Bleacherists,
Found myself on Sunday morning in East Sydney at some lard-arsed, gnocchi-gobbling, café-latte swilling “Italian festival” run by Clover Moore’s mob, with The Good Lady Wife, and realised we were only a hop, skip, and a jump to The Cricket Ground for the early start to a Swans home game.
Having been in Indo-China for a while, where sport extends only to an endless number of pay TV channels dedicated to 24 hour coverage of European soccer and Thai kick boxing, not to mention the cock fighting channel, the idea of a real game of football appealed.
Got ourselves some semi-cheap seats in Bay 2 on the walk-up, just around from the Paddington end goal posts, but at least they were “cool” seats, in the shade all day, in stark contrast to the cheap “hot” seats at the University of NSW end, on a picture postcard perfect late autumn day in Sydney without a cloud in the sky after a week of rain.
The surface of the ground had a distinct cow paddock appearance about it, without the turds.
It was great fun to see the Swans eat Port alive in the first quarter eight goals to one, just because they could, as they knew their way around the joint and left the Port backline flailing in their wake
Eight individual goal kickers suggests that SC Roos may have found an interesting other way to work the business forward of the centre line, but when all is said and done, BBB Hall had his fingerprints all over at least half of them as he threw his weight around like only he can.
The few forays Port made to our end didn’t have a snowflakes of finding their way through the Swans defence.
It wasn’t until time on that that the hapless Power posted their first score, a goal, and so retained their unique record of being the only team in the time-honoured history of the comp never to have played a scoreless first quarter.
But it was game over.
No coming back from there in the modern game.
At half time I overheard a bloke instruct his six to seven year old boy who had enquired as to the state of the game “son! if Port win this one, it’ll be the biggest comeback ever seen, ever, don’t worry about it, it’s in the bag, son. I can guarantee you we will be signing the song at the end of the game”.
The Goodes Train and Magic both had the best games I’ve seen them play in a veritable yonks; in the second quarter, within minutes of each other, they both took miracle marks on the forward flanks that had the crowd gasping in amazement.
“how did he do that?!?”
Especially The Train, who right in front of us, was flat on his back after falling heavily out of a ruck and appeared to have his head tangled up in other players feet, when the ball just landed on his chest after a kick from outside fifty.
He grabbed it, got up, dusted himself off, and kicked a goal.
But even that was surpassed as a candidate for mark of the year, as Reg Grundy climbed all over the backs of his own players out on the wing underneath the Brewongle Stand to take an absolute screamer.
SC Roos was even moved so far as to say “it was among the best marks I’ve seen” in his 15 years in the caper.
He can be excused.
For older observers of the game, hazy psychedelic flash backs tend to occur when you see the No.39 fly again, but at least young Reg doesn’t appear to have a fruit shop stuffed down the front of his shorts.
Goodes, if fact, was probably best on ground for mine, followed closely by Ca’p’n “never played a bad game” Kirk, Odd Head McVeigh was outstanding, Bolton, J. put in the hard yards all over the park, Jolly as solid as the Grampians in the ruck, Mr Hall To You Mate just annoyed the hell out of any Port player who came anywhere near him, while Rick Shaw [as the GLW calls him] and young Teddy Richards both had corkers.
Name anyone you like, the side was carrying very few passengers.
In the new smoking lounge out the back of the Bradman Stand at quarter time, I offered the lone Port supporter a cigarette and said, “Jeez, it must be tough being a Port fan, mate?” to which he replied, “it could be worse, although I don’t know just how”.
Speaking of smoking lounges, the new arrangement actually puts the smokers outside the ground near Gate E surrounded only by an ineffectually secured waist high plastic barrier.
It would be a simple matter to blend in with the puffers and chuggers before the start of a game, casually slip over the barrier unnoticed, and watch the match for free from the excellent view afforded from the standing room area in front of the Dally Messenger Bar.
Just a thought.
SYDNEY 8.1 11.6 13.13 18.15 (123). Goals: Goodes 2, Hall 2, Kirk 2, Jolly 2, McVeigh 2, White 2, Buchanan, J.Bolton, Moore, Mattner, O'Loughlin, O'Keefe.
PORT ADELAIDE 1.0 3.3 6.6 10.8 (68). Goals: Ebert 2, Hartlett 2, Tredrea 2, Cassisi, Motlop, Burgoyne, Logan.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 23,229.
Excuse me, but if ever a team was robbed blind by the Bamfords it was the Tiger’s on Friday night.
The fishwraps the next day were screaming on the back page:
“Sheens spewing over Benji binning!”Must say my jaw did drop watching the delayed telecast when B.Marshall was given his marching orders following five consecutive penalties against the Tiges.
OK, OK, sure, so the Tiges were going the squirrel grip, putting in shepherds all over the shop and getting in the way of legitimate attackers, sitting on blokes heads after completing the tackle, deliberately attempting to slow down the play-the-ball, and generally going the niggle, but for the ref to send the Acting Captain off for ten minutes at a crucial moment in the second half to make an example of the whole team for “repeated professional fouls” was well beyond the pale, for mine.
Seen worse in kindergarten playgrounds.
Especially in weather conditions described by the hardy few who turned up as “appalling”
SC Sheens made it plain that he only attended the post match press conference under coercion, “I’d be fined by the NRL if I didn’t turn up”, and wasn’t much interested in what the press had to ask of him.
But they went ahead anyway and in reply to a question about that aspect of the refereeing performance, SC Sheens simply left it at “well, the crowd booed, and so did I”.
Little wonder then at full time that some lunatic patron leaps the fence and puts in a well executed leg tackle on the Bamford in question, who was then duly ground into the mud by the angry, frustrated punter, before the idiot was jumped on by security and then led away by the cops.
You couldn’t help but feel some degree of sympathy for the fool -- in fact there is a school of thought that says he should have been given a medal -- until the errant ref attacker sold his story to the front page of one of the Sunday fishwraps, describing how “a moment of alcohol-fuelled madness” had led to a “brain snap” that had “ruined my life”.
C’mon, puleeease!
So you’ve been warned off approaching within one kilometre of any rugby league football ground in the world for life, have you mate?
Time to switch codes, or invest in a good radio, son, because they might not have you down the pub anymore, and you probably can’t afford pay TV.
The absence of Robbie Farah [at least the NSW selectors had their thinking hats on when they picked him at hooker for State-of-Origin One] in the front row due to a head knock in the silly loss to the Rabbitoh’s the week before tends to indicate the Tigers are now, more or less, a two-trick pony.
However…the most extraordinary sight of the night was the appearance of the Great John Skandalis on the football field after a 992 day absence from the National Rugby League.
Crikey!
The Great Skando retirement commemorative t-shirt is in my wardrobe, for chrissake, and is regularly worn.
And blow me down if he didn’t have a pretty good second half when called upon.
Come to think of it, when TGS was taken on as a forwards coach by SC Sheens at the start of the season he made sure that he was registered as an eligible player, and did threaten him to pull on the jockstrap and the jersey and smear on the ol’ man’s liniment and take to the field, if and when Balmain “ran out of forwards”.
It now seems we have reached that point.
WESTS TIGERS 18. Tries: Tagive, Tuiaki, Marshall, Ayshford. Goals: Marshall (1).
BRISBANE BRONCOS 20. Tries: Winterstein, Hunt, Te’o, Lockyer. Goals: Parker (2).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 9,675.
