two football teams...

Meteorologists,

A tremendous wind storm blew up on Friday with the fearsome breeze gusting at 100+kph and causing havoc at Kingsford Smith Airport just across the way; it was enough to rip a panel of fibro off the back of Dad's Shed and smash it to simthereens, and send the ol' fashioned radio set crashing to the floor [old technology - it survived].
Never mind the wind chill factor.
The tempest was no better on match day, when you could also add into the mix sleeting, sheeting, horizontal showers.
The day after, as the Swans braved the magic waters at Bronte and the coaching staff enjoyed Sunday morning smoko in their anoraks and ear-muffs, the boffins down the bureau declared it to be the coldest August day in the Emerald City in ten years.
Like, that's a decade.
Something's going on?
Under the circumstances, rather glad that good seats were unobtainable, as anyone who was in any way lame or infirm and was fool enough to go to the ground, would have most likely been carted off to the hospital, there to die of exposure.
Even the kind offer of a free ticket on the morning of the match was not enough to entice me to tempt fate and catch my death.
In any case, there were two football teams at Cathy Freeman Stadium on Saturday night - but only team one tried to play football.
Collingwood were simply hell-bent on strangling the game to death, by just sitting on the football, closing down any hint of attack, and then hoping for the best.
A very cynical strategy from the Black & White Bastards, for mine, which has nothing to recommend it, but after all, Collingwood will always suit themselves and say "well, hey, it worked, didn't it?"
Their meagre goal tally all came from snap shots on the pivot inside the 50, or miracle long bombs outside, virtually not a one from a set shot.
God forbid if these two teams meet in the Grand Final.
The spectacle, the colour and movement, any charisma, or "wow" factor will be left at the Grand Final breakfast, in favour of a grubby, hard-scrabble game of football in the afternoon.
Very hard to pick a Best on Ground given that no one, on either side, was allowed to shine or stand out in such a dour, lack-lustre affair.
The Bamfords probably dropped some pieces of paper with some names on them into a hat and pulled out the Brownlow votes at random.
JP Kennedy would have been one name.
Did himself no harm in the lottery.
It's inexplicable how the Swans seem to go weak at the knees at the mere mention of the name Collingwood as if it was a synonym of the boogy-man; an 11 game losing streak against the Pies is some kind of hoo-doo, to be sure.
And, by rights, Sydney should have won.
As my spy at the ground telegraphed through at the denoument "bad kicking is bad football, as Wally May used to say" after the Swans squandered any number of chances in front of goal.
Coach Horse didn't have much to say on interview after the match, but did remind the press that the Swans were only two points behind with a few minutes to go.
No mention of blowing a 17 point lead in the Championship Quarter.
Yeah, well, most times you'd give them the benefit of the doubt and say near enough is good enough is fair enough, except in this case near enough was clearly not good enough.
Now things get interesting if you take the abacus out and spin the beads.
Adelaide must now be odds on faves to take the minor premiership with a soft-as-a-pillow draw in the last three games.
Especially when Collingwood, Sydney, West Coast and Hawthorn all come up against at least one or the other in the run home.
Can't see Sydney finishing top unless they win all three; lose one and they'll stil be thereabouts, but lose all three and even the top four is in peril.
Note that certain loud mouthed individuals [no names, no pack drill, Mick Malthouse] have been whinging in the fishwraps about the Crows supremely advantageous draw, having played GWS, Gold Coast, and Port - twice.
Not to mention Sydney also playing the Pygmies twice, as a matter of course.
But as my Correspondent in The Sou'Strayan Provinces writes:
"The AFL made this problem for themseleves as soon as they expanded beyond 12 teams and have done nothing to address it, and they only complain when they find out two out-of-town teams are on top".
The upshot of his ensuing argument being that Victorians will always be Victorians.
Us Colonials will take all the ladder positions we can get, thank you.
See you in September.

