Gawkers,
Going off piste here, as these pages don't often deal with "other" codes of football, but everybody's been talkin' about that #OptusFail on the World Cup, and how it's a "brand damager" and such like, but nobody's saying how its both a windfall for SBS and a win for good old fashioned out-and-out satellite television.
SBS gets a free kick for all the money they ended up not paying for the broadcast rights now written off by Optus as a dead loss, and that'd run into many many millions as they laugh all the way to the bank.
Thought there used to be "anti-siphoning laws" - they may have gone by the wayside - but the general public's the winner, baby, that's the truth.
Satellite TV's been doing it for decades and it works perfectly well, and let's face it, who's ever felt the need to experience watching any kind of football "on the go" on a massive 6.5 inch iPhone screen with their reading glasses on, when only recently the best telly's on the market used to be the 55 incher in millions of pixels, but now they're passé, and anything under a 60 inch television set next to the bush telegraph in the corner of the loungeroom will not do.
Go figure.
Nothing wrong with the wiring or the Cathode Ray Tube, Optus, [you could try turning the computer off and on again], you've just rather seriously underestimated the enormous appeal of the goddamn World Cup - undoubtedly beyond measure the most watched television event on the planet every four years.
Do your math.
Did they not realise that the whole world goes absolutely and entirely ape-shit over it, and made the fatal mistake of following the good ol' Strayan racist/sexist line of thinking that soccer isn't football, and, as the legendary Johnny Warren fondly used to say, it's only a game for Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters anyway.
That's Australia's world view precisely to a tee; it's full of Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, and that covers everyone on the globe, and some have even been known to be all three of them at once!
The problem for Optus is the Wide Brown Land is also chockers with Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, so of course they would be overwhelmed by demand for $15 "live streaming" when there's no other choice.
In days gone by you could happily watch it all on satellite TV at the flick of a switch. [On this occasion, preferably, in an over crowded partisan bar drinking killer quantities of vodka like there's no tomorrow].
But, really, who'd watch it on the dog & bone or plug that blower into a telly - or god forbid, a 'tablet' - at ungodly hours of the morning? What were/are they thinking?
Back in the day here in the "multicultural" heart of "ethnic" Sydney, the people over the back fence put up a satellite dish solely for the purpose of hooking up to the 1998 World Cup in France because SBS was then like a fuzzy analog Ethnic Community Broadcasting Station, and four years later SBS had to do some serious upgrading of their low-powered suburban transmitters and relay stations to bring reliable coverage of the World Cup in Japan and Korea without ghosting to the whole of the Sydney metro area.
That was 15 years ago and there was great rejoicing that clear pictures could finally be had on SBS.
It's beyond doubt that the Special Broadcasting Service is the natural home of soccer, or 'football', or 'wogball' or call it what you will.
Capitalist Running Dogs, Greed & Madness tried to prevail, and yep, failed.
[and, just by-the-by, how much would the ABC be worth in a Stock Market float? - but that's another story...]
That's enough of that, but speaking of the Good Old Days and honest public service, it warms the cockles of the heart of an Old Balmain Supporter to hear that the Best Leb in the Game and prodigal son has made a triumphant return to Leichhardt, after his shamefully disgraceful exile.
It's only right and proper that The Great Robbie Farah should join another Honourary Life Member of the club in The Great Benji Marshall in coming back to their Spiritual Home.
You'll read plenty here from the past about Farah being outrageously hounded out of the club by that ugly human being Jason "Squeak" Taylor - a fool to himself and a burden on the community - who should never have been allowed in through the front gate, let alone as coach, in one of the worst decisions ever made by the board of any football club in any code in the history of the world.
http://crazycraves.blogspot.com/2016_04_24_archive.html
Could go on, but won't.
Everything's now been put right.
But, it is like old home week as it's very difficult to believe - to the point of impossibility - that both Benj and Robbie played in Balmain's winning 2005 Grand Final team, and are still playing 13 seasons later...[from that team, only The Great Chris Heighington is also still going 'round in the twilight of his journeyman career, somehow washing up in Newcastle playing for a pension top-up].
Not that the presence of these two legends of the game is likely to save the Mighty Tiges as it becomes more and more apparent that it will be yet another season cruelled by injury.
Now on the wrong side of the win/loss ledger and outside the Top 8 after the absolute shocker against arch-nemesis Canberra - getting rolled by the Green Machine by 36 points, in a second-half try-a-thon.
Oh well, it's the thought that counts.
WESTS TIGERS 12. Tries: Lawrence, Thompson. Goals Marsters (2).
CANBERRA RAIDERS 48. Tries: Leilua (2), Tapine (2), Austin, Papalii, Cotric, Oldfield, Knight. Goals: Croker (6).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 10,237.
meantime, over in Rules Land, it's time for the mid-season shake out, where the men get separated from the boys, and injury puts previously fancied teams out of the finals equations.
[the AFL, like the NRL, could do with mid-season transfers to the June 30 cut-off date].
In theory, those lying 18th-11th are now "gorn for the season", so there are only ten teams left to fight out the Top 8, with the current top three starting to get away from the pack.
Against a quality side who were running top of the ladder, it was perhaps the Swans most impressive win of the season, and what stuck out for me was their brilliance in the marking contest, taking clean grabs all over the park in a very tough blustery breeze, after it'd been blowing a southerly gale all day straight off the Antarctic ice sheet.
The wind was so tricky all night that My Spy at The Ground remarked that virtually every ball that was kicked along the Bill O'Reilly Stand side of the ground went out-of-bounds on the full.
With Reg Grundy's love child playing out of his mind at his age and anchoring the brick wall down back, and players like Will "The Goal Kicker from North Adelaide" Hayward and Tom "The Pearl" Papley, not to mention the rookie Ben "The Ronk" Ronke, turning into real stars as Buddy just throws his weight around being Buddy up front while the mid-field looks after itself - they're looking as good as they've done all year.
But what a weird match it was - the Swans have not been held goal-less in the first quarter for years [literally] and the Stats Guru is still scratching his head as he whirs the abacus trying to work out the last time a team didn't boot a six-pointer in either the first or last quarters, but still went on to win handsomely and comfortably.
Go figure.
SYDNEY: 0.3, 5.3, 10.6, 10.12 (72). Goals: Franklin 2, Papley 2, Ronke 2, Cunningham, J.P.Kennedy, Jack, Hayward.
WEST COAST: 1.3, 2.7, 5.10, 7.15 (57). Goals: J.Kennedy 2, Yeo 2, Ryan, Waterman, Lycett.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 36,402
