"I am unbearably ashamed"

Outragees,

When Balmain coach Jason "Squeak" Taylor next faces the Wests Tigers dysfunctional board for a "please explain" over the 60-6 cricket-score thrashing at the hands of the Canberra Raiders, he should take the lead of Toshifumi Suzuki, recently the Chairman and CEO of the parent company of 7-Eleven, blaming his own shortcomings, when he was forced to resign after losing a board room battle - telling the press: "It is my lack of virtue and I am unbearably ashamed".
Squeak could also add "I have bought disgrace upon myself and my family, failed the players, and dishonoured the long and proud history of the club".
Six losses in a row is clearly untenable; doesn't matter that they lost in golden point extra-time in the last game and were illegally battered black and blue by two points in the game previous - a loss is a loss is a loss - and to mix a metaphor, Taylor must fall on his sword after having been hoisted on his own petard - more than once.
Let's face it, the team looks a million dollars on paper and probably cost considerably more, so why are they going so bad?
The buck stops at the boss's desk, Jason.
So, your decision to call them the Playmakers and give then "a licence to thrill" didn't work out so well, when all the other coaches are putting great store by defence this season, and more penalty goals - which used to be rare in Rugby League - are being kicked this year than in living memory.
Your fault?
Who knows?
But it doesn't help to have a terminally poisonous relationship with the club's most senior player in the form of the Best Leb in The Game aka The Hon. Robbie Farah.
Not a good person, Jason, to pick on and dud from pillar to post, given that he played hooker for NSW last year and remains the best dummy half on the face of the planet.
How can you run a team where the former captain refuses to be captain and dares the coach weekly to drop him to reserve grade?
Poor Robbie, must be hard when you can't even bring yourself to speak to the coach, let alone find even the sight of Squeak enough to make you vomit.
The sharks in the press, of course, are circling around Coach Taylor like he's sitting on a surfboard, and the more extremist popular papers are acting like blowflies hanging around dead meat, with headlines like "Coach Taylor given five days to turn his season around", "Does Coach Taylor have the confidence of his players?" and "Balmain CEO: Coach Taylor isn't going anywhere anytime soon".
But there are rules and etiquette surrounding losing coaches who never had the Midas Touch in the first place, and scapegoatism has become a high priority
You know how it'll play out.
Cop it sweet.
But to be at 2-6 with almost a third of the season gone may, ironically, be a mountain too high to climb for the next bunny to take his job.

The Swans keep on their sweet merry winning way.
Being robbed by ten points by Umpires easily influenced by a huge pathologically partisan home crowd at Adelaide Oval will become a mere blip on the radar come September.
Won't play the Crows again until the finals.
In the wake of the solid win over last year's Grand Finalists West Coast Eagles, the "Best:" column on the South Melbourne side of the stats sheet should have read "All Played Well".
The brililiant mix of youth and experience has no finer rival in the comp; whoever came up with "The Sydney System" has certainly found a winner and will no doubt become a life member.
Could be SC Roos.

No word this week from Clarkesville, but a little birdie is singing that book sales haven't exactly met the wildly over-optimistic pre-publication expectations.
Could be just more scurrilous, unconfirmed rumours.
Who'd know?
Haven't been in the bookshops lately on account of The Good Lady Wife's ban on me buying any more cricket books.
But, you'd expect to find a good clean 1st Edition copy of K.Clarke's True to You without any foxing around the edges, sitting un-thumbed on the $2 remainder table in due course, wouldn't you?
That's when I'll pounce on it for the collection, and won't tell anyone, if you don't.