SYDNEY: 1.3, 4.7, 8.11, 9.16 (70). Goals: Roberts-Thomson 2, Goodes, McGlynn, Bird, Kennedy, Pyke, O'Keefe, Dennis-Lane.
COLLINGWOOD: 3.2, 5.4, 9.4, 12.6 (78), Goals: Beams 3, Cloke 3, Didak, Fasolo, Thomas, Blair, Seedsman, Wellingham.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 45,827.

Ah, Timmy Moltzen.
You've got to hand it to him.
After notoriously breaking a deal to transfer to St George [who had his signature signed sealed and delived on a contract] this season and doing an about face to stay at the Tigers via some complex series of negotiations and transactions, he comes back to bite the Sainters on the arse with a hat-trick of tries for Balmain!
As you can well imagine, Dragons fans were most unhappy about it and didn't hold back on making their views known at the ground.
Nice one, Timmy.
Didn't see a frame of this match live as it was played simultaneously with the Swans across town, but my spy at the ground suggested that The Great Benji had his best game all year with the famous trademark jink, the step, the whirly-gig all on display, only confirmed by the newsreel.
Few sides do second halves better, probably because they are among the fittest teams in the comp after they are thrashed week in week out on the training track, but there are some who complain that the long list of players in the Sick Bay could be a result of being "over-trained".
Who knows?
SC Sheens didn't think much of it, drily noting on interview after the game "the defence was an improve on last week", noting "it was good of them to come back from 0-8 in such atrocious conditions" but then pretty much limited his comments to "that's the kind of win we need".
Indeed.
The coach, surely, must be thinking about what kind of team he can turn out on the park in the finals in they get there with a few due to come off the Injured Player's Fund.
Even Lote "What'd I do, Guv?" Tuqiri is getting sick of living the Lote life with a broken arm, and is talking about a comeback if the Tigers get "deep into September", although you'd think they'd be very relucant to play him with no match fitness in the only games that really matter.
Needless to say it gets harder and harder to climb up the ladder towards the pointy end of the season.
The Tiger's cling on tenaciously to eighth spot on the table and the chasing pack is starting to thin out, but they don't have the easiest run home - up against 1st, 14th, and 2nd in the remaining minor round games.
You'd have to think they need to win a minimum of two of those to make September, so there is no shortage of tight-rope walking to come.
Popped down to the newsagent on Sunday morning for the ritual pulping of my Lotto ticket, and popped my head into the Front Bar at The Local just across the street.
The Brown Brothers were very sheepish, after their Worriers were relentlessly flogged by the Cowboys, to end all hope.
To their credit, the Kiwis' openly acknowledged that they were the classic roosters turned into feather dusters, going from beaten Grand Finalists last year to having no chance of making the finals with 3 games to play this year.
Whappen? They said, sadly.
Couldn't bring myself to drink their beer despite their urgings, and left them to drown their own sorrows.
The Philosopher was in his usual corner, nursing this week's favoured tipple, a Manhattan prepared with Canadian Club on ice in a lowball.
While lamenting that the absinthe behind the bar was unaffordable, he flipped his fishwrap over onto the back page, and vigourously jabbed his finger at the picture of The Great Benji in full flight, offering "where there's life, there's hope".

WESTS TIGERS 22. Tries: Moltzen (3), Fulton. Goals: Marshall (3).
ST GEORGE-ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 12. Tries: Morris (2), Rein.
At Sydney Football Stadium.
Crowd: 10,546.

