all over bar the shouting

Pugilists,

Delighted to find myself among the 44 thousand plus punters at the Western Paddock on Saturday night for the return of good old fashioned biffo.
Of course the entire ground was abuzz at half-time, and all the talk of the bars and the smoking lounges was the huge king hit that BBB Hall put on the Staker kiddie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dsiuc169_w
Even though we were in the best cheap seats we have had for years [25 rows back just to the right of the southern goal posts] only saw it out of the corner of my eye, as it was way off the ball, and for most people in the ground, they only realized something was going on when Staker went down like a sack of potatoes and didn’t get up for the ten count.
And then there were words exchanged, and bit of tub thumping and shirt pulling, then the Bamford took an interest and had come in for a chat and taken out the little book; so, clearly, something was going on.
Then the replay appeared, once only, on the big screens around the ground to a collective groan and “oh, dear” from the crowd.
There were dark mutterings from West Coast fans about a “return to the bad old days when he was at St Kilda”, “rub him out for the season”, “anger management” and “weak mongrel”
And yet, the general consensus of opinion at half time among the punters at the ground who actually saw it was that six weeks would be about the right freight.
The Good Lady Wife simply remarked “poor old Barry, he just wants to have a rest for a few weeks”.
Then, with five minutes left in the match, BBB Hall contrives to put himself head first through an advertising hoarding with enough force to break his wrist, to the extent that it needed surgery.
That will keep him out for six weeks at a minimum anyway!
In the hastily cobbled together Sunday afternoon media conference with BBB Hall and SC Roos [who sensibly didn’t say anything of any import] the lunatic blamed the whole incident on a “brain explosion” and said “it looked very ordinary on the replay” and “I will take my medicine”.
No mention of the fact that the replay clearly showed Staker had hit him in the head moments before and was then trying to choke the bloke, and Hall just retaliates with a wild air swing that turned into a very effective left hook, as Staker didn’t see it coming and foolishly put his chin in the way of it.
Can’t blame anyone for that.
Apparently BBB he is not going to plead provocation, or the usual defence that “it was only a bit of a love tap, your Honour, nothing in it”.
Of course, the beaks who run the modern game in Melbourne will take a very dim view of it, but for us old blokes, it got the nostalgia and a hankering for the good old days going.
Immediately reminded me of Murray Weidemann; the enforcer and king hit specialist in the West Adelaide ruck back in the days before video was invented [and yet he did manage to spend a lot of time down at the tribunal].
Others invoked the memory of famous hardmen such as Barry Jarman, Neil Kerley and Mark Jackson.
But, back to the game itself, and it looked won for mine by quarter time after Magic had managed to climb out of his wheelchair and put on a bit of magic at our end, with a couple of majors.
By half time, it was all over bar the shouting, as the result was by then never in doubt.
The Weagles refusal to flood and instead rely on a hard marking-up game left the gate wide open for the Sydney forwards.
As a ten year old boy in front of me heard me barrack “for gawd sake, kick it long! You’ve got a fifty/fifty chance of making it stick”
The boy looked over his shoulder and said “you’re right mate, and they’ve also got a fifty/fifty chance of scoring a hundred” [at that point the Swans score was in the 70’s!]
Captain “never played a bad game” Kirk was all over the ground, The Goodes Train did a few clever things, and at times backs were even playing forward, with the Ugliest Man in Football on fire and playing like a tackling machine out of his mind.
But Marty Mattner was arguably the best on ground, and could well be the best buy the Swans have made for many a season [certainly better than draft pick 28 that they traded for him for – how is draft pick 28 going anyway?]
So early in the season, and a second team is sent packing from Sydney with their tail between their legs after a ten goal football lesson.
Ominous.
Not wanting to be seen in anyway to be advocating or condoning gratuitous on-field violence, but it’s always very satisfying to see the Weagles smashed in more ways than one.
And now the “a bloody point” hoodoo is gorn, good and proper.

SYDNEY SWANS: 4.2, 8.6,12.8, 16.11(107). Goals: O'Loughlin 4, McVeigh 2, Barlow 2, Hall, Mattner, Goodes, O'Keefe, Kirk, J.Bolton, Jolly, Jack.
WEST COAST EAGLES: 1.2, 2.3, 4.5, 5.15(45). Goals: McKinley 4, Armstrong.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 44,235.

Another Wests Tigers game that almost completely passed me by, hearing only snippets of the radio call down in Dad’s Shed.
But spies at the ground suggested it was an absolute shocker.
To be leading 24-10 at half time and then lose the game 30-24 against a team that doesn’t have a whole lot going for it, suggests it could be a very long, injury-cruelled season.
SC Sheens on interview after the game limited his comments to "the next month's going to be a tough month for the club".
Matty Head [who hasn’t played first grade in a long while] who came into the side after Farah was ruled out for a few more weeks with Shagger’s Back, actually brought a very good pin-point kicking game to the team for the first time in weeks, but all the good work was undone as the Tigers somehow how left their entire defensive set up in the shed’s at half time.
SC Sheens certainly as a lot of forelock tugging to do this week, as to lose next week’s 100th anniversary match against the hapless South Sydney Rabbitohs at the Sydney Cricket Ground would be simply unthinkable for any Balmain stalwart

CANBERRA RAIDERS 30 Tries: Purtell [3], Tilse, Tongue, Carney. Goals: Carney [3].
WESTS TIGERS 24 Tries: Harrison [2], Tuiaki, Collis. Goals: Hodgson [4].
At Canberra Stadium.
Crowd: 12,260.