has weeds growing in the backyard that will soon dwarf the pine trees for height and girth.

Parade was down there the other day and realised that unless something is done about the worst of the weeds, they will soon require a gang of men and some small machinery to drag them from the soil.

The problem is that most of the time the weather seems to be miserable, which is not appealing for gardening.

And on the occasions when the weather is fine, Parade thinks the day would be better spent doing something other than digging about in the dirt.

Something is going to have a give.

If it doesn’t, Parade’s backyard is going to resemble a scene from Day Of The Triffids or one of those old Hollywood movies set in the deepest, darkest jungle.