Dragging the dead horse over some hot coals

Fellow Aghastees,

No doubt the Royal Commissioner will arrive in Delhi to conduct The Inquiry into the Debacle at Mohali before the touring party does.
Perhaps he should begin by dragging the dead horse over some hot coals to see if any life can be sparked into it.
The Captain, of course, should be the first called to the witness box, and compelled to answer the close questioning of Counsel Assisting.
Followed by every player, including those who didn’t make the XI, followed by tour management and selectors, who of course will be made to answer for their ineptitude.
Everything Punter did on field could be called into question, and Counsel could well start with his decision to put Bing Lee’s nose out of joint by not bowling him in the opening session of day four, just as an example.
MJ Clarke would be one of the few to come out of it relatively unscathed; just as he was in danger of becoming the getting out to the last ball of the day specialist, he fights an honest second innings rearguard action in a hopelessly lost cause for what turned out to be a well made 69, although his left arm dibbly dobblers proved utterly ineffectual [8 overs for the match, 0/34]
The transcript of proceedings will make interesting reading.
As always, the bulk of the blame can, and should be, sheeted home to the Captain, and the inquiry could well find fault with the batmen’s complete failure to come to terms with Indian conditions and Indian blokes who have had those sort of decks for breakfast every day of their lives.
Next will come the selectors for sending away the worst Australian bowling attack in at least a decade.
Pop gun doesn’t even come close as a description.
The fitness of the CA Board should also come under scrutiny for sanctioning the whole shooting match.
The recommendations would no doubt start with putting The Skipper on notice that two more sub-standard, nay poor, displays of leadership could invite the prospect of being relieved of command.
The Commissioner could also recommend wholesale sweeping changes, e.g. Hayden out/Jaques in, White out/Krezja in, Siddle out/Clark [subject to fitness] otherwise Bollinger in, Watson out/Symonds [recalled] in.
Probably wouldn’t make a great deal of difference, but seven days should be plenty long enough to come up with a suitable set of recriminations.

If he didn't say it, who did?

Gibberers,

MJ Clarke, on current form, may be more useful as a bowler rather than a bat, early in the tour!
Fancies himself on Indian decks, and who would after his famous six fa nxt to nothing last time around?
Was fairly economical when Harbhajan “Serial Pest” Singh was giving the bowling a right pasting.
And the nut he got the Dohni kiddie with was a pearler
In the meantime, as the first test looks like meandering to a draw, some fascinating stuff here from Ging Gang Gooly Gooly Gooly Gooly.
Some choice quotes anyone would be proud to own.
But if he didn’t say it, who did?
It would have taken a more creative than usual journalist to make it up.
And the line “hopefully also in the future” just adds to the mystery:

Crik: Ganguly denies tirade against teammates
Cricket India Ganguly
BANGALORE, India, Oct 11 AAP - Indian batsman Sourav Ganguly today denied giving an interview in which he gave his teammates a spray.
In a report published by a Bengali daily, Ajkal, Ganguly was quoted as saying that his omission from the Rest of India team to
contest the Irani Trophy last month was the final straw, but also stated that he was sick of being "humiliated" while lesser players
were given opportunities.
"If there is a gun to your head all the time, how long can you bear this? After all, I have played 400 matches for India. I have
played badly in only one series. Yet every Tom, Dick and Harry is playing in the team," Ganguly was reported to have said.
"There are players who haven't scored in the last three series for India, even for the last one year.
"There are some who have changed their hairstyle more than they have scored for India."
However Ganguly issued a strenuous denial of the comments.
"Reports of an interview in a Bengali daily, published in various newspapers, are false," he said in a statement.
"I have not given an interview of that sort to anyone and hopefully also in the future.
"I will request to you to clarify with me before publishing quotes from other sources."
AAP dfb/tdw

