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Deflatee's,
It's probably best to
be flogged in an 10 goal+ football lesson in the Grand Final
than to get done over by a point. That way you can have a quiet
cup of tea and rue the day, and there's no need to call for the
Packer Wacker for the unfortunate fans with heart troubles.
Disaster, catastrophe, eviscerated (as the Guardian put
it) might not have been too harsh; a huge disappointment doesn't
cover it by half, but "how embarrassment" seemed to sum up the
day's tawdry proceedings from beginning to end.
Acres of old growth
forest have already been sacrificed to newsprint for detailed
'expert' analysis of just what went so horribly wrong, so
there's no point adding to the environmental crisis here. It's
just such a shame that no one remembers who came second, ever.
Nobody. That's now been consigned to the 'lil ol' history books
for the Stats Guru's to pore over at their leisure as they do
the things with numbers.
As the burning wreckage
crashed its way to its inevitable demise, it became a game of
how many sporting cliches you could come up with to apportion
blame. "played their grand final last week", "didn't turn up to
play", "left their kicking boots a home", "never had Buckley's"
etc etc et al or according to one of my many Spies at the
Ground, who threw in the astute observation "lost it at the
selection table". Sure was. Some very obvious silly shitty
mistakes were made there that upset the whole apple cart as it
rippled through the playing ranks, and was fatal to whatever
strategy they needed, because, as it was, Plans A, B, & C
never worked. Failed miserably, is another way to put it. It's
never a fabulous idea to go into The Big One half cocked and
pretend you know what yr talking about. But the finger pointing
and recriminations will have to come later, after the third
grand final loss in a row ('14, '16, and now '22). The much
vaunted "Sydney System" gets them through to the finals all the
time, more or less, but the Premiership continues to elude them.
Surely it can't be plain bad luck that they've blown their
chances to win four Grand Finals in a decade and join
the immortals? No heads will roll, but there will be plenty of
navel gazing and casting of the eyes far out to sea during
Sunday Smoko down by the Magic Waters of the Eastern Suburbs sea
baths. Super Coach Horse will have to rub his chin a lot with a
furrowed brow, as he ponders his long term future. He knows
where the buck stops more than anyone.
It's never a pretty
look to witness a team copping a Gigantic Tusk up the runter,
and it started to become a game in my head to try and pinpoint
exactly when we arrived at the juncture where there was
absolutely no question that you could make the definitive call:
ALL HOPE IS LOST. But for those long-sufferers peering into
CH7's Unblinking Eye, it must have been during
three-quarter-time, somewhere between when the camera focused on
The Great Mickey "O", who the papers would have said was
'visibly upset' - bugger that - the poor bloke had been weeping
and when the camera panned across the faces of the deranged,
nay, utterly berserk Geelong Cheer Squad and stopped on a banner
that read vertically in navy blue on white "TOO OLD. TOO SLOW.
TOO GOOD. PREMIERS '22". Or it could have been after the first
bounce. It was abundantly clear from the off the Swans were
playing the best team in the comp who'd won the Minor
Premiership by the length of the street and were on song, having
barely raised a sweat cantering through a Prelim. demolition job
the week before to make That One Day in September as red hot
odds-on favourites who'd had been coached to the very minute.
But in the hubbub of the gargantuan crowd, who was the first to
hear the faint distant strains of the Fat Lady singing? They are
unmistakable.
So, that's another season of the Winter Game done & dusted, won & lost, and the good burghers of Melbourne won't known what do with themselves. Another Mad Monday is under the belt to clear out any chance of horrific recurring nightmares, and soon the thwack of leather on willow will be heard on football grounds across the Wide Brown Land. And in the famous last words of The Philosopher as he nursed this week's favoured tipple in his corner of the Front Bar down at The Local while repeatedly stabbing at the Red & White back page of the paper with his bony finger -- "there's always next year". That's just about the only thing you can't argue with.
GEELONG: 6.5, 9.8, 15.11, 20.13 (133). Goals: Stengle 4, Hawkins 3,
Smith 3, Cameron 2, Close 2, Blicavs, De Koning, Duncan,
C. Guthrie, Parfitt, Selwood.
SYDNEY: 1.0, 4.2, 4.3, 8.4 (52). Goals: Warner 2, Hayward,
McLean, P. McCartin, Mills, Heeney, Papley.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 100,024.
