Bacardi Breezers,
After having a look at the official Tuesday team lists for the weekend round and seeing blokes no-one has ever heard of on the bench for the Wests Tigers, with Sick Bay full, decided to eschew the Friday night game against Canterbury-Bankstown in favour of Adrian Edmonson, ex The Young Ones, singing and playing punk classics on folk instruments with his trio.
Adrian on vocals & mandolins, a fabulous fiddle player who used a violin and a viola, and the other bloke on two kinds of fife and a set of Irish bagpipes.
Strange but true, and an absolute sensation...you had to be there...
So never saw a frame of the match and in no position to comment, but the scoreboard never lies, does it?
Opened the Saturday morning fishwrap and started reading the match report headlined "Bulldogs Destroy Tigers", but closed the paper after coming to the line that said something about "woefully inadequate".
The Stats Guru found it his melancholy duty to report the worst result ever; the biggest thrashing handed out by Canterbury to the Mighty Tiges since the Balmain-Western Suburbs joint-venture started in 2000.
No one has any idea why they pulled The Great Benji Marshall out of rehab to play, given that his bung toe reportedly led to him having "no impact on the game"; apparently he just managed to hobble about looking disgruntled.
Even looking at the still photographs of the game, and you can see team morale is a problem...a lot of heads down, looking at the turf, knowing full well that something's up and it's coming to get them.
Coach Harry, through no real fault of his own in his debut season as a parachuted-in senior coach, now finds himself in a bit of a pickle, with a buggered roster and a Club Secretary breathing down his neck after getting the back-office abacus out and shuffling the beads this way and that only to reveal his worst nightmare - the projected gate reciepts falling well short of budget, as the notoriously fickle fans fade away.
How else is he expected to pay for the hospital-strength brandy?
The crowd for this one was only as good as it was on account of the Bulldogs Marketing Dept - who found themselves in a similar situation on the ladder - decided, not out of the goodness of their own hearts but rather economic pragmatism, to give away ridiculously cheap family tickets to boost the numbers through the gate.
As a result, it was one of the rare occasions when the league game just shaded the Swans game in attendance, this time to the tune of just 138 punters.
The Balmain Marketing Dept should take their lead and think of something smart to sell tickets with a string of Friday night games coming up; people will be reluctant to go to see the Tiges play at full-price in their current predicament, when you can put your feet up on the pouf in front of the winter fire in the comfort of yr own home and watch the game, if you could be bothered, live on the free-to-air telly.
Joisus.
They're in more trouble than the early settlers.
CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS 40. Tries: Perrett (2), Brown, Ennis, Lafai, Reynolds, Williams. Goals: Hodkinson (6).
WESTS TIGERS 4. Tries: Tedesco.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 23,453.
Another sparkling day in the Emerald City for a leisurely Sunday afternoon stroll in the park.
Giving Brisvegas a ten goal football lesson while yr at it will do nicely.
It's not often that the Fat Lady starts singing from the Paddington End at quarter time, and from then on in it was just a matter of holding station and making sure that nothing got away from you.
The Bamfords, in "Umpires Appreciation Week" had the good sense to keep a very low profile in the game, and would have shovelled all the Brownlow points on the Swans mid-field.
Take yr pick.
The Hanneberry Kiddie, Rhino Keefe, Son of Gary, The New Train Jetta, Smiffy, Parker...all played well.
Pleasing to see The Goodes Train and his apprentice back on song - the team'll need that over the next little while - the backs had little to do, there's nothing wrong in the ruck, and while the sight of Sam Reid, living with the spectre of Tipsy, desperately trying to find form with three goals might not be edifying - who can blame him?
Goals is goals, aint they?
Nice to see Odd Head McVeigh chaired off the ground after playing in his 200th.
A scholar and a gentleman and an ornament to the game.
Apparently the only regret he has is never being able to play with his brother, who's appeared in more games than he has in senior football, over all that time.
At the other end of the scale, did like the huge smile on the Kid Lamb's dial when he came off at the end of the match having been made the substitute, and subbed on in the last quarter in his first AFL appearance.
Just ecstatic that he'd actually made the grade.
It's hard to reconcile the annual Bamford's appreciation nonsense, after teaching yr children the three mantra's of good barracking; always support and encourage yr own players, never unduly criticise the opposition players for no good reason, and bag the umpires without mercy.
Both the girls have inherited fine booming voices, and have turned out to be exemplary Bleachermen when they choose to be at the match.
SC Horse at Smoko on Monday morning would have been happy enough with the look of the curl of smoke from his cigarello, but would have been casting a glance down south to Mexico way, with a nod to the Wild West, in full knowledge that the next month is a crucial litmus test before mid-season when you look at the four games to come in terms of current ladder positions and home ground advantage: 4th.Sydney v 5th.Hawthorn (a), 6th.Fremantle (h), 7th.Collingwood (a), 1st.Essendon (h), and the following week is the start of the utterly insane double road trip to Adelbrain.
Good thing it's not enough to do SC Longmire's head in, because it certainly does mine.
SYDNEY: 7.4, 10.8, 13.11, 17.13 (115). Goals: Reid 3, Bolton 2, Pyke 2, Goodes 2, Jetta 2, McGlynn, Parker, O'Keefe, McVeigh, Kennedy, Hannebery.
BRISBANE: 1.0, 4.2, 5.5, 8.7 (55). Goals: Green 2, Brown, Zorko, Leuenberger, Hanley, Redden, Lester.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 23,315.