pure insanity

Scholars of The Game,

We're playing with the edges of history here.
The Stats Guru was quick to point out that South has never won nine on the trot since they were uprooted and transplanted in Sydney all those years ago, and you have to go back to the 1926 and 1934 seasons to find the previous instances.
So now this is becoming a thing well beyond living memory.
Ominously, though, South failed to make the finals at all in '26, and were beaten by Richmond by a handy margin in the '34 Grand Final.
Ooops.
At least the buffoons in the television commentary got it right for once when pondering how the Swans had got to the top of the table and stayed there for so long, saying "well, they are pretty close to the perfect football unit".
You can attach all the superlatives you like to this team, but that just about sums it up.
Too strong, too smart, too well coached.
While you could have given Best on Ground to anyone in the mid-field...think...Son of Gary, Odd Head, The Hannebery Kiddie, In Like, Smiffy...it should have gone to Teddy Richards, for mine; had a superb game in the backline, bobbed up everywhere all the time and single-handedly closed down any attacking threat the Blues might have posed.
And it was interesting to see The Goodes Train and The Fast Train in the Jetta Kiddie working in concert across the middle of the park.
The coaching staff has at last realised that they have some unspoken telepathy going on, where they instinctively know what the other is about to do.
Very pleasing to see The Great Rhino Keefe - one of the last of the great hard-nuts - play in his 250th.
Asked in a pre-match profile interview what he thought of his career, he just said "I am very lucky and priviledged to have been able to live this lifestyle for the past 13 years".
An ornament to the game, you do get the impression that Rhino knows how to live the life.
The Great Bolts will be out for a few weeks after doing a knee, but it appears he'll come back just in time to play his 300th in the Grand Final.
Timing.
The Bamfords had a routinely poor game, but the bad decisions cancelled each other out in the end.
There was a most unusual indcident, when a Bamford was mysteriously subbed out of the game at quarter-time, as he couldn't go on, and was replaced by the Reserve Umpire.
No explanation as to what happened was forthcoming, so maybe he just did a Johnny Briggs and had a nervous breakdown and was conveyed in a straight jacket to the nearest lunatic asylum.
Spotted a nice banner in the Dockland's mix that just read:
REG IS OUR EDGE
A nice nod to another of those unsung heroes, Reg Grundy.
Mr Ed, pressured by the press to speculate on the future rather than be in the place he prefers - the present - demured and offered "our challenge is to see if we've improved enough to get over a terrific side like Collingwood".
So he is thinking about the prospect of the double purple patch after all.
With J.Bolton out, Collingwood have done the Swans a huge favour by suspending Dane Swan for two matches after the fool turned up for training after a night on the drink.
Wouldn't you know it?
After having trouble attacting a decent sized crowd all year, suddenly everyone is on the bandwagon.
As the Good Lady Wife noted, Sydney's notoriously fickle fair-weather fans strike again.
Decent tickets to this Saturday night's Blockbuster at The Bush are unobtainable.
As of first thing Monday morning, general admission tickets were sold out, and the remaining Silver and Gold seats were way way up in the gods with stratospheric prices to match.
With the way my ageing eyesight is, from up there in the Olympic Stadium, wouldn't be able to see a thing, let alone make out the number plates on the player's backs.
Oh well, that's what you get for loyalty.
Just have to wait for the finals to get tickets, when it's first come first served to pay through the nose.
Let's hope there's a glitch in the catering and the Pies are off.
Will just have to watch it on the telly from a comfortable lounge in front of a warm fire and spend the price of admission on some fine Champagne instead.
Damn.

CARLTON: 3.1, 5.3, 6.6, 10.11 (71). Goals: Waite 3, Armfield 2, Garlett 2, Gibbs, Casboult, Murphy.
SYDNEY: 4.4, 8.6, 11.8, 14.9 (93). Goals: McGlynn 3, Hannebery 2, Roberts-Thomson 2, Goodes, Bird, McVeigh, Jack, Jetta, Malceski, Mumford.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 39,942.