old bad habits

Fellow selectors,

Not what you’d call a very auspicious start to the tour of India.
There were some dark mutterings in some circles mid week that if Punter fails to fire with the bat on the subcontinent and/or messes up in the field and contrives to lose a couple of test matches, the Board might be inclined to think about the tap of the shoulder pensioning him off, and handing the captaincy to Pup.
Guessing a messy transition like that won’t happen in a hurry, especially if MJ Clarke falls into old bad habits.
At Hyderabad it appears that he shuffled back and across, played completely down the wrong line and missed the thing, and found himself plumb in front of middle stump – for the majestic total of 18.
More work required in the nets to get better suited to Indian decks.
The selectors have got the bowling line-up all wrong, given that mystery spinner Bryce “Old Man” McGain is on the first flight back home with a dodgy shoulder, and the Jason Krezja kiddie put in a shocking performance in the tour match, getting belted all over the park by second string batsmen on a six lane highway.
You have to remember Krezja couldn’t get a game for NSW and had to move to Tasmania to get another crack at the first class game.
And he’s also admitted to testing positive to cocaine a couple of years back [although he did call into play the ‘I never done it with a fish, yr Honour’ defence, claiming that some evil doer had put a heaping teaspoon full of the gear into his beer!].
Beau Casson can’t even make the NSW one day-side, but looks like going to India as the third choice test spinner.
Perhaps the selectors should just bite the bullet and send a box of brand new fishing tackle around to Roy’s place, with a note saying it would be OK if he packed it in his bags and took the barramundi lures with him to Bangalore.

You be the judge

Gongmeisters,

Amid all the frightening frocks…Adam Who wins the thing…
while The Goodes Train does next to nothing all year, and clocks a few blokes, and still manages to garner an incredible 21 votes in the Brownlow !!
Go figure ??
Talk about being the Bamford’s pet.
Must be the distinctive mouthguard or something.
To make it more astonishing, the next best Swan, Cap’n’ “ never played a bad game” Kirk scored 12 votes, and Rhino Keefe just 10.
Have the grubs in bile yellow got any concept?
You be the judge.
In the meantime…BBB “Slugger” Hall puts his Sydney home and girlfriend on the market, and gets a nibble from the Western Bulldogs.
But, have they got any players, draft picks, that Sydney would want in a trade?
Drive a hard bargain, Roosy.

some kind of misguided fool

Fellow Mad Monday Revellers,

It’s always gratifying when yr team goes out in the second week of the finals with not so much as a whimper.
As a mate of mine reflected, all we have got to look forward to now is the two page pictorial in tomorrow’s Daily Terror of Mad Monday, heavily featuring snaps of BBB “Slugger” Hall in a frock and a funny hat.
They were the boys who were psychologically damaged.
Keenly aware that that would be even more severely taken apart by Geelong if they miraculously managed to progress; meekly surrendered to Foo-ters-craay.
The ageing list and the seriously inexperienced youngsters found out once and for all.
Never heard SC Roos comment further on his suggestion a few weeks back “that you can only go to the well so many times”.
At the end of the match he just shrugged his shoulders and said of the future “midfielders are probably more important in this day and age than forwards, we’ll have to take a look at that”.
Nice to see Spida eschew the last year of his two year contract, and have the decency and sense to just retire – without any farewell or fanfare.
Undoubtedly realised that he would struggle to make anyone’s 22 if he tried to battle on next year.
Shame that he had to give it away just before getting the Life Membership quota of 300 games, only fell a few short, so some luminary should make an executive AFL decision, and grant Spida an ex-officio Life Membership anyway, on account of just being a champion.
The telegram should read …”you’ve done enough, son”.
If John “Datefinger” Hopoate can be the current heavyweight champion of Australia in the boxing caper, then BBB “Slugger” Hall would have to fancy himself with the knock out punch.
The big fella is made for a mid-life crisis career - just go and clock blokes for a living, Barry.
No one will tell a two time Brownlow medalist when his time is up, the Goodes Train will decide for himself when he stops running, but given the state of his knees and loss of a yard, he’d have to be seriously considering resting on his not inconsiderable laurels and at the top of his game, just quietly; and as for Micky O, oh, oh, what an ornament to the game.
How do you tell your best ever goal kicker that he’d make a sad exhibition of himself if and when he could get back up on two legs and go around again?
Everyone knows that it’s hard, but in the end, there is no room for sentimentality
All year the blokes over 30, mainly the white boys, never got much attention in this blog, on account of they did nothing.
Crouch, Barry, The Bolton boys etc, since when did they ever get a mention?
Tadgh was only playing this year as a favour to SC Roos, who talked him out of retirement last year, so he’ll surely repatriate himself as promised, back to Dublin.
Sensibly, Ben Mathews gave the game away a few weeks before the finals, figuring there wasn’t much future at 29, no point going on when youngsters are snapping at your heels.
Nick Davis Come To Save Us, at 28, has been living in la la land for quite some time now.
Even the Ugliest Man in Football, at the ripe old age of 25, might no longer be able to cut it in the top grade.
It might be sad, but it might also be true.
But it doesn’t really matter that their best wasn’t good enough in the final paralysis, you can count yourself lucky as a fan if you get to thoroughly enjoy more than a handful of games where coach can honestly say “all played well”.
Rhino Keefe for club best, closely followed by Marty Mattner, with the Jolly Giant and Cap’n’ Kirk in the mix.
With another half a dozen retirements looming, how does SC Roos go about reshuffling the deckchairs?
Could be years before the Swans get themselves back into the shape needed to seriously challenge for the Championship.
So we might have to cheerily put up with yet another Winter of Discontent for a few more years yet.
Ah yes…but that’s a long way off…


