Ecstatics,
It's ironic that one of the better memoirs of the Geelong Football Club goes by the title of "Loose Men Everywhere".
Well, not on a Thursday night in Sydney in late May.
Precisely the opposite, as it turns out.
The book, of course, is now out of date, on account of it wouldn't include Geelong's biggest losing margin against the Swans - ever - even if you go back in the mists of time to the South Melbourne glory days, you won't find a bigger one.
A 17 goal football lesson in anyone's language.
The Stats Guru's head was spinning like a top as the records tumbled like nine pins in a blood bath.
Couldn't get the abacus going fast enough.
A little Bird was singing SC Horse has continued the tradition of SC Roos on how to handle bye week.
Have all the players over to the coach's place for a Saturday afternoon BBQ & a keg on the weekend when they're not playing, talk some shit, tell a few lies, relax and have a good time, and then at the end of the day the coach goes around to each player individually and says "Now, piss off. I don't want to see you for three days. Go home. Here's your ticket. Go and see your Mother".
A clever man, is Mr Ed.
They don't talk about it, let alone make a song and dance about it, it's just done.
The Tipsy-Buddy Show continues to roll on like a caravan of colourful [adopted] Sydney identites, who are reminded constantly that the wheels could fall off at any moment, without warning, if they're not careful - but do they care?
It's taken a while for the Swans big investment in tall timber to pay off, but boy when it does, they are like huge mobile Kauri trees brushing off opponents as if they were some kind of pesky insects or loose leaves.
Can play, can kick goals.
Pity that Franklin is utterly hopeless at the set shot, but there are few better exponents of the snap goal - haven't seen an inside-out banana kicked from ten yards out in quite a while.
Tipsy makes up for it with long bombs and strong punts for goal from the mark.
Everyone is talkin' about how the Swans mid-field is on fire, but the backs hardly get mentioned.
Why?
To keep a class opposition to zip at the first break. a single goal to half time, and just two six-pointers by the end of The Champo takes some doing.
Full as an Esky, Rick Shaw, and Teddy Richards and their cohorts are a bit like The Men Who Stare At Goats.
They build a brick wall across the backline and invite the other team to try to run through it, only to watch them bounce off it in a flailing heap, every time.
Up front, the goal kickers list in the scorebox was more than impressive, even Big Ted and The Train got a mention.
The offical crowd on paper looks pretty good, also.
Sydney will always turn out for grinning winners, but Thursday night could work with a 7pm start time, giving people enough time to knock off work in town, have a drink and a bite to eat before proceeding to the ground and getting home at a half-way reasonable time.
It's all about location, and with the public transport sorted, the SCG has that in spades, but the jury is still out, for mine.
Obviously, the Marketing Dept is clearly targeting the different kind of people who live in the Eastern Suburbs, who are too busy sipping lattes and guzzling Chardonnay while weaving the odd basket or two on the weekends to go to the football.
Gold Coast away and Port at home to come will sort the men from the boys and that'll be through the half way mark in the season, and then it's "easy" street for a while.
Still the Swans find themselves at 3rd on for-and-against in what is the complete log jam that is the AFL top eight at the minute.
There's more work to do, but luckily, they've been told, and they know it.
Don't spend hours on end trawling other people's football blogs, but did note on the AFL's official blog page that some Geelong supporter had posted the comment "well done AFL for gifting Kurt Tippet and Lance Franklin to a 'struggling' out-of-town team, who only won the Premiership two years ago".
Well, sucko, pal, that's just the way it is.
Mustn't gloat, but remember years ago being accosted out the back of the Olympic Stadium at half time during a Geelong game with Sydney leading by a fair margin by some wild eyed clearly insane Cats fan who botted a smoke off me.
He was entertaining enough.
My parting words to him were "well, you've come a long way to lose", left him perplexed, then slipped into the crowd and disappeared.
SYDNEY: 4.4, 8.9, 14.11, 22.16 (148). Tippett 5, Franklin 4, Goodes 3, Hannebery 2, K.Jack, Derickx, Bird, Lloyd, McGlynn, Jetta.
GEELONG: 0.3, 1.3, 2.4, 5.8 (38). Goals: Hawkins 3, Simpson, Johnson.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 37,355.
Pleasing to see the two Balmain boys have good games for a winning NSW side in one of the very best matches of rugby league seen in long while in State-of-Origin I: one for the ages, world-class.
WESTS TIGERS: Mid-season bye.
