no one to blame but themselves

Those who have also been rendered speechless,

A rather large, short woman fully fitted out in genuine Western Suburbs gear from the eighties when Victa Mowers still had their major sponsorship splashed across the back of the jersey, got on the train home from Central after the game.
She plonked herself down into two seats with a hurrumph, and a couple of tears dropped out of both eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
She didn't bother to wipe them away, and then promptly fell asleep.
Had had enough.
There is nothing worse than having a long way to go home after losing by a bloody point.
Everyone's been there, and it aint no fun.
It was a very puzzling game in a baffling week.
Don't get me started on the decision to purchase the Easts captain, Braith Anasta, on a two-year contract starting 2013.
The bloke is by all accounts a scholar and a gentleman, but with looks only a mother could love...however, why on earth would you buy a 30-year-old five-eighth who's looking for some superannuation to get into rugby league's Sunset Home, when you have a perfectly good, nay superstar, five-eighth already on the books on a long term contract?
So, Anasta might be able to play second row, and might be strong enough to finish his career there, but really?
Beats me.
Lets just hope they haven't paid too much for him.
No idea what possessed me to buy tickets to the game, but the Marketing Dept clearly sucked me in as they offered really cheap tickets to the cheap seats for Members who didn't have one to hand.
Remind me to never again go to a South Sydney game, ever.
How could anyone forget that Rabbitohs fans come from the lower breeds?
You just have to take one look at Russell Crowe.
They are inevitably foul-mouthed on the barrack, when there is really no call to descend into the gutter at the football.
Don't they know that women and children are present?
Then again, the screaming banshee women and their children are just as bad.
They also steadfastly refuse to behave in a quiet and sociable way in the bars.
They are sore losers, and vindictive winners, but to be fair, on the way out of the ground a woman wearing rabbit's ears pushed her pram over the toes on my bad foot - which was only protected by a flimsy sandal - which produced a surprisingly effusive apology.
That's another thing Souths' supporters do, they take babes-in-arms to the football, no doubt to inculcate the yob ethos into them from birth.
The banner hanging from "The Burrow", where the lowest of the low hang out, was plainly offensive.
It was the so-called Heritage Round, so the Tigers wore a replica of the jersey worn by Western Suburbs in their last Grand Final win 60 years ago this year.
The banner read:
"Heritage. We've got ours. You sold yours"
Enough said.
Meantime, back on the field...
The Moltzen Kiddie scoring a try in the first two minutes auguered well.
After Benji almost didn't play after reportedly being plauged with chronic headaches after being all but knocked out in classic clothesline tackle for two weeks running, Souths decided to leave him alone on humanitarian grounds, and instead clearly targeted Moltzen, who was cleaned up heavily in a very late, very high tackle by that well known Souths hooligan Michael Crocker running at full pelt, as the Balmain full-back was completely defenceless as he'd just landed back on his feet after defusing a difficult bomb.
You could hear the sickening thud from where we were sitting in the stands.
It had malicious foul play written all over it and would have been a send off offence back in the day, but attracted no more than a penalty and a report, and the Faceless Men down at the Match Review Committee raised one eyebrow on the Monday morning telling the thug: you can escape a week's rubbing out if you plead guilty and we smack you over the wrist with a wet lettuce leaf.
Lord save us...
The traditional softening up period over the first twenty minutes was a bit like hand-to-hand combat on the Somme, with only a few inches gained here and there by either side.
Don't know that Souths made a single break over the advantage line in the first stanza - the 6-0 half time score tells the story.
The Bamfords also had a fair bit to answer for; constantly blowing really annoying penalties for trivial or technical infringements, when the fundamental off-side rule in the game went completely un-policed.
The players aren't stupid, and both sides took full advantage of being allowed to creep inside the regulation ten metres at every play the ball, as the referees were gazing off to the horizon looking to penalise some obscure infraction of the rules.
The end result was that much of the game just ground into a brutal stalemate.
Where's the spectacle in that?
After getting caned yet again in the penalty count, SC Sheens said on interview that he woud have his "usual head-butting" with the Bamford's boss about it, but you know it won't do you no good Tim, so why bother?
What's done is done.
Second half and all went very very well for a while, but then, why didn't Marshall go for two clear chances at the field goal at two converted tries up, that's 12 points in front, with ten minutes to go, just to put the fruit on the sideboard?
The Super Coach could be seen pulling out what little hair he has left on his bonce, given his mantra about field goals - "it's easier to ge 'em early, than to get 'em late".
Then they winded up, in the denoument, finding that they had no one to blame but themselves when they let in two lame, soft, opposition tries which should have easily been defended, to allow Souths to push the game into extra time.
A dead set coach killer.
Could barely bare to watch the scheduled ten minutes added on.
When the winning Rabbitoh's field goal wobbled its erratic way off the boot towards the goal, brushed both the cross-bar and an upright on it's way through, before falling over for the one point advantage, the chin went into the chest and the hands went to the top of the shaking head.
What should have been a rolled gold opportunity at victory turned into complete disaster in the blink of an eye.
Joisus.
It could well be time for a session in the Room Full of Mirrors down on the Balmain Road after that showing.
One more loss and they'll need a purple patch just to get back on an even keel, and then another one, to have a chance of a shot at the finals.
That's the best part of half a season, with almost a quarter already gorn.
The 24 year old Sydney Football Stadium now has a very lived-in look, and is showing her age [unlike the Olympic Stadium which looks and feels like it was built yesterday].
Never mind that don't do any maintenance on it.
My seat was broken.
It had been unhinged at the back, so whenever you sat too close to the edge of the seat with your hands in your mouth, you risked tipping forward and head butting the bloke in the row in front of you from behind, by accident.
Just leapt to my feet when there was a risk of that happening.
Still, the design means the circulation of people around the joint still works pretty seamlessly, and the latrines and catering were not overly overcrowded.
The beers were mercifully cold, if a touch over-priced, but it was VB, while the pies were thermo-nuclear.
What more do you want?
The smoking lounge out the back of Bay 30 at half-time was quite spectacular.
There were thousands and thousands of chuggers out there creating the tremendous sight of a huge cloud of tobacco smoke that heaved and pulsated in the sea breeze and then ironically drifted up and back into the top deck of the stands, as all the ciggies had been concentrated into the one area.
Chuckled, as the gasping social lepers got the last laugh
They'd even had the decency and sense to install a pop-up bar in the smoking lounge, outside the ground, to keep the addicts happy.
Bless.
There were some interesting scenes down at the Front Bar in The Local on Monday morning, but that can wait...
In the meantime...need a new plan.

WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Ayshford, Moltzen, Tuqiri. Goals: Marshall (2).
SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 17. Tries: Luke (2), Everingham. Goals: Reynolds (2). Field Goals: Inglis (1).
At Sydney Football Stadium.
Crowd: 25,608.

Craves.

not quite a ten goal football lesson

Gladiators,

In any other kind of sport this sort of thing would be banned outright in this day and age.
Men versus Boys.
But oh no, not in this caper, where it's comprehensively encouraged and sanctioned.
Something about the need to blood the children into the game.
Most of the Pygmies team are weedy teenagers playing against big boofy grown men in the Swans side.
Tell me how that works and what it proves?
At the finish, there were quite a few of them cramping up due to a lack of match fitness; there was one bloke right on the final siren who was doubled up with it, on his knees, on the boundary line in front of the bunker with his head in his hands, and he appeared to be weeping.
As if to say "you never told me it would be this hard, Guv."
It's a very tough game, no doubt about it, especially as it goes on for far too long.
Hours and hours in fact; when one of the clear attractions of rugby league is that it done and dusted strictly within 80 minutes.
There has been a half-hearted push on to shorten the quarters by five minutes and reduce the time allowance for half time, which could only be a good thing...less injuries, you'd think, less all round buggeredness, less drunkeness in the crowd, and the punters could head for home half an hour earlier than usual.
But of course no one at HQ is listening, on the grounds of if it's not broke, why fix it?
The issue is that the attention span in greater Sydney - the whole whopping great joint that it is - is attuned at birth to a short and explosive game.
Therein lies the AFL's problem on this side of the island.
It just takes too long.
Perhaps they should introduce NSW rules for Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra games?
Didn't quite catch the name of the small piece of silverware that The Train picked up after the match.
It appeared to be some kind of tin cup, the sort of thing you'd win for the U14's hundred metres footrace if you came first.
Nothing like having a shiny trophy in the cabinet this early in the season.
The Brett Kirk Medal was also apparently awarded to JP Kennedy for Best on Ground.
Hard to argue with that.
The Swans forwards, rucks and rovers look to be the goods, and lets face it, the backs just stood around all day looking at the clouds as they weren't overly busy.
Not quite a ten goal lesson, but still more than 60 points, which would have satisfied the mad punters who had put sheep stations on it at a $1.14 at the books.
Forever the optimist, my spy at the ground reckons that the Swans could slip in under the radar with the draw they've got - banking on a couple of good purple patches to easily make September.
The bloke suggests the list is quite settled this year, the youngsters have a debut year under their belts, and the journeymen are just about coming into their prime.
You only have to take a look at the Son of Gary, Les Kennedy, In Like McGlynn, the Flying Jetta, Little Birdie, the Ugliest Man in Football et al to get the picture, not to mention old stagers like Bolton, J., Odd Head and the Goodes Train.
Mr Ed, the Talking Horse of course, was just happy to put the premiership points in the dilly bag and move on to next week, or fortnight, or whatever it might be.
The Pygs have some promise in terms of nascent talent no doubt, grant them that, but it will take years, and millions, to make them competitive, and it could very well end in tears.
Just ask Geoffrey Edelsten, he'll tell ya.
SC Sheeds is likely to lose all his hair.
The GLW slipped her glasses onto the end of her snout when she heard the three quarter time siren on the telly, and had a look at the score.
She remarked "well, there's obviously too many AFL teams in Sydney" and then went back to reading the Saturday paper.
Enough said.

GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY: 1.2, 3.3, 3.4, 5.7 (37). Goals: Ward, Giles, McDonald, Wilson, Hoskin-Elliott.
SYDNEY: 4.1, 8.4, 13.8, 14.16 (100). Goals: Bird 2, Kennedy 2, Jetta 2, Everitt, McGlynn, Rohan, Bolton, McVeigh, Jack, Roberts-Thomson, Mumford.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 38,203.

Robbed blind for the second week in the row with a shocking penalty count against them, 8-3 in the denoument.
Never mind that the forwards were crunched by a Canberra pack dead set full of monsterous gorillas.
You can accept that the side generally didn't play very well.
As the GLW put it over dinner at half time "jeez, it's not very nice to rob the poor".
But how are you expected to score points when you are constantly deprived of the football and have next to no possession wholly and solely because of the bastard petty officialdom.
As you are no doubt aware, it just gets on my goat and it's simply unacceptable.
If there's one thing that really pisses me off about the game, it's Bamfords who think they know more than what's in the rule book.
You don't have to mention the 40, yes 40 tackles, that the Tigers missed - they were out there for all to see - and it was just very poor rugby league.
SC Sheens would have undoubtedly been volcanic at the final siren, in an explosive pyrocrastic sort of way.
From the live call, it appears the coach waited at the entrance to the race for the referee's to run off the field, and gave them the death stare without saying a word as they ran into the tunnel, under police escort, with the crowd hooting and booing, only just restraining themselevs from throwing things.
When the steam finally stopped coming out of his ears, SC Sheens ventured the observation on interview "You need to defend in this game. We didn't".
You can put that down to an unsettled pack, for mine
Don't think they've fielded the same forwards in any game so far; crying out for thye Bludnut, That Pom Ellis out for a week then back in, The Best Leb in the Game outrageously rubbed out for a fortnight for the accidental spear tackle.
It makes it difficult if there are constant personnel changes in the forwards, the depth in the reserves doesn't appear to be that deep.
It's alos no good when the marquee player is deliberately targeted
Still, not to worry at one and three; as they say in the classics, it's never as good as it seems, and it's never as bad as it looks.
Aside: With the welcome advent of digital radio, no longer have to go down to Dad's Shed and rig up the short wave ariel to recieve the comedy call on the MMM signal... you just put the new unit into auto tune and it comes to you crystal clear, as if out of thin air.
Marconi would have been impressed.

WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Ellis, Miller, Moltzen. Goals: Marshall (2).
CANBERRA RAIDERS 30. Tries: Croker (2), McCrone, Mataora, Campese. Goals: Croker (5).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 14,388.

a very tawdry affair

Football Judges,

Should've stayed out on the back deck with the glass of cheeky Barossa Valley Shiraz and continued to view the spectacular distant lightning show as it swept across the south-western horizon without a sound, rather than step inside and watch a very tawdry affair on the unbliking eye.
If you thought Manly played dirty last week, you didn't reckon on the Saints.
Filth, filth & more filth.
Squirrel grips, Xmas holds, rabbit punches, not to mention the two blatant swinging forearms to the head of completely defenceless blokes going down in the tackle, both of which were just not seen by the muddle-headed half-blind wrong-footed Bamfords.
After being illegally attacked, Benji only just managed to get up on jelly legs, wobbled about for quite awhile, and played no useful part for the rest of the second half even though he stayed on the field.
The Moltzen Kiddie got a nasty one - as he was clearly getting special treatment on account of last year's off field unpleasantness - and was in la la land; so out of his tree he was in the next orchard.
And yet he also played on.
A clever plan on the part of the Dragons - lay out the opposition half-back and five-eighth on the sly, and try to get away with it, which they comprehensively did.
As the bloke on the TV commentary said "it's difficult to fathom so much foul play going un-noticed".
The on-field powers-that-be said not a word about it, of course, but you would have thought the Faceless Men on the Match Review Committee would have taken an interest in those two tackles, but, no.
Instead they throw the book at The Great Robbie Farah.
Absolutely fookin' gobsmacked.
Outrageous to think that one of the cleanest players in the caper, and certainly The Best Leb in the Game, could be threatened with a three week ban for a completely innocent unintentional accidental spear tackle with no harm done.
Beyond belief.
The first thing Farah did afterwards was apologise to the bloke for making the mistake, which he accepted, and that's where it should have ended.
But, no.
Fair enough about enforcing the rules re protecting the head and neck of the player carrying the ball, but really, if you go by that criteria, why did the pair of Saints goons get off scott free, without so much as a slap on the wrist?
It doesn't matter how much it costs, Robbie should just march on down to the league judiciary, trailing closely behind the best available QC on the night to argue his case, and then flip 'em the bird regardless of the outcome.
Joisus.
Seen everything in this game now.
Never been known as someone who goes on about it ad nauseum - who, me? - so let's go back to the game - where the rule-bound Bamfords constantly penalised the Tigers for inconsequential nit-picking technicalities - like not standing straight in the play the ball - what the??
SC Sheens on interview after the match admitted that he was "perplexed" by the refereeing, but added that "I've never known where I stand with the judiciary or the referees from day one", so obviously, he aint about to start trying now.
Let's face it, day one was a long time ago.
He's got bigger fish to fry.
The real problem, though, was Balmain were un-nerved by the tactics - and who can blame them after being so rudely roughed up like that - and they then sought unecessary revenge, and in the process took their minds off the game, stopped paying attention to the matter at hand, and in the meantime were outplayed by some old fashioned attacking rugby league producing regulation rugby leauge tries.
Outfoxed, simple as that.
Not nearly enough smarts, for mine.
Maybe the coach should give them some books to read.
SC Sheens would've paid the customary visit to the Football Office on Monday morning to see the Club Secretary in a quiet & sociable way, and have a chat over a cup of tea and a cream bun.
He would've opened the Coach's Ledger - which contains 26 rows in two columns, one headed "we'll take our wins" and the other "we'll learn from our losses" - scratched his mark in the loss column, then closed the book, and put it back on the Secretary's desk, where it belongs.
St Tim then would have announced his intention to thrash the team relentlessly on the training paddock this week while teaching them a few lessons, as the Secretary approvingly nodded his head while licking the crumbs from his lips.
There is no other way, oh, except for the Room Full Of Mirrors down on the Balmain Road, but it's too early in the season for that.
In the final paralysis, the late withdrawl of That Pom Ellis didn't help matters, no one could really say with any honesty that they played well, if the team had a game plan no-one could remember it, and they deserved to lose, which they did.
Not to worry.
The Super Coach is as aware as anyone that premiership winning teams don't play their best football in the first few weeks of a new season, and you'd be very worried if they did, and abruptly ended his post-match press conference by stating the bleeding obvious: "we've got a lot of work to do."

