couldn't hack it

 

Fellow Exhaustee's,

So, it's come to this.

Heard some chattering on the weekend that suggested "it's a minor miracle that the AFL actually got to a Grand Final under the circumstances" and attendant heads were nodding in agreement. Yep, the legion of doubters and naysayers - the Eternal Pessimist chief among them - have all been proven wrong yet again. Here were were back in April/May fearing that the season might just sputter to a halt and be abandoned before a conclusion could be reached. Remember back then? When they shut down the game for eleven weeks - no footy at all - and if you recall, folks were saying during that time that they weren't actually missing the footy that much after all, and were prepared to write off this season and think about next year. It took the Powers that Be a full two months to work out what fark to do to "save" the shit show, before resuming in empty stadiums. The deathly quiet didn't last long, as they suddenly needed professionals to mix real crowd noise as fake sound effects, making sure they didn't play the laugh track by mistake. No, there was far too much money on the line just to let the thing go, call it off as a bad joke, and ponder how to reshape it again next year. Nah, far too much cash in the balance. Too many people wanted the rent. And what a tortuous road they were forced to go on while still losing a fortune - coaches, players, strappers, runners, roadies, toadies, hangers-on...trapped for hundreds of days in the Corona Bubble, permanently on tour with the wife and family in tow in a fair degree of Iso Luxury, but no stray roots for the single player or anyone else for that matter. Hanky panky entirely out of the question. Exchanges of bodily fluids strictly prohibited. Still, they never had to cook a sausage; just train and relax in the resort pool with the swim up bar (no shortage of those on the Gold Coast). After the complete evacuation from Marvellous Melbourne, it must have come as a shock to go home.

The Dear Ol' Swannies (16th) didn't make the grade for the second year running - couldn't hack it, Covid Hub life was not for them. Mad Monday pretty much passed without incident, given that they would have been drinking so much piss in Iso anyway, that it barely mattered any more. And no one has ever mentioned whether drug testers were also embedded in the Bubble. But at least there was no necessity to dress up in women's clothing and get utterly shit-faced, as was the usual course of proceedings just a few short years ago. With so much tradition and hallowed turf junked by The Covid, it's surprising there's been hardly a whisper about the fact that the MCG's god-given and holy right to host the Big One of a Saturday afternoon - the last one in September to be precise - has been so shockingly trampled upon. Most footy fans you'd suspect - afraid of being labelled as 'whingers' - would say "ah well, if they have to play it in Brisvegas, it is what it is", not realising that they're opening the floodgates. Never mind that it'll be played at night at the 'Gabba with a full house at the end of October. They could have played and televised games from Woop Woop for all it mattered and The Lord Gillon made damn sure they did, as footy blundered on relentlessly in an unprecedented spree of daily games, yep, footy, seven days a week. Anyone remember 33 games in 20 straight days? Me neither. But when the Swans were asked to play not one, but two games at the world famous Cazaly Stadium up there in Cairns in The Build Up to the wet season, well - that was beyond the pale as far as severely disadvantaging a team goes, for mine - playing in the tropics in the Build Up? WTF? That's when folks go troppo. Weirdness on a stick - just too much to ask of a club even in a 'home & away' season that will forever be remembered for its strangeness. The game may well have been 'saved' against all odds, but the 'brand' has taken a big hit. The Age - the paper of record down Mexico way - ran a story headlined "The Fairest AFL Grand Final in History"...outlining no home ground advantage, no rabid fans frothing at the mouth, no one has ever played a night grand final before...blah blah blah - well, what utter tosh. Even putting to one side those boring-as-batshit defence-driven low-scoring games, if nothing else, unless you are a native Melburnian on fragile ground or a member of the Mickey Mouse Club, it was a shit season, nothing more, nothing less, never mind it being the "season from hell".The Age then backed that up with yarn "as Grand Final preparations warm up in Brisbane, we take a walk around an empty MCG". Oh dear...

So, here we are now.

Melburnians can look forward to Friday off, for what's now morphed from a Grand Final Public Holiday into some kind of Thank You Public Holiday for putting up with so much shitfulness for so long, with even the Govt. claiming the footy forestalled a mental health disaster in the Athens of the South. Hang on...it'll be the Melbun Cup in a minute, betting turnover will break records and nervous bookies will see huge cash plunges reaching untold heights. Then that's followed by the traditional Silly Season and Xmas music in lifts, you know how it goes.

So, what would Pup do?

Go to the races, that's what. MJ Clarke was spotted at Royal Randwick over the weekend for some hastily cobbled together race worth a tasty $15M for the express purpose of debuting his latest lie-down for the magazines, after some amicable divorce proceedings left him short of a house in Vaucluse and a few million lighter. He now finds himself in very much reduced circumstances, forced to use that whiny voice of his on a breakfast radio show that no-one listens to - deliberately. Currently attracting 0.4 per cent of the available Sydney audience. That's a tough life. Podcasts on how to cook kale have better ratings. Unfortunately, the former skipper, best bat of his generation, and MCC Life Member is rarely asked for comment by the papers these days so yr unlikely to hear his broadcast position on the revenge now due on that turd Viral Rat Kohli. You'll remember the little shit masquerading as Indian captain, who drove Smiffy completely bonkers in India in '17 with some outrageous antics that will never be forgotten or forgiven. The prick sent Steve so far round the twist, a year later he'd spiralled into the madness of sanctioning Sandpapergate. Smiffy has now well & truly served his two year ban from the Strayan captaincy and could well decide to come back as skipper and monster that peasant Kohli, employing the use of the gigantic tusk up the runter in an unfriendly and unwieldy way. Could be an interesting summer. Who knows, when everything is a day-to-day proposition?  At least overcrowding on the bleachers shouldn't be an issue in an Iso cricket world; Test match fifth day crowds will still be Test match fifth day crowds, pandemic or no pandemic. Bring on the lazy, hazy, plaguey days of summer...