Inquisitors,
Spent the first part of Easter attending to helping with the end of a 40+ year old era [another story] so only managed to pull myself in front of an unblinking eye to see the Championship Quarter at The Gabba.
It wasn’t particularly inspiring.
A cursory glance at the scoreboard did not bode well.
Four goals to half time and you could have been forgiven for thinking that the Swans were thinking that they were playing Irish football, except that they were also six goals down.
The half-time/full-time points margins were pretty much the same.
There was a suggestion on the radio afterwards that the Swans have a “fundamental problem” this season that will prevent them from making the top eight.
To wit, SC Roos has always been renowned as an outstanding technical coach who stands back and looks at the big picture, which is generally a good idea and is often best got from ground level, but now appears to be out-thought when it comes to the lock-out game, with opposition coaches routinely finding gaps in the minefield
It worked in ’05, but with an already ageing roster now four years older, and a hopeless young kiddie talent recruiting strategy, it was no wonder that the band of Brisbane youngsters ran rings around them, and were widely considered as the best players on the ground.
Swans boys can hardly be blamed at this early stage in the piece for playing to a well worn game plan, as instructed, only to find it’s not working as often as it should.
Perhaps the coach should leave the old blokes on the training track banging away at a pair of big sticks, while he books himself in for session in The Room Full of Mirrors down on the Balmain Road?
BRISBANE 4.4 10.6 12.9 15.10 (100) Goals: Brown 4, Bradshaw 4, Sherman 3, Notting, Adcock, Drummond, Rich.
SYDNEY 1.2 4.5 7.10 9.13 (67) Goals: Hall 3, Jolly 2, Meredith, Barlow, Moore, White.
At The Gabba.
Crowd: 24,984.
Barreling down the Pacific Highway towards the Emerald City early Sunday morning, for about three seconds considered a detour across to Brookvale Oval, but then recalled my rather poor experience at my last appearance at the home of the Silver Tails in ‘88, and subsequently being chased out of the Manly leagues club and escaping with my life on a passing Palm Beach bus, and thought better of it.
The innovation of two refs on the field at any one time has done little for the integrity of the Bamfording caper, as they were both singing from a hitherto unknown hymn book throughout.
How the Marshall try, at a crucial moment in the first half, was disallowed on a technical foul when the defender who was inadvertedly tackled without the ball had a snow flakes of getting to the try scorer, let alone ball carrier in the running play, is beyond me.
And “The Refrigerator” being sent off for a ten minute rest in the sin bin in the second half for a “professional foul” that no one at the ground, least of all the officials, could properly explain, defies description.
Given that help, they should have been beaten by a lot more for mine.
Soon after the traditional softening up period, the Balmain forwards were officially listed as missing in action; Farah did a couple of good things and Our Benji played alright, but the inability to complete sets of six tackles/and or finding the try scoring freaks on the wings, cost ‘em dearly in the first instance.
Didn’t help that the Tigers were playing an untried full back against a Manly full back who in his first game back after a four week suspension for getting absolutely maggoted as, at a sponsor’s function and then rogering a 17 year old girl in a stairwell after she’d said “no”, scored three tries off his own bat, and looked serious about it.
B.Stewart doesn’t smile much anymore.
Also, noted mid-week that the Wests Tigers RLFC Chief Executive Officer, Scott Longmuir, tendered his resignation after less than five months in the job, after he tried to implement “performance indicators” for the coaching staff, to which SC Sheens responded, “well listen here sonny, you can go and jag that one clean up yr runter, You’re speaking to a bloke here who delivered a long awaited premiership – how does that measure up on the indicators? --, and as a result has been admitted to the Pantheon and officially annointed as a Super Coach. What have you ever done, buddy?”
Board agrees with the coach = CEO’s position; untenable.
Another one for the scrapheap.
I’ll be the one right behind him in the long queue down at Centrelink.
MANLY SEA EAGLES 23. Tries: Stewart (3), Hall, Brett. Goals: Lyon (3). Field Goals: Orford (1).
WESTS TIGERS 10. Tries: Ryan, Morris. Goals: Marshall (1).
At Brookvale Oval.
Crowd: 17,942.
