the human wrecking ball

Eternal optimists,

As word filtered through from the House of Pain that the Moltzen kiddie had been ruled out after doing himself a mischief on the warm up track for gawd’s sake, with SC Sheens forced to conjure up another full-back out of thin air, and the try scoring freak Lawrence also a late withdrawal, as well as the Tigers contending with a five year old hoodoo having failed to beat the Eels in their last eight encounters, you could have been forgiven for thinking it was time to ask the last person leaving the league’s club to switch off the light.
The ensuing 80 minutes just went to show that when the Balmain forward pack is going forward and the club’s two ponies are on song, with Benji and the Best Leb in The Game both vying for man of the match honours, the Tiges are still capable of beating any given side on any given day.
Tuiakai, who was described mid week as “the human wrecking ball”, also had a blinder, which never hurts – except for the blokes he runs into or puts a coathanger tackle on.
That said, with more players drawing payments from the Injured Players’ Benevolent Fund than are actually appearing on the training paddock week in week out, and Farah clutching at his ribs after booting a well timed tactical second half field goal with an experimental football that appeared to have been filled with helium to put the Eels two scores behind, and a cursory glace at the premiership table revealing that just six points separates fifth from 12th; hope must spring eternal.
Certainly that’s the case among the traveling die-hards, with seasoned observers at the ground noting that on a Monday night where it didn’t matter if the beers were served warm as they’d soon get cold enough in the Antarctic conditions, more Tigers fans braved the elements than did Parramatta supporters.

PARRAMATTA EELS 6. Tries: Burt. Goals: Burt (1).
WESTS TIGERS 23. Tries: Halatau, Mataka, Farah, Tuiaki. Goals: Marshall (3). Field Goals: Farah (1).
At Parramatta Stadium.
Crowd: 12,003.

Not much word has leaked of what was said and done at the traditional mid-season BBQ round at SC Roos place, although it seems there was plenty of room for some soul searching over a Fosters and a well charred hamburger patty.
However, a little birdie has been singing that senior administrators and various Pooh-Bah’s associated with the club did discuss and decide under a shade tree in a quiet corner beside the lap pool, that failure to beat Collingwood at the Western Paddock this Saturday night, and a similar result in the following away game against Adelaide, would undoubtedly mean ‘season over’, and automatically spark a wholesale review of the playing roster and the tap tap tap on various old and burnt out shoulders.
SC Roos would also be asked to clarify his future intentions.
Also interesting to note that the Swans’ two draft picks didn’t make it to the BBQ, after it was revealed they aren’t even in Sydney, let alone training.
Both are in Melbourne, nursing niggles, and studying for their end of school exams.
Did note also that at least a couple of players who could be in for a gold watch decided to eschew the social event altogether, and take themselves off to the south coast to “find some space”.
Perhaps they might have been better served with a visit to the Room Full of Mirrors down on the Balmain Road?

SYDNEY: Mid season bye.