How bizzare, how bizzare.
Without doubt the most utterly ridiculous game of football played all year, in any code.
On a quiet night at the Olympics, found myself pottering about down in Dad's Shed with the loopy MMM call on the old fashioned radio-set in the corner.
Rather taken aback by the Tigers being down 6-22 after no more than ten minutes, and that was enough to get the healthy Monday night crowd out at Campbelltown pretty antsy, given the home side had been gifted a brace of penalties.
WTF?
If you can't beat the team running stone motherless last, you might as well pack up your boots and balls and go home.
The match then degenerated into a touch football game played by girls in some suburban park somewhere, as both sides took full advantage of the non existant defence.
Razzle dazzle football it may well have been, but that's not what the punters come to see at this time of year -- they want tough and dour.
No surprise to see Balmain go in 18-22 behind at half-time, but it was only a matter of time until the floodgates really opened up wide.
In the end the Tigers came right over the top of them like a tsunami, scoring the last 45 points to 4.
Repeat, WTF???
Supercoach Sheens expressed his frustration at being unable to explain exactly what went on, and who could blame him, sayng little more than the bleedin' obvious..."I was very disappointed with the defence".
The Best Leb in the Game, with his Captain's hat on, put a finer point on it..."We just didn't want to tackle, we were just lucky they didn't want to tackle either".
77 points all up in an 80 minute game, is pretty much a point a minute in anyone's language.
And the new kid on the block who no one's ever heard of, the Fijian kid called Marika Koroibete - in only his second top grade game - scored not one, not two, not three, but four tries in the second half alone.
Pure insanity.
Needless to say the feat equalled the club record.
But Parramatta - who must have forgotten that the ground exists having not played there since 1999 - were always prime targets to be beaten at their own game after the break.
The Bamfords had real trouble keeping up with it all, and blew the whistle too much if only to try to slow the whole thing down, but the unintended consequence was giving both sides even more opportunity's to score.
The radio call could barely keep pace.
While the Great Benji scooped the various Man of the Match awards, it should have gone to The Great Heighington for mine, for his sheer work rate alone.
A shuffle of players through the backline is a SC Sheens trademark move late in the season as he looks to settle on finals combinations.
Very pleasing to see Be My Beau Ryan - another of the last of the great hard nuts - play his 100th game, and he had a very good outing too.
Having seen the first half, SC Sheens gave Beau free reign to do what he liked, so he played variously at wing, right centre, fullback and did everything but score, ironic really for a bloke who's planted plenty in the in-goal area in his time.
And the result was dead set critical in what the MMM call describes as the premiership table "brought to you by Bailey's Ladders".
[They've also got the Red Cross blood bank to sponsor the blood rule when someone goes off to the blood bin - the slogan being "if you're tough enough to watch rugby league, you're tough enough to give blood". Marvellous]
After a weekend of improbable, highly fortuitous results, the Tigers sneak themsleves back into 8th, a game clear of the chasing pack for the last spot in the finals.
Thank the Good Lawd Joisus for that.
Joey Johns acting as sideline eye was asked by the lads in the commentary box what he thought of the game and he replied "kisses and cuddles are not the best preparation for the finals".
Anyone have any idea what he's on about?
How bizzare, how bizzare.

WESTS TIGERS 51. Tries: Koroibete (4), Utai (2), Blair, Heighington, Moltzen. Goals: Marshall (7). Field Goals: Marshall (1).
PARRAMATTA EELS 26. Tries: Mullaney (2), Roberts, Sio, Tautai. Goals: Burt (3).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 14,822.