WESTERN BULLDOGS: 2.3, 6.5, 11.9, 16.10 (106). Goals: Murphy 3, Welsh 2, Hill 2, Eagleton 2, Hahn, Higgins, Lake, Griffen, Minson, Johnson, Akermanis.
SYDNEY: 2.4, 5.7, 5.13, 9.15 (69). Goals: Hall 4, Jolly, Roberts-Thomson, Goodes, Crouch, Bevan
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 42,731.


PS> Well…….
That just about does it for the winter game circuit in 2008.
Won’t bore you further.
Thanks very much for the comments, vitriolic abuse, kind words, argumentative tosh, and suggestions that I might be some kind of misguided fool.
The footy’s been fun.
Of course, the summer game wire might get sparking up again once they start playing some first class cricket.

the smokey for the Brownlow

Match officials,

Maybe there is a bit of bite left in the old dog yet.
SC Roos put in a sterling performance in the dugout, a clinical display really, relying heavily on the “How to Coach Australian Rules Football” manual with particular reference to chapter seven “Wet Weather Football” and the appendix “Why coaching finals football is a different bottle of mussels altogether”
Just make sure you kill them in the hit outs, are first to the breakdown every time, team work the clearances, maintain structure in the forward line, and get your act together in the accuracy of kicks in play.
It’s not a very difficult game.
Interesting that SC Roos kept The Goodes Train, Rhino Keefe and BBB “Slugger” Hall inside the 50 for most of the night – eight goals between your best three forwards will always win you football matches.
Cap’n’ Kirk was clearly best on the ground by a long shot.
The Dalai Lama’s Football representative in Australia probably played the best championship quarter of any player in any team all season.
The bloke just went mad.
It was no mistake that eight goals were added to the tally for the quarter on the back of his effort, and the Swans did what you have to do in finals football, close out and put away the opposition.
Vespremi the Emergency was never overawed by the tremendous finals atmosphere at the ground and put in another good showing after squeezing into the 22 with the Birdman picking up Rhino’s mystery virus.
Rhino Keefe has missed just one game all season, and he’s the smokey for the Brownlow for mine.
Mind you, he won’t take the damnable little gong off the Pontiff’s Seed, but he’ll be up there in the count.
The sort of player who gets noticed by the Bamfords.
Speaking of Bamfords, the comical goal umpiring would have been funny if it wasn’t so laughable.
Awarding behinds as goals, and giving goals as behinds
You’d have to wonder if they weren’t in the pay of the bookies, or perhaps they had a few points margin spreadsheets going and were just fine tuning the result.
Don’t expect that the Bullies will be a push over in week two on the wide open spaces at Headquarters, but South owe Footscray a couple, and the opposition could well be mentally damaged after the right spanking they got last week at the hands of the Hawks.
There is nothing like winning form, all the more so in finals.
Much has been said of the appalling crowd figure, but it’s simple really, Sydneysiders will not under any circumstances pay outrageous ticket prices just to get a wet arse watching a team widely regarded as a spent force.
The marketing boffins at the AFL must be tearing their hair out, given that some fool decided it would be a good idea to have a second Sydney team.
Launceston will just be going…”see, told you so…”

SYDNEY: 1.5, 4.6, 12.7, 17.8 (110). Goals: Hall 3, Jack 3, Goodes 3, O'Keefe 2, Moore 2, McVeigh, Veszpremi, Malceski, Richards,
NORTH MELBOURNE: 4.1, 6.4, 10.5, 11.9 (75). Goals: Harvey 2, Grant 2, Lower 2, Hale 2, Petrie, Thompson, Sinclair,
Crowd:19,127.
[Worst for VFL/AFL finals football since 1924 or 1917?]