as mad as a hatter

Anarchists,

The AFL Umpires’ Association has a lot to answer for, for mine.
After being deliberately hounded, frustrated, badgered, targeted, harried, mistreated, tormented, bullied, affronted, appalled, teased, disgusted and disgruntled by Bamfords for his entire football career from day one, is there any wonder that Barry Hall is as mad as a hatter and unusually prone to “brain explosions” and “mind snaps”?
Who can blame him?
Not the first or last man to be driven absolutely insane by cheating, dirty rotten umpires.
Anyone can see the cogs going around in Barry’s brain.
So, when the gearbox un-meshes in a spectacular fashion it’s never unexpected, and its there for all to see.
BBB Hall’s first infringement wasn’t really even worth a free on every eye witness account, let alone a fifty metre penalty, let alone three 50’s!
[See photographs above for clear evidence].
You’d have to seriously ask: Were the Bamford’s in their right mind?
What mysterious secret rule book have they been reading, and where did they get it from?
And then Bazza’s coach goes and disgracefully holds The Great Man responsible for single-handedly losing the match!!
A critical away game at that at the G, when it was of no fault of his own, and the Bamfords apparently get off utterly scott free in the mind of SC Roos!
Go figure?
Not hard to see why the poor bloke is completely bonkers.
If Hall is ever committed to Callum Park, it’ll be a bloody goal umpire in a white lab coat and fedora who signs the papers to certify the creature of pity to the asylum.
Thinking that Big Bad was dropped from the “leadership group” some time ago; but when all is said and done, it’s down to the “leadership group” to accept responsibility for failing to win any away game at all up to the split round, isn’t it?
The buck stops with SC Roos and the various “captains”, surely?
Instead, they appear to be in denial, while trying to pin the tail on the very convenient scapegoat.
Disappointing.
You’d have to query if they have started to run out of ideas.
Sure, some new kiddies might struggle from time to time in the big league but you can’t blame a bloke like “Rick” Shaw, who had an outstanding game in the backs in a losing side.
Characters like him are the face of the future.
And while The Goodes Train has been on fire for a month, and Mickey O isn’t playing badly after he got started – comebacks by those two after last season -- there are more than a few other ageing passengers with tired legs that have lost a yard or three who are now being exposed as the old men they are.
A couple of injuries and its season kaput, if it isn’t already.
Don’t know that the atmosphere around at the traditional mid-season BBQ this weekend at Roosy’s place will be particularly festive.
Beer Cans and Burnt Rissoles at 30 paces.
Tickets to the cheap seats are in hand for next game against the “Pride of the Nation” aka The Evil Pies aka “good ol’ Collingwood!”, who will no doubt set out to remind the Swans just how good Sydney/South used to be.


HAWTHORN 4.5, 7.5, 9.11, 12.14 (86). Goals: Franklin 3, Williams 3, Roughead 3, Ellis 2, Mitchell.
SYDNEY 2.5, 4.7, 8.7, 11.9 (75). Goals: Goodes 3, Hall 2, Jolly, McVeigh, O'Loughlin, J.Bolton, Mattner, Kirk.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 44, 464.


Glad the decision not to attend Balmain’s spiritual home on Friday night was made early.
Looks like some weak poofiness has come over me in my old age, but it was too cold by half and there was the threat of rain.
Lets face it, its been 20 years since 1989, when every home game was attended bar none, and every home game was at Leichhardt.
Once again it was a case of the forwards being out-muscled and failing to go forward, unable to create any useful field position, except on the back of home crowd penalties, to put the backs into any sort of position to do much genuine threatening of the try line.
Rugby League is a fairly simple game.
The wingers might as well have sat under a shade tree.
Farah had a hangover from State-of-Origin One, and Benji didn’t have any room to move with his kicking game.
When your two ponies aren’t in harness, its pretty much goodnight nurse from the off.
Didn’t help that Garef “That Pom” Ellis, perhaps the most consistently good player of any this season, front or back, declared himself unavailable with an accidental injury to his Social Finger.
With five consecutive losses, one can only pin one’s hopes on the unlikely event of SC Sheens somehow pulling off the miracle worker stunt and inspiring a late season purple patch to get anywhere near playing beyond the home and away matches.
As it is, he wouldn’t be looking to the Club Secretary-Manager for any kind of bonus.
But, as the supreme optimist will always say, it’s only just June.
Still, gets you to thinking that it’s been something of a test of faith following The Tiges since ’05.
Said then, say now; could be another long time between drinks.