ST GEORGE-ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 36. Tries: Creagh, Fien, Hornby, Hunt, Rein, Vidot. Goals: Soward (6).
WESTS TIGERS 12. Tries: Reddy, Ryan. Goals: Marshall (2).
At Jubilee Oval, Kogarah.
Crowd: 18,726.

deep behind enemy lines

Board Riders,

Found myself last Friday deep behind enemy lines.
Invited, by sheer coincidence, to a late afternoon wedding on Collaroy Beach, of all places, with reception following at the Harbord Diggers Club.
Diggers is about as close as you can possibly get to being front and centre in the Manly-Warringah district.
The heart of enemy territory.
My, how the Diggers has changed since my last visit nigh on 20 years ago.
It's gone from a simple two storey red-brick clubhouse, to an RSL on steroids, with millions of pokies spead out over the multi-storeyed mega-plex with an impressive amount of floor space.
Harbord Diggers used to be rightly famous for it's magnificent views of Freshwater and Curl Curl beaches, perched as it is right out on the Queenscliffe headland.
But even as the club has got significantly higher, much of the old view has been built out by rich bastards.
Par for the course in that part of the world.
In another sheer coincidence the reception was held in the Duke Kahanamoku Room, who's name was invoked the following day when Freshwater [the surf was pumping by the way - local denizens were saying in hushed tones "best in years"] was officially named as only the third World Surfing Reserve, after Malibu, California and some joint in Portugal.
Even more coincidental, the next day the 'featured picture' on the Wikepdia main page was of the very boat we had travelled on from Circular Quay, the Manly ferry MV Collaroy.
Sitting down to write this blog post, started to become convinced that some kind of conspiracy was going on.
The only strange thing that didn't fit, was that the game was being played in Gosford.
The lone Tiger's supporter in the full kit in the main bar [which sports the largest television screen known to man] stood out like tits on a bull, needless to say.
Seeing a fellow shag on a rock, showed him my 2012 Membership badge on the key ring, and instantly regretted my mistake, as his eyes lit up.
The bloke just stopped short of telling me his life story.
Claimed he was on first name terms with several of the Manly players, not to mention the entire Stewart family, that he'd lived in the Manly area for most of his life [he was about my age], always drank at the Diggers and identified himself as a local, but he'd been born a Balmain supporter, and said with finality "so, that's that, isn't it?"
There is no chance whatsoever of switching allegiances in Tribal Sydney.
You are either born to or you marry into a football team; out-of-towners who breeze in and then stay on for more than 30 years are still considered fly-by-nighters, who can suit themselves.
One of the wedding guests, Jim the Macedonian [a crazy mad St George fan who, like many if not all, hates Manly, who said on his 6th birthday he felt like a king when he was given the full Dragons supporters kit] was also with me as we watched most of the second half.
So there we we're, the three of us, rooting for a lost cause.
It wasn't pretty to look at.
Never mind the two Tigers' tries at the denoument to make it a close game, which was widely trumpeted in the fishwraps as a "tremendous Tigers comeback", when it was nothing of the sort.
You have to wonder if the newspaper articles are being written by the Balmain Public Relations Officer.
After letting go of an 8-2 half-time lead in the blink of an eye shortly after the break, they were always playing catch-up football, which in this code, is very hard to do.
They were fitter than the home side in the finish, but the scoreboard pressure proved too much.
As soon as That Pom Ellis went off early in the second half with a corked thigh, not to return, the forward structure, as Jim put it, "went to shit".
At least there was some consolation with a free drink, or three, in the Duke's room, even though drowning one's sorrows is not generally permitted and is usually frowned upon this early in the year.
SC Sheens was not much concerned with the loss, commenting that after Gareth went down the race "we made a couple of mistakes and all of a sudden we were in quicksand trying to get ourselves out" - he's much more concerned with the very early season injury toll, with his first pick full back gorn for the year, important players like Galloway and Utai out for a month each, and how That Pom goes mid-week is anyone's guess.
You'd have to hope the Balmain roster is deep in replacements for the fallen with the current attrition rate the way it is.
Next Friday night, the lads take on St George at their Spiritual Home, Jubliee Oval, Kogarah.
Jim the Macedonian will be there front and centre.
He won't be a very happy camper after his team was right thrashed over the weekend.
And so it goes.

