Richmond 'immortal', Jack Titus. c.1934.
Weepers,
There was a bit of song and dance made about Lance Franklin going past the Matthew Lloyd benchmark to now have kicked 928 goals in his wild career.
Everyone was quite rightly getting themselves in a lather celebrating the magnificence of the man, but one of the boffins on the Commentariat on the telly made some good sense for a change..."Franklin might be the last man ever to kick a thousand goals"..." you look around now and it's hard to think of anyone else who could do it". Food for thought. It had the Stats Guru scurrying for the abacus to get the beads whirring. Then, as you wind back down the all-time great goal kickers, the next best active player is Jack Riewoldt - one of those ones from that family of hard bastards down Hobart way - who has 608 goals to his name. That's way way off the pace. Then as the abacus slows down even more you get to some old men in the likes of Eddie Betts, JP Kennedy, The Rough Head, and Tom "Fucking" Hawkins down there in the 500's. All of them, from Buddy down, are north of 30 years old in a young bloke's caper, so they're in the twilight of their careers, and they'll get nowhere near the thousand. And to think, there was some trash talking going on about Franklin being sick of losing and wanting to move on, which was promptly scotched as poppycock by skipper K.Jack, who well knows Buddy's nine year contract is heavily backloaded; the longer he plays on, the more cash he gets, and there's no other club who'd be prepared to trump the price of the Swan's best paid player by a country mile. As it stands, there's no doubt Lance will be the biggest earner in all the AFL in 2020.
Buddy needs quite a few more to get past the Great Jack Titus [970 goals]; he of the stellar career with Richmond, the 1930's freak full-forward and superstar who could play all day and score goals from anywhere, but the fully running drop kick from a half-forward flank was among his favourites. The drop kick vanished from the game in the late 70's as outmoded; it'd still be a sure fire way to drill the pill through the big ones, but you can't find the room, let alone the wide open spaces required for it anymore. Titus also met an unusual end for an immortal, dropping dead at the age of 70 in 1978 in the front bar of his pub, the Limerick Castle in North Melbourne, after he had ejected a troublesome patron half an hour earlier.
The full-forward position has fallen in and out of favour for decades as the game's evolved, but it has now been made well and truly redundant. There's not much place anymore for long range pin-point play onto the running chest of a big bad full-forward, when you've got ankle-biters constantly at yr heels and other smalls who rummage around like rats in a rolling maul pinging off the crumbs for six pointers from left right and centre. Of course, the Glory Days of singing "there's only one Tony Lockett" have gone away, that's a shame. He was the motherload. But, everyone knew at the time that we'd never see anything like it again.
Kieren Jack playing in his 250th is also a remarkable achievement, more so given the Jack name holds some special meaning in this household. K.Jack comes from another family of hard bastards and is of course the spawn of one of the greatest rugby league full-backs to ever play the game, Garry Jack. My first born would have been named Jack if she was a boy, in honour of the Great Garry, who played 244 games for Balmain in the heydays of the late 80's. Can still remember being a bit late for the game, walking through the Mary Street gates at Leichhardt Oval and seeing Jack Snr effortlessly insert himself into the Balmain back line, throw a perfect dummy, and just flick away a couple of defenders to score a trademark try under the black dot without so much as a hand being laid on him. He was also one of the dirtiest players of his era; a specialist in the Christmas Hold, the Squirrel Grip and the Clothesliner Tackle; knew every trick in the book and as a result got his block knocked off by opposition players on a regular basis. The club doctor lost count early in his long career of how many times he'd broken his nose, but he was left with a seriously disfigured face for his trouble. Garry was no oil painting to begin with and ended up looking like a Picasso. Kieran inherited his hardnuttedness from his father, but he's nearing the end of his stellar career in "that other game" at almost 32, and knows it. It's only a matter of time until the body gives out. And it seems that the Jack clan has been torn apart by an ugly irretrievable long-standing family feud. No happy endings there for anyone. Shit happens.
