the smokey for the Brownlow

Match officials,

Maybe there is a bit of bite left in the old dog yet.
SC Roos put in a sterling performance in the dugout, a clinical display really, relying heavily on the “How to Coach Australian Rules Football” manual with particular reference to chapter seven “Wet Weather Football” and the appendix “Why coaching finals football is a different bottle of mussels altogether”
Just make sure you kill them in the hit outs, are first to the breakdown every time, team work the clearances, maintain structure in the forward line, and get your act together in the accuracy of kicks in play.
It’s not a very difficult game.
Interesting that SC Roos kept The Goodes Train, Rhino Keefe and BBB “Slugger” Hall inside the 50 for most of the night – eight goals between your best three forwards will always win you football matches.
Cap’n’ Kirk was clearly best on the ground by a long shot.
The Dalai Lama’s Football representative in Australia probably played the best championship quarter of any player in any team all season.
The bloke just went mad.
It was no mistake that eight goals were added to the tally for the quarter on the back of his effort, and the Swans did what you have to do in finals football, close out and put away the opposition.
Vespremi the Emergency was never overawed by the tremendous finals atmosphere at the ground and put in another good showing after squeezing into the 22 with the Birdman picking up Rhino’s mystery virus.
Rhino Keefe has missed just one game all season, and he’s the smokey for the Brownlow for mine.
Mind you, he won’t take the damnable little gong off the Pontiff’s Seed, but he’ll be up there in the count.
The sort of player who gets noticed by the Bamfords.
Speaking of Bamfords, the comical goal umpiring would have been funny if it wasn’t so laughable.
Awarding behinds as goals, and giving goals as behinds
You’d have to wonder if they weren’t in the pay of the bookies, or perhaps they had a few points margin spreadsheets going and were just fine tuning the result.
Don’t expect that the Bullies will be a push over in week two on the wide open spaces at Headquarters, but South owe Footscray a couple, and the opposition could well be mentally damaged after the right spanking they got last week at the hands of the Hawks.
There is nothing like winning form, all the more so in finals.
Much has been said of the appalling crowd figure, but it’s simple really, Sydneysiders will not under any circumstances pay outrageous ticket prices just to get a wet arse watching a team widely regarded as a spent force.
The marketing boffins at the AFL must be tearing their hair out, given that some fool decided it would be a good idea to have a second Sydney team.
Launceston will just be going…”see, told you so…”

SYDNEY: 1.5, 4.6, 12.7, 17.8 (110). Goals: Hall 3, Jack 3, Goodes 3, O'Keefe 2, Moore 2, McVeigh, Veszpremi, Malceski, Richards,
NORTH MELBOURNE: 4.1, 6.4, 10.5, 11.9 (75). Goals: Harvey 2, Grant 2, Lower 2, Hale 2, Petrie, Thompson, Sinclair,
Crowd:19,127.
[Worst for VFL/AFL finals football since 1924 or 1917?]


Otherwise engaged at the Opera Hoos for the Fathers Day matinee of the Strayan Chamber Orchestra doing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, or some such trifle, so yet again missed the entirety of the Tiger’s television coverage from the Gold Coast for the final match up of the home and away season.
By all accounts, Hoddo was given a proper send-off with a very solid win on the back of a last gasp team performance, on account of it hadn’t got into their thick heads last week that they were all playing for contracts with just one shot left in the bolt.
Benji reportedly had another good game against his old nemesis and former team mate That Bastard Scotty Prince, but on Mad Monday he was wrapped up in cotton wool by the Club Secretary, who thrust a schooner of Drambuie into his hand, and told him to have a good hard think about yet again re-inventing himself in the off–season.
Hoddo had a few light beers and a puff on an old pipe, confident in the knowledge that he can now go and pick up his fat pension at Huddersfield without anyone noticing very much.
SC Sheens lurked around on the sidelines, with no shortage of blokes to pour him a beer out of the jug, thinking “let ‘em go and get on it, most of them have tried their best”.
The problem was, their best was not good enough.
A season once again essentially cruelled by injury.
All the name props had had season enders by mid season, and Fulton was gone early, accounting for the entire first pick front row, and the forward pack never recovered from the disarray after that.
The club would have been lucky to play anyone in every home and away game.
Can’t name any off the top of my head.
Lawrence perhaps?
Hoddo, Benji, Farah, Blud Nut, Tuiaki, Johnny Morris, Collis, etc etc all had time out for niggles.
Whoever was running the Wests Tigers web site had the decency and sense to maintain a section called the “Holler for a Marshall [Batteries] Injury Report”, which carefully documented the state of the sick bay under Player, Injury Date, Expected Return, Injury Details.
There were just too many names listed under the Expected Return column with the single word “season”.
It did not help that the team also found themselves carrying a couple of passengers in almost every game, neither did the progression of local juniors who apparently did nothing that warranted them even being considered, let alone picked, for the first grade team.
The Football Development Department would have surely worked out that there’s a paucity of exciting youngsters in the Balmain District and they will have to look further afield.
Apart from the total rebuild required in the forwards, they’ll have to pay good money for a name half back and a talented full back if there is to be any chance in ’09.
But that’s a long way off, like tomorrow always seems to be.
Tenth must be a very disappointing result for SC Sheens, after spending the early part of the season in the top four, and the latter half clinging on for dear life to the top eight.
It just didn’t work out.
Oh well, as we always say in our household when things go wrong, TB Too Bad.


GOLD COAST TITANS 12. Tries: Prince, Delaney. Goals: Prince (2).
WESTS TIGERS 28. Tries: Moltzen (2), Lawrence, Tuiaki, Ryan. Goals: Hodgson (4).
At Robina Stadium, Gold Coast.
Crowd: 20,723.