Casual Observers,
Rolled in through the front door of my gaff having just touched down at KSA after a six-and-a-half hour flight across the sheer vastness of the Pacific from Apia, and clicked on the telly, only to see that there were four and a half minutes left in the Swans/Pies match at HQ, and that there was nothing in it, and thought to myself "Oh no! Sweet Weepin' Jesus upon The Cross! The Heat Attack Kids are at it again."
Just had time to drop my bag and gawk in fear of the wheels falling off with three losses in a row, when the Childe Tommy McCartin somehow got boot to ball just outside the goal square and the pill rolled through the big sticks with a flailing Magpie fully-sprawled on the ground but not able to put a finger-tip on it; the Goal Bamford gave the two fingered salute, waved the flags and the Fat Lady sang.
Note the scorebox tells the story that it is always the third quarter, The Championship Quarter, "The Champo" that more often than not decides football matches, with the Swans booting five big ones, while keeping the Woods to just three behinds.
On interview post-match, SC Horse identified The Champo as where the side kept their hopes alive of not slipping out of the Top 8, and when asked about Buddy being thrashed a bit more than usual on the training track and then kicking six goals - more than half the team's total - Longmire simply replied "Franklin played well".
Also of note was the triumphant return of Alex Johnson, the quintessential Comeback Kid.
It was six years since he last played a game of seniors - six years - absolutely rooted by injury, he was...time and time and time again.
SC horse noted that Johnno had become the Honorary Boss Cocky of Sick Bay, seeing he'd spent so much farkin' time in there, and blabbed on about how he was good for kiddies going through Rehab and dealing with the psychological impact of long term injury.
He's probably put Callum "Saw" Mills in the Room Full of Mirrors down on the Balmain Road and given him a damn good talking to.
Gawd help him, Johnson did his left anterior cruciate in 2013 and has had a knee ever since, enduring not one, not two, no, but five knee reconstructions after the first two were hopelessly botched, and he then got dropped from the Swans roster before being re-drafted as a rookie at age 26.
A lesser man would have given the game away long before now.
On interview after the game Johnno was was asked the ridiculously stoopid question on whether he could name all the players he played with in his last game - the 2012 Grand Final victory - of course he could - rattling off the monikers in quick smart fashion for television.
Also of note was the Wagga boy Harry Cunningham playing his 100th game for the Swans.
Cunningham is yet another one of those super reliable performers who always plays under the radar, and can reel off a hundred games without anyone really noticing.
Harry's had the odd quiet one, but he's probably never had a bad game, even after missing most of last year with a foot, which is still giving him taffy.
The run home is not what you'd call easy by an stretch of the imagination for Sydney [8th], with Melbourne [4th] away at the G in a last gasp practice for the finals, then the Battle of the Bridge [Pygs 3rd] at Spotto!, then not bloody Hawthorn [5th] abloodygain, before going headlong into the maelstrom that is September. Woo.
Stave off Mad Monday for as long as you can, Lads - that's all you can do at this stage of proceedings - there's no opportunity left to play Ducks & Drakes.
Just a footnote on the Andrew Gaff [what a wonderfully appropriate name] v Andrew Brayshaw Perth Stadium altercation, that was quickly dubbed as "a moment of football madness".
By most reports - but not all - Gaff had had a "brain explosion" and OK, clocking a bloke cold well behind play, sending a few teeth flying and busting the poor bastard's jaw is a pretty low-dog act, and he got rubbed out for eight weeks for it, which is just about the right freight for mine, although you could argue that ten games is closer to half a season and would have sent a good message to jnr footballers that that sort of rubbish is just not on, but why oh why on earth do the Blowies in the Meejah still have to bring up that hoary ol' chestnut - the Barry Hall v Brent Staker king hit way back in 2008 - as if it's some kind of time-honoured benchmark of horrendousness, when there is simply no comparison?
Is that now all that Big Bad Barry will ever be remembered for?
Staker was a very well known serial pest who would just not shut up, and Bazza had simply had enough of him on the day, so he decked Staker simply to give him a fat lip to close his potty-mouthed gob, so he was unable to continue with his continual drivel-like sledging.
If you have a look at the archival footage, after Staker had gone down, BBB assumed the classic Barry Hall pose of both arms outstretched to the crowd as if to say "Wot? Me? What'd I do?"
Lance Frankin does it every time a free kick is awarded against him.
