Loyalists,
Shit happens.
Fancy holding the best attacking team in the comp goalless in the opening stanza, and then giving up a 27 point quarter time lead to be leading by bugger all at half time?
Those sorts of things happen when you play against really good sides who refuse to lie down.
Some good lessons to be learnt from that at the pointy end of the season.
Something to do with keeping the jackboot on the neck and then twisting the jugular.
And there were a couple of worrying signs.
The Great Train had his best game since his comeback from injury, even though his kicking options weren't the best at times, while the New Train, the Jetta Kiddie, had his worst game of the season.
Hawthorn sorted him from the off with a very tight tag.
Not hard to coach that.
JP Kennedy was once again Best on Ground, doing my not inconsiderable each-way punt on him to win the Brownlow at between 22/1 and 25/1 no harm at all.
Rhino, the Hannebery Kiddie and Son of Gary all had their usual exemplary games, while the beared wonders in Rick Shaw and Master Malceski dug deep and put in.
But the Ugliest Man in Football had an inexplicable shocker - LRT just couldn't get involved or do anything right - and was subbed off at three quarter time in favour of Mitch "Who" Morton.
You really do need to have all 18 players on the ground footballing out of their minds to win these kind of matches.
Can't afford to carry any passengers steaming into September.
The "Best" line in the scorebox in the Monday morning fishwraps must read "All played well".
The Swans have specialised in it all season, so now is not the time for a few blokes to have off games
That said, if it wasn't for the partisanship involved, it would have to go down as one of the very best games of the season
Sydney were right in it until the final minute or two, but it's the second time they've lost by agonisingly small margins in recent weeks.
These two teams are very much looking like Grand Finalists, for mine.
Adelaide will probably go top in the grand scheme of things, but look to be pretenders on the dint of their luxury draw and are likely to be found out some time during the finals, Collingwood are very good and certainly know how to play in the big games but appear to be bit flaky, just like the Swans. when the blowtorch is applied to the belly, while West Coast have the best home ground advantage of anyone and may well be the smokies in this.
Geelong, Fremantle and North Melboure can pretty much go suit themselves.
As always, it came down to the Championship Quarter, but as it happened that didn't decide the issue for once.
Glad the the Good Lady Wife reached for the top shelf at three quarter time and shook some top qual heart pills out of the bottle for me.
With the eventual seven lead changes in the final quarter, a big time coronary was a certainty for this idle spectator without them.
Coach Horse was ambivalent about it, simply noting that it was a marvellous test for both sides with Business Time just around the corner, in the full knowledge that the Swans could finish anywhere between 1st and 4th in the denoument.
So they must just bloody well win at that hell-hole known as Kardinia Park, simple as that.
But, it is yet another hoo-doo ground for Sydney, and there is a bad feeling in my water.
You only have to go back to that completely miserable experience there all of five years ago now, the first and last ever, to realise why:
http://crazycraves.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/stroll-in-kardinia-park.html
http://crazycraves.blogspot.com.au/2007/07/pontiffs-seed-is-strong.html
The Cardiac Kids should go well from here on in, safe in the knowledge that it doesn't matter how much you win the Grand Final by.
A Bloody Point will do.
SYDNEY: 4.3, 8.5, 10.7, 14.11 (95). Goals: Reid 2, Mumford 2, Goodes 2, O'Keefe 2, Jack, McGlynn, Malceski, Roberts-Thomson, McVeigh, Kennedy
HAWTHORN: 0.1, 7.6, 10.11, 15.12 (102). Goals: Franklin 4, Burgoyne 3, Puopolo 2, Suckling 2, Gunston, Smith, Shiels, Sewell
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 31, 167.
Appalling, just appalling.
Happened to be in the Back Bar at The Local with the Good Lady Wife enjoying the cheap and cheerful combination chow mein as the Tigers slumped to a quite ridiculous scoreline of 0-26 at half time.
We had another function to go to after the game, but she kindly offered me an out on the hooter for the break with "you can go home and have good cry if you like"
Declined, but still found myself tired and emotional later in the evening.
All hope was lost, there and then.
Bugger.
With the Best Leb in The Game in Sick Bay for the rest of the season, there was never any direction in attack as no one could decide who would run the engine room in his absence
The defence was utterly hopeless as Tigers defenders slipped off would-be tackles as easily as taking the skin off a rice pudding, as the Chooks shrugged them off, and ran them ragged all the way to the try line.
Every time we looked up from our lunch plates it seemed the Roosters had gone in for another four pointer, again.
