Disappointee's,
The prospect of an ordinary Monday night in Brisvegas was always bound to be a dismal and tawdry one.
Even the Good Burghers of Brissy agreed.
For a ground that routinely attracts well over 30,000, sometimes even 40,000 against good teams for a Broncos home game, they stayed away in droves.
And who can blame them?
Obviously there were better things to do.
It wasn't so much that the match was lost, but the manner of its losing.
Balmain were forced to field far too many children, given that no one else is avaliable, and then they were asked to play against grown men.
Apparently there's no law against child labour in the rugby league.
The Great Benji Marshall had no choice but to take it upon himself to try to make all the plays, and as a result did none of the play-making very well.
And let's face it, no Farar, no cigar.
The Best Leb in The Game was still sidelined by his bashed up face from Origin One, and without him at dummy half, there's no hope in attack.
And the kiddies were completely outmuscled in in defence, try as hard as they might.
To make the whole miserable affair even more galling; that dirty scoundrel turn-coat Scotty Prince had a fine game against his old club.
Prince, of course, is best remembered for the scandalous and shameful way that he was let go by the club at the end of 06, [this, after he captained the Tigers in the Miracle Year of '05 and won the Clive Churchill Medal for Man of the Match in the Grand Final, for gawdsake] to pursue a peripatetic career as a journeyman - willing to play for anyone with a fat enough cheque book - in a move described by the then coach Super Coach Sheens as "the worst decision made by the board of any football club, in any code, anywhere, ever. We should have just paid the bastard whatever he wanted"
And still, Prince comes back to haunt them seven years on, from north of The Tweed.
And of course Balmain has never had an anywhere near a decent half-back ever since the day he left, and not a scrap of silverware in the trophy cabinet to prove it.
Long time loyal supporters, and believe me, we are everywhere, are finding it hard to reconcile the half way mark in the year, with season over, and nothing much at all - some would say jack shit - to play for.
And this in the week that the 2000 Joint Venture finally imploded.
It was a hastily cobbled together scam from the outset and everyone thought it would all end in tears, but no-one imagined it would take this long.
Finally, at long last, Western Suburbs Leagues Campbelltown had had it up to here, and simply walked away from the joint venture, washing their hands of it, without even asking for a penny, as they considered the whole she-bang less than worthless.
They'd written off their losses a long time ago, and are now condemned to oblivion by their own hand.
The Club Secretary must be very much relieved to fark the old fractious board right off, and relishing dancing on the Magpies' grave, as he is now no longer forced to schedule games at the crumbling Campbelltown Sports Ground.
As he always said in private "I wouldn't go that far on my holidays".
Balmain Leagues and Wests Leagues Ashfield are now the only partners in the thing, with equal representation on the board, which surely must make for a much smoother operation, with the troublemaking black & white traditionalists finally pissed off back to the back blocks, where they belong.
It's very sad really that the Maggies have now been consigned to the history books, but sod 'em, for mine.
Never bought anything to the table.
They should have realised they were dead meat 13 years ago, and just gone out the back door quietly.
Shrug of shoulders.
The only bright point in the week was the welcome selection of Balmain's Aaron Woods for New South Wales for State of Origin Two.
The in-form forward of the comp for mine, especially in a losing side...one of the best busters of the advantage line there is, to create clever opportunities for his backs, and there's no-one else in the game at present who does the hard yards quite like him, week in, week out.
Should go well.
All power to his oars.
BRISBANE BRONCOS 32. Tries: Hoffman (2), Gillett, Hodges, Prince, Reed. Goals: Prince (4).
WESTS TIGERS 12. Tries: Sue, Tedesco. Goals: Marshall (2).
At Lang Park, Brisbane.
Crowd: 21,339.
No news from Lakeside is good news, during mid-season bye week.
Tippett? Kurt who?
Swans like to keep the head down and the bum up, train hard, and fly under the radar.
It worked last year when no one was looking, so who's to say it won't work again?
SYDNEY: Bye.