As Staker himself said of the wack on Perth radio mid-week "I've got no idea how it didn't draw claret".
Barry must be absolutely sick to death of that one being bought up every damn time someone gives somebody one on the chops, putting his stellar, if slightly troubled, career in the shade.
Will no one remember Bazza as the only bloke to have kicked a hundred goals or more for three different clubs, being an All-Australian four times, and yes friends, he actually did Captain the Swans in the Grand Final of the Miracle Year 2005, not mention being a fully paid up Life Member of the AFL, or that he's an inductee into the freakin' AFL Hall of Fame - Hall's in the Fame - for crying out loud.
His Very Big Badness has been firmly ensconced in the Swans' Pantheon for many years anyway, regardless of his foibles.
All is forgiven, remember?
SYDNEY: 3.2, 4.4, 9.6, 11.7 (73). Goals: Franklin 6, Dawson 2, Kennedy, Ronke, McCartin.
COLLINGWOOD: 4.1, 7.3, 7.6, 10.11 (71). Goals: Varcoe 4, Hoskin-Elliott 2, Cox, Daicos, Sidebottom, B.Grundy.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 39,238.
There is always a particular pleasure to be derived from the Mighty Balmain Tiges beating the hapless Newcastle Knights away.
The International Sports Centre in Newcastle has an ambivalent place in my heart; going there many times as a cub sports reporter during my time living in "Newy", but as a partisan Tiges spectator the last time the ground was graced with my presence it just so happened that moi was very seriously pissed throughout, and the only memory that remains is that Balmain lost.
But my abiding memory of the joint was back in 1990, attending a crucial game and having the misfortune of sitting on the hill with a small group of other Balmain fans, and we were targeted throughout by the local rowdies at the back of the hill, and in the second half when it became well apparent that Newcastle were going to lose, Knights supporters started to gob on us, and it'll be very hard to forget, let alone forgive, leaving the ground with a Balmain cap covered in the spittle of Newcastle fans - all class, those people.
So it was with delight that my portable light-weight bush telegraph that I had transported to Samoa lit up with the words from My Spy at The Ground: "Tigers up by 9. Newcastle lose at home, again".
What with jet lag and the time difference, it would have been a tough ask to see the Friday night game live on the satellite TV in some dingy bar in Apia, and while Samoans playing in the Rugby League are very well respected at home, it's Rugby Union that is undoubtedly king; everywhere you go you see hand-painted signs saying GO MANU! [the name of the national team].
In the meantime, there are few things worse in football than some utter utter bastard club sacking their useless coach, and then coming along blatantly trying to steal the coach of the team you support.
And it's happening as we speak.
Penrith punted Anthony Griffen as Head Honcho after the weekend with immediate effect for some entirely inexplicable unexplained reason as his team is well inside the Top 8 at the pointy end of the season, and then come out publicly and say they have put a handsome three year contract on the table for the Balmain coach Ivan "Clearly It's" Cleary.
Hang on a bit here, doesn't Cleary have another two-and-a-half years left on his contract at Leichhardt?
Little wonder the Balmain Club Secretary, Justin Pascoe, told the Panthers they could shove that idea clean up their runter, informing the fishwraps "this club will not be pushed aside or bullied or railroaded by anyone" and "we're not going to let anyone come in and just poach our coach without a fight and we're going to fight tooth and nail to keep Ivan. We're not going to release him."
Go in hard Pascoe, take no nonsense.
Who cares if Cleary's son Nathan is the star half-back at Penrith? Or that going back to the foot of the mountains would turn the wagon wheel full circle?
Penrith sacked Cleary after they narrowly avoided the Wooden Spoon at the end of the 2015 season, for Chrissake - and now they want him back? All is forgiven? WTF?
That's something virtually unheard of in the entire history of the rugby league universe; re-hiring sacked coaches.
It's obviously that devious shonky buffoon Phil "Gus" Gould who's behind all of this - 110% - so here's hoping that dead-set shyster is in for yet another massive fail.
Up yours, Chocolate Soldiers.
NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS 16. Tries: Mata'utia, Ponga, Guerra. Goals: Sio (1).
WESTS TIGERS 25. Tries: Packer, Brooks, Farah. Goals: Marsters (7). Field Goals: Brooks (1).
At International Sports Centre, Newcastle.
Crowd: 18,561.
