an "attack of infected boils".

Diehards,

Into it's 8th year now in a formal format; the Winter Game wire returns to haunt you once again over the colder months.
The Mighty Wests Tigers' start to the new National Rugby League season did not begin all that auspiciously when news filtered through that the Best Leb in the Game, aka Robbie Farah, aka the Balmain Captain, Scholar & Gentleman to boot, had been hospitalised, not just confined to his bed, but hospitalised, mid week with an "attack of infected boils".
You'd think that if you picked up something like that during the week before the first match of the season, that you'd bench yourself, but no.
The mental image of great festering pustules flying hither and thither and splattering eveywhere as the big blokes crashed into each other was way beyond even thinking about.
The Good Lady Wife suggested he play under the name Captain Carbuncle for one week only, which he did, and he didn't have a bad game, but was let down by his fellow forwards, who displayed little go forward and were as soft as rice puddings in all reality.
After a promising start, running in a couple of well worked tries, the Tiges got themselves lost in what turned out to be a ridiculously high scoring game; started to dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole letting the Dragons in to score soft tries willy-nilly, on the back of being caned mericlessly by the Bamford's 8-2 in the penalty count in the first half.
Who knows what the referee's were thinking?
The Balmain players were well within their rights to say to the authorities "what did I do wrong, Guv?"
Outrageous.
You'll struggle to see another game this year in which more than 68 points are scored.
Defence is not anyone's long suit in the first week of the season, but still.
The team is obviously 4-6 weeks away from true match fitness, which is probably more important in this caper than any other, but seasons can be won and lost in that space of time.
Balmain seems to have bought reasonably well in the off-season player meat market; but why they persist with the likes of Adam Blair [28yo] and Braith Anasta [aged 32 for gawd's sake] is beyond me.
Two players who've found a nice retirement home in Leichhardt, after stellar careers elsewhere, and the club is still hoping they might do something resembling what they did back in the glory days?
They're dreaming aren't they?
There's plenty of raw talent there, no question.
The new young half back Luke Brooks [aged 19] has been rated as the best thing since bottled scotch in some circles in the junior grades - he's very good, but first grade is a completely different bottle of mussels altogether, son - he needs to acquire a lot more footy smarts against others who have been going around in the top grade for years.
Also, take for example, "A Boy Named Sue".
His name is Sauaso Sue [aged 21], he's an enormous Māori unit, the size of a small bus, so will cause problems for any opposing pack, but he has a lot to learn, oh, yes siree, a lot to learn.
The Tedesco Kiddie [aged 21] at full back shows a lot of promise, and any side could do with having two "try-scoring freaks" in their team in the form of Chris Lawrence and Marika Koroibete.
Even though the starting 13 is sound enough, and there is genuine, although as yet unproved, quality sitting on the bench and the back bench - on paper - Coach Harry Potter has some work to do in bringing it all together to make a proper team out of them.
He's only got about half a season to do it in, at best, otherwise he'll find himself in peril of losing his job, the way it is these days.
There is no shortage of potential there, but even at this entirely early stage of the season, there are some long time club loyalists who are already starting to mumble in low tones that the road could be long, and the way could be hard, over the next 26 weeks.
Bugger that.
Get beat by 20 points and wind up second last on the ladder after Round One?
The only way for Wests to go from there is north.
No shortage of crytsal ball gazing to be had.


ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 44. Tries: Frizell (2), Beale, Creagh, Quinlan, Rein, Witt. Goals: Widdop (8).
WESTS TIGERS 24. Tries: Farah, Richards, Taupau, Tedesco. Goals: Richards (4).
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 19,860.

FYI: The new look team, as per program:
1. James Tedesco 2. Marika Koroibete 3. Keith Lulia 4. Chris Lawrence 5. Pat Richards 6. Braith Anasta 7. Luke Brooks 8. Aaron Woods 9. Robbie Farah 10. Martin Taupau 11. Liam Fulton 12. Bodene Thompson 13. Adam Blair. Reserves:
14. Cory Paterson 15. Ava Seumanufagai 16. Sauaso Sue 17. James Gavet.