MANLY-WARRINGAH SEA EAGLES 22. Tries: King, Cherry-Evans, Williams. Goals: Lyon (5).
WESTS TIGERS 18. Tries: Blair, Ryan, Reddy. Goals: Marshall (3)
At Central Coast Football Stadium, Gosford.
Crowd: 17,532.

the football gods were smiling

General Admissioners,

We ambled down to the ground from the Orange Grove Hotel singing the ditty...
"And the afternoon was sunny,
The weather it was fine,
We all went down the Oval,
To watch them Sharks go down."
After five days of solid rain in Sydney, match day dawned as a sunny, rather warm day - to the point where there was a one minute drinks break mid-way through each half and half time was lengthened by five minutes.
Even so, the players were completely buggered as they went to extra time, and were cramping up all over the field.
The playing surface held up remarkabley well, even though it appeared some eejit groundsman had spread some heavy duty fertiliser that had killed the grass in regular narrow strips across the ground.
We got to the Spritual Home 40 minutes before kick off, and the ground was already as full as a boot with all the front row standing room only spots on the terrace under the Norman "Latchem" Robinson Stand that we favour already taken.
Managed to find a couple of short people to peer over the heads of, for a panoramic look at the best rugby league viewing ground in the world.
The Tigers marketing department had done a sensational job in selling the game, spreading a rumour that the only way to be guaranteed to get in was to become a Member, and then selling one match Memberships to the season opener at the hugely inflated price of $60, [we paid $25 a head per game for the four-match Leichhardt Oval package] to artificially bolster the Membership numbers and clear a warehouse full of merch.
Brilliant.
The Club Secretary even said that future games at Leichhardt might become Members only affairs, given the rate of sales - the press asked what opposition supporters were supposed to do - to which he replied "well, they can watch it on the telly, can't they?"
In the end they finished up with 1500 walk up tickets, but the attendence was right on the nominal capacity of 20,000, so a few Sharks fans had managed to sneak in.
One of whom we could have done without, as he refused to behave in a quiet and sociable way, being loud and obnoxious as he was.
So, the sooner they shut the gates and keep the riff raff out, the better, for mine
The usual suspects were in.
The good ol' boys from ZZ Top in their full kit of 1970's heirloom Western Suburbs Magpies gear whose beards just seem to grow longer and their tattoos appear to become more numerous as the years go on, were at the bar.
The Wailing Woman, the one who screams maniacally without respite from the opening kick off to the final hooter could be heard, but not seen from our vantage point.
A magnificent spastic, who's only occasionally seen at the ground - he only comes to the big games - was standing near us.
He has an imposing stature of well over six foot and suffers from some kind of St Vitus Dance; with his hands and feet constantly on the move as he gnashes his teeth.
He is a rabid Wests Tigers fan of course, always meticulously turned out in the very latest club garb.
He appears to need no mider as he's quite capable of getting on with it himself.
When the Tigers score a try his arms flap about uncontrollably and by the look on his face he assumes a state of ecstatic happiness.
He's also mute, so of course, makes no sound.
Bless.
There were also displays of ordinary humanity.
Like when the rookie fullback kiddie James Tedesco was stretchered off with what looked like a major season-ending mischief, in the first half of his first game in first grade.
Just 19 years old with the world at his feet; spectators are so close to the action at Leichhardt, you could hear his cry of agony when he went down like a sack of potatoes with an ACL in what was an innocuous tackle.
It was a pitiful sight.
