Space Cadets,
Found myself otherwise engaged of a Saturday arvo and distracted from the football as both games were played almost simultaneously, and saw very little apart from the newsreels on the crystal bucket.
It didn't matter.
They are perfectly capable of carrying on regardless without me.
So all the news that's fit to print this week is second and third-hand.
It's not every weekend that both your teams win away, with no help from you.
Did note on the newsreels that they reckoned that Buddy might be in a touch of trouble down at the tribunal for laying on a classic hip'n'shoulder to shove some hapless Gold Coast player over the boundary line and slam him up against the advertising hoardings, flailing about all arms and legs.
Back in the day he would've impaled him on the white picket fence.
Thankfully, The Tribunal, to their credit, found that it was all legit, no harm done, and Franklin had no case to answer.
Let's face it, if you can't put on a smack-'em-down shirt-front, can't do a damaging hip'n'shoulder, if you can't crack a few heads, can't rip a blokes rib cage out in a ball-and-all tackle, and can't do the Christmas Hold during stacks-on-the-mill, then it's a girls game, isn't it?
C'mon, most of those playing are grown men who can take the punishment.
The superstars of Rules have always been those capable of throwing their weight around with gay abandon while keeping the ball on a string.
That's what the people come to see.
AIong with the nimble ones with finesse and running skills, and those who can actually slot 'em through the big sticks, isn't that what it's about?
Officialdom should keep right out of it, for mine.
They've been re-writing the rule book since the 1860's - maybe they should stop now?
The wild-eyed one-eyed Crows supporter from the Colonies warned me from the off that the Swans were taking a huge gamble on Tipsy's flakiness - never mind the brou-ha-ha surrounding the trade.
The Stats Guru - [who, being the whiz with the abacus that he is] - also takes a keen interest in money, y'know, who's up who and for what, that sort of thing - so he's calculated that this year alone Tippet has had knee tendonitis to start the season, then a broken rib, and now a knee cartilage trim that will keep him sidelined to mid-July at best - the medical bills must be piling up at the front door of the Football Dept, while Kurt hasn't been called upon to do much while still rolling about in cash dollars galore.
Yep, that's flakey.
No-one wants to get ahead of themselves too much, but if Sydney can brush aside Port like so many slugs and leeches in the forecast rain this Saturday avro at home, then a double purple patch - ten wins on the trot - is a real and present possibility, and that will dead set guarantee a set-in-stone place in the top four, and if you then don't lose at home for the rest of the season, you'll probably go top and get the saloon passage in September.
Simple.
At this point in the narrative, SC Horse's biggest worry must be the spectre of complacency.
GOLD COAST: 1.6, 3.9, 6.13, 10.14 (74). Goals: Kolodjashnij 2, Dixon, Cameron, Russell, Ablett, Matera, O’Meara, Lynch.
SYDNEY: 3.3, 8.4, 13.4, 17.7 (109). Goals: Cunningham 4, Reid 3, Kennedy 2, Franklin, Jetta, Parker, Lloyd.
At Carrara Stadium.
Crowd: 21,354.
For the first time this season, the ground attendance at Tiger's game oustripped those who turned up for the Rules.
Then again, they do tend to go ape-shit over their Rugby League in Newcastle, being the rabid one-team town that it is, and there are Balmain supporters everywhere.
With Sick Bay down on the Balmain Road being rapidly cleared out and troops being returned to the battlefield, it should have been a regulation win against a side coming off six straight losses [much to the chagrin of Novacastrians, who've also seen the team's owner rapidly going down the gurgler to worse than broke, and offloading the debt-laden club to anyone who'll have it for $1 - but that's another story].
But no, my Spy at the Ground mentioned that the Tiges were almost robbed blind when two Balmain players, who were both off their feet jumping for the pill, collided in mid-air, with Braith Anasta contriving to plant himself head first into the turf in the in-goal while his team-mate bounced off him and fell to earth with an almighty thud.
While most immediate concern was for the health of those involved, an on-side Newcastle player found himself aimlessly wandering through the aftermath, saw the ball was loose, casually gave it a touch down, and appealed for a try on spec - which after a lengthy television review - was duly awarded, even though no-one in the crowd or on the field, including the referees and touch judges, saw it with the naked eye.
Go figure.
It might have been legal, but there was no honour in it.
Seems Balmain got revenge in the denoument with a cheeky field goal by Richards, of course, to put on a three point buffer with less than ten minutes left on the clock, and then they just ground it out to the finish and that's all she wrote.
Pat Richards - Man of the Match by all accounts.
Can play; a rock in the last line of defence, has a hand in everything in broken play, and can kick.
Apparently he booted some prodigious kick out of nowhere to great advantage that was described by the commentator on the ABC radio match summary thus: "there is no doubt about Pat Richards' ablility to launch a satellite".
There is nothing but praise for the bloke around town, coming back after all those years working his arse off in the Dark Satanic Mills, to play in the big leauge again, almost a decade later at the age of 32.
If he wasn't in the Balmain Pantheon already, he is now.
Who knows where they'd be without him at the minute?
Tigers hover about in the bottom half of the top eight, as they have done for weeks now, going nowhere.
In the wider view, looks like Coach Harry will have a season-long concern with inconsistency, and he'd be worried sick that Farah and Woods will most likely be called on by NSW twice more this year.
They'll need luck.
NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS 20. Tries: Uate (3), Roberts. Goals: Roberts (3).
WESTS TIGERS 23. Tries: Tesesco, Richards, Lawrence. Goals: Richards (5). Field Goals: Richards (1).
At International Sports Centre, Newcastle.
Crowd: 22,173.