seeing pink

Traditionalists,

Found myself on Monday afternoon among a few hundred people at Adelaide Oval, who were privileged to witness history in the making.
Happened to see the very first pink ball ever bowled in a first class cricket match, anywhere in the world, as far as it is known, with my own eyes.
And it was most pleasant to be in the Members Bar at the time to see it, courtesy of that notorious Cuntry Member, Tim the Wonderdog, and a prominent cricket tragic known as Dingo.
Salubrious surroundings often make for a marvellous occasion in suitable circumstances, in my experience.
The pink ball seemed to retain its sheen throughout the opening session, but people around the place were saying "the proof will be in the pudding in what it looks like at night".
By all reports, as dusk fell, the batsmen said, against a black sightscreen, that they "couldn't see it".
As hard as the powers-that-be might try, doubting that they will find it very easy to move first class cricket out of the summer sunshine, especially on a picture postcard day in Adelaide without a cloud in the sky.
It is the summer game after all.
You can't help but be impressed by the re-development of the grand old ground
It's as if the architects sat up there in virtual heaven and had a look down on the ground from above from a spectators point of view, and then built the stands around what would be front and centre in the viewer's mind.
Brilliant.
Adelaide Oval has always been one of the finest viewing grounds in the world, and will be even more so now.
Some bright thinking went into it.
They have retained the rear facade of the old red-brick, ivy-covered arches that were, and still are, at the back of the old stands [cleverly butressed by massive internal vertical steel beams] and then built the new stands on top of it without it having to take any structural weight...so from the Memorial Drive tennis courts it looks much the same as it ever was.
But you can well see how the old cricket purists would be wailing and gnashing their teeth, because there is no getting away from the truth of the matter; Adelaide Oval is no longer a cricket ground, however much they try to trick it up to look like one.
It is now a purpose built 50,000 seat football stadium, no question.
And the noise in the place will be terrific when a full-house goes ape-shit at the football!
Did note the irony of a bar [out the back of the Bradman Pavilion with no view of the ground] being named the David Hookes Bar, given that he died in one.
A nice touch.
Footballer's names are scattered along the bays of the Eastern Stand, but they are all doggedly politically correct, being equally divided among the all time greats of the Adelaide and Port Adelaide football clubs.
It's a pity they couldn't see fit to retain the Col Egar Bar, [which used to have one of the finest views of the ground from the southern end]; named after one of the greatest piss-tank umpires there ever was, who didn't mind a drink in a crisis.
The whole thing is very well thought out, but sadly - and there was not much they could do about it with the brief they had - almost all of the charm has vanished from the joint, except for the scoreboard and the token hill, which is now more like a grassy knoll, in front of it.
Couldn't help but be reminded of that complete madman CB Fry writing about sitting in a wicker chair at the back of the Moysten Evans Stand with a gin and tonic in hand in the 1920's, waxing lyrical about the finest view of any cricket ground in the world, with the field of play right there in front of you, the magnificent Cathedral to the left, "the fine rolling hills in the middle distance" and "the outline of a most beautiful city" to the right.
Those days have gone away, never to be seen again.

And while all this was going on, there was Pup's heroics in the first innings in Capetown.
Found myself wondering if the nation has, at last, woken up to the fact that MJ Clarke is a dead set genius?
His 161 no was undoubtedly the match winner.
Never mind Dave Warner From the Suburbs' twin tons.
They were just fruit for the sideboard.
Arguably the finest innings Michael has ever played, and it was only his 27th in the test caper, mind you.
Thing about it was that it was the most unusual, off-beat innings he's ever done.
None of the imperious cover-driving, straight-hitting, and superlative leg-side play we've all come to know and love, no siree, he just absolutely refused to take on the bowling, from the start.
Happy to duck and weave, and be hit, and hit hard.
If he'd done some hooks and pulls early, Morkel would have given up on him.
Instead, Morkel decided he would try to hurt the Strayan skipper.
A massive miscalculation
Pup cleverly deluded the idiot kaffir-kicker into thinking that he had him running scared - when he was just more than prepared to take brutal punishment for his country without flinching.
In the excitement of it all, Morkel forgot about bowling a few juicy ones outside off, just asking for it to be hit, hoping for a thick edge to the slips.
Clarke wasn't buying any of that, he knew exactly what he was doing; just nurdle it around for ones, two and threes, while ending up black & blue for his trouble.
92 not out at stumps on Day One.
Who won?
And then he was content to sit on 99 for what seemed to be a full 40 minutes on the morning of the second day, before he saw something that was absolute rubbish and smacked it to the boundary to bring up the ton.
Magnificent.
The Captain's bravest innings ever, and cleverest, for mine.
It should go down in the little history books as one of the greatest ever, never mind that it in all probabilty gave Straya their first win away in a very long time, and secured the Hansie Cronje Memorial Cup for the trophy cabinet, and that's been a while coming.
Pup can also be very proud of mentally destroying not one, but two, opposing captains in the space of a few months.
He seriously messed with Cook's head in the Ashes, and had him committed to Bedlam, [oh, and sent two other Poms stark raving mad just for the fun of it as well!], while Smith just gave up in the face of a cricket brain as big as a watermelon coming at him that was well prepared to wage all-out "pysch war".
Four very good notches on MJC's belt.
Did like Michael being humble enough to admit that his silly fifth day spat with Dale Steyn in the denoument was "out of order", but who can blame him for displaying his humanity after five days at the crease and in the field after all that?
Said it before, say it again, but when will the ignorant general public finally fookin' acknowledge that MJ Clark is, right here and now, in terms of grit, determination, unsurpassed skill, and superlative cricket smarts, the best Strayan Captain since IM Chappell?
Beats me.