Fortune tellers,
Good god, Fawlty, the Swans won - again.
It'd be great if anyone could make any sense at all of the football, at the minute.
The old adage "any team can beat any other team on its day" seems to apply in spades.
It's all upside down, Miss Pat.
Bookmakers peplexed, tipping comp contestants baffled, fans totally confused, players without a clue, and coaches at their wits end pulling out what little hair they have left on their heads faster than it can be replaced by Advanced Hair Studios.
Top spot in the AFL is just one win clear of 9th, with a third of the season played.
The Stats Guru is having a field day.
Just look at the last round, starting with all-but-bottom and top.
Sydney appears to have started to fasten the wheels that'd fallen off back onto the bandwagon, easily winning their last two, after going an utterly miserable 0-6, as more players get out of Sick Bay and match condition fitness comes into play across the comp.
Said it before, say it again, the game is gruelling, and it's too long.
The Swans need old blokes in the likes of Odd Head McVeigh and Reg Grundy Jnr to marshall the backs, but they are totally cooked at the end of every game by their own admission.
Smart football brains on crumbling bodies don't mix, especially with 18 year olds getting picked in your team.
JPK needs more time in the captaincy, he's very good when they are winning, but needs to lead more when the chips are down.
Buddy isn't phased by anything now, it's a laugh, it can't be taken seriously, but Plugger is teaching him well, and telling him to tell the young forwards what he wants...yell, wave yr arms, point alot, and give 'em heaps if they don't deliver for an inside 50 chest mark.
Will Hayward - "the goal kicker from North Adelaide" - is very raw, but he's a dead-set keeper for mine.
The kid can play.
The mid-field can, and must, look after itself.
In stark contrast, Adelaide, after sweeping all before them and going 6-0, suddenly get thumped by eight by goals in both their last two games in a case of the cobby-wobbles; a mirror image of Sydney.
And throw in a couple of spectactular nail-biting cliff hangers, and that's the round.
Stevie J doesn't seem to mind getting bad press when he can kick the winning miracle goal for the Pygmies in the final seconds against the 'Pies with a beautiful display of hard-nutted old school roving.
He knew in just that moment that no-one was going to beat him.
That kind of talent is enough to make a grown man cry.
That'll do.
And of course, mention cannot be passed on the game in Shanghai.
Toot! Toot!
All aboard.
A gaily festooned Gravy Train with all the bells and whistles rolls into town.
You can only imagine what the Chinese rank-and-file thought of The Great Australian Game.
Anyone's guess.
But you'd expect they'd love a team called THE POWER.
The ground that they somehow found to play on, in a city of 24 million, was an ancient athletics track built in 1934, surrounded by concrete bleachers and a tiny pavilion, which hasn't had a red cent spent on it since - apart from the hasty installation of a hospitality area.
Jiangwan 'Stadium'?
What a shit-hole.
How on earth has it survived?
Why was it left alone during the Cultural Revolution rather than have the bulldozers put through it?
And who knew that Poord and Surfers Paradise had five thousand supporters between them?
Well, that was the AFL's official estimate of the number of Strayan footy fans making the long trip away, along with some ex-pats and a few casual tourists who might drop in for the game.
That's where the Stats Guru got involved.
It was a Poooort home game so it was also officially estimated, again by the AFL, that the crowd size would not be any more than 11,000, of which about 3,000 carefully selected natives of Shanggers were expected to turn up.
3+5 = 8, so that leaves about 3,000 bludgers, corporate-types, hangers-on, acolytes, high-ranking party functionaries, communists, shady characters, and buffoons of the likes of David Koch, who all enjoyed themselves immensely indulging in the full-on hospitality in Chairman Mao's private box.
And, of course, the AFL's top brass don't slum it, ever - they were staying at the Shanghai Portman Ritz-Carlton, where the going rate is $US695 per night.
