Fellow Perplexees,
If anyone, after all these years, knows the value of winning the Championship Quarter, it's the Goodes Train.
After being buttoned down tightly in the first half, Adam decided at the long break to throw off the shackles and show them what he is made of and then went on to have a second half blinder, that inspired the rest of the team, pure and simple.
It's remarkable at his age how he uses his skill and agility to pull through and beyond the half a yard or so he's lost over the years.
He can still tackle a bloke half his age and twice his size and grind him into the dust.
A bit slower than he used to be, but who can blame him, and boy, can run, can mark, can kick goals.
What more do you want?
The bloke could go on and on until they put him into a zimmer frame.
A masterful game plan, after Mr Ed re-jigged the field placings at half time to accomodate for it.
Like putting two tags on Buddy and The Roughead [who doesn't need a nick name].
Once that was done, the Swans ran riot in the mid-field and never looked like losing.
Surely it's time to recognise The Talking Horse as a first class Rules coach in his own right, with Horse finally stepping out of the long shadow cast by SC Roos.
It's very rare to keep the other side to 0.0 in the Champo.
Almost unheard of.
Can happen when the opposition is being hammered and have no posession of the ball at all and defence can look after itself, but, really, only once in a blue moon.
No doubt the stats guru will come up with the answer to when was the last time, but has so far been asleep at the wheel this week; must've overdosed on numbers and that absynth he drtinks.
Rick Shaw never featured once in the television coverage as his sole job on the day was to close down and sit on Cyril Rioli, which he did very effectively by all reports, even though those gazing at the crystal bucket never saw it.
Viewers were complaining about the dumb directors and how much was missed on the telly.
Don't get me started on the amount of advertising shown to pay for the thing!
It was only a matter of time until the flood gates opened in the Final Stanza and the Fat Lady sang.
The early, early season Purple Patch is now in the dilly bag.
The last five in a row from the off goes back 14 years?
And Goodes put the fruit on the sideboard with the goal to seal the match once and for all with about five minutes left.
Spectacular.
The Train was admitted to the Swans Pantheon a long time ago, after picking up not one, but two, Chas Brownlows; playing 300 came much later to get AFL Life Membership sewed up, and, like the bloke he beat for most games, the Great Mickey O, one of only a handful of footballers universally loved on field, despite being the Umpire's Pet, and off field for being a man of good integrity.
Never a bad word spoken of him.
Count myself well among his legion of adoring fans, standing back and admiring how he's managed a life lived grand, without any great fanfare, and certainly with no fuss.
They should chisel his head & shoulders into a block of Sydney sandstone and install the bust on a marble plinth overlooking the turnstiles at the Members Gate at the SCG.
The blackfella overseeing proceedings and having a good look at everyone who comes in.
That'd be a turn up for the books, but Basil Sellars might like it.
That way everyone would have to doff their caps and give The Train the nod, in perpetuity.
HAWTHORN: 5.3, 8.6, 8.6, 10.9 (69). Roughead 5, Hale 2, Lewis 2, Rioli.
SYDNEY: 2.2, 5.4, 9.7, 16.10 (106). Goodes 3, Kennedy 3, O'Keefe 2, Bird 2, Bolton 2, Hannebury, Jack, Jetta, McVeigh.
At York Park, Launceston.
Crowd: 19,217.
SC Sheens would have stalked around the rooms at the end of the match looking at people with those disturbing eyes of his, but not saying a word, and then would have left to walk across the carpark to his car for the drive home, with his mouth firmly zipped and the team snubbed by the Super Coach.
No ranting, no raving, no carrying on like a pork chop, which is what the players would have wanted - no, just silence - an ominous warning that they were in for a thrashing on the training paddock on Monday morning.
The press managed to catch up with SC Sheens just before he got into his car and he had only one thing to say on interview: "It was just rubbish".
How on earth did Balmain let in five, yes, that's right, you count 'em, five soft tries in the last 15 minutes of the game after leading 19-0 nil at half time and 31-0 nil soon after the resumption, and go on to win the match 31-30??
Unfathomable.
A couple of consolation tries to the opposition in the denoument would have been acceptable, but five?
No doubt the worst, most inexplicable, defensive lapse in many a year.
How bizzare, how bizzare.
Just lucky that The Great Benji subscribes to the SC Sheens mantra that field goals are "easier to get early than they are to get late", potting a pearler over the black dot on the stroke of half time, and also had the presence of mind to take an easy penalty goal in the first half to compensate for the earlier conversion he missed.
In hindsight it was as if he saw it coming, which of course, he didn't.
But still, Marshall has a very good football brain, and is thinking about the scoreboard all the time.
My spy at the ground telegraphed at the finish "you can never be too far in front, and it's never too early to boot a field goal".
The performance of Aaron Woods in the pack was noted by the purists.
Young fella who is only in the first grade team now on account of the long term injury to That Pom Ellis.
He's good.
Tough, and takes no prisoners.
Tackling work is impeccable, has a step and a run over about five to ten yards, and can be drilled into executing the crucial offload in the set play.
Will go places.
Man of the Match without question.
For a man of few words, SC Sheens called an extraordinary press conference mid-week last week to only say that if the NSW selectors didn't pick Robbie "The Best Leb In The Game" Farah at hooker for the first State of Origin match then they'd have "rocks in their heads".
You'd think that'd have some clout coming from the current Strayan Kangaroos coach.
The Super Coach is super loyal to his players and demands their loyalty in return.
They know who's boss, and they like it that way.
And they'll expect no mercy mid-week.
There was a very good crowd in for a team that's running stone motherless last, but then again, there was a fair bit of black & gold in the stands and let's face it, Tigers supporters are everywhere, and we do travel.
Went down to the Enfield produce store on Tuesday morning to pick up 20kg of chook feed.
A small swarthy bloke in there knows me as a Balmain supporter [he's one himself] and came up to said to me "jeez, mate, Tigers had a massive win on Sunday, eh?".
After some head shaking, he continued "but, two premiership points is two premiership points, and we'll take 'em".
Shrugged my shoulders.
Enough said.
PARRAMATTA EELS 30. Tries: C.Blair, Hayne, M.Ryan, Sio, Tonga. Goals: Burt (5).
WESTS TIGERS 31. Tries: Murdoch-Masila (2), Fulton, Lawrence, B.Ryan. Goals: Marshall (4), Moltzen (1). Field Goals: Marshall (1).
At Parramatta Stadium.
Crowd: 19,654.