WESTS TIGERS 10. Tries: Farah, Tuiaki. Goals: Marshall (1).
PENRITH PANTHERS 26. Tries: Walsh (2), Aiton, Daniela, Tighe. Goals: Walsh (2), Cooper (1).
At Leichhardt Oval.
Crowd: 14,100.

clutching at straws

Diehards,

Found myself arrayed along The Front Bar at The Local on Sunday afternoon as the barkeep flicked on the Tigers v Warriors game onto the regular sized TV.
The usual suspects were there, although given the nature of the fixture, there were more massive Maori man mountains in than usual, who, as always, were very genial throughout, and even stooped to cast pity upon the Tigers fans with consolatory pats on the back at the finish.
We were in no position to argue.
The general consensus of opinion was that the Balmain boys were simply outplayed at conventional wet weather football, and relied entirely on Benji’s kicking game, which is only sensible in the conditions, but with the forwards not going forward and a few raw rookies in the backs, and Benji not being particularly on song with the boot; Tigers never really
even threatened the try line, try as they might, and defence needs more work.
“That Pom” Ellis had one of his best games in a badly losing side in quite a while and blow me down with a feather if The Great Skando didn’t make a couple of fleeting appearances and effect a few good tackles.
Sadly missed the Best Leb in The Game, quarantined as he was, with no parole, in camp for NSW.
SC Sheens’ decision to insist that all players wear face masks on the flight to Auckland, except when drinking, was widely seen across the board as being of no use at all.
The Philosopher was in, perched in his usual corner of the bar nursing his scotch, who uttered barely a word about football during the game.
But at full time he exclaimed ”isn’t next weekend the half way point in the season?”
He made sure he had some nodding heads, before saying pointedly “well, that means, the Tiges season has almost reached the S-bend”.
Time to go home.

NEW ZEALAND WARRIORS 14. Tries: Locke (2), McKinnon. Goals: Locke (1).
WESTS TIGERS 0.
At Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland.
Crowd: 13,365.


Painfully puzzling to watch your team on the crystal bucket.
As a mate said mid week…
”Sydney are the hardest team to follow in the AFL right now”.
How can they go from annihilating a fairly well credentialed team one week and then get similarly annihilated, if not worse, by another reasonably well credentialed team the next?!
During half time the bush telegraph in the corner of the lounge room chattered into life with a message from some far flung outpost of empire enquiring as to whether it was true that the Swans had had 13 goals kicked on them without reply.
What’s the morse code for “13.stop.yes” again?
Coach’s nightmare – SC Roos for years to come will wake in fright in the middle of the night dreaming about the Manuka Chainsaw Massacre.
While it’s entirely inexplicable, at least Saint Paul could put one finger on it on interview after the debacle, “if you are going to play like that, against a team like that, then you can expect to be smashed”.
He was later quoted in the Sunday fishwraps headlines as saying “our worst 40 minutes in six years”.
Where he plucked the six years from nobody quite knows, but probably simply thinking that he was clutching at straws in a bid to illustrate just how poorly they played.
The only saving grace to come out of the fiasco was BBB Hall’s 600th.
Given that 300 gamers are automatically given AFL Life Membership, shouldn’t it also apply to 600 goalers as well?
3,600 points through the big sticks – only a few do that in any league.
Ask Hall, and he’ll be happy to tell you, just like any other full forward, let’s think; Plugger, Bobby Pratt, Barry Round, Brian “The Whale” Roberts, Murray Weiderman, Warwick Capper, -- “don’t tell me that anyone ever won a game of footy from the back pocket”
Certainly, Barry Hall was admitted to the Punter’s Pantheon a while ago now, and has only easily confirmed the rarely awarded appellation for active players of “The Great” B.Hall.
Number One.
But coming to think of it, the current members of the life member’s club probably wouldn’t have him, and you’d have to think that Bazza would be waiting for a very very long time before being admitted to the official Hall of Fame on account of his propensity to go around clocking blokes, being the victim, as he is and was, of spontaneous “brain explosions” and “mind snaps”, and becoming a grand master at the well directed abuse of Bamfords, would probably count him out forever.
You would have thought that there would have been plenty of head scratching and beard tugging during the Swans’ Sunday morning smoko by the magic waters at Maroubra.
The “leadership team” might have been minded during full immersion to consider the entirely mysterious reasons for Sydney’s appalling away record over recent years.
What are they?
Hall could have pulled up sore and puffed on his favourite blend in his Chesterfield Pipe and told SC Roos poolside, “Well coach, I kicked six and we still lost by plenty.”
And been content to leave it at that.