My Spy at The Ground says fine cigars and brandy balloons with a splash of top notch Cognac are certainly readily available in the front bar of the Ritz - a nice touch, for mine - there are photographs.
The actual attendance, officially and meticulously counted, was put at 10,118 without a shadow of a doubt, no cooking the books, or massaging at the turnstiles, no siree.
Exactly 10,118 screaming fans.
The highlight of the match was the 28 behinds scored on the day - wow - football was the winner!
And Poort won in a 12 goal smashing -- yippee, that'll bring the Chinese crowds streaming in through the gates.
But no-one ever asked the burning question -- was the beer cold [oh, no-fucking-no, a dry ground in the outer!] and the pies warm?
Who knows -- next year -- North Korea!!
Choco Pies for the South Australian Magpies imported direct from South Korea via China all 'round.
Fatboy Slim Kim loves his sport...especially the time-honoured traditional game of executing out-of-favour family members with an RPG.
Super Coach Horse could do worse than to threaten some under-performing Swans players with that particular one.
Over in Tigerland, the joint continues to be a seething cesspit of hostility, infighting and resentment.
The hopelessly fractured and dysfunctional board is essentially powerless after appointing Clearly It's Cleary as Coach with a carte-blanch mandate and players shipping out.
Who knows what the Club Secretary is doing?
A little birdy has been singing that the main reason Woodsy decided to go to Canterbury-Bankstown was not a matter of money, but the fact that he was "sick of playing in a losing team who never make the finals", and he's got more chance of playing in a Grand Final by going to Belmore.
Who can blame him?
But it's a good thing in disguise that he's now done himself a mischief and looks like being a long-term customer at Sick Bay.
Best to step aside for the moment and let a veteran like Chris "The Try Scoring Freak" Lawrence take over as Captain for a bit.
Coach Cleary was clearly unimpressed, as we all all were, with the Mighy Tiges losing to their arch-nemesis South Sydney 28-8, a right proper flogging; the Rabbitoh's pack was simply too big, too strong and there was no go forward, and most of the backs seemed disinterested.
CC let rip with a vitriolic spray post-match in the direction of Tedesco and Moses, singling them out, and accusing them of "not trying" because they have signed multi-million dollar contracts elsewhere.
Again, fair enough - you are handsomely rewarded and should repay die-hard loyalist fans in return, on match day...forget about tomorrow.
But the attitudes-a-plenty do nothing for club solidarity when you are 15th on the ladder in a 16 team comp.
Amid the crisis, everybody seems to have forgotten that rugby league is actually being played here.
The Good Lady Wife exclaimed in disgust as the Friday night match was deep into the first half on the Crystal Bucket: "Tedesco looks like he's saving himself for Easts".
Harsh, but fair.
Then, the loyal Luke Brooks and that serial troublemaker, Kyle Lovett, contrived to get themselves arrested for "breaching the peace" up the Balmain Road after getting involved in a fracas, described by sources close to the scenario as an All-In Brawl, at the The Workers Bar and Kitchen on Darling Street after downing a dozen in the Town Hall Hotel, just after midnight Saturday.
The fighting spilled onto the street, the cops were called, and Brooks, and Lovett - who you'll remember was rubbed out for four weeks earlier in the season after being busted with a deal-bag of coke in his pocket - allegedly had some harsh words to say to the NSW Police who were in no mood to cop it.
What a stink!
Both were released on sergeant's bail from the Balmain Watchouse in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Brooks will say it was all a terrible misunderstanding over his brother defending his honour [yep, his bro was there too], while Lovett will claim he just happened to be cruising by at the time to pick up his sister.
WTF?
Nice one, chaps.
It's most convenient that the club's major sponsor is Brydens Lawyers - plenty of work for them in-house.
With a "Player Welfare Dept" missing in action, show me a football club in any code right now that's better than the Tigers at lurching from one almighty cluster-fuck to another.
Holy smoke.
Balmain is a walking, talking, all-singing, all-dancing disaster area.
Lord, save me.
