A promotional video for the 1989 NRL season has been unearthed, and the undertones are deliciously, uncompromisingly camp.

This is the kind of flamboyant, campness that all those cronies that walked the 2019 Met Gala carpet could not have dreamt up. I’ve watched every Pedro Almodóvar film in the canon, I’ve dissected every glimmering shot of Scorpio Rising to the umpteenth degree, and they all feel so completely heterosexual compared to this cinematic triumph of a promo video.

I have no clue who the beautiful, sensual tirant in charge of the NRL’s marketing team was in the 1980s but they deserve a Sebastiane Award for this total masterpiece.

Whoever got Tina Turner on the dog and bone and asked her to soundtrack this is my hero. It’s bulky, broad athletes in impossibly tight pants. It’s fans with handlebar moustaches that wouldn’t look out of place in the bear sector on the beaches of Sitges.

The commercial came to light after Twitter user Adam Moussa mused, “Twitter was probably not envisioned as a place for queer people to reminisce about the pieces of culture they lusted after at the onset of puberty but I’m so glad that’s what it became.”

When asked if there was anything “specifically horny and australian” that was essential viewing, Moussa delivered.

If they started promoting the footy like this again, instead of the ugly Sky Sports-core cinematography backed by a soundtrack corny stadium cock-rock then perhaps I would consider venturing into the realms of the NRL. The way that sport is now can be described as nothing other than a complete and total regression.

Why are we so afraid of a little glitz and glamour? If we continue to soundtrack our promo videos with ‘Simply The Best’, we shouldn’t be too weak to backcomb our hair a little.

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