WESTERN BULLDOGS 5.2, 13.6, 16.7, 18.9 (117). Goals: Welsh 4, Ward 3, Hahn 3, Giansiracusa 3, Cooney 2, Boyd, Higgins, Harbrow.
SYDNEY SWANS 2.2, 2.3, 7.4, 12.5 (77). Goals: Hall 6, Goodes 2, Ablett, Malceski, Jack.
At Manuka Oval, Canberra.
Crowd: 12,464.


NB: 1st time a rugby league crowd has exceeded a rules crowd viz a viz these two teams this year.
Just look at the venues!
Freakin’ Cold v Really Cold & Wet.

warned off for life

Bleacherists,

Found myself on Sunday morning in East Sydney at some lard-arsed, gnocchi-gobbling, café-latte swilling “Italian festival” run by Clover Moore’s mob, with The Good Lady Wife, and realised we were only a hop, skip, and a jump to The Cricket Ground for the early start to a Swans home game.
Having been in Indo-China for a while, where sport extends only to an endless number of pay TV channels dedicated to 24 hour coverage of European soccer and Thai kick boxing, not to mention the cock fighting channel, the idea of a real game of football appealed.
Got ourselves some semi-cheap seats in Bay 2 on the walk-up, just around from the Paddington end goal posts, but at least they were “cool” seats, in the shade all day, in stark contrast to the cheap “hot” seats at the University of NSW end, on a picture postcard perfect late autumn day in Sydney without a cloud in the sky after a week of rain.
The surface of the ground had a distinct cow paddock appearance about it, without the turds.
It was great fun to see the Swans eat Port alive in the first quarter eight goals to one, just because they could, as they knew their way around the joint and left the Port backline flailing in their wake
Eight individual goal kickers suggests that SC Roos may have found an interesting other way to work the business forward of the centre line, but when all is said and done, BBB Hall had his fingerprints all over at least half of them as he threw his weight around like only he can.
The few forays Port made to our end didn’t have a snowflakes of finding their way through the Swans defence.
It wasn’t until time on that that the hapless Power posted their first score, a goal, and so retained their unique record of being the only team in the time-honoured history of the comp never to have played a scoreless first quarter.
But it was game over.
No coming back from there in the modern game.
At half time I overheard a bloke instruct his six to seven year old boy who had enquired as to the state of the game “son! if Port win this one, it’ll be the biggest comeback ever seen, ever, don’t worry about it, it’s in the bag, son. I can guarantee you we will be signing the song at the end of the game”.
The Goodes Train and Magic both had the best games I’ve seen them play in a veritable yonks; in the second quarter, within minutes of each other, they both took miracle marks on the forward flanks that had the crowd gasping in amazement.
“how did he do that?!?”
Especially The Train, who right in front of us, was flat on his back after falling heavily out of a ruck and appeared to have his head tangled up in other players feet, when the ball just landed on his chest after a kick from outside fifty.
He grabbed it, got up, dusted himself off, and kicked a goal.
But even that was surpassed as a candidate for mark of the year, as Reg Grundy climbed all over the backs of his own players out on the wing underneath the Brewongle Stand to take an absolute screamer.
SC Roos was even moved so far as to say “it was among the best marks I’ve seen” in his 15 years in the caper.
He can be excused.
For older observers of the game, hazy psychedelic flash backs tend to occur when you see the No.39 fly again, but at least young Reg doesn’t appear to have a fruit shop stuffed down the front of his shorts.
Goodes, if fact, was probably best on ground for mine, followed closely by Ca’p’n “never played a bad game” Kirk, Odd Head McVeigh was outstanding, Bolton, J. put in the hard yards all over the park, Jolly as solid as the Grampians in the ruck, Mr Hall To You Mate just annoyed the hell out of any Port player who came anywhere near him, while Rick Shaw [as the GLW calls him] and young Teddy Richards both had corkers.
Name anyone you like, the side was carrying very few passengers.
In the new smoking lounge out the back of the Bradman Stand at quarter time, I offered the lone Port supporter a cigarette and said, “Jeez, it must be tough being a Port fan, mate?” to which he replied, “it could be worse, although I don’t know just how”.
Speaking of smoking lounges, the new arrangement actually puts the smokers outside the ground near Gate E surrounded only by an ineffectually secured waist high plastic barrier.
It would be a simple matter to blend in with the puffers and chuggers before the start of a game, casually slip over the barrier unnoticed, and watch the match for free from the excellent view afforded from the standing room area in front of the Dally Messenger Bar.
Just a thought.


