Speculators,
Super Coach Horse is the master strategist; we know that.
But you can imagine the gasps of horror a fortnight or so ago, when he decided at the last minute to leave Buddy and Luke "'Parker!" Parker in the stands for the crucial game against Hawthorn and a crack at the double chance in the finals.
After saying there was no room left for playing Ducks & Drakes, we all cried out - what was he thinking resting [managing, wrapping in cotton wool, or whatever] the All-Strayan Captain and the best-on-ground from the previous week? So what if they're riddled with niggles? Give 'em a needle.
In retrospect, though, it was a simple ploy. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Horse is a genius. It's now bleeding obvious that Longmire had long concluded that the double-chance was all but jack-shit worthless.
There was little or no point in beating Hawthorn in the final match of the minor round to finish 4th, as that would have only set up a meeting with the run-away Minor Premiers and red hot faves for The Flag, Richmond, in the qualifying final.
Nothing to be gained there, as Those Bastards from Punt Road would most likely have had the Swans like kippers for breakfast, and they would then go into the second week of the finals as losers.
So, why not manufacture yet another heart-stopping cliff-hanger of a typical Cardiac Kids narrow loss to the Hawks and drop down to 6th, and then get into death fight with the down-on-their-luck injury-ravaged out-of-form Greater Western Sydney Pygmies, who the Swans easily beat away three weeks ago?
Good thinking, 99.
After week one of the finals it's all sudden death anyway, and it's much better to go into that a winner, baby, and delay a meeting with Richmond until the Prelims - you never know, anything could happen, the wheels might fall off the Dusty Martin Juggernaut in the interim.
It's all rather clever. Now they just need some more football spies - intelligence gathering and planting fake news goes on all season, but it's now at a premium.
The only conceivable fly in the ointment in the gin-soaked Master Plan is the damnable SCG, and having to play a bloody final there.
What a shit-hole of the home ground that is.
Of the Swans eight losses this season, no less than six were suffered at home. WTF? That qualifies as a hoo-doo in the making.
Its' still difficult to believe Sydney reneged on the final year of their contract to play three home games at Cathy Freeman Stadium, where their record has been excellent. Why? Too close to Sydney's armpit and the GWS "heartland?". Just across the road from Spotto? No one from the Eastern Suburbs will travel there? There's nothing wrong with the ground.
And the Swans can't play at the MCG for nuts, either.
But that's neither here nor there at the minute.
When it's all said and done, it's an eight-armed octopus from here on in, until seven are rudely chopped off, leaving but one curling the cup aloft.
The Stats Guru was aghast when he read that some bloke that no one has ever heard of, "sports data scientist Darren O'Shaughnessy" - who's apparently been running the algorithms over the writhing Cephlapod - came up with the following predictions based on irrefutable pure mathematics:
Sydney Swans
43.4% chance of winning the first final.
3.3% chance to make it to the grand final.
1.0% chance of winning the grand final.
The Guru asked "how come the Swans aren't 100/1 down at the books, then? The best you can get on The Red and The White winning against all odds is 15/1".
He whipped out the abacus, set it a'whirring, ran all the combinations along the beads yet again, and when asked about the calculations of Sydney's chances of being triumphant on that One Day in September, replied "anyone can win on their day, so, ah, about 50/Fifty, even money."
HAWTHORN: 2.4, 3.6, 7.8, 12.11 (83). Goals: Puopolo 3, Gunston 2, Henderson 2, Morrison, Roughead, Worpel, Breust, Schoenmakers.*
SYDNEY: 2.3, 6.7, 8.8, 10.14 (74). Goals: Heeney 2, Papley 2, Sinclair, Cunningham, Kennedy, Jack, Florent, McCartin.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 39,660.
Meantime, over in rugby league la-la land, any tiny mathematical chance the Mighty Tiges had of making the Top 8 were kept slightly alive with the 22-20 win over the Silvertails from Manly-Warringah, but all hope was finally dashed by other results, and in the final match of the 24 game season, Balmain suffered the appalling indignity of being flogged mercilessly by the hated evil arch-rivals South Sydney to the cricket score tune of 51-10 in a miserable denouement.
On that form alone, the Rabbitoh's are a top chance of taking the pennant, for mine.
In the final paralysis, The Tiges finished 9th on the ladder, two wins out of the finals, with a negative for/against. Suppose that's better than 14th last year, and even though home crowd numbers are up, that's the seventh consecutive Winter of Discontent without a finals appearance for us long-suffering die-hards.
Given Balmain's last game of the season was on a Thursday night, at least the players had a full four days to celebrate Mad Monday, and any atrocities that did occur were insufficient to rate a mention in the papers in Sydney - where becoming a disgraceful drunken rabble is de rigueur.
Coach Clearly It's Cleary's methodology of basing the game almost entirely on defence early in the season was all very well and good, but as the year got out to the pointy end, numbers on the scoreboard started to count against them coming up against good attacking sides, who all made the top 8.
Those with a negative percentage, apart from the Tiges, all deservedly finished in the bottom 6.
It's very pleasing to see that club Life Members, The Great Robbie "The Best Leb in the Game" Farah and The Great Benji Marshall, both sign on for another year in 2019, at the ages of 35 and 34 respectively. Only Farah has said that 2019 will be his last season. Benji, of course, thinks he's immortal, and why not?
It's just fine and dandy to have some sage old football brains and legends of the game hanging around the club to teach the young kiddies right - but where are the new generation of children coming from?
Crikey. Even Chris "The Try Scoring Freak" Lawrence might go around again at age 30.
Luke Brooks will do nicely at half-back thank you very much, and the mid-season buy of The Gambian, Moses Mbye, as a full-back utility was an astute long-term move, but apart from the 6'4" 115kg Samoan Refrigerator in Ben Matulino in the front row, the pack needs more oomph, and the backline could do with extra pace and punch in the outside centres and out on the wings, where they were found out this season.
And the much-heralded marquee buy, Josh Reynolds, proved to be an absolute shocker as he was completely rooted by injury throughout and hardly played a game.
All things the Club Secretary has to consider very closely in the off-season.
Longtime Loyalists are sick and tired of weeping into our beers, and you can lay to that.
SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 51. Tries: Jennings, Reynolds, Crichton, Walker, Graham, Johnston, T.Burgess, Sutton. Goals: Reynolds (8), Clark (1). Field Goals. Reynolds (1).
WESTS TIGERS 10. Tries: Lawrence, Nofoaluma. Goals: Marsters (1).
At Sydney Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 12,037.