The less said about the game they played in the better - an absolute coach killer. The Swans are all at sea, without a rudder, and spent most of the night sailing around in circles beating themselves. My Spy at The Ground lamented "
Gently eased ajar the door to the Front Bar down at The Local on Monday morning and the Philosopher caught me peeking in. He was in his usual corner nursing this week's favoured tipple, a Harvey Wallbanger, but before any pleasantries could be exchanged he gave me a salute which looked more like a 'talk to the hand' and exclaimed "Horse!? Won't be there by the end of May".
RICHMOND 3.3, 9.5, 11.9, 13.11 (89). Goals: Martin 3, Caddy 2, Lambert 2, Balta 2, Rioli, Ellis, Baker, Castagna.
SYDNEY 2.1, 4.2, 6.3, 10.7 (67). Goals: Franklin 4, Heeney 2, Papley, Kennedy, Parker, Reid.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 40,053.
Tried to buy tickets about two weeks out for the opening match at the brand spanking new Western Sydney Stadium at Parramatta. No chance. All but sold out. Only single seats available up in the Gods. The 30,000 seater was built to replace the creaking Parramatta Stadium that had a nominal 24,000 capacity and was opened by The Queen in 1986. To be honest it was a pretty crap ground from the off, and ended up being demolished as an un-mantainted basket case 31 years later. Thinking the Parramatta Club Secretary tried to auction off a few bricks as mementos, but no-one was interested as they weren't that old.
Before the Parramatta Stadium, the ancient Cumberland Oval sat on the site. The grandstand was burnt to the ground on the night of the 1981 Grand Final, when north of 15,000 Parramatta supporters had gathered in and around the adjacent Leagues Club to get on the grog big time to celebrate the club's first ever premiership after beating Newtown in the decider. It turned into a gigantic swirling drunken riot. Late in the night, no-one can be quite sure when, the picket fence was torn down and the grandstand went up in flames - the fire brigade couldn't get through the mass of newted humanity, and not a stick was left standing. No-one claimed responsibility, but it is clear Parra fans had burnt down their own home ground; whether by accident or design is still a matter of conjecture.
The new joint by all reports has the very latest bells & whistles and is heavily raked in today's popular fashion for the "cauldron" effect, so the spectators are right on top of the players. Not a bad seat in the house. The legal maximum incline of spectator stands is apparently 34°, otherwise inebriated patrons would tumble down the seating with beers flying and arms and legs flailing knocking people out of their seats as they go, so they built it at 33.94°. They've even gone retro and installed a thousand "safe standing" slots for the diehards who prefer to scream their lungs out while standing up. You'd expect there'd be a Public Bar somewhere around there up the back of standing room. The final bill will come in at somewhere between $330-$360M, and strangely enough it's not privatised. The NSW Govt. is the landlord who lease it to the promoters. The new paddock opened with no fanfare at all - there was a scantily publicised public open day walk thru' the weekend prior, and that's it. No one cut no ribbons, it seems. Nevertheless, the Slippery Eels were involved in some trash talking of their own, proudly declaring they would make their new home ground their "fortress".
The less said about the opening game at the third incarnation of the ground the better, but Parra made good on their promise and thrashed the Mighty Tiges absolutely fookin' senseless. Balmain must have been over-awed and over-whelmed by the glittering occasion of a full house. There is just no other explanation for the shocking scoreline, after a strong win over Brisbane the previous week. It was made worse by the fact that Tigers turncoat and allround badass, Mitchell Moses, not only scored the first try and kicked the first goal at the new venue, he then in a shameful display of high cheek, gave the visitors the bird and potted a field goal for the meaningless extra point in the final seconds of the game just so his name could go in the record books for all time. There's a name for jokers like that. The Balmain boys who never cry could not do any worse this year even if they tried.
PARRAMATTA EELS 51. Tries: Jennings (2), Moses, Takairangi, Salmon, Kaufusi, Mahoney, Sivo, Lane. Goals: Moses (7). Field Goals: Moses (1).
WESTS TIGERS 6. Tries: Matulino. Goals: Marsters (1).
At Western Sydney Stadium, Parramatta.
Crowd: 29,049. (ground record).
View from the Gods. Western Sydney Stadium inaugural NRL match. Easter Monday 2019. Photo: Gregg Porteous/NRL.