SYDNEY 8.1 11.6 13.13 18.15 (123). Goals: Goodes 2, Hall 2, Kirk 2, Jolly 2, McVeigh 2, White 2, Buchanan, J.Bolton, Moore, Mattner, O'Loughlin, O'Keefe.
PORT ADELAIDE 1.0 3.3 6.6 10.8 (68). Goals: Ebert 2, Hartlett 2, Tredrea 2, Cassisi, Motlop, Burgoyne, Logan.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 23,229.



Excuse me, but if ever a team was robbed blind by the Bamfords it was the Tiger’s on Friday night.
The fishwraps the next day were screaming on the back page:
“Sheens spewing over Benji binning!”Must say my jaw did drop watching the delayed telecast when B.Marshall was given his marching orders following five consecutive penalties against the Tiges.
OK, OK, sure, so the Tiges were going the squirrel grip, putting in shepherds all over the shop and getting in the way of legitimate attackers, sitting on blokes heads after completing the tackle, deliberately attempting to slow down the play-the-ball, and generally going the niggle, but for the ref to send the Acting Captain off for ten minutes at a crucial moment in the second half to make an example of the whole team for “repeated professional fouls” was well beyond the pale, for mine.
Seen worse in kindergarten playgrounds.
Especially in weather conditions described by the hardy few who turned up as “appalling”
SC Sheens made it plain that he only attended the post match press conference under coercion, “I’d be fined by the NRL if I didn’t turn up”, and wasn’t much interested in what the press had to ask of him.
But they went ahead anyway and in reply to a question about that aspect of the refereeing performance, SC Sheens simply left it at “well, the crowd booed, and so did I”.
Little wonder then at full time that some lunatic patron leaps the fence and puts in a well executed leg tackle on the Bamford in question, who was then duly ground into the mud by the angry, frustrated punter, before the idiot was jumped on by security and then led away by the cops.
You couldn’t help but feel some degree of sympathy for the fool -- in fact there is a school of thought that says he should have been given a medal -- until the errant ref attacker sold his story to the front page of one of the Sunday fishwraps, describing how “a moment of alcohol-fuelled madness” had led to a “brain snap” that had “ruined my life”.
C’mon, puleeease!
So you’ve been warned off approaching within one kilometre of any rugby league football ground in the world for life, have you mate?
Time to switch codes, or invest in a good radio, son, because they might not have you down the pub anymore, and you probably can’t afford pay TV.
The absence of Robbie Farah [at least the NSW selectors had their thinking hats on when they picked him at hooker for State-of-Origin One] in the front row due to a head knock in the silly loss to the Rabbitoh’s the week before tends to indicate the Tigers are now, more or less, a two-trick pony.
However…the most extraordinary sight of the night was the appearance of the Great John Skandalis on the football field after a 992 day absence from the National Rugby League.
Crikey!
The Great Skando retirement commemorative t-shirt is in my wardrobe, for chrissake, and is regularly worn.
And blow me down if he didn’t have a pretty good second half when called upon.
Come to think of it, when TGS was taken on as a forwards coach by SC Sheens at the start of the season he made sure that he was registered as an eligible player, and did threaten him to pull on the jockstrap and the jersey and smear on the ol’ man’s liniment and take to the field, if and when Balmain “ran out of forwards”.
It now seems we have reached that point.


