Grizzlers,
How the Mighty Tiges could lose to a team that hadn't won a match in almost a calendar year, after scoring the Try of the Decade! is beyond me. Two kicks and nine sets of hands to put the pill under the black dot, then they took their foot off the pedal, potted a field goal thinking it's all wrapped up - then they lost interest, only to be pipped on the hooter. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in a classic mixed metaphor.
In truth, it's not quite beyond belief - it was complacency pure and simple - and it would never have been allowed to happen at the Spiritual Home in front of a full house. Coach Mr Magoo did not like it. He's wielded the axe, weeding out five passengers, saying he is sick to death of inconsistency. Aren't we all? It's been going on for years. But it was very sad to see The Great Benji Marshall among the scapegoats and dropped for the next game. The Living Legend is not having a bad season, but he's not livid about it. Benj is "shocked and disappointed" as you'd expect and the less said about his replacement in Josh "The Imposter" Reynolds the better. Coach Magoo has either lost his nana, or partaken of mushrooms, or both. Then Benji causes a "bio-security scare" by kissing a female reporter who'd been sent to Balmain to check whether the story really was true. You can't make this shit up. In any case, can someone please tell me what-the-fuck is going on? The only thing certain about any of this is the utter uncertainty about everything. Holy cow.
GOLD COAST TITANS 28. Tries: Proctor, Don, Hipgrave, Kelly, Sami. Goals: Taylor (4).
WESTS TIGERS 23. Tries: Nofoaluma (2), Doueihi, J.Leilua. Goals: Marshall (4). Field Goals: Marshall (1).
Crowd: 0.
At Lang Park, Brisbane.
The AFL makes a triumphant return to the paddock this week, and will struggle big time with no fans. There's more at stake here than in the league, which is a far superior game for television, as the aim is too keep the ball in the centre of the frame - there's not much need for wide shots, let alone panning across the non-existent crowd. The host broadcaster certainly got the cost of the TV rights way way down - while there is not a mug punter in sight and the Fat Lady can't be heard singing. The AFL's suffering revenue took another huge hit, right there. While the excitement among footy fans about the season resumption hasn't exactly reached fever pitch, the players are stuck in a bubble waiting to burst under a no bonking scrubbers regime - surely even they will lose interest soon enough under the circumstances, if not from first game game back. You do have to wonder what they do for their jollies locked up in that hygiene-driven bio-security hub. It's only a matter of time until some idiot busts out of there like a wild boy breaking free. Mark my words.
Being a chardonnay socialist to the bootstraps, my views on letting a few suited corporate types back into their poncy private boxes as the first bunch of spectators allowed in the ground are well known. WTF? That really got on my goat. Rich bastards whose interest in the game is minimal get first suck of the sauce bottle? Really? Utterly outrageous. Splash some cash and the dollar signs on the hungry tills at AFL HQ light up like Xmas trees, while the poor, broke, busted football loving pensioners freeze their arses off in the grimy blocks of inner suburban Melbourne as they wait to be pushed out of the igloo. That's not to mention the die hard fans who renew their club membership year after year after year because that's what their father did, and his father before him. What of them? The rusted-on life-long loyalists? Snubbed, brushed and ignored, they might as well be dead to the Powers That Be for all they care. The honky dollar is king.
Just on a pragmatic basis, with maybe a 1000 limit on spectators, surely you'd have the cheer squads as the first folks back in for a bit of action on the beaters against the advertising hoardings as some opposition loser is attempting a lousy kick at goal, and then going all delirious when he misses. That's what the TV viewer wants. Crazy club lunatics! The ones who make the banner every week, those kind of people - but no, it's oh, thanks for yr decades of work chums, but we forgot about the banners the players run through to get onto the field to start the game. Jesus. If the TV broadcaster really wants action, why not bring back the dancing girls? How old schoolers pine for the long lost good old days and all those terrific dance moves that the Swanettes used to put on. Marvelous stuff. When the crowd limit goes up to a couple more thousand, then you can put on the half-time entertainment! The little leaguers doing the run around, but this time you broadcast the childish madness in full. It'd be terrific! As it is, the color and movement extends to card board cut outs in the stands, complete with the faces of serial killers and even Mein Führer after fans paid to have their images put on the dummies' faces. The last person left in marketing has been taken out the back and shot. At least they didn't use Judy dolls.
The corporate types should be the last people you'd let back into the ground. Have you seen how these entitled people behave? Have you seen the unconscionable conduct they get up to with access to a free full bar? Nah, let the real fans slowly drift back into the ground to resume slurping pies and pouring warm beer over themselves. The NRL will return to "normal" sooner than the AFL too, given a 15K+ crowd is a good one in suburban Sydney, but is unheard of in Melbourne where ordinary games get twice that. The glorious "re-opening" of football is going to get very touchy when The Members start getting antsy about it - and they will - after HQ went without them playing "ghost games". And it's not as if there will be any great rush back either; it won't be a case of open the gates and they will come. Punters will still have the fear up them, with good reason - this coronavirus can kill a dude. "He went to the football, and never came back alive" will become a wild viral meme hashtag thingy. Complacency doesn't only extend to Balmain losing the unloseable game.
