Losers,
Happy to find myself chained to a BBQ on Sunday afternoon, being contracted to do the gourmet catering for a 16th birthday party.
The din that a mob of teenage girls makes is so incredible that it was all but impossible to hear the News Radio call of the Swans game on the tinny transistor that lives on the back deck.
Gave up trying just after half time and turned the thing off.
A good thing too.
By the look of the score sheet, the Swans were, as usual, slow out of the blocks, made something of a fist of a fight back in the Championship Quarter, and then ran out of legs in the final stanza.
One away game they had to win.
It’s harsh at the top in The Rules, where in the blink of an eye, you can go from a potential ten points clear in fourth to having other jokers snapping at you heels.
Not qualified to comment further, except to say that SC Roos appears to have done some stating the bleeding obvious when he said on interview "When they had control of the game, they were able to put a lot more scoreboard pressure on us."
Is that something that can be resolved on the training track with the run home to come?
Don’t ask me.
HAWTHORN: 3.4, 9.9, 10.13, 15.16 (106). Goals: Williams 4, Franklin 4, Roughead 3, Young, Taylor, Hodge, Rioli.
SYDNEY: 2.4, 4.6, 8.9, 10.15 (75). Goals: O'Keefe 2, Buchanan 2, O'Loughlin 2, McVeigh, Playfair, Goodes, Smith.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 49,529.
SC Sheens wasn’t kidding when he said during the bye week that he was running out of player roster.
On Monday night at the third home ground, he actually played a front row forward by the name of Daine Laurie, who they’ve recruited on match payments only.
Until three weeks ago he was knocking about for Yamba in some obscure country competition, and came to the Tigers simply because he was big and boofy, and allegedly had a few rugby league skills.
Welcome to big time football, son.
Crikey!
Old timers at the ground suggest the highlight of the night was the old fashioned all in stink in the shadows of half time – a nice little donnybrook that came out of nothing in particular.
Incredibly, despite four losses on the trot, the Tigers remain just half a win outside the top eight, given the nature of the log jam in the league.
Melbourne just too big, too strong, too many skills…Tigers tried to kick over or through the defence as they was no other way around it.
Losing strategy from the off.
And there is no accounting for that Greg Inglis on the Melbourne side – a freak of nature – three tries just like that, and the kiddie has already done everything there is to do in the game.
He will be a hall of famer dead set by the time he finishes up.
SC Sheens was pretty glib when he said on post match interview:
"We're putting together patches but we're not putting together a real good game and the confidence is down a little bit too.”
But was right on the money when he added "We need a win desperately to raise that confidence and need to make a move soon if we’re to remain in the hunt."
The Great Hoddo did in fact very quietly confirm during the bye week that he is off at the end of the year to take the very smart cash on offer at that well known retirement home for Tigers players, Huddersfield, in the English “Super” League [a misnomer if ever there was one!],
No one can blame him for taking his superannuation.
And so, all of a sudden, he finds himself playing in his last ever game at Campbelltown, where he started his illustrious career with Western Suburbs, and where they want to cast his likeness in bronze.
The crowd went apeshit when he latched onto a runway move to score under the uprights and miraculously tie up the scores at 12-12 at half time.
A more thorough appraisal of The Great Hoddo’s work will come after Mad Monday, but suffice to say for the moment that he is a genuine, glittering, ornament to the game.
A session in the Room Full of Mirrors probably wouldn’t do the boys any good, as it seems destined to be one of those seasons dogged by back luck, misfortune, and cruelled by injury.
Nice time of the season to be coming into the annual grudge match against South Sydney, just when the hapless Rabbitoh’s are finding some form.
There are reports out of Rome that the Pontiff has tickets in the cheap seats, as he wants to be with the masses.
His Holiness loves his rugby league; can’t get enough of it, according to the Vatican.
And the Tiges will need all the luck they can get from the Good Lord Joisus.
WESTS TIGERS 18. Tries: Tuiaki, Hodgson, Ryan. Goals: Hodgson (3).
MELBOURNE STORM 30. Tries: Inglis (3), Slater, Manu. Goals: Smith (5).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 16,653.
