Screaming Believers,
Three goals in about three minutes from the off and the faint strains of the Fat Lady singing could be heard in the distance.
It was Parker. Bang! Sinclair. Bang! McCartin. Bang! Sinkers, again. Bang! Franklin. Bang! Heeney the Cardiff Zucchini. Bang! Papley. Bang! Buddy, again. Bang! Zachary Jones. Bang! and then it was quarter time.
Phew.
In the modern game, there's no coming back from having nine six-pointers kicked on you in the opening stanza, and My Spy at The Ground, who had already been whipped up into a state of religious rapture, pushed through the telegraph message "surely it would take a certified MIRACLE for the Saints to get up here".
And so it came to pass.
It was clearly going to be a massacre, with no prisoners taken, and handing out a twelve-goal football lesson is just about as swell as it gets.
Given the processional going on on the field, did rather enjoy the television shots of SC Horse in the coaches box with Rhyce "Rick" Shaw and Captain Kirk sitting next to him, screaming obscenities down the microphone of his rarely used head-set, even though the Swans were a million goals in front.
It was only until someone told Coach Longmire he was on the telly that he then made sure he covered his mouth every time he yelled "FAAAAARK!" at some dodgy umpiring decision.
They're only human, after all.
According to the Stats Guru, Docklands Stadium might as well be Lakeside Oval, as the Swans have won every game there, bar one, for about the last three seasons.
That's why the Powers That Be only gave the Swans five games at Docklands this year, it's their second home - and why not?
In the league, Balmain have three home grounds: Leichhardt, Campbelltown and Cathy Freeman.
It's getting beyond 35 years since a destitute South Melbourne were punted up to Sydney to avoid extinction, but by the looks of the television wide shots of the crowd there was a big contingent of South Melbourne fans there, a good cheer squad in, and lots of folk in The Red and The White dotted throughout the crowd.
Given that the Swans' Sydney fan base in the Eastern Suburbs don't travel [much preferring Tahiti to Melbourne in the winter], it must have been the old "Keep South at South" brigade, and their descendants, and their children who are still following the good old way.
This year, Sydney couldn't win at the SCG, but have a perfect away record, so it's a ripping time to be going for Sydney in Melbourne.
And Melbourne and the whole of Queensland hates Sydney with a passion - just ask the hopelessly hapless Gold Coast Suns who could only kick four goals at the Showground in front of a thrilled crowd of 7,131 Pygmies supporters.
No one else in their right mind, including The Man and His Dog, would have gone to Spotto to see that, and you have to get under five thousand anyway to find the record low attendance figures in the history of the VFL/AFL.
Both the Giants and the Suns might as well be moved to China, and no-one would notice.
So, with the AFL's Queensland Experiment a miserable failure and the whole Greater Western Sydney Project Thing failing to take off year after year, Sydney are firmly entrenched in the top four at 9-3 and a good win ahead of the pack.
It's a grand place to be mid-way through the season, but there's always that gnawing fear about the wheels falling off or the Curse of The Minor Premiership getting in the way, but hey, that's OK; Buddy's been looking for redemption since 2015 and everyone is after atonement for being put to bed in the '14 denouement, and the less said about being found out in the '16 Big One the better, and SC Horse won't ever be happy unless he goes out with two Premierships, and gets one up on SC Roos.
Is that too much to ask?
ST KILDA: 1.1, 3.8, 4.10, 7.13 (55). Goals: Battle 2, J. Sinclair, P. McCartin, Weller, Membrey, Gresham.
SYDNEY : 9.1, 14.3, 17.7, 19.12 (126). Goals: Franklin 4, C. Sinclair 3, Papley 2, Hayward 2, Rohan 2, Parker 2, T. McCartin, Heeney, Jones, Kennedy.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 27,569.
Found myself in the back bar of the Lord Wolseley Hotel hugely enjoying a bowl of the tasty mutton flaps & tripe bolognese on offer, when a very large fish on a meathook was walked through and slapped down on the front counter of the kitchen - so football was just about the furthest thing from my mind.
The Mighty Tiges had the misfortune to have to go to Cronulla after a three inches of rain in the week in the Emerald City, and heard on the car radio on the way in that the Great Benji Marshall had done himself a mischief in the warm-up and had been ruled out of the side, and there were all sorts of changes to the team to accommodate that.
It was just very lucky that they had a spare five-eighth in the form of the flaky marquee player Josh Reynolds.
But the portents were not good, so thought nothing more of it while a foot-tappin' to the ol' time jazz toons of the George Washing Machine Trio in the front bar, before the telly went on for the four o'clock game and a couple of blokes stumbled into the bar.
One of them grabbed a felt pen and started crossing out boxes marked with the word WESTS on the Tipping Club's tip-sheet pinned to the pub corkboard notice board.
So, didn't even to bother to ask them "what's the score, Jimmy!?" as nothing surprises me when it comes to the Tiges.
Then they started talking, and one of them said "yeah, their full-back's too slow" and the other replied "oh, yeah, Lolohea, yeah, and he thinks his kicking game is pretty good too, but it's not really" to which the other bloke replied "but, that Valentine Holmes, he can run!"...my interest tapered off rapidly as it was as clear as day that Balmain had been done.
Hopping back in the motor and switching on the car radio, the announcer was doing an around-the-grounds summary of the scoreboxes, when he said "...and it's been a rather miserable afternoon in The Shire... "
Unless he was a massive Balmain fan, the announcer was most likely referring to the biting cold southerly and low-scudding Antarctic showers; but the urge to start bashing my head continuously on the steering wheel was almost overpowering - Jesus, Joseph and Mary they're a hard team to follow.
The radio squawked on with..."where Cronulla won 24-16, after Wests were leading 10-2 at half time".
You can read in the fishwraps all about how Balmain led by eight at the break, and then contrived to lose by eight.
WTF?
That said, on interview after the match, Coach Cleary was clearly very cranky with the referee's for sending off a Tiges player for ten in the sin-bin without any official warnings about persistent professional fouls, saying straight out that the Bamfords have less than zero match awareness, and it's impossible to coach against that.
Falling out of the top eight half-way through the year after a stellar start to the season knocking off good teams - some like Melbourne, twice - and then they go off the boil - never thrashed, but they never win big, or enough.
It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure that even in a modern game deeply rooted in defence, the fact is you can't score without some possession of the football.
It looks like the opposition might have worked Wests out, and it can only be hoped Clearly It's Cleary is working on Plan C as we speak
Coach Ivan must thrash them on the training track, but he still can't find a settled XIII, and the results are just not coming his way.
And then news filtered through that The Great Benji could be sidelined for as long as six weeks after picking up that calf, and he's been playing with "multiple niggles" anyway, and Nofoaluma is also rooted, and will be in Sick Bay for quite a while too.
It could be a very difficult back end to the season at 9th on the ladder at 7-7.
The eternal pessimist in me can be forgiven for thinking the seemingly endless disappointment will continue unabated, but hey, they're doing better than a lot of other teams, so let's see what happens, eh, bru?
CRONULLA-SUTHERLAND SHARKS 24. Tries: Gallen, Holmes, Lee, Ramien. Goals: Townsend (4).
WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Taylor, Lolohea. Goals: Marsters (4).
At Shark Park, Cronulla.
Crowd: 13,093.