Otherwise engaged at the Opera Hoos for the Fathers Day matinee of the Strayan Chamber Orchestra doing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, or some such trifle, so yet again missed the entirety of the Tiger’s television coverage from the Gold Coast for the final match up of the home and away season.
By all accounts, Hoddo was given a proper send-off with a very solid win on the back of a last gasp team performance, on account of it hadn’t got into their thick heads last week that they were all playing for contracts with just one shot left in the bolt.
Benji reportedly had another good game against his old nemesis and former team mate That Bastard Scotty Prince, but on Mad Monday he was wrapped up in cotton wool by the Club Secretary, who thrust a schooner of Drambuie into his hand, and told him to have a good hard think about yet again re-inventing himself in the off–season.
Hoddo had a few light beers and a puff on an old pipe, confident in the knowledge that he can now go and pick up his fat pension at Huddersfield without anyone noticing very much.
SC Sheens lurked around on the sidelines, with no shortage of blokes to pour him a beer out of the jug, thinking “let ‘em go and get on it, most of them have tried their best”.
The problem was, their best was not good enough.
A season once again essentially cruelled by injury.
All the name props had had season enders by mid season, and Fulton was gone early, accounting for the entire first pick front row, and the forward pack never recovered from the disarray after that.
The club would have been lucky to play anyone in every home and away game.
Can’t name any off the top of my head.
Lawrence perhaps?
Hoddo, Benji, Farah, Blud Nut, Tuiaki, Johnny Morris, Collis, etc etc all had time out for niggles.
Whoever was running the Wests Tigers web site had the decency and sense to maintain a section called the “Holler for a Marshall [Batteries] Injury Report”, which carefully documented the state of the sick bay under Player, Injury Date, Expected Return, Injury Details.
There were just too many names listed under the Expected Return column with the single word “season”.
It did not help that the team also found themselves carrying a couple of passengers in almost every game, neither did the progression of local juniors who apparently did nothing that warranted them even being considered, let alone picked, for the first grade team.
The Football Development Department would have surely worked out that there’s a paucity of exciting youngsters in the Balmain District and they will have to look further afield.
Apart from the total rebuild required in the forwards, they’ll have to pay good money for a name half back and a talented full back if there is to be any chance in ’09.
But that’s a long way off, like tomorrow always seems to be.
Tenth must be a very disappointing result for SC Sheens, after spending the early part of the season in the top four, and the latter half clinging on for dear life to the top eight.
It just didn’t work out.
Oh well, as we always say in our household when things go wrong, TB Too Bad.


GOLD COAST TITANS 12. Tries: Prince, Delaney. Goals: Prince (2).
WESTS TIGERS 28. Tries: Moltzen (2), Lawrence, Tuiaki, Ryan. Goals: Hodgson (4).
At Robina Stadium, Gold Coast.
Crowd: 20,723.

