Rabid Loyalists,
And so, after a winter of comfortable-enough content, we come to the pointy end of the season.
But first things first.
The result of the Collingwood-Hawthorn match was so obviously rigged in a crude attempt to diddle Sydney out of a home final, it wasn't funny.
Not even remotely funny.
Why didn't the stewards call for the betting sheets?
Where are the calls for a Royal Commission into the bare-faced scandal?
With the Collingwood Mafia running the show, it was no skin off their nose that, in the end, the Hawks got the rough end of the pineapple from the Swans, and were despatched to Subiaco in the first week of the finals.
Of course, if Collingwood had won the game, Sydney could have lost to the Bears in Brisbane, and still hosted a home final.
On being informed, the GLW simply remarked "farking hell!".
As it was, it came down to a simple equation: Sydney wins = home final, Sydney loses = MCG final...no other permuations.
Armed with that knowledge, the Coach'n'Horses made sure the game plan was precisely written, while SC Roos was off doing what he has been doing best behind the scenes in the last half of the season - putting a rocket up those playing in reserve grade, taking it upon himself to coach the rookies, and telling them where to get a good breakfast with the caveat "there will be papers in there, son. don't read 'em."
And the pay off has been perfectly timed.
For the first time this seson, Malceski eschewed the long sleeved jumper in favour of the regular short sleeved tunic, no doubt a nod to the tropical conditions at the Gabba.
Probably wound up best on ground, although the Canadian Tall Timber in Mike Pyke could easily lay claim to man-of-the-match as well, as he found himself half a foot over the top in the ruck everytime, and got close to 100% of the hit outs.
The ol' rah rah boy even got a few kicks and took some good marks in general play.
Little wonder they stitched him up to a new contract mid-week, with the sharks from the Gold Coast on the lookout out for a ruckman, circling.
Pleasing to note that Malceski has earned selection in the long list for the All Australian Team, while the odds on favourite Pretty Boy Hannebery picked up the Rising Star Gong.
Minor rewards for seasons well done.
SC roos will not countenance any comparison to the Miracle Year 2005.
Quite right too.
As he points out, it's easy to forget the Swans won the flag in the Miracle Year from fourth on the ladder.
Winning it from fifth is a different bottles of mussels altogether.
Going into the finals on the back of a four game winning streak means that winning in week one would constitute a late season purple patch, but then to win three more, all away, with the guarantee that you will come up against a top four side in the last two games to win the Premiership, and it's apparent that that's a very hard road to hoe.
As The Philosopher, forever the pessimist, puts it "probability is always be against you. winning 8 on the trot's slim on the sliding scale. the longer you go on winning the more prone you are to the 'due for a loss' syndrome"
The Goodes Train has a longer memory, harking back to 2003, when the Swans also had a nice mix of yoof and experience and a good bunch of junior players, who are now the senior players [those that hung on and lasted the distance that is, or what's left of them], and made the finals in 4th that year too, against all expectations, and then fell at the penultimate hurdle.
Aiming to go one better, and then give the game away.
Look at the scorebox and the young kiddies in the side kicked nine of the 16 goals, among the 12 individual goal kickers.
Five goals to two behinds in the Championship Quarter will win you any game of football every time.
It's not complicated, is it?
BRISBANE LIONS 3.2 6.5 6.7 10.8 (68). Goals: Brennan 2, Proud, Staker, Adcock, Polkinghorne, Power, Hanley, Banfield, Collier.
SYDNEY 4.1 6.4 11.9 16.10 (106). Goals: Jack 3, Dennis-Lane 3, Goodes, Meredith, J Bolton, Kennedy, McVeigh, Jetta, Malceski, O'Keefe, Shaw, Reid.
At Brisbane Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 24,789.
SC Sheens is a certified grand master at dragging a fishy-smelling red herring across the path, when it suits his purposes.
Witness him wheeling Benji out for the press mid-week last week, where Benji swore black-and-blue, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, that he was going to reign in the jink, the weave and the step and take a more sensible approach to his attacking football.
And what does he do?
Blows away the smoke and mirrors to play an absolute blinder, featuring, at it's very best, you gessed it, the jink, the weave, the step
Brilliant!
Had a hand or a foot in everything that went on in the backline.
Only goes to prove that he's been craftily building up for the finals for the best part of a month.
Fitter than ever and has also put on a few kilo's in order to get down to final business.
"Come and get me".
If Ellis is not the best second rower going around in the comp, then blow me down and tickle me with a feather.
Can't think of a much better one since '05.
Found myself too slow out of the blocks on Sunday morning and the 445 bus timetable conspiring against me to make it to Leichhardt Oval.
They are my excuses, anyway.
Probably a good thing too in retrospect, as 20,000 in at the Spiritual Home is less than two thousand short of the ground record and downright uncomfortable; 16-17-18 is very squeezie at the best of times.
Got no further than The Local.
Where the usual suspects were arrayed along the Front Bar, the big bastard brown brothers, the odd student of the game, a few reprobates, a couple of old fashioned drunkards, and The Philosopher sitting in his usual corner nursing this week's favoured tipple - a vodka & tonic with a twist of lemon.
Marshall's first try of the match was without doubt the best of the season in terms of ingenuity, opportunism and execution.
Forgot to mention, there was also an art critic in the bar.
He kept on yelling out as the first try was being scored "oh, the hands! the hands! oh! the hands!", in an obvious reference to the number of passes made conveying the ball to the in-goal, and how it became a thing of beauty in its own right.
The brown brothers were slapping each other on the back, nodding and winking and saying "not bad for a Kiwi, eh, bru?"
The Tigers pack can mix it with any other, no matter how big they are -- you wouldn't want to meet Todd "the Refrigertor" Peyton in a dark alley -- while the backs will out-razzle and out-dazzle all the centre-three-quarters in the caper.
A win against the Titans (a) in the last game of home and away will see the Tiges finish in second, with the minor premiership now out of reach.
That'd be good form on the way in, and the saloon passage afforded [in theory anyway] by the weird Hare-Clarke-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis finals system to the teams finishing one and two -- clean through to week three.
The September prospects are therefore looking bright.
The smart money certainly thought so after this week's flood of money at the books on Balmain, who have got under the bagman's radar in recent weeks.
Odds slashed in half across the board.
The Philosopher remained mute throughout the match, as is his wont.
When pressed by the brown brothers after the game for his opinion on the Marshall performance, the sage remarked:
"He'll do. If they can keep the Kiwi and & That Pom fit, they'll lift the Winfield Cup."
Wise words that are hard to argue with.
WESTS TIGERS 26. Tries: Marshall (3), Farah, Fifita. Goals: Marshall (3).
MELBOURNE STORM 14. Tries: Hoffman, Isa, O'Neill. Goals: Smith (1).
At Leichhardt Oval.
Crowd: 20,168.
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