Bleacherites,
For an old rusted-on Balmain supporter, with Western Suburbs tendencies, there is nothing that gives more pleasure, greater joy and a sense of righteous triumphalism than to beat Manly, away.
There is a hackneyed old saying in rugby league "I support [insert name of team], and anyone playing Manly".
The Silvertails have a long and storied history of utter utter utter bastardry towards us Fibro's.
It's a Wests Magpies thing this "Clouds of Dust and Buckets of Blood" stuff, back in the late '70's when rugby league was a really violent game, and there was a class war on.
No-one has quite forgotten about it, and Balmain gleefully adopted the very deep-seated detestation of the Sea Eagles when they merged with Wests in 2000.
Saw on the TV coverage that some Manly fool on the hill had a banner which read YES. WE HATE YOU TOO.
Funny ha-ha.
My particular hatred of Manly goes way back to 1990, on my first and only visit as a biased spectator to Brookvale Oval, when Balmain's Steve Roach was outrageously sent off for 5mins in the sin-bin for constantly back-chatting referee Eddie Ward about the fact that he was being deliberately and unfairly targeted.
Blocker then had a brain explosion - but to me it was more a gesture of abject pitilessness - when he patted Ward on the head like a he was a child, in a time when touchy-touchy feely-feely of the authorities was strictly off limits for some reason, and looked upon poorly by the powers-that-be [four week suspension, rubbed out for deliberate contact with a Bamford].
As Roachy took the long, lonely walk to the pavilion - indignantly bad-mouthing any official in sight on the way - he was treated in an appalling fashion by Manly fans, who lobbed gollies and full beer cans in his direction and called him all sorts of vile perverted names.
They're all class there on the Northern Beaches.
To cut a long story short...have to consider myself very lucky to get out of that one alive, after being chased loud, drunk and disorderly, livid and furious, out of the Manly Leagues Club by a group of thugs intent on giving me a good ol' fashioned beating, and my bacon was miraculously saved by a passing Palm Beach bus.
That's very ancient history now, but you can see where the extreme animosity comes from; it's not only tribal for me, it's personal.
The Tigers hadn't won at Brookvale for a million years - the Sea Eagles are all but impregnable there - and despite a stellar start to the season, Wests were still rated by the bookies as the underdogs.
Given coach Clearly It's Cleary's game plan to date has been been entirely based on defence and denying the other team points at the expense of attack, the Mighty Tiges unexpectedly roared out of the blocks as Manly were still rubbing sleep out of their eyes, running in try after try against rice-pudding defence, to lead by an incredible 26-zip at half-time before a stunned full-house.
Manly fans booed their own players off the field at the break.
All class they are on the Northern Beaches.
The Tiges pack of forwards did what forwards should do - take it straight up the middle - and despite not having the Nastiest Man in Football, Russell Packer [knee] on hand, the Try Scoring Freak Chris Lawrence and Benny Matulino the Tongan Refrigerator did the hard yards required.
The Great Benji Marshall is astonishing everyone with his form at five-eighth, looks like he's grown a third leg, and his trademark "the step, the jink, the weave", is with us again.
Not bad for a bloke who came back to his Spiritual Home as an aged mentor and only expected to be an occasional bench-warmer at best - and now he's bringing out the best potential in Luke Brooks who's finally turning into a first-rate half-back.
David Nofoaluma and the man with the worst barber in Sydney, Kev Naigama, were really dangerous in the backs, the curiously named Kiwi, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak [a commentators nightmare], solid throughout, but the goal-kicking local junior Esan Marsters at centre three-quarter was Best on Ground for mine.
And the journeyman full-back Corey Thompson was safe under the ball all day.
Star recruit Josh Reynolds took until Round 6 to get right after doing himself a mischief in the warm-up before the first game, and is so lacking in match fitness, they sensibly wrapped him in cotton wool, and he just waddled around at dummy-half for the limited time he was on the paddock, but he did a shoulder anyway and will be out for at least another month.
An expensive flaky buy?
Will come good, you'd hope.
They look like a team, they've got some depth in the roster, and it's the first time Balmain have gone 5-1 at the start of the season in eons, after being written off by all and sundry at the start of the year as dead-set certainties for the Wooden Spoon.
They've got a game plan to suit the occasion, have knocked off some highly fancied sides with 24% of the season gone, and Cleary is now clearly developing some smart, clever set-plays.
Balmain fans travel -- in numbers; we have infiltrated the entirety of this heaving city and way beyond -- so did rather like some of the banners seen on the telly on the Brooky Hill...INCH BY INCH in alternating black and gold lettering was a nice one [possibly referring to the fact that rugby league is the most territorial of all the football codes, where field position is of critical importance, or it could have had something to do with a gigantic tusk up the runter along the 'do you slowly' line, who knows?], but the one that took the biscuits for mine was a lovingly hand-created Balmain coat-of-arms surrounded by the words TILL THE DAY I DIE.
Now, that's hard-core fandom.
MANLY-WARRIGAH SEA EAGLES 12. Tries: Thompson, Parker. Goals: Cherry-Evans (2).
WESTS TIGERS 38. Tries: Marshall (2), Lawrence, Watene-Zelezniak, Brooks. Penalty try (1). Goals: Marsters (7).
At Brookvale Oval.
Crowd: 15,456.
Found myself in the front bar at the Lord Wolseley Hotel in Ultimo for the Red and the White up against the Evil Bulldogs, so there was a fair amount of boozing and caurousing going on and not a great deal of attention was paid to the footy, and we had to wait until the racing at Woyal Wandwick had finished anway until we could get it on the "big screen" - read, a normal sized telly.
During the final quarter, fell into the company of an absolutely rabid Swans fan who creamed his jeans on the final siren, as well as a GWS Pygmies supporter [never come across one before, but yes! they do actually exist] and a died-in-the wool Geelong loony, and even though they had no skin in the game, they were jumping up and down with excitement in the final minutes.
At the bar when somebody bellowed that Buddy had butchered a certain goal [he'd left his kicking boots at his Mum's], only to return to see Lance bang one through the high-diddle-diddle, and then the Florent Kiddie ran away with the ball and scored from 40m out to extend the lead to a lovely seven points with about a minute to go.
How sweet it is, but talk about playing the classic "get out of jail free" card.
3-1 up at the start of the season sure beats last year's absolute shocker of 0-6, but they still have a long, long, way to go, and there's trubble out back and a lot of other problems for SC Horse to sort out.
Any more injuries and well, mmm.
Still, it's not that often that both yr football teams win on the same weekend, let alone on two weekends in a row.
WESTERN BULLDOGS 5.3, 7.7, 9.10, 11.13 (79). Goals: Dickson 2, Bontempelli 2, Redpath, Gowers, Jong, Dale, Wallis, Daniel, Dahlhaus.
SYDNEY 4.0, 6.3, 10.4, 13.8 (86). Goals: Franklin 3, Parker 3, Papley 2, Heeney 2, Cunningham, Towers, Florent.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 32,870.
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