the loneliest man in the world

General Admissioners,

Decided to take the traditional way to Leichhardt Oval on Friday afternoon; the 445 bus from Canterbury station to Balmain.
[Of course back in the olden days it would have been the other way round from various houses in Balmain and Rozelle. In ’89, lived to close to the old Oval, you could walk there].
Announced my destination on boarding the bus.
“Leichhardt Oval, thanks mate!”
The bus driver looked at me askance and said quizzically…
“What you mean, mate? Where you wanna go?”
Did the quick computation in my head.
“uumm, yeah, Lilyfield will do”
The bus driver’s eyes lit up…
“Aaah! Leeelyfield! No worry mate. That’ll be three buck”.
[There has long been conjecture about which suburb Leichhardt Oval is actually located in. It is certainly not in Leichhardt, and probably not in Balmain. It’s either in Lilyfield or Rozelle.
One thing’s for certain, The Balmain Leagues Club is in Rozelle.]
A half a dozen intellectually challenged spastics got on the bus at Petersham.
There was one bloke with wild bug eyes and a gaping rictus, who was sweating profusely and chewing his fingernails down to the bone.
He was obviously worried about the match result two hours out from kick off.
Felt like telling him to calm down and stop being a burden on the community, but it wouldn’t have been of any use.
Decided that a couple of quiet ones in the Orange Grove Hotel just around the corner from the back entrance to the Oval would be in order.
Jumped off the bus only to find the old pub boarded up, shut, gorn, closed, finished up!
It couldn’t have been closed for that long as the planter boxes were still on the footpath outside, and the chalk on the specials board was still legible.
It used to be a wonderful watering hole.
People from all over the district would congregate there on match days, to enjoy the warmth of the tiny front bar with open fire place, before spilling out onto the footpath to swap yarns, talk shite, dribble and drink schooners of Toohey’s Old.
One or other of the venerable old ladies who’d been to every home game since The War could usually be found holding court there.
A shrug of the shoulders is all you can do when confronted with further confirmation that the glory days have gone away.
Some fast bastard will make a nice killing when the three storey apartment block gets whacked up on the site.
There was no one in the ground – one of the smallest crowds seen at Leichhardt in recent years, after the madness of all those record crowds.
At the Norman ‘Latchem’ Robinson Stand bar I noticed a boy of about 11 or 12 walk past, decked out in full Sharks gear, and wearing a sandwich board reading “Bring back Birdie”.
[For those of you who don’t follow the game intimately, Greg Bird of NSW, Australia, Cronulla fame was on a club suspension for glassing his girlfriend after an all night session on the drink. Apparently that’s de rigueur in The Shire].
Thought about telling the boy he was a sad individual, but then thought better of it.
It was easy to park myself alongside the Good Lady Wife on the little bleachers between the bottom of The Hill and the playing arena, on the 20 yard line at the northern end.
No finer viewing of the game anywhere in the world.
And what of the game itself?
It was one of the most unremarkable, pedestrian, lackluster games seen at the ground in many a season.
Cronulla teed off with a couple of quick tries, and then just patiently waited for the Tiges error, or to force the mistake and draw the penalty, to score again.
Tiges defence was powder puff, with no go forward from the forwards whose hearts were patently not in it, [surprising, given that they all must’ve be playing for contracts] so the backs could hardly be expected to lay anything on.
The Balmain wingers wandered around in circles in a desolately fashion, and both of them would have been lucky to get a touch all night.
There was a small group of Tigers fans, young blokes hitherto not seen at the ground, who herded themselves into a pen at the northern end.
They had a cowbell with them and a drum and stick, and had some pretty good lines with which to taunt the Cronulla cheer squad
Among them “show us yr premiership! show us yr premiership!”
On account of, of course, the Sharks have never won one.
There were emotional scenes after the game had finished; not a soul had left the ground early.
Ten minutes before full time the Tigers Kittens went around chucking hundreds of black, white and orange crepe paper streamers into the crowd to return to the field when The Great Hoddo did his inevitable lap of honour on his retirement from the big league caper after 222 first grade games.
He looked like the loneliest man in the world as he trudged around the sidelines on his own, swathed in streamers, acknowledging the crowd, with tears streaming down his face.
We stood, we applauded, we cheered, we wore our hearts on our sleeve, and threw our streamer at the great man.
We honoured a dead set legend and genuine ornament to the game.
It was up there with best farewells.
It was an end to a day; an end to yet another era.

WESTS TIGERS 6. Tries: Harrison. Goals: Hodgson
CRONULLA-SUTHERLAND SHARKS 32. Tries: Taulapa, Covell, Anderson, Seymour, Kearney. Goals: Covell (6).
At Leichhhardt Oval.
Crowd: 10,766.



Always a good look to give the last opposition of the home and away season a right ten goal football lesson on the march into September.
All the better that it was done without The Blackfella’s or Rhino Keefe.
That can only look good on paper.
The conundrum being that there is no replacing experience, even if you have to forgive the bad knees, dodgy shoulders, and the loss of pace out of the blocks over 20 yards.
Just ask the Vespremi kiddie.
Obviously has a boot on him, and shows promising skills while in play, and wouldn’t have been plucked out of the little leagues otherwise, but as raw as a Japanese radish.
Those who have taken the time and trouble to observe the football at close range might suggest the Swans final game form is illusory.
Taking on the Kangaroos is a good option; that grand old rivalry if you come from Melbourne of South v North [even if, due to the peregrinations of time, South is now north and North is now south!]
If the fishwraps can be believed, looks like the North Melbourne match committee will be putting on Grim Reaper costumes later in the week and taking to the team with a scythe.
A quick glance at the AFL finals system reveals it would have been much better to finish 5th, rather than 6th, as the third round crossover means you avoid Geelong all the way to the Grand Final if you get that far from 5th.
It’s been done before, but you’d have to seriously worry from 6th.
If there was a surprise, and the Swans manage to progress through September, the finals campaign would almost certainly come to a shuddering halt against the Cats in the Preliminary finals.
No flag, no cigar.
Sydney only has two things going for them at the moment.
SC Roos knows how to coach finals football, there is no doubt, and most of these blokes have been there, done that, so you would presume, know how to play finals football.
We live in hope.

SYDNEY: 3.3, 7.8, 12.9, 17.12 (114). Goals Moore 4, Veszpremi 4, Jack 2, McVeigh 2, Malceski, Bird, Richards, Everitt, Hall,
BRISBANE: 1.6, 3.9, 5.13, 6.17 (53). Goals Bradshaw 2, Selwood, Clouston, Henderson, Charman.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 24,076.