unheard of in the modern era

Miracle workers,

Didn't see a frame of the Swans match, not even the highlights reel, so in no position to offer much comment.
Found myself at a surprise 50th birthday party at the Duke of Wellington Hotel in New Lambton in the company of a mob who don't mind a drink, and hardly need any excuse to have a few.
Newcastle, being the friendly town it is, saw the publican refusing point blank to put the Rules game on a spare screen that no one was watching with a stern "nah, mate" - not even a "sorry".
But did have two spies in Surfers Paradise.
Soon after the Swans kicked five goals in nine minutes shortly before three-quarter time, two almost simultaneous telegraph messages came through, both saying words to the effect of "Swans have taken to mid-way through The Champo to get going, but the floodgates have now opened."
The usual suspects turned up the "best" lists in the Monday morning fishwraps...Jack, Kennedy, O'Keefe, Roberts-Thomson, Bolton, McVeigh et al
The mid-field brains 'em week to week to week.
Thanks to some excellent work from Geelong at Kardinia Park to do a job on Adelaide, Sydney are now a game clear on top, with five regular season games to play.
Simply unheard of in the modern era.
The Stats Guru also pointed out the unusal fact that the Swans are the first team since the Sainters back in 2000 to win a game in every state in the same season.
Another example of the supreme advantage of winning away.
Seems Sam Reid will be out three weeks, after doing himself a mischief.
No great loss, at this stage, for mine, with the kiddie being a model of inconsistency all season.
It was reported that the coach chastised him mid-season for just that, reminding him that there is a clause in his contract that requires him to "kick goals" week in week out.
It's no use kicking six one week, then SFA the next.
Mr Ed is becoming more and more taciturn as the season wears on - as all good coaches should be - when quizzed on interview after the game re the eight game winning streak, he said only "there's no satisfaction just at this point".
Sydney should be able to account for Carlton fairly comfortably away this weekend - but it's not a game where they can allow any kind of complacency to sneak in.
Then it's the Pies blockbuster at the Bush for the chance to do the extremely rare double purple patch - ten in a row.
But best not to get ahead of ourselves here.
What more is there to say?

GOLD COAST: 2.1, 5.2, 7.4, 8.6 (54). Goals: Matera 3, Smith 2, Brown, Ablett, Lynch.
SYDNEY: 6.3, 8.7, 16.9, 19.12 (126). Goals: Roberts-Thomson 4, Goodes 3, Bolton 3, Jack 2, Dennis-Lane 2, Bird, Hannebery, Kennedy, McVeigh, Jetta.
At Gold Coast Stadium.
Crowd: 11,169.


Pains me as it does to say, but Balmain are shot birds.
Taking a full 65 minutes score their only try to narrowly avoid being beat to zip, says it all.
Weakness in defence down the middle of the ruck with missed tackles galore was there for all to see.
They stood around and looked at each other in attack, as if waiting for someone else to do something.
The two marquee players, Best Leb in the Game and The Great Benji, by their own admissions, had poor games.
The ranks are now so thin, the two young kids who were brought up from reserve grade [or maybe they were picked up at random at a bus stop on the Balmain Road mid-week], who were charged with guarding the left and right edges, found themselves out of their depth and were done like dinners by a Souths attack that's playing at its best in at least four years.
The child who played on one wing is a chappie called Marika Koroibete.
Who?
The hell is he exactly?
Things are not helped by blokes like poor old Matty Utai and That Bloody Adam Blair playing career-worst football.
Confidence, if there was any scrap of it left, has now gone right out the back door.
SC Sheens had that "what do you expect me to do?" look on his face as he sat in the sideline truck seat during the second half, and didn't hold back on interview after the game, describing the Tigers as "brain dead" at half time and "looking like a suburban park footy team".
He could have left it at that, but went on to add "you only have to look at other teams in our position; they have that desperation -- that 'we've got to win, we've got to win' mentality. We haven't. But that's where we need to be right now."
After being confomortably ensconced in the top four seemingly only yesterday, Balmain has made an ignominious exit from the top eight, slipping to 10th on the ladder, and being in the negative percentage area.
The Club Secretary would be apoplectic.
Despite the very, very good crowd [it is, after all, a traditional grudge match that goes back to the dawn of time], the Rabbitohs would have taken the lion's share of the gate receipts and the Secretary's got a stack of medical bills to pay for all those first graders who are malingering in Sick Bay waiting for miracle cures while not earning their keep, as he watches the wheels fall off the wagon and the prospect of making the finals receding out of view over the horizon.
At present, the team is probably beyond help down at The Room Full of Mirrors, so there's not much point going there.
They could do worse than start thinking outside the square again, to get themselevs out of this one.
They're going to need a few good ones.

SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 32. Tries: Peats (2), Merritt, Farrell, Clark. Goals: Reynolds (6).
WESTS TIGERS 6. Tries: Marshall. Goals: Marshall (1).
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 29,863.

trashed in Townsville

Salvation Janers,

Woke up on Sunday morning and wandered into the front yard to get the fishwrap that'd been lobbed in there, only to regret rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
Opened up the sports section to reveal a very confronting and deeply disturbing image.
It was a large photograph spead across two pages of Lewis "The Ugliest Man in Football" Roberts-Thomson sitting in front of his locker in the Swans change room along with his mother, three sisters, and fiance.
Dear oh dear oh dear.
It was enough to frighten the hell out of small children.
Certainly gave me a start.
Good thing that he's a champion footballer, and played a key role in this one after Mummy did himself a mischief and was subbed out of the game at half time, by helping out Pykey in the ruck.
The Stats Guru says the late season purple patch is now turning into something else again with seven wins on the trot and a visit to sunny Surfers Paradise on the intinerary for this weekend - and who can argue?
That sort of thing and Sydney going top three weeks running hasn't been seen in living memory.
Lets hope the Swans don't fall back into that old-time routine of winning ugly in the run home, doing just enough for victory.
The idea has its merits, but it really aint no preparation for September, as things tend to get scrappy [13 behinds to half time? What the?], evinced by the fact that flambouyant playmakers like The Goodes Train and the Jetta Kiddie both had quiet games, with Goodesy still playing on one leg.
It was, needless to say, a close run thing throughout, but four goals in four mintues in the denoument flattered the Swans scoreline.
Deep into the final quarter my spy at the ground pushed through a telegraph message: "The fittest team won".
Quite right.
This mob are match hard after 17 rounds; tough as teak.
And the coach knows if you haven't got that, you are no chance in the finals.
These blokes are trained to within an inch of their lives.
After a couple of slow weeks, JP Kennedy was back to his best and probably garnered the three Brownlow votes, and remains a genuine smokey to pick up the Chas, for mine [the bloke, playing for the leading side, is at 25/1 down at the books to win the top gong, so load up].
The Guru also noted that the Sainters haven't played at the SCG since 2009, when they won by a bloody point, and the crowd that night was 27,805...so surmised that this time around 971 people must have had something better to do.
Maybe they were put off by the sight of HQ looking like a bomb has hit it, with the Bradman and MA Noble Stands in ruins, with bloody big diggers sitting on top of the huge pile of rubble.
Guessing that by the time the cricket season comes around they will have cleared that away, and all that will be there for the New Year test match will be a huge gaping hole, as it will take them the best part a year to put together the new structures, to complete the final stadiumisation of the ground that began 21 years ago, when they covered The Hill in concrete and plastic seats.
The good old days have gone away.
You only have to look at the hideous monstrocity they are creating at the once venerable Adelaide Oval with the sole purpose of turning it into a soulless AFL stadium, given that the purpose built 38-year-old footy stadium, Football Park, looks set to go the way of Waverley and be demolished and covered in flats.
They are no longer cricket grounds that host the occasional game of football, rather the other way round, football stadiums that stage the occasional game of cricket.
CB Fry cited watching the game from a wicker chair with a gin and tonic in hand in the now shamefully demolished 1882 George Giffen Stand, with the cathedral towering above the magnificenr scoreboard to the left and the Adelaide hills as the backdrop, as perhaps the finest sight in world cricket.
No more.
Repeat, the good old days have gone away.
Oops, a bit off topic there, but that's my rant for the week, what's yours?
My spy also commented that the latest look for the "it" girls at the footy is a maple leaf flag beanie.
Right colours, and a nod to Mike Pyke, who is, apparantly, a well-known pants man.
Coach Longmire was his usual taciturn self on interview after the game.
Mr Ed refuses to get carried away with anything, knowing more than anyone, that winning the last game of the year is all that matters.

