a hundred in Wellington and all that

Pot-Bellied Piss-Suckers,

Found myself in The Front Bar at The Local a little earlier than usual for a Friday afternoon after word had filtered through on the bush telegraph that MJ Clarke was in in Wellington.
There was no one there, apart from The Philospher in The Corner who, as is his wont, said nothing, as he sipped his favoured drink of the day, this time a brandy & dry.
Pup was watching his off stump very closely and letting a lot of rubbish go while jamming down on the odd ball that may or may not have got him out LBW early.
Not hard to pick which ones to hit.
Soon enough, a few Big Bloody Brown Brothers, who know their cricket let me tell you, began filtering in from the myriad building and construction sites in the district in their flouro vests and work boots and gaiters.
One commented when Pup had totted up 17 runs in 90 minutes "jeeze, he's going cautious, isn't he, eh bru? But I spoose you'd expict that from someone who's just lost his handbag. Spoose he would have cancelled his credit cards, eh bru?"
Conversation then drifted to the latest model Aston Martin, what's going on this week Up The Cross, and the general ugliness that is The Shire.
No one confessed to knowing anything at all about what's happening in Bondi.
The Philospher remained silent.
After Pup had begun to loosen up the shoulders, wriggle his fingers into his gloves, and fidget constantly and endlessly, and began to smote the ball as if it was some kind of football or something else entirely that was there on purpose for him to take out his frustrations on and posted his fifty, the bar rapidly filled up.
The Brown Brothers lamented long and loud about the pop gun nature of the New Zealand attack, as Pup began to stretch out the Rudolf Nureyev footwork with some trade-mark off cuts.
Ping! At the boundary inside five seconds as the fielder flailed a bit and gave it up.
A few lovely cover drives, as usual.
There's no one else in the modern game who can find the meat of the bat so sweetly as MJ Clarke, NSW, when he's got the time to concentrate on locating it, in a test match.
And then of course, his deft leg side play for one's and two's left the Brown Brothers seriously questioning Vettori's captaincy capacity in the field.
"he might be a nice guy in spuctacools, but......"
Still, The Philospher said nothing.
The Publican could see what was going on out of the corner of his eye, and brought on the happy hour for jugs of Carlton Draught half an hour early.
Bless.
Suddenly, dozens of middies were being poured all round.
There was a slight heart flutter when Pup fished at one way above his, and the keeper's, head before it sailed away to the long stop boundary, but it was by then clear that Pup wasn't hanging around until tomorrow to post his century.
The Deputy Dawg did a good impression of trying to run out the Concept of North, who was spreadeagled at the other end of the pitch, as the main man went through for the single to bring up the three figures.
After the ripple of applause around The Front Bar had faded, the Philosopher got up from his chair and said:
"Good knock, that. Best since Bangalore", before he breasted the bar and ordered a double.

some kind of demented banshee

Sideline experts,

Don't often find myself a hootin' and a hollerin' like some kind of demented banshee while swinging from the clothesline in the backyard of a Monday night, as the spooky MMM radio call of the rugby league blared out from Dad's Shed to the point where all the dogs in the neighbourhood, including mine, went right off.
But, hey, it was the start of the new football season, and Lote Tuquiri had just passed the money ball to That Pom Ellis to score the match winning try.
Apart from losing the Ashes, there is nothing worse in world sport than losing to Manly.
[We could go back to my narrow escape from a savage bashing at the hands of wild-eyed Manly fans by jumping on a Palm Beach bus after the Great Steve "Blocker" Roach had been sent off at Brookvale Oval in '90, couldn't we? Perhaps not].
This year represents without doubt the Mighty Tiges best chance of a tilt at the JJ Giltinan Shield since the Miracle of '05.
SuperCoach Sheens has been doing some very, very astute work in the off season, with a finite cheque book and an open mind.
The first, and easiest thing to do was prune the dead wood, and he didn't hold back with the snippers.
Hiring Steve Folkes, a SuperCoach in his own right having won the '04 Grand Final with Canterbury-Bankstown, as the strength and conditioning coach was a brilliant move, as it allows SC Sheens a lot more time to think outside the box, and spend less time on the training paddock
Finally allowing The Great Skando to retire ["please boss, I'm sick of being bashed up by 120kg 19 year olds"] and install him as the forwards coach gives St. Tim even more time to concentrate on the big picture, as he's always been a bad worrier about how the forwards are going; on the principle of if the forwards are doing alright, then the backs should be able to look after themselves, which only goes to show why the Tigers don't have a designated backs coach.
Royce Simmons has been on the coaching staff for a long time now, being there back in '05, but no one has ever been quite certain as to what he actually does for a living; he always seems to have had the role of Special Minister of State.
The beauty of Royce is that you can rely on him to sort any kind of problem if you ask him to put his mind to it.
To bring a dual international of the likes of Lote Tuquiri on board dirt cheap when he had been all but abandoned by everyone else was a marketing masterstroke and not a bad option in football terms.
SC Sheens made it very clear from the outset that he had signed Lote simply as a second-string back-up winger, who might trouble the soon-to-be-fit-again Taniela "The Human Wrecking Ball" Tuiaki for his spot in the 13.
Everything from there is a bonus.
But, as SC Sheens said on interview after the game [always the master of understatement] it "wasn't a bad effort" that Tuquiri scored a try off his own bat with his very first touch of the ball after seven and a half years away from the league caper, and then set up the last try of the match with his final touch of the ball.
[By the way, what was it exactly that Tuquiri is meant to have done to upset the rah rah boys so badly that they tore up his ARU contract and marked his dance card "never to play for Australia again"?
With the issue sorted by the lawyers out of court, it's never been revealed/leaked. One of the most tightly held secrets in Australian sport.]
To coax Fulton and Cayless back from the dark satantic mills of northern England on the promise of a cut lunch and a couple of schooners before the game and a brown paper envelope stuffed with a few hundred dollar bills after full time each week was sensible thinking.
Fulton is a very serviceable utility and adds plenty of flexibility to the side, while Cayless is one of the better bench players going around, who you'd bring on after the traditional softening up period to continue doing the hard yards.
And there are apparently a couple of junior South Sea Islander forwards hanging about in shadows waiting for a chance at the top grade, who are the size of industrial refrigerators.
If you believe the bio-metric performance boffins, Benji Marshall should be at the peak of his powers this year; no longer a raw kiddie and a sound football brain to go with the trademark jink and step.
Let's just hope his damaged shoulders hold out and he remembers to get his Mum to polish his goal kicking boots.
And as always, it's quite handy to have the Best Leb in The Game running the show at the play-the-ball.
Plenty to love on paper, in theory, but we shall see.
Actually, the week before the season starts is always the best week of the season, as hope springs eternal.

WESTS TIGERS 26. Tries: Tuqiri, Ayshford, Fulton, Lawrence, Ellis. Goals: Marshall (3).
MANLY-WARRINGAH SEA EAGLES 22. Tries: Robertson, Stewart, Rose. Goals: Lyon (5).
At Sydney Football Stadium.
Crowd: 18,421.