Prescription drug abusers,
Another nicely played get out of jail free card.
And it was a very eerie repetition of Leichhardt a fortnight ago -- as Rabbits Warren said on the crystal bucket commentary "déjà vu all over again".
Opening play -- Brisbane make a complete mess of the kick off and the ball rolls through the in-goal into touch; Tigers score a try off the back of the half-way re-start.
And then, nothing but messy football right through to the denoument, with the unlikely Brown going over for a try, with less than two minutes left, to lock in the match winner.
Almost a perfect carbon copy of the Raiders game.
Quite weird.
The Balmain forwards put in their best performance for the year, for mine, with The Refrigerator, His Royal Heighington, The Bludnut, That Pom, and The Best Leb in The Game all prominent.
That's a very good thing given that forwards, even in this day and age, still tend to win games of rugby league football, while the backs can suit themselves.
The GLW was hysterical during a comical first half incident when nothing much at all was happening the game, and some Broncos player was tackled just short of the tryline and had his shorts pulled down in the process, and appeared to have a roll of toilet paper coming out of the wedge between his buttock cheeks, where he appeared to have had a nervous sticky shit in the rooms before running out on the ground.
Funny as a fit.
Talk about larf.
Turned out on replay it was just a shredded jockstrap, white in colour.
Behind and looking beaten with ten left on the clock, SC Sheens reaches for the rain coat in the un-covered dug out at The Cauldron like a firecracker with a slow burning fuse, given the Bamfords were having their worst shocker of the season, about which the less said, the better.
Suffice to say SC Sheens went completely apoplectic when the young Balmain kiddie Fifita was pinged for a knock on in the play-the-ball, when the replay revealed the play-the-ball was, in fact, dead-set legit, nothing at all wrong with it.
Yet another unwarranted home side penalty that would easily do your head in.
Under the rain hoodie on the bench, a rare stream of four-lettered invective issued forth from the coach's mouth directed fairly and squarely at the court jesters masquerading as match officials, along with a piercing glare of the visage that would have done The Men Who Stare At Goats proud.
The Great Sterlo on the unblinking eye wrap up was moved to comment "in a month, no one will remember how on earth they won that one".
Doesn't matter.
And no one will care, either.
Miraculously, the ladder position after last week's loss to the Saints was done no damage, and that remarkable win sees a top four spot now consolidated for the Mighty Tiges, for the time being.
The second best "we'll take our wins" victory of the season.
BRISBANE BRONCOS 14. Tries: Te'o, Beale. Goals: Parker (3).
WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Lawrence, Marshall, Brown. Goals: Marshall (2).
At Lang Park, Brisbane.
Crowd: 30,127.
As Richmond sang their wretched team song, it became apparent that the unmistakeable sound of the Swans' season being flushed down the toilet could also be distinctly heard in the background.
Not through to the S-bend yet at 7 and 7, but it won't take long.
There were dark mutterings of "utter disgrace!" among those who care in this household.
Getting beat by four by the team running stone motherless after leading by 33 in the Championship Quarter had more than a few dumbfounded.
An interesting stastistic was being bandied about prior to the game -- this season, the Swans had not won against a top eight side, and had not lost against a bottom eight side.
That was, until now.
It might be instructive to compare and contrast the games of the most inexperienced and the most experienced players in the side
The first gamer, Trent Dennis-Lane found that he has a helluva lot to learn if he wants to run with the big boys; too nervous for mine, might have kicked a bag of goals in the WAFL last year, but this is a different league.
He must be wondering about Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau coming on board as multi-millionaire rookies, who will undoubtedly face the same problems as he is facing now, when he'd be lucky to be on the wage of a brickies labourer.
The Goodes Train as a make shift full forward might be good in theory, but given he has lost his twinkle toes over recent weeks, and the ability to put the ball on the end of a string, and was exposed in the second half despite coming good, as he could only get a kick when the midfield finally woke up and directed accurate kicks onto the chest on a well timed lead.
There's no use being any less than blunt about it -- The Train should think seriously about joining his mate Magic in The Pantheon, and as for Cap'n'Kirk, well he should just follow through with his committment, and retire forthwith, without any further ado.
No Bradshaw [wasn't he a good buy in retrospect after setting the world on fire in the first few games when he wasn't suffering from a knee?], while the Great Irishman is obviously struggling with the knee, as he was pretty much proppy throughout, and there's nothing for smoko.
SC Roos had gone from an excitable madman in last week's last quarter to a sullen rooster, who knows full well that he is destined for the pot.
No sooner was everyone thinking that my mate Cuz was having a blinder out of the blue in the second half - dead set looked like the bloke was back on the fabulous marching powder, a cheeky half time snort, that sort of thing - than lo and behold he ends up in intensive care at a suburban hospital the morning after, when some floozie in his flat couldn't rouse him from his slobbering slumber.
Why didn't that surprise?
No one was that concerned given that it took triage an hour and fifteen minutes to admit The Iceman to the general wards before someone decided to park him in ICU for the night, on the basis of his previous form.
Then the Richmond Football Club comes out with the excuse that he was crook as Rookwood due to taking a dodgy sleeping pill and a bad ice cube to come down from the buzz and the thrill.
Why didn't that surprise?
It's a wonder Cuz didn't come out of it without brain damage?
But then again, who knows how many brain cells were there to start with.
RICHMOND: 3.0, 5.0, 9.3, 14.5 (89). Goals: Riewoldt 5, Collins 3, Newman 2, Farmer, Martin, Griffiths, Nason.
SYDNEY: 3.3, 6.6, 10.11, 12.13 (85). Goals: McVeigh 3, Goodes 2, Moore 2, Jack, McGlynn, Pyke, Mumford, Dennis-Lane.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 39,386.