SYDNEY: 1.6, 5.13, 9.13, 15.15 (105). Goals: Goodes 2, Bolton 2, Jack 2, McGlynn, Bird, Grundy, Kennedy, McVeigh, Jetta, Roberts-Thomson, O'Keefe, Reid
ST KILDA: 5.1, 5.4, 7.9, 10.16 (76). Goals: Milne 5, Saad, Koschitzke, Dal Santo, Dunell, Gilbert.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 26,834.


If yet another season cruelled by injury needed an exclamation mark, this was it!
Fancy Timmy Moltzen doing a hammy in the warm-up - the warm-up, for chrissake - and failing to take the field.
Then poor Sirro Jnr manages to dislocate a shoulder mid-way through the first half, which is likely to be a season ender as a shoulder reconstruction looms.
Young Curtis apparently has a history of being somewhat fragile, so could it be another sad case of a hugely promising career being shot early by chronic injury?
Then the Try Scoring Freak was carted off late in the opening stanza with a calf, never to return.
To hold the home team to 16-16 at half time was a brave effort under the circumstances.
Late in the piece Murdoch-Masila was taken off with some kind of mischief, and the Tigers were down to no men on the bench, no reserves left, not a one; a bench that was entirely empty, deserted, nobody sitting on it.
[It's also been reported that Matty Groat busted a thumb in the reserve grade game. Joisus. Even lads you'd call on in a crisis are going down].
As a result, That Pom Ellis - coming back for his first game in 13 weeks from a serious foot injury - was forced to play the full 80 minutes in the second row - something that was never planned and is all but impossible to do even when fully fit.
Superhuman effort.
From there the result was a fait accompli, and yet Balmain managed to stay in it right to the finish, with only a field goal and a fruit-on-the-sideboard try to the Cowboys in the last five minutes putting the game beyond doubt.
Never mind that the play was end-to-end with both sides error riddled as no one really managed to hang onto the ball, let alone do much useful with it.
As the commentator on the ramshackle MMM radio call was moved to say near the end of the first first half "boy, oh boy, this is one crazy game of football".
Townsville is a long way to go for a Monday night to see the troops decimated, trashed on the front line.
SC Sheens put it succinctly on interview after the game: "Right now all I'm worried about is the guys in hospital. I'm not thinking about what I'm going to do with the lineup next week".
And then it goes from bad to worse to cataclysmic as news filters through on the bush telegraph that The Great Benji was seen gingerly hobbling about at Tuesday morning training on a bad toe, and he's also got a thumb niggle and isn't expected to train all week.
Lawd, save us!
That could be just about season over.
Or maybe not?
By some miracle, Balmain still manages to cling on to 8th spot, but the result certainly has plenty of ladder implications, as the Tigers lost a golden opportunity to take a two win break on the rest of the field; the loss opens the door for four other teams to challenge for a finals berth.
But, as everyone knows, how many teams have won the premiership from 6th-8th since the introduction of the top eight system?
Zip.
And with half the first pick team in Sick Bay, even getting to September in a hopeless situation is doubtful.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 29: Tries: Cooper, Fai Fai Loa, Hall, Mitchell, Tate. Goals: Thurston (1). Field Goals: Bowen (1).
WESTS TIGERS 16: Tries: Farah, Fulton, Iosefa. Goals: Marshall (2).
At Townsville Sports Stadium.
Crowd: 12,357.

