My fellow appallee's,
Well, fark my brown dog, Harold.
The Pygmies beat the Swans by six goals in the season pipe-opener.
Crikey!
Only the vey best football spies would have seen that coming.
Funny thing is, apart from Fremantle, Sydney - on paper at least - seem to be the pea for the 2014 premiership.
Seems some other people have some other ideas.
And if you cared to read the fine print, you'd find the Giants have no less than 21 first round draft picks on their books, and they have purchased very judiciously in the off season trade week.
Get some old, sensible heads into the club, with miles in their legs, to bolster the babies.
Someone once said something about the value of the mix of "yoof and experience".
Mummy could certainly sense the way the breeze was shifting.
So that's all going to come good in the fullness of time, you'd expect, otherwise why would the AFL be sinking tens of millions dollars into what at the outset looked like a hopeless, forlorn excersise?
And who did the Swans buy?
Lance Franklin - on a King's Ransom for a hundred years.
Buddy didn't expect for a minute that he'd be pushed and shoved around by a mob of young uptarts; he was expecting that'd he's be shown the respect he deserves for the superstar he reckons he is.
That's where he was sadly mistaken.
Sure there was some footage at some stage of a Pygmie slapping Buddy clean across his ugly-bearded dial in some minor head-to-head, toe-to-toe after the ball had crossed the boundary line, in the Giants back pocket.
Franky seemed plainly shocked that he could be treated like that by some kid he'd never even heard of.
Seems he didn't know exactly where to play either, and on the face of it, didn't get much direction in that department from Coach Horse, who will have a lot of thinking to do over the next fortnight or so until they play again, against Collingwood, of all mobs, at Cathy Freeman Stadium.
Soundly whipped with the tail between the legs is always a good lesson for anyone, anytime, and no better occasion than in the first game of the year.
Did note that Tippett didn't play.
Was he in a huff, or maybe in a funk?
The Goodes Train was deemed unfit; didn't go all that well on the pre-season training runs by most accounts, and might be considering retiring mid-season, if he ever comes back, even though the Marketing Dept would be drooling at the mouth at the prospect of having The Australian of The Year play in every game.
And then, Rhino Keefe found himself dropped - was told straight out "you are not quick enough anymore" [at age 33], and only got to put on the bench vest when Captain Jack was unexpectedly ruled out at the last minute.
That tells you something's going on, and from my casual reading of it, it's not good.
Thinking that The Train and Rhino won't last the year before they get the tap on the shoulder and announce the finish of their magnificent careers as one-club men, who will then be admitted forthwith to the Swans' Pantheon.
Seems the changing of the guard and the byzantine world of football politics could derail the season before anyone realises, or expects it.
Who knows?
Swans just didn't turn up to play, simple as that.
On that showing, The Football Dept still has a helluva lot of work to do.
A good place to start would be correcting kicking just two goals after half time against a team of still largely green-horn yoofs.
The lengthy quarter time thunderstorm break is no excuse.
Joisus.
Even though it's probably his fault, Longmire, by all accounts, is most unhappy, and the players will no doubt be thrashed senseless, without mercy, on the training track this week, for their trouble.
On the evidence of on what clearly should have been a leisurely Saturday afternoon stroll in the park, losing away is OK over the course of a year, but they bloody well should win consistently at home over the coming weeks and months if they are to be any chance to challenge for the flag again.
A fabulous start to the season.
Say no more.
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY: 4.1, 7.1, 9.5, 15.9 (99). Goals: Cameron 4, Patton 3, Smith, Greene, Scully, Ward, Coniglio, Frost, Kennedy, Whitfield
SYDNEY: 6.2, 7.8, 9.8, 9.13 (67). Goals: McGlynn 2, Reid, Franklin, Cunningham, Rohan, Bird, Jetta, Mitchell.
At Sydney Showground, Homebush.
Crowd: 17,102.
That's a bit better.
Funny how the Winter Game becomes anything but when it's moved to sub-tropical climes.
The temperature was nudging the low-to-mid 30's throughout, which under the rules called for a drinks break after 20 minutes in each half and an extended half time.
Still, did the Tigers no harm.
A complete turnaround from the opening week, murdering the opposition by 30 points.
And that on the back of several players being ruled out mid week due to various ailments, and some pulling out just before the game due to a "virus".
Boils, viruses, ailments - thought these blokes were the fittest men going around? - or perhaps it's just that they've been forced to come off the allegedly illegal "supplements", and find themselves sickly as a result?
Not even the snake oil merchants would know for sure.
Forward pack got their act together with the Best Leb in the Game leading the way.
Didn't really notice it last week, but it looks like Farah's been on the goat burgers and large chips and gravy during the summer; has a bit of a paunch and looks a bit pudgy, but he'll no doubt come down to his fighting weight with a few games under his belt.
No matter, played well, and captained the troops admirably.
And wasn't afraid to talkback to the Bamfords "you lot have looked at that fifteen times on the TV replay and called it a no try, when I was right there and for mine it looked like a try for all the world with the naked eye in real time. So? Who's right then, you or me?"
All the referree could come back with was "Sorry, Robbie, but that's all we had to go on and that's the way we called it. There's nothing we can do about it now."
The Best Leb in the Game just threw his hands in the air, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away - confident in the fact that he'd just been robbed blind.
The Tedesco Kiddie had a fine game at full back, the lad is the genuine goods for sure.
Pat Richards may well have been the Man of the Match.
And to think, at age 32, Richards [who can ever forget his galactico game in the 2005 Grand Final for the Tigers, offloading the miracle pass for the match winning try that lifted the Premiership!] has been brought back into the Balmain fold after 224 games for Wigan in the Dark Satanic Mills Competition over the past eight years!
What on earth has he been up to?
Obviously, he's been on a very good wicket in the Ol' Dart.
So why come back after all this time?
Surely he wasn't homesick?
And, yet, he's still good enough in the top flight to be described in some circles as a "mercurial winger", even in his twighlight years in the caper.
It'll be a topsy-turvy season, without doubt.
The coaches from both the Tigers and the Swans could do well to emulate SC Sheens famous Coach's Ledger...neatly ruled into two columns, one marked "well take our wins", which had nothing but a few hieroglyphs in it, and the other "we'll learn from our losses", which was full of indecipherable scribblings.
GOLD COAST TITANS 12. Tries: Sezer, Kelly. Goals: Sezer (2).
WESTS TIGERS 42. Tries: Richards (2), Tedesco, Thompson, Nofoaluma, Taupau, Brooks. Goals: Richards (7).
At Gold Coast Football Stadium.
Crowd: 12,038.
