Bleachermen,
No news is good news from Swan Lake.
Barely a ripple on the millpond.
Determined not to be noticed.
No idea what the lads got up to on the weekend [while Adelaide tidied up Fremantle, and Collingwood and West Coast bashed each other senseless] despite my best efforts, it's a tightly held secret, so can't tell you.
The Marketing Dept forced Coach Horse to come out of his stall Monday with a whip and give a perfunctory press conference in which he proceeded to throw no light on anything.
And why would you?
Best to keep your plans to yourself and not give anything away, especially as the joint is always thick with football spies at business time.
There'd be blokes surreptitiously peeping through gaps in the fence at the opposition's training paddock, lurking in shadows and in nearby pubs getting loose lips to talk, going through the garbage out the back of the opponent's Club Secretary's office, brown envelopes would change hands, that sort of thing; in this day and age they are probably hacking each other's mobile phones.
Only secure fixed lines will do.
All time while they spread rumours and disinformation about the opposition to a gullible press crying out for a good story.
Spying is a time honoured tradition at this time of year, and those involved are generally well rewarded, if they don't just do it for the game and the honour of the club.
In public, tt's best to say in Hogan's Heroes style "I know nothing!".
Mr Ed did however, when asked about the Collingwood hoodoo, put himself in the here and now for a minute by saying "we've had a good look at what happened in the Collingwood game a few weeks back and taken some lessons from that, but in the end what happens this week is the only thing that matters".
He'd base his thinking on the fact that they've dispensed with the Adelaide hoodoo, so... to get to the last game of the season, they just have to do the same against the Pies.
It's not rocket science.
All the team needs to do is turn up on the day ready to play.
The rest will look after itself.
And besides, the Woods hold no fears on the evidence of the last outing, they'll be buggered after West Coast sorted them out physically...the Weagles in the denoument were thinking - OK- we've lost this and we're done for the year, but just because they are Collingwood, we'll give them a frightful bashing as a little something to go on with.
They weren't thinking about doing Sydney any favours, no sirree, but thanks very much anyway.
Collingwood also have injury clouds and one of the rumours suggests that they'll play a couple of blokes, mainly Didak and Dawes, who'll be picked and risked at 75-80% fitness.
Won't be difficult to put a hard tag on blokes struggling with niggles, and then get on with the job.
And the entire Collingwood squad is required to attend John McCarthy's funeral on Thursday.
Marvellous match preparation, that.
Tickets are in hand due to the sterling work of Trev, the Country Member, who was entitled to 24 seats in the Member's pre-sale.
It's always been that way, but still aghast at the blatant price gouging that goes on in the third week of the finals.
The rather good general admission concourse area reserved for ordinary non-Member Swans fans that usually goes for about $25 during the regular season, suddenly becomes reserved Silver seating at $99.50 a pop.
Lord Crikey!
Finishing in the top four certainly gives you access to the rivers of gold and the opportunity to fill the coffers to overflowing.
The Club Secretary must be rolling about in pineapples.
The crowd could be anything, though.
Under normal circumstances, 50K would be par for a Collingwood game, but with the high ticket prices, and the Friday night game making it difficult for Pies fans to travel, that might be about it.
Still, 20,000 seats were sold in the pre-sale by all accounts, and the Emerald City is full of Collingwood ex-patriots; long time economic refugees, mainly, who can be relied upon to turn up enmass.
The AFL ground record of some 74,000 odd is unlikely to be threatened, you would have thought, given that there's very little fanfare in the local press, and none at all in the Melbourne papers, except when Eddie Everywhere opens his mouth.
The rugby league is in an informal, but nonetheless very important, competition with the AFL to see who can draw the largest attendance with the South Sydney-Canterbury Bankstown [the two best supported teams in Sydney, after Balmain] Prelim Final on at the same venue the following night, with tickets at half the price of the Rules.
We shall see.
Swans loyalists will shrug their shoulders at what they have to pay - they're generally not short of a bob - as long as they don't have to go and see Sydney lose their 12th consecutive game to Collingwood.
Sudden death is as simple as that.
SYDNEY: Semi-Final bye.
