Gladiators,
In any other kind of sport this sort of thing would be banned outright in this day and age.
Men versus Boys.
But oh no, not in this caper, where it's comprehensively encouraged and sanctioned.
Something about the need to blood the children into the game.
Most of the Pygmies team are weedy teenagers playing against big boofy grown men in the Swans side.
Tell me how that works and what it proves?
At the finish, there were quite a few of them cramping up due to a lack of match fitness; there was one bloke right on the final siren who was doubled up with it, on his knees, on the boundary line in front of the bunker with his head in his hands, and he appeared to be weeping.
As if to say "you never told me it would be this hard, Guv."
It's a very tough game, no doubt about it, especially as it goes on for far too long.
Hours and hours in fact; when one of the clear attractions of rugby league is that it done and dusted strictly within 80 minutes.
There has been a half-hearted push on to shorten the quarters by five minutes and reduce the time allowance for half time, which could only be a good thing...less injuries, you'd think, less all round buggeredness, less drunkeness in the crowd, and the punters could head for home half an hour earlier than usual.
But of course no one at HQ is listening, on the grounds of if it's not broke, why fix it?
The issue is that the attention span in greater Sydney - the whole whopping great joint that it is - is attuned at birth to a short and explosive game.
Therein lies the AFL's problem on this side of the island.
It just takes too long.
Perhaps they should introduce NSW rules for Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra games?
Didn't quite catch the name of the small piece of silverware that The Train picked up after the match.
It appeared to be some kind of tin cup, the sort of thing you'd win for the U14's hundred metres footrace if you came first.
Nothing like having a shiny trophy in the cabinet this early in the season.
The Brett Kirk Medal was also apparently awarded to JP Kennedy for Best on Ground.
Hard to argue with that.
The Swans forwards, rucks and rovers look to be the goods, and lets face it, the backs just stood around all day looking at the clouds as they weren't overly busy.
Not quite a ten goal lesson, but still more than 60 points, which would have satisfied the mad punters who had put sheep stations on it at a $1.14 at the books.
Forever the optimist, my spy at the ground reckons that the Swans could slip in under the radar with the draw they've got - banking on a couple of good purple patches to easily make September.
The bloke suggests the list is quite settled this year, the youngsters have a debut year under their belts, and the journeymen are just about coming into their prime.
You only have to take a look at the Son of Gary, Les Kennedy, In Like McGlynn, the Flying Jetta, Little Birdie, the Ugliest Man in Football et al to get the picture, not to mention old stagers like Bolton, J., Odd Head and the Goodes Train.
Mr Ed, the Talking Horse of course, was just happy to put the premiership points in the dilly bag and move on to next week, or fortnight, or whatever it might be.
The Pygs have some promise in terms of nascent talent no doubt, grant them that, but it will take years, and millions, to make them competitive, and it could very well end in tears.
Just ask Geoffrey Edelsten, he'll tell ya.
SC Sheeds is likely to lose all his hair.
The GLW slipped her glasses onto the end of her snout when she heard the three quarter time siren on the telly, and had a look at the score.
She remarked "well, there's obviously too many AFL teams in Sydney" and then went back to reading the Saturday paper.
Enough said.
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY: 1.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5.7 (37). Goals: Ward, Giles, McDonald, Wilson, Hoskin-Elliott.
SYDNEY: 4.1, 8.4, 13.8, 14.16 (100). Goals: Bird 2, Kennedy 2, Jetta 2, Everitt, McGlynn, Rohan, Bolton, McVeigh, Jack, Roberts-Thomson, Mumford.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 38,203.
Robbed blind for the second week in the row with a shocking penalty count against them, 8-3 in the denoument.
Never mind that the forwards were crunched by a Canberra pack dead set full of monsterous gorillas.
You can accept that the side generally didn't play very well.
As the GLW put it over dinner at half time "jeez, it's not very nice to rob the poor".
But how are you expected to score points when you are constantly deprived of the football and have next to no possession wholly and solely because of the bastard petty officialdom.
As you are no doubt aware, it just gets on my goat and it's simply unacceptable.
If there's one thing that really pisses me off about the game, it's Bamfords who think they know more than what's in the rule book.
You don't have to mention the 40, yes 40 tackles, that the Tigers missed - they were out there for all to see - and it was just very poor rugby league.
SC Sheens would have undoubtedly been volcanic at the final siren, in an explosive pyrocrastic sort of way.
From the live call, it appears the coach waited at the entrance to the race for the referee's to run off the field, and gave them the death stare without saying a word as they ran into the tunnel, under police escort, with the crowd hooting and booing, only just restraining themselevs from throwing things.
When the steam finally stopped coming out of his ears, SC Sheens ventured the observation on interview "You need to defend in this game. We didn't".
You can put that down to an unsettled pack, for mine
Don't think they've fielded the same forwards in any game so far; crying out for thye Bludnut, That Pom Ellis out for a week then back in, The Best Leb in the Game outrageously rubbed out for a fortnight for the accidental spear tackle.
It makes it difficult if there are constant personnel changes in the forwards, the depth in the reserves doesn't appear to be that deep.
It's alos no good when the marquee player is deliberately targeted
Still, not to worry at one and three; as they say in the classics, it's never as good as it seems, and it's never as bad as it looks.
Aside: With the welcome advent of digital radio, no longer have to go down to Dad's Shed and rig up the short wave ariel to recieve the comedy call on the MMM signal... you just put the new unit into auto tune and it comes to you crystal clear, as if out of thin air.
Marconi would have been impressed.
WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Ellis, Miller, Moltzen. Goals: Marshall (2).
CANBERRA RAIDERS 30. Tries: Croker (2), McCrone, Mataora, Campese. Goals: Croker (5).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 14,388.