Everyone around us shook their heads and were saying to each other "the poor poor suffering child" as he was given a standing ovation as he was gurneyed to the sideline and taken down the race right in front of us, with the palm of his left hand covering his face so no one could see his weeping.
Enough to move even the hardest heart.
Keefy Galloway was the MOTM by the length of the street for mine...some great yard making runs and always punishing tackles.
Most unfortunately, looks like the bludnut with be out for up to the next six weeks after doing a mischief to one of his feet, of all things.
The marquee signing for this year, Adam Blair, playing in the second row, looked a bit lost in his first game for Balmain, but he is without doubt a big, black, rangy, mobile, nasty bastard.
In other words, a good buy, even though he could take some time to settle.
Forwards played well, but the backs did nothing off some good platforms.
Be My Beau Ryan scoreda try withing 60 seconds of the start off a very lucky bounce in a kick and chase , while Benji used his xray vision and the eyes in the back of his head to pick a narrow gap in the Sharks' defence, and waltzed through the advantage line from 15 yards out with barely a hand laid on him in the opening stanza.
But, most were missing in action in the second half as they were simply outplayed.
More head shaking, particularly at one ridiculous play where the ball was allowed to be bobbled about in the Cronulla backline through about ten sets of hands before an effective tackle was finally made.
Joisus.
The only antidote to that is to have another drink.
Beers have gone up to $6, but no one was complaining.
It's still served ice cold [too cold to hold in mid-winter without gloves] and still served in tins [Balmain fans, it appears, are the only ones in the comp who can be trusted not to throw half full ones at the Bamfords, even under extreme provocation].
Speaking of which, the Bamfords, playing par for the course, had a complete shocker.
It's rare that both sides complained, Cronulla more bitterly, that they were robbed blind, and should have won by plenty if it wasn't for hopelessly incompetant officialdom.
So rare, that the league came straight out and stood down from umpiring duties for a week one J.Maxwell [remember the name, he's a serial offender, he's the Ray Chamberlain of the NRL, constantly on the jibber] for being a bumbling fool.
He'd completely lost control of the game in the denoument.
Cronulla played filthy throughout with high shots, not to mention the sly elbows and knees going in all over the shop, and at one point some Shark rabbit punched a Tiger in the face while he was on the ground as he was being held in the tackle as plain as day for all to see, and breathtakingly, the Bamford gave the penalty to the offender!
Give me strength.
Given that, the Balmain Boys didn't like it much, and hit back, as the game went on to become quite brutal.
After the Sharks were wrongly penalised for being offside in a charge-down in the first set of extra time, and gave Balmain field position to set up the field goal, Benji put it on the toe on the third tackle from about forty yards out; it wobbled strangely off the boot, before settling into an eliptical orbit and only just cleared the crossbar - we are talking a couple of inches here - with the fat part of the ball ocillating wildly.
17-16.
Game over.
The crowd went absolutely apeshit as The Great Marshall danced about on his twinkle toes waggling the fingers of both hands in the air with a wicked grin on his face.
Balmain did not deserve to win, the Good Lady Wife remarked, going so far as to say the second half was "crap"; but they got away with the get out of jail free card, which is always a good thing to get first up.
On interview after the match, SC Sheens only ventured one comment:
"well, you win some, you lose some. We'll take our wins, and we'll learn from our losses"
The football gods were still smiling.

