Trick cyclists,
The burning question on everyone’s lips: Has BBB “Slugger” Hall been having jujitsu lessons on his holidays or was it just part of his anger treatment? [thankfully, he’s not consulting the same anger manager as Belinda Neal and Sam Newman – patently hasn’t worked in either case there].
Instead of going around clocking blokes, he’s worked out all you have to do is throw your not inconsiderable weight around and just flip blokes out of the way.
How many times did direct opponents just bounce off the great man as if affected by some weird magnetic field when they came into the big bloke’s sphere of influence?
As is usually the case, the question of victory came down to the Championship Quarter.
Things looked a little ominous when the Gardiner kiddies snapped a couple of quick ones for the Saints at the start of the stanza, but three Swans goals in as many minutes towards the end of the section, and it was effectively game over.
Never in doubt.
Jarred “Odd Head” McVeigh was probably best on ground, played doggedly, and just kept unexpectedly bobbing up in all the right places, while Marty Mattner – having played 100 games for Adelaide without anyone noticing – is something out of the Book of Revelations.
The Goodes Train was once again a marked man, given that many thought he shouldn’t have been playing, but for mine it was surprising that he didn’t go down to the tribunal mid-week to try and get off the official reprimand to protect his honorable reputation, given that a reprimand is apparently enough to rule you out of contention for the Brownlow.
Any team will struggle to get through the Swans defence for the rest of the season the way it is going, and the return of Hall added some much needed structure to the forward line.
Magic certainly thought so; he was happy to let Hall do all the leading from centre half forward, so he could be more relaxed and comfortable just pirouetting around in the forward pocket as he’s paid to do.
Not at all sure about the reported appearance of six chanting Gyuota Buddhist monks dressed in saffron and Swans scarves in the sheds after the game.
Craig Bolton was certainly startled:
"I was buggered and then it went completely quiet and all of a sudden I heard this chanting. I just got straight up”
"Footy has come a long way - 20 years ago we would have been cracking open cans of beer, now we are listening to Buddhist chants."
Crikey!
Next thing they will all be levitating, or some such nonsense.
After the Crows narrow loss at home, and given that the top three is now, in the absence of some serious falling off of wheels, set in concrete, all the Swans need to do is keep winning at home, and snatch a few away wins to take the only vacant slot in the top four at the pointy end of the season.
With SC Roos [hearty congrats by the way on his 500th as a player then coach] issuing stern warnings about complacency, giving Melbourne a right spanking on the wide open spaces at Manuka Oval this coming weekend is a good place to start, and besides, six wins on the trot in a 22 game season officially qualifies as a “purple patch”.
SYDNEY 3.5, 7.9, 12.16 14.18 (102) Goals: O'Keefe 3, O'Loughlin 3, Hall 2, Goodes 2, McVeigh, Moore, Bird, Jolly
ST KILDA 2.2, 3.7, 8.9, 9.13 (67) Goals: C.Gardiner 3, Riewoldt, Dal Santo, M.Gardiner, Goddard, Schneider, Milne.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 25,996.
Had a bad feeling in my water from the moment when the only recognized Tiges front row forward left standing in the entire club, Danny Galea, fell over about three minutes into the match, with not a hand laid on him, and contrived to snap an Achilles.
Season gorn, just like that.
For a bloke who has battled all year to find a permanent place in the run-on side, it was a pitiful sight to see him just after half time, having changed into a jacket and tie, hobble on crutches to a seat in the stands.
A couple of pre-game injuries didn’t help either, as SC Sheens was forced to name two blokes on the bench who hadn’t played any first grade rugby league since 2006; fair average quality journeymen at best you would have thought.
SC Sheens in his after match remarks suggested that assistant coach Roycie Simmons might have to come out of 17 years in retirement and don the orange and black next week to harden things up.
Can’t we buy any players, anyone, before the end of the financial year?
The Galea injury cracked the Tiges mentally; never seen so much dropped ball, so many knock ons, kicks that failed to find touch, and the unforgivable sin of passing the ball clean into touch, from any side in a single game all season.
That, and the fact that Parramatta had some dead set refrigerators and bulldozers going around in the forwards, and even the kiddie who plays for them in the outside centres looks like a 6’4” five-ton front end loader.
Benji was missing in attack but tried hard to put on a kicking game, but it’s tough when you are getting no field position at all, and the try scoring freak Lawrence did score the only try, but honestly, can’t think of any other time his name was even mentioned in the television commentary.
For once, Mad Gus Gould got it right when he said: “the Tigers will just have to lay low for the next month and try to survive, before trying to play themselves into September”.
SC Sheens came down from the box in the first half to coach from the sidelines in the second – but unlike the animated AFL coaches -- he didn’t need headphones or a telephone, as he didn’t have much to say -- to anyone.
What else was to be done?
WESTS TIGERS 6. Tries: Lawrence. Goals: Hodgson (1).
PARRAMATTA EELS 44. Tries: Hindmarsh (2), Burt, Cordoba, Tautai, Keating, Inu, Reddy. Goals: Burt (6).
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 22,106.
Footnote: By the look of the state of the stands on the telly, be buggered if 22 thousand punters turned up on a damp, bitterly cold afternoon in Sydney for the televised Sunday game.
A little creative gate keeping going on once again to justify using the Olympic Stadium as a home ground, given the club is guaranteed a very generous net return regardless of how many show up?