WESTS TIGERS 18. Tries: Tagive, Tuiaki, Marshall, Ayshford. Goals: Marshall (1).
BRISBANE BRONCOS 20. Tries: Winterstein, Hunt, Te’o, Lockyer. Goals: Parker (2).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 9,675.

for the sake of completeness

Having been away in Indo-China for the best part of three weeks, these scoreboxes are listed here for the sake of completeness:

An unconvincing win here, but all reports.

SYDNEY 5.6 9.7 1.9 14.10 (94). Goals: O’Loughlin 2, Jack 2, Moore 2, Meredith 2, Hall 2, Shaw, McVeigh, Thornton, Grundy.
RICHMOND 2.1 5.4 9.6 11.9 (75). Goals: Tambling 2, Collins 2, Graham 2, Richardson, Oakley-Nicholls, Nahas, Coughlan, Riewoldt.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 25,410.

Yet another case of the one that got away:

CANTERBURY BULLDOGS 22. Tries: El Masri (2), Ennis, Goodwin. Goals: El Masri (3)
WESTS TIGERS 20. Tries: Moltzen, Ryan (2), Payten. Goals: Gallant (2)
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd 25,622

Predictable loss:

GEELONG 1.5 8.7 12.10 17.14 (116). Goals :Johnson 4, Stokes 3, Mooney 3, Hawkins 3, Bartel, Rooke, Byrnes, Kelly.
SYDNEY 1.2 4.3 7.4 10.5 (65). Goals: O'Loughlin 3, Goodes 2, Grundy 2, Moore, J. Bolton, Meredith.
At Kardinia Park.
Crowd: 22,050.

Easy two points:

WESTS TIGERS: Bye.

An absolute corker of a match according to those who were there. Heart pills were required in the final quarter.

SYDNEY 5.2 7.4 14.7 16.10 (106). Goals: Hall 5, Goodes 3, J. Bolton 2, Mattner, Ablett, Moore, Jolly, O’Loughlin, Jack.
WEST COAST 4.2 6.6 11.6 15.11 (101). Goals: McKinley 4, Kennedy 3, Lynch 2, Cox 2, McNamara, Cockie, Jones, S. Selwood
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd 33,079

Rabbitohs kicked a field goal in the dying minute to deny Tigers a deserved victory:

WESTS TIGERS 22 Tries: Tuiaki (2), Farah, Moltzen. Goals: Marshall (3).
SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 23 Tries: Talanoa (2), Champion, Fa'alogo. Goals: Sandow (1),Luke (2), Field Goals: Merritt (1).
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd 29,970.

wouldn’t go that far on me holidays

Swine Swooners,

Watching the Fiasco at Subiaco was a painful experience.
No wonder Andrew Dipierdomenico, whatever his name is, y’know, the AFL No. 1 boss cocky, described Subicao Oval as the “worst ground in the league”, mid week.
“too small, can’t get a cold beer” were perhaps his central criticisms.
Suggested about $20 million might make it better.
Strange then, that the NSW Govt pulls the rug from out of underneath The Showground redevelopment, by reneging on verbal agreements to spend a squillion on the white elephant; telling the AFL oops! sorry! but we can’t find our way clear to spend a single penny on that one anymore.
Besides, we haven’t got the money anyway, and then there’s the potential backlash at the ballot box in labor heartland.
You can imagine Premier Greasy Reecy, the former Parramatta garbo, muttering in Cabinet “Rules!? Game for poofs!”
The Western Sydney Whatevers still born.
Watch the Launceston Devils queue up to have a lash at the entrails.
As someone said along the front bar at The Local yesterday when the question of AFL expansion was raised for debate, “does that mean there will be a bye in the fixture list in 20011-12?”
With BBB Hall missing in action for the past two weeks, given that extensive time on the work bench hasn’t cure his dose of Shagger’s Back, and Magic having gone walkabout for the entire season to date, the Swans are lacking focus when it comes to kicking to the forward pocket.
No matter that you have six goals kicked on you in the first quarter by a team that could muster just four goals for the entire game the week prior.
On that measure, St Kilda will win the grand final by the length of the street.
In the modern game there is rarely any chance of coming back from that far down even at that early stage and certainly game over by half time
The old blokes, with the exception of Brett The Eternal Nirvanarist Never Played a Bad Game Kirk appearing in his 200th, had rings run around them, and the few young kiddies in the side were left clueless as a result.
So that didn’t help proceedings.
As the barkeep at The Local said to me pointedly as he was languidly polishing the martini glasses, “you can get a good price on the Swans making the final eight, or so they tell me.”

