Brave beserkers,
It was a sight to behold.
SC Roos going absolutely ballistic, off his chops, in an apoplectic rage in the three quarter time huddle, as the players looked on in startled terror, culminating in the coach tearing up the game plan into small pieces.
He must have been on some powerful drugs if his crazy madcap last quarter antics were anything to go by.
SC Roos spent the final stanza prowling the boundary line like some pyschiatric out-patient, leaping about maniacally and laughing hysterically, chucking bits of the game plan around in gay abandon, poking assistant coaches with his forefinger just for fun, tearing off strips of paper that were remaining on the clip board and screwing them up into balls, and throwing them at players sitting on the bench, hoping to dong one of them on the head, and generally carrying on like a pork chop.
Scenes never witnessed before at the Olympic Stadium.
The bloke has finally cracked; gone mental by his own admission "players who are unable or unwilling to stick with the game plan is something I will not miss about coaching" {my italics}, he said on interview after the game when asked to explain away his bizzare behaviour.
But the man can be be forgiven, given the team on the park he was allegedly in charge of was all over the shop like a mad woman's breakfast throughout proceedings.
Won't name the guilty, because they know who they are.
As we ingressed at the ground it became obvious, as it always does, that there were far more Pies fans than Swans fans going in.
Always the way.
Just the nature of the beast.
The cheapest seats behind the southern goal where the Collingwood cheer squad live, next to the cheap seats we were sitting in, was thick in black and white, mainly those from the scores of chartered buses that make the trip each year from Melbun arriving just in time for the opening bounce, and then turn around immediately after the match and go straight back in time for breakfast at home.
Supporters of the 'Pies are everywhere, and they travel.
Seen them in their Collingwood jerseys in the remotest parts of Indo-China in my time, so getting to the Western Paddock was no issue.
Well remember getting along to my first ever Collingwood game at the SCG, back in the glory days when the Swans were the Leanne and Dr Edelsten show with Warwick "fruit shop down the front of the pants" Capper turning out at full forward, and there were several hundred of them enjoying themselves in the MA Noble Stand bar, all wearing specially made black and white rosettes which had printed around the magpie motif "COLLINGWOOD -- PRIDE OF THE NATION".
Thought then, and still think now, that they were drawing a long bow.
Still, the so-called "Fanatics" have got nothing on these people.
But back to the game.
Difficult to compete when the Swans found themselves outclassed all over the field, with every Collingwood player seeming to have at least an extra yard of pace over their opponents; young, old, infirm, it didn't matter.
After three quick behinds from the visitors kicked from right in front of us to start, Sydney never led at any stage in the match, and not for the first time this season found themselves playing miserable catch up football against a side that had loose men everywhere.
Collingwood should have won by alot more.
Losing Bradshaw and the Great Irishman on game day to long term knee niggles had them behind the eigtht-ball from the off.
Won't get very far without a full-forward or a full-back.
The trip home on the event bus was a solem affair as the realisation slowly sunk in among the loyal passengers that the Swans on that showing will be lightly toasted brown bread in about five minutes in September, if they get that far.
While the Western Paddock remains a superb bit of architecture for shifting a large crowd around with the minimum of fuss, having got it right the first time around for the Olympics, the beer is still as bad as ever.
Why is that?
Ten years to solve a problem and yet no one in charge appears to have put their minds to it.
And most disappointed to find that you can no longer steal a pie.
They have simply disappeared, vanished.
The self serve pie warmers in the bars have been stripped out and replaced with tubs of free bottled water on ice.
Something to do with Australia's draconian drinking regulations it said on the sign pointing out that it was free, something along the lines of drinking water is good for you if you are drinking; while it's only taken them five years plus to realise that while they had no trouble moving all the pies out of the warmers during the course of a match, very few of them actually went through the cash registers.
Surely, offering free food is a much better option for drinkers who would treat bottled water with disdain, even if it was free?
A welcome benevolent touch from the promoters for the punters in the form of a complimentary puff pastry case filled with cheap meat and offal gravy, done away with, just like that, at the stroke of some bureaucrat's pen.
Every day, some underpinning slips away...
Whatever drugs SC Roos is on -- well, by crikey, we all want some of those.
SYDNEY: 2.3, 4.4, 6.7, 10.11 (71). Goals: O'Keefe 3, McGlynn 2, Kirk, Bird, Shaw, Rohan, White,
COLLINGWOOD: 3.6, 7.11, 10.17, 13.18 (96). Goals: Dawes 3, Sidebottom 2, Cloke 2, Brown 2, O'Brien, Dick, Didak, Jolly.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 47,585.
The game at Kogarah had that air of inevitability about it - but that's what you get when you play teams that are patently well over the salary cap.
They don't call their leagues club the Taj Mahal for nothing.
And then, knock me down with a feather, no sooner had the Saints beaten the Tigers than they announced with great fanfare that they had signed Mark Gasnier just before the June 30 deadline and were going to bring him back to his spiritual home from the fabulously well-salaried Elysian Fields of French Rugby Union; available to play on the next weekend if you like.
How does that work?
How could they possibly fit the likes of Gasnier under the cap on the bloated stipend he's become accustomed to, unless they signed him on a sausage roll and a half a bottle of beer contract?
Another case of why the cap remains important.
Who needs a two horse race come September?
With everyone else just nipping at their ridiculously over-paid heels?
SC Sheens was resigned to it all as just another reminder to "learn from our losses", hitting the nail on the head when he said on interview after the game:
"I said to the guys that if they want to run with the big boys then they have to be able to handle those sorts of games".
SC Sheens is a long time dedicated pragmatic realist with very little hair left on his scone, who went onto to say that in his opinion, on current form, they'd struggle to be competitive in a semi-final.
An ominous warning to a team playing at almost full strength that they really need to find some more to get on in the caper.
A good job for Roycee Simmons, as he has that canny knack of being able to fix things, aka the bleedin' obvious, without anyone ever asking.
The GLW got quite sick of the sight of the St George full back J.Soward on the telly as he kept on plonking them over the black dot, and gave him a new nickname, "Duck Bum", on account of the way he holds his posterior when he lines up for a kick at goal.
It is almost laughable.
She was keen on blaming Duck Bum for everything, and who could blame her?
ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 34. Tries: Boyd, Creagh, Morris, Soward, Stanley. Goals: Soward (7).
WESTS TIGERS 10. Tries: Lawrence, Tuqiri. Goals: Marshall (1).
At Kogarah Jubilee Oval.
Crowd: 16,574.
Craven.
