Frustratees,
This is becoming very painful indeed.
The veterans in the side played well, but the young blokes really didn't have much of a clue in the big league, and who can blame them?
It looked for all the world like Balmain would win for a change, right up to the last minute when they were still in front and then, lo and behold, they somehow conjoured up letting the Eeels go in for a try with just seconds left on the clock.
A classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, if ever there was one.
And does anyone need reminding that Parramatta is running Stone Motherless Last in the competition?
Nobody, not even the Stats Guru, dares to look at the length of the losing streak now, given there is no point in it.
Everyone, from the new Board down to the lowliest, down-and-out supporter, is clutching at straws.
And of course, there is no shortage of scapegoats.
The Club Secretary walked out the door mid-season saying he was just fed up with everything, had it up to here, and was simply sick of it.
Then they put in an interim CEO who appears to have next to no idea.
So it was down to him to announce a "structural review" of the Football Dept.
After the Western Suburbs Magpies deserted the sinking ship, it seems the new Board wants to throw its weight around.
And so they let go no less than three Assistant Coaches last week, including SC Simmons.
Why you would sack a bloke like Roycie is simply beyond belief.
Utterly unfathomable.
Let's face it, the bloke is a premiership winning coach in his own right, and has a huge football brain - one of the biggest in living memory.
Never mind that no one really knows what Mr Simmons does for a job, apart from the fact that he is the best Welfare Officer that any club could ever have.
He's never been his biggest spokesman, that's for sure - given that he can't string a meaningful sentence together on interview, which have always been rare on account of appearing in the media is not his long suit.
He's prefered for many years now to stay in the shadows, and out of the spotlight.
Roycie takes it upon himself to look after the player's off-field interests; to make sure they learn to read and write, not spend their money hand over fist, that everything is all good in their home-lives, that they're emotionally stable in their love-lives, tries look after any drug freaks, problem drinkers, and other sundry miscreants, and makes it his business to keep their names out of the papers at all costs.
In all the time Simmons has been at Balmain in his two stints at the club, don't know that any player has ever been reported in the fishwraps for misbehaving in public, let alone becoming known to police.
So what on earth is going on??
Say it again, just insane to let go someone who's worth his weight in gold.
Complete madness.
SC Simmons' only crime appears to be that he has been a very close mate of SC Sheens, which is not de rigour at the club anymore, given that the former long time coach still draws a salary from the Tigers on the basis of the "barbed necklace agreement", and he needs to do nothing for it, except sit back in his Jason Recliner and say "See, I told you so".
And now there's talk that Coach Harry might be shown the door after just one season in the top job.
Not that much of it has been his fault.
How do you deal with a horror injury toll early in the season, a club wracked by infighting and instablity beyong your control, your Number One Player of the last ten years deciding to walk and switch codes to the Auckland Blues Rugby Union Club, letting quite a few underperformers go to the English League comp through the year, and you still end up with a mob of players who don't care anymore in end?
You sack the coach, apparently.
Not immediately but inevitably, as surely the "structural review" puts him in an untenable position.
If all that sad and sorry tale of woe is not bad enough, by a quirk of programming, the same bunch of blokes are now asked to play Eastern Suburbs, who have just gone top after a large purple patch, this Monday night at what will be a deserted, wind-swept and gawd-forsaken Sydney Football Stadium.
Lord, help us.
PARRAMATTA EELS 26. Tries: Toutai (2), Mullaney, Paulo, Sio. Goals: Paulo (2), Mullaney (1).
WESTS TIGERS 22. Tries: Koroibete (2), Nofoaluma, Simona. Tries: Marshall (3).
At Parramatta Stadium.
Crowd: 12,013.
The Stats Guru has been on the telephone, with alarming news.
He reckons he's been giving the abacus bit of a whirr, and the beads are telling him that in the space of a week, the Swans have gone from being a chance of going top through no fault of their own, to a point where the Minor Premiership is now all but unattainable, and what's more, they are in clear and present danger of missing the top four altogether, given the teams behind them coming up their runter have much easier runs home, and Sydney has to play the top two teams before season's end.
It wasn't the game they wanted to throw.
No sireee.
Plenty can be discerned by the fact that Tipsy kicked six for the second week running, but they still lost by a fair margin, with only another four goal kickers, when they can usually boast blokes who put it through the big sticks in the double figures.
There were a few Sydney players in front of the centre square, who shall remain nameless, who were found out, and you are never going to win if you get stonkered by six goals against you in the Championship Quarter in a low scoring match.
No doubt Coach Horse would still be preoccupied in his waking hours with the central question of who is his best team?
Wouldn't be surprised if he dreams about it, also.
Despite being squashed by Collingwood, Longmire would be well aware that if he can come up with the definitive answer to that one, then they are of course in with a damn good chance of going a long way in September.
Teddy Richard's played in his 200th.
200, eh?
Fancy that.
There's no doubting Teddy is a strange insect, and he'd have to give the Ugliest Man in Football a good run for his money for the title, but in any case would be a clear runner up.
And just like LRT, he'd be as astonished as anyone that he's played that many games.
Never ever seen Richards smile on a football field, ever.
He has that autonomon, lockjaw look on his alien-like face down pat.
Despite the visage, he's apparently a very jovial chap who is well regarded as an outstanding clubman; always looking out for his mates and happy to help out with the kiddies.
Just don't mention the Marty Feldman eyes.
Teddy would be completely unaware that he's probably first picked most weeks; he's the sort of backman any club would die to have.
He's the kind of player who digs trenches across a line somewhere between half back and full back and puts up barbed wire entanglements in the back pockets and says to the opposition blokes "now, try getting the ball through that", before he kicks the grenade back into their lines.
Richards is probably the best backline reader of the in-coming ball in-flight in the modern game, a superb mark, and a master of the spoil, with black belt.
And yet he's flown under the radar for his entire career.
It wasn't for nothing that he was picked across the half back line in last season's All Australian Team, and that without ever rating a single mention in the Melbourne papers.
Ted Richards - a scholar and a gentleman, and an ornament to the game.
All power to his oars.
SYDNEY: 4.4, 5.9, 9.10, 10.11 (71). Goals: Tippett 6, Bolton, Kennedy, K.Jack, Shaw.
COLLINGWOOD: 2.4, 6.6, 12.10, 14.16 (100). Goals: Elliott 3, Reid 2, Thomas 2, Sidebottom 2, Cloke 2, Grundy, O'Brien, Pendlebury.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 42,627.
