Disappointee’s,
However begrudgingly, you’ve got to hand it to Collinwood fans.
From the middle-aged woman attired in rather attractive two-tone black and white knee high boots, teamed with a black leather mini-skirt and this year’s model Collingwood top, crowned with a particularly fine black and white jester’s hat festooned with the buttons of all the current players, to the old blokes with seriously greying hair & beards wearing equally ancient Collingwood jerseys bearing hundreds of signatures that mustn’t have been washed in 30 years, to the half dozen jovially intoxicated Collinwood supporters who had no idea how they had managed to get on the No. 4 event bus in Campsie when they were staying in a city hotel.
More than 30 Magpies supporters buses did the all day drive from Melbourne, only to turn around and go back again straight after the game, in a long all nighter.
They are a class unto themselves.
Swans only had themselves to blame.
Young Teddy Richards crystallized the game with a brain explosion when he gave away a 50 metre penalty in the championship quarter that put the Magpies in their own goal square to snatch back a narrow lead from which they never looked back.
Worse still, earlier, Marty Mattner, playing at full back, kicked out from a rushed behind and only managed to put the ball clean into the bread basket of some grateful Collingwood player well inside the fifty, who returned the favour, played on, and booted an easy goal.
You could go on and on about the woeful sub-standard Bamfording, but why would you waste your breath?
Found myself on my feet agreeing with BBB Hall when he sacked some hapless Collingwood back in a bone crunching ball-and-all-tackle and then stood over him Mohammed Ali style giving him a bit of lip along the lines of “cop that, Sonny Jim”.
But it was about the only time.
Spent the first half shouting myself hoarse screaming “kick long, for gawd’s sake, kick it long!”
The short kicking game and a million hand-balls was always going to come unstuck on a heavy track [it had been raining heavily all day in Sydney, but remarkably, not a single drop fell during the game] against quality opposition.
It was the kind of conditions that Collingwood exploited perfectly with a “kick and hope” policy from the outset.
Didak was probably best on ground, which only goes to show that being run over by a Melbourne tram is no impediment to playing good football.
The stats guru’s couldn’t help but note that the Swans had a club record 418 disposals in the game!!
That’s right, four hundred and eighteen, the vast bulk of which were completely ineffectual.
Cap’n’ “never had a bad game” Kirk and Rhino Keefe had more than 40 each.
Never at any stage did SC Roos revert to Plan B, or if he did, it was obvious the players were taking no notice of him.
[Aside: Interesting that last week St Paul did concede in the press that from time to time, while in his cups, he has contemplated giving the game away himself at the end of the year, as the awful realization sinks in that he is now Sydney’s longest serving coach, given that he has always considered himself as just a “temporary” mentor].
Kirk, along with most seasoned observers, was absolutely furious come the final siren, and personally questioned several players’ commitment on the ground, something he later confirmed to the fishwraps
The crowd figure only goes to confirm that Sydneysiders are the most fickle football fans in the whole wide world, who will have no hesitation at all in deserting a losing team in droves.
In my estimation, at least a third of the audience were Collingwood supporters.
Just compare that mob with the Homebush record for a Swans Magpies fixture set in 2003, when 72,393 decided to go to the football.
You can easily see how a handful of journos, some match officials, a few ground staff, and The Man and His Dog would be just about the only people who’d bother to turn out for a Western Sydney game.
And who could blame them?
The atmosphere on the No. 4 event bus home, full as it was of red and white, was akin to something you might sniff in a dead dingo‘s donger.
Then, lo and behold, Michael O'Loughlin, clearly anticipating and then cleverly forestalling the inevitable tap on the shoulder, marches into SC Roos’ office on Tuesday morning and announces his retirement from the caper at the end of the season, acknowledging that it’s very tough when people in the game who you admire and respect are telling you that you have lost a yard or two.
While a glowing obituary for The Great Magic is for another time, suffice to say here the bloke has been an absolute ornament to the game.
500 goals and most likely 300 games in The Red and The White, well, for what more could anyone ask?
That should be enough to garner the great man life membership to just about anything that’s going, although the small matter of skin colour would probably preclude it from being offered by the Australian Club in Macquarie Street.
Shame.
Mickey O earned “The Great” honorific a long time ago, perches very high up in the Swans pantheon, and has been nothing less than a scholar and a gentleman for the past 15 seasons.
At least, in the final paralysis, he had the decency and sense to call it quits while he was still ahead, get out on his own terms, and put it all down to his mum.
He’ll be further admired for that as he goes around for the lap of honour.
Vale you good thing you.
If other ageing players who shall remain nameless fail to take his lead after what is highly likely to be another inevitable away loss to Adelaide this weekend, then let the pogrom begin.
SYDNEY: 2.2, 5.3, 9.6, 9.12 (66). Goals: Jack 2, O'Keefe 2, Hall 2, Goodes, Moore, Barlow.
COLLINGWOOD: 4.2, 7.7, 9.9, 13.11 (89). Goals: Davis 3, O'Bree 2, Didak 2, Dick, Brown, Anthony, O'Brien, Fraser, Swan.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 41,042.
Speaking of fickle football fans, the Tigers match in Melbourne pretty much passed me by, as there were simply better things to do in the Emerald City of a Sunday afternoon.
The Good Lady Wife has even gone so far as to say that she might have lost interest in rugby league.
By the look of the scoreline, they gave it a pretty good shot, but SC Sheens reportedly suggested after the game that the Tiges had been “frightened of the ball” in the second half and were unable to push home what could have been a match winning momentum.
Haven’t received any eye witness accounts of the match at al+l, not surprising really, given that no one was in the ground, so not in a position to make any informed comment.
While Melbournians are well known for turning out in numbers to watch two flies crawl up a wall -- and despite having a former premiership winning team in their midst -- it appears rugby league would struggle to better lacrosse in terms of spectator interest in the Athens of the South.
SC Sheens will, as is his usual custom, eventually get around to marking that one down on the “we’ll learn from our losses” side of the coaches ledger, but the Club Secretary would no doubt by now be dusting off the abacus in the back of the sporting equipment room, seeing that Balmain is just to about to fall into the mathematical realm of making the top eight
MELBOURNE STORM 14. Tries: Cronk, Cross. Goals: Tomane (3).
WESTS TIGERS 12. Tries: Ayshford, Moltzen. Goals: Marshall (2).
At Olympic Park, Melbourne.
Crowd: 10,417