WESTS TIGERS 17. Tries: Ryan (2), Marshall. Goals: Marshall (2). Field Goals: Marshall (1).
CRONULLA-SUTHERLAND SHARKS 16. Tries: Best, Carney, De Gois. Goals: Carney (2).
At Leichhardt Oval.
Crowd: 19,762.

Not since Lawry...

Fruit pickers,

Fancy Punter being dropped after playing as Captain and making his highest score of the series in his last game?
Not since Lawry...
What's the chances of him giving the whole caper away tomorrow, and making his farewell tour in Tasmania's last few Sheffield Shield games of the season?
It'd be a marketing triumph as huge crowds flock to the grounds to see the last hurrah!
And as far as anyone knows, the Great Hadds is still resting, albiet uncomfortably, after keeping wicket for a side which has just suffered the worst loss, at Perth, of anyone in the Sheffield Shield since WWII, ipso facto, the Bombing of Darwin.
The new Chairman and The Faceless Men have obviously got communication and change management down to a tee.
Even though it is the trifle that is the pyjama game, with mixed messages coming in hard and fast and free of charge, Ponting and Haddin must be seriously re-thinking their prospects of being picked in a 15 man Test squad for the West Indies, with Invers & Co. quite clearly on their cases.
Ricky must worry about where he fits in, and whether they could justify taking him as essentially the spare middle order bat and whether he might join Jason Gillespie as the only other player to be dropped after making a double hundred in his last Test match, while Brad might expect to be picked but not play a game on tour as the reserve wicketkeeper, if they select one at all [which they should], but he could also wonder that the selectors might be thinking the Caribbean is no place for Old Men.
Pleasing to see MJ Clarke has recovered from his dose of Shagger's Back - obviously caused by spending too much time up on the work bench with his new girlfriend - cleverly disguised by the spin doctors as a minor hammy.
Just gave Pup some invaluable time on the Jason Recliner to ponder the new order and contemplate how it's all going to work on the next tour.
Without the current contretemps, the one-day series would pass almost without notice in Straya.
It's interesting to note the stark contrast with India.
My youngest daughter last week found herself on the ghats in Benares when the Indians won their first game of the summer against Straya in Adelaide.
She said word had filtered through and she heard no end of it from the locals, and was the subject of constant good-natured ribbing.
After they had calmed down, they then invariably, soberly, asked her what her esteemed opinion was on whether or not India could win the series.
She told them they were dreaming.