Joisus.
It was hard to fathom what was going on
If Easts aren't running stone motherless last in the comp then they should be, on their season effort to date, and yet they easily towelled up the team who were touted as early premiership favourites at the start of the season solely on the strength of their roster.
No-one dreamed that they would have so many injuries that the Rehab Dept would be overwhelmed to breaking point.
Gawd knows, Benji Marshall tried is damnest and with his last goal of the game scored his 1000th point in the caper, but without his partner in crime Farah, none of the set plays came off, and his imagination when it comes to improvised play is beyond most of his team mates, without Farah's translation.
My spy at the ground somehow managed to wander into the dressing room press conference afterwards and told me he saw the Great Benji, in his role as acting captain on interview alongside SC Sheens.
He said they both said something about "execution" being the major problem.
He laughed heartily, and sent through the telegraph message in jest, suggesting that Tigers fans would be building the gallows at Leichhardt for the summary executions that would be a feature of the full-time entertainment in what will almost certainly be the last game of season.
There's been some scurrilous idle chatter in the more disreputable fishwraps suggesting that SC Sheens could well be on shaky ground
The raison d’être being that St Tim has taken the Tigers to the finals just three times in 15 years...mind you they did win the Grand Final in '05, but the bloke has been trading on that ever since, no doubt.
The board tried to put in a performance assessment team a couple of years back, but SC Sheens would have nothing of it, and instead threatened to walk, and demanded a new contract, which was signed on the back of a napkin in some cafe in Chiswick, if memory serves me right.
Sheens is the sort of bloke who will sack himself before anyone comes along with the tap of the shoulder.
The Great Chris "Bludnut" Heighington played his 200th game, a fair rarity in this football code.
It wasn't his best in the double hundred.
However, he will long be revered as the consumate club man, having played all of them for Balmain.
Now there's a bloke who gets picked week in week out, never draws attention to himself, and just goes about doing his job, no questions asked.
Well known for doing the hard yards and not expecting any thanks for it.
Was admitted to the Balmain Pantheon a while ago now, at the rank of loyal servant to the game.
Few have been better or more consistent in any pack of forwards.
The Club Secretary would be a mass of quivering nerve endings as he spins about on his swivel office chair trying not to look at the stark numbers on the abacus in front of him.
Balmain are now down into what's euphemistically called the "mathematical chance".
i.e. they have to beat Melbourne straight out and rely on the hapless Chocolate Soldiers to pull off a highly unlikely win, and what's more, they'll know that result almost a full 24 hours before they play.
So it'll be all, or nothing.
If you were a betting man, you'd have to favour the dead rubber.
While gate recpiets haven't suffered much in the back half of the season due to the extraordinary number of loyalists out there, the prospect of losing the generous coin that comes with finals appearances would be weighing heavily on his mind, given that he will just about have to empty the coffers in the off season buying less injury prone players.
He'd be happy that we have taken up his offer of upgrading from bronze general admission membership to a silver seat in the new bucket chairs they've installed on the eastern concourse at Leichhardt Oval for the last game of the season.
From there you'd be looking directly into the afternoon sun, so good thing it is a Saturday night game.
Don't expect that it'll be very busy.
It'll be grand, though, to farewell That Pom Ellis in person; one of the last of the great hardmen plays his final game for the Tigers on account of Gareth has decided to go home to the dark satanic mills where he was born and finish his career playing for the pension in the Lancashire and Yorkshire League.
A club stalwart and an ornament to the game who's now been admitted to the Balmain Pantheon.
Not the only Pom to be so honoured.
Think Keith Barnes, Garry Schofield, and Ellery "The Black Pearl" Hanley.
For some unknown reason, returned to The Local on Sunday morning, just for a very quiet one in The Front Bar.
The Philosopher was in his usual corner, nursing this week's favoured tipple, a drink that he says he's invented himself, which he calls a "Cat's Arsehole": a jigger of vodka and the same of triple-sec, poured over ice in a high ball, and topped up with grapefruit juice.
He ordered me one and fixed me with his bead and watched me purse my lips and said "ah ha! appropriate for this time of year, don't you think?"
SYDNEY ROOSTERS 44. Tries: Tupou (3), Nuuausala, Kenny-Dowall, Moga, Pearce, Minichiello. Goals: Anasta (6).
WESTS TIGERS 20. Tries: Koroibete, Lawrence, Heighington, Murdoch-Masila. Goals: Marshall (2).
At Sydney Football Stadium.
Crowd: 15,736
