Loyalists,
It's that time of year when you'll find me clambering about in the rafters in Dad's Shed trying to connect the antenna to the short wave radio set in order to pick up football calls from distant parts, given the Mighty Tiges and the Hapless Bluds play all over the shop in far flung places nowadays.
Managed to lock onto a curious tin-pot commercial radio call from the Gold Coast on the AM band, featuring the "Lowes Menswear Scoreboard", who appeared to be their major sponsor, with the local garage and chemist shop also on board...payola from here to breakfast...that sort of thing.
They did have some pretty good turns of phrase; when a Balmain forward came to within inches of scoring a try, the commentary team of two threw to the sideline eye for comment.
"he's come down 16 blades of buffalo short of the chalk".
The Balmain Tigers/Wests Magpies team looks pretty good on paper even though they spent no money at all on recruiting.
They preferred to let the very expensive failed experiments in Blair and Anasta go, bank the cash, upgrade a few existing contracts, and spend a bit on junior development with a view to the long term, given they have a good clutch of promising Islander lads going around in the lower grades, some of whom you would expect to break into first grade at some stage during the season.
In a year or two, almost the entire team list will have unpronounceable names; a commentators nightmare.
The Tiges went into the opening match of the season without playing too many trial games, and pretty much put their best XIII on the paddock.
Of course they were handed the super-duper advantage of playing a Gold Coast side from which four of their best players had been suspended by their own club on account of being hauled before the courts charged with doing lines of coke on the cisterns of Surfers Paradise night clubs and generally having a jolly good time during the off season.
Stung by the QLD Crime Commission, or whoever they are, and turned over by the cops, the offending Titans players swallowed the bait - "it's only illegal if you get caught" hook, line, and sinker.
Sweet as.
The rugby league pre-season would be nothing without a ridgey-didge scandal.
The Tigers under new coach Jason "Squeak" Taylor elected to play almost the entirety of the pipeopener in the forwards, while the backs trotted around like show ponies thinking about and working out how to get their combinations together and the set plays going in a real game scenario.
Titans followed suit, so it was a dour game of put 'em up, knock 'em down.
By all accounts, most of the Balmain forwards are followers of fashion and now sport full beards, which only begs the question about the sensation you have when you have one those shoved up yr arse by yr own team-mate in the scrum.
How bizzare, how bizzare.
The relatively clean cut in comparison Pat Richards is a dead-set freak.
On the TV newsreels he looks old, and he is, at 33 years of age, being one of only two survivors of the '05 Premiership winning campaign.
Most players of his age would be well & truly resting on their laurels and counting the cash
So, he scores two tries in a match that failed to reach any great heights until the denoument.
Then, just as it looked like the game was headed for extra-time at 18-all, Richards picks up a short pass, gets himself on an even keel, looks at the goal posts and drop kicks the most improbable, unlikely, field goal from a million miles out for all intents and purposes.
Didn't have a spy at the ground, but some spectators recall seeing the ball catch the hefty breeze as it sailed high, wide and handsome and then curled back in at the last moment to just clear the black dot, the linesmen raising their flags, to procure the miraculous 19-18 win with 1 second, that's right, a 60th of a minute left on the clock.
Nurse! Brandy!
Still, Balmain would be happy just to go home to Leichhardt as Coach Squeak makes his mark in the column of the Ol' Coach's Ledger that's headed "we'll take our wins", while the Titans would be reassured by the fact that you can't lose the Premiership in the first week.
Yet, everyone knows, the road is long and the way is hard over the next 26 weeks.
Wandered into the Front Bar at The Local on Monday morning dressed in a Wests Tigers polo top [just to show solidarity] and found The Philosopher in his usual corner, enjoying this week's favoured tipple, a plain old fashioned Screwdriver.
On seeing me, he unusually rose to his feet and poked me right on the club logo on my chest with the forefinger of his bony hand and said "Goodluck Jonathon".
With no apologies to the President of Nigeria...
GOLD COAST TITANS 18. Tries: Roberts (2), James. Goals: Sezer (3).
WESTS TIGERS 19. Tries: Richards (2), Tedesco. Goals: Richards (3). Field Goals: Richards (1).
At Gold Coast Stadium, Robina.
Crowd: 14,319.