five bells

Cathedralists,

Well, well, well.
What to make of MJ Clarke being undefeated in Test series since becoming Strayan Skipper?
The word on the street is that he has scored five tons, two of them very heavy, since assuming the top job, including the well documented triple in Sydney, backed up with the double on a six-lane highway masquerading as a pitch against a dispirited attack in Adelbrain, that was there for all to see.
All the shots, the trademark strokes.
Never mind the 27 boundaries and the elegant cover driving and the straight hitting, you'd have to wonder if there has been a better exponent of such stylish leg side play in the modern game?
Seems to have largely put the pull and the cut shots away, as he doesn't need them, which is a pity, as anything he hits through point is invariably pretty to watch.
Don't see it as much these days.
But MJ Clarke, still, has a credibility problem, despite scoring 594 test runs in not much more than a fortnight of cricket, and captaining the team in an exemplary fashion, which has been widely commented on by purists.
Why is it so?
Surely he can now be forgiven for being a precociously talented idiot buffoon in his yoof?
How long does that take for people to forget about it?
Let's face it, when the deposed Captain was asked before the last test about his relationship with the current Captain, Punter replied "I think we are both grown-ups".
You'd hope that the general public would realise this at some some stage of proceedings.
You only have to take the Siddler on the Roof picking up the Man of the Match Award for taking six wickets in the match and scoring two runs in Flat City; never mind Pup's 210, and the fact that Cockhead's 221 was quite likely a better knock altogether on the whole.
What the???
They begrudgingly gave Pup the Man of the Series Award, which was reportedly a small cream cake that you could barely cut into 12 pieces.
Big whoop.
My spy at the ground - who seemed to spend much of his time in the finest bar in world cricket - the salubrious air-conditioned Col Egar Bar [named after the late, good local Malvern boy, who became a famous test umpire and a legendary massive pisstank] - right down there at the River Torrens End with a perfect view of the ground through port-hole windows almost right behind the bowler's arm - was taken with some big-time Curry Munchers' fan who appeared at the ground dressed in the full Indian ODI kit, with "Match Fixer" in the name space on the back.
Nice touch.
Disturbingly, it appears the Col Egar is earmarked for demolition, in another appalling error of judgement.
If it's not broke, why fix it?
Everyday, some underpinning slips away...
Not here to say that the Indians were weak & feeble.
They had plenty of excuses; comprehensively outplayed for starters, the chai was obviously all wrong, and served in inappropriate china, the curried egg sandwiches at lunch just didn't cut the mustard, they weren't being taken to the right restaurants, the girls were fat and ugly, and they liked to whinge about each other behind each other's backs etc.
Not to mention the fact that they probably decided amongst themselves to throw the series completely from the outset and take the narrow margins on a Strayan clean-sweep on offer at the books.
However it was done, at 4-nil, 4-nil, 4-nil, 4-nil, some gloating is in order, especially after the Ashes Disaster a mere 12 months ago.
Pulled the tickertape off of the last cable that chattered in on the bush telegraph in the corner of the loungeroom from the sceret agent at the Oval, and it read: "STOP PRESS: Indian team seeks political asylum in Australia. Tendulkar honoured to drive your cab, when next in Adelaide".