FREMANTLE 6.4 11.9 16.10 18.13 (121). Goals: Mundy 3, Pavlich 3, McPharlin 3, Peake 2, Schammer, Murphy, Johnson, Thornton, Crowley, Sandilands, Hayden.
SYDNEY SWANS 2.2 5.3 11.3 16.4 (100). Goals: Goodes 3, McVeigh 2, Jolly, Mattner, Jack, Shaw, Malceski, Thornton, Buchanan, Grundy, Barlow, Meredith, O’Keefe.
At Subiaco Oval.
Crowd: 32,884.


“Campbelltown!”, the Good lady Wife exclaimed, “I wouldn’t go that far on me holidays!”
And so it is with the Wests Tigers third home ground, the home of the Western Suburbs Magpies…at least a 50 minute drive from here on a normal day…it’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.
And so missed another classic two weeks in a row, with the most rousing come-from-behind win seen at the ground in many a season.
“he beats one, he beats two, he beats three, he beats four! he’s beaten five would you believe, [!screaming by now!], Marshall’s found a hole, can he go all the way? great dummy there to beat the full-back, and he’s got it out to his winger, who’s away, to scooooorrre!”
Or so the ABC radio call went as I recall.
“that has to be one of the best rugby league tries you will ever see”
Benji floats like a butterfly across the width of the football field while making twenty yards with the jink, the step, the weave, the dummy here, the dummy there…beating tackles left, right, and centre…then stings like a bee.
The kiddie could be anything this season on the strength of that, particularly coming as it did very late in the second half to put the Mighty Tigers back in the match with a chance of winning.
It was a game where match fitness really counted, and yes, aware that there’s been some criticism from these quarters of Balmain’s match fitness over recent weeks, but the hard men finally stood up.
When you look at it askance, you realise that it must be a clever ploy on the part of SC Sheens to ramp the blokes up slowly, only get them really toughened up by game five or six, and then have them playing out of their minds approaching mid season, in the hope that they don’t break to pieces by season’s end and the club suddenly finds there’s more players on the Rugby League Players Association Injured Players Benevolent Fund list than not.
SC Sheens is thinking all the time, and it might just work.
It has before.

WESTS TIGERS 26. Tries: Collis (3), Ryan, Morris. Goals: Marshall (3).
NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS 24. Tries: Hilder, Houston, Wicks, Mullen. Goals: Gidley (4).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd:17,898.

PS. Will be in Indochina for the best part of the next three weeks, so the Winter Game wire will be in abeyance for a while.
While the Bangkok Post and the Vientiane Times do print international cricket scoreboards on their back pages, they don’t extend to Aussie football scores as a rule.
As always, any eye witness accounts, lunatic rantings, studied analysis, drunken delusions, views from The Hill, etc, much appreciated to help fill in the gaps.

"the Sydney way of going"

Opportunists,

By all accounts, missed a classic upset at the spiritual home of Balmain rugby league on Monday night.
Call me a weak poof, if you will, but the gale force sou’wester and the scudding low clouds with short sharp bursts of sheeting rain was rather off putting.
As the Good Lady Wife remarked very early in the day “be buggered if I’m going to get a wet arse at the football. those days have gone away”.
In the event, the Mighty Tiges won the toss and kicked with the not inconsiderable breeze and wound up leading 10-6 at half time, then managed in a humungous defensive effort, to maintain the same score line for the vast bulk of the second stanza, to within about a minute and a half from the end when from an innocuous scrum, the Balmain backline caught on fire for no apparent reason and the try scoring freak Chris Lawrence was sent on his way from about sixty metres out to score under the posts for a famous 16-6 victory against last year’s Grand Finalists.
Those at the ground suggest that the wags operating the score board took down the scores at the end of the reserve grade game, and then put the number 10 in the Wests Tigers score box, to acknowledge the fact that playing at Leichhardt Oval is worth ten points to the home team before they even start.
And so it was.
Mad Gus Gould without hesitation awarded the man of the match award on MMM to Robbie Farah, when in truth he spent much of the game as traffic cop, with a handful of good busts over the advantage line, while the Moltzen kiddie at full back was probably a better candidate for best.
Keefy “Bloodnut” Galloway is playing out his mind in the forwards and now appears to be the most valuable off season re-signing given that he was being targeted by the Gold Coast, the team probably has the best wingers in the caper, a very serviceable forward pack led by The Refrigerator, but there remains concern that Benji is still playing too far back at half back and isn’t hitting the advantage line with the required gusto in order to create opportunity in broken play.
Needs to match that with his judicious kicks in general play and his by and large excellent goal kicking.
Still, in the grand scheme of things, the coach’s curse of inconsistency continues to dog.
The Tigers game record so far this season is W-L-W-L-L-W.
At that rate, SC Sheens will not have a single hair on his head by season’s end.

WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Lawrence (2), Moltzen. Goals: Marshall (2).
MELBOURNE STORM 6. Tries: Hoffman. Goals: C.Smith (1).
At Leichhardt Oval.
Crowd: 12, 646.

There was no window opportunity to attend the first Australian Rules game to be played on a Saturday afternoon at the Sydney Cricket Ground since 1952.
Good to see the Swans go around in the traditional South Melbourne strip of white with red sash, but did they really have black numbers on their backs in the 1909 Grand Final?
Thinking that the numbering of players guernsey’s in the VFL didn’t become commonplace until the 1920’s, given that everyone at the ground back in those days before vast stadiums, knew who they were looking at simply by body shape and the visage on the players faces.
Noted that the young Shaw kiddie on television interview after the game admitted that the Swans were all at sea in the first quarter, until they found “the Sydney way of going” in the second quarter.
Something that SC Roos later referred to as “Plan B”.
Don’t know if it was an oblique reference to the Doncaster Handicap being run and won on the same afternoon at adjacent Royal Randwick, or the now time honoured Swans tactic of shutting teams down across the half back line to prevent them from scoring, while not overly bothering to attack the big sticks at the other end themselves.
Low scoring, ugly win is as good as any other win, or so the theory goes.
Plan B certainly seemed to work after BBB Hall was ruled out on match day with a mild dose of Shaggers Back; the Swans ten goal kickers in a score of just 12 goals points to an increasing tendency of SC Roos to switch whole backlines into the forwards from time to time and vice versa just to confuse the hell out of the opposition.
It might just work in the long run as the modern footballer realises that you have to be able to play everywhere, multi-skill, while jumping through all the hoops at the same time.
Still, for all that, it’s a dull game when you find yourself nodding off on the lounge in front of the unblinking eye before half time.
Lord save the AFL’s “push” into western Sydney if the new team also adopts “the Sydney way of going”
Potential fans living in The Great Armpit will find themselves running a hundred miles away from that.
Can see the experiment resulting in a whole lot of people losing a whole lot of money, and it all ending in tears and a quivering mass of nerve endings after a couple of years.
Why bother?

SYDNEY: 3.0 7.2 10.7 12.12 (84). Goals: McVeigh 3, Bird, Jolly, Barlow, J Bolton, Moore, White, Thornton, Ablett, Mattner
CARLTON: 3.5 3.12 6.12 9.13 (67). Goals: Betts 3, Fevola, Cloke, Judd, Simpson, Murphy, Houlihan.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 30,834.