through the roof and over the moon

Anticipationists,

Little wonder the crowd at a full-to-the-gunwhales Subiaco Oval, who were jammed in like sardines, was so quiet and so glum.
They'd forgotten what it's like to lose at home.
Weagels fans had enjoyed no less than 18 straight wins on their side of the island....jeez, it must be good to be a member there with a guaranteed win...all the time...until they come the inevitable cropper.
Their last loss at Sooby was in Round 3 last year, against, you guessed it, the Swans.
It could be turning into some kind of hoo-doo.
The Bamfords might as well have given the whole midfield the Best on Ground award as a group.
They most certainy would've shared all the Brownlow votes between them.
Rhino Keefe, Ric Shaw, the Haneberry Kiddie, Son of Gary, The Little Birdie all had excellent games.
Not to mention blokes like In Like McGlynn and the New Train Jetta, who has the radar well & truly going on ridiculously long shots at goal, and bags 'em almost every time.
Teddy Richards took four marks in a row at full back in the Champo to thwart any Weagles threat in front of goal being just one example of the heroics on display.
Once they had won the Champo, in spades, it was never in doubt.
My spy at the ground telegraphed through "LRT should have never taken off the head gear" after he was carted off for the umpteenth time this season with yet another head knock [and remember he's also copped a busted cheekbone].
The Ugliest Man in Football is a walking, talking advertisment for head gear - he could make good money by endorsing a popular brand of strap-on helmet - not only do they go some way to protecting the bonce, they also tend to help hide your extreme ugliness = winner!
That said, the stability of the Swans core playing unit only goes to show how far you can you can get by not having a season cruelled by injury.
Sure The Train was out for a few weeks and has been slow in getting himself competely right, and Mummy was sidelined for a while, but apart from that, by and large, Mr Ed has been able to field pretty much an unchanged line up throughout, and there is certainly some depth on the bench, when required.
It's novel to field more than one ruckman at the same time - no other team does it - but it works, and it must be hard to coach against the relentless scrapping and tackling the Swans deploy in defence, denying the opposition any chance of getting proper structure and go forward together.
And then there's the wily old heads combining with the blokes with young legs in attack.
You've got a recipe for success with that, as the scoreboard suggests.
And the scoreboard never lies.
The most pleasing thing about it was that on the now faint background of the rivalry created by '05 and '06, they didn't just beat 'em, they gave 'em a right touch up; a bloody good towelling.
While the Swans went about scoring one of their most important and perhaps finest wins since the Miracle Year in front of that huge crowd at Subiaco - where they truly love their footy - a miserable 7,669 punters were streaming out of the Sydney Showground after witnessing the Crows give the Pygmies a 27 goal football lesson.
Under normal circumstances, in any other town, the Swans win would, of course, be front page news.
But a casual check of the fishwraps in the newsagent on Monday morning revealed that that's not the case in the Emerald City.
Even the back page editors had no idea the Swans had already gone top the week before.
Wouldn't know a good sports story if it fell on them.
The run home gets fascinating now.
It must be rather rare for all top eight teams to play each other on the same weekend, as they will do this weekend, which should just about start to sort the men from the boys.
Coach Horse on interview after the game refused to be drawn into the futures market saying "everybody talkin' 'bout September. I aint talkin' 'bout September, 'cos it's only July".
Well said.

WEST COAST: 4.3, 7.7, 8.8, 10.9 (69). Goals: Masten 3; Darling 2; Selwood, Sheppard, Cox, Newman, Naitanui.
SYDNEY: 5.1, 10.4, 13.8, 18.13 (121). Goals: Jetta 4, Reid 3, Bolton 3, Bird, McVeigh, Goodes, McGlynn, Pyke, Roberts-Thomson, Everitt, Kennedy.
At Subiaco Oval.
Crowd: 39,152.

Another very flaky win.
Very flaky.
Did just enough to pull off victory against a team placed 15th on the ladder, just one short of stone motherless last.
And let's face it, If you can't win against the Chocolate Soldiers, you might as well pick up your ball and go home and call the whole thing off.
No less than six lead changes in a rugby league match is enough to get the blood pressure boiling through the roof and over the moon.
The forwards took it up well enough all night, the backs looked a little disjointed in attack but due to the good coaching had plenty of set plays in the repetoir to score enough tries, the goal kickers cancelled each other out, and superior match fitness was always going to be a factor in the finish.
See which ones of the big units tire first.
The two marquee players, Farah and Marshall aren't playing very well at the moment; the Best Leb in The Game is still cut up about his mum and Benji has trouble convincing his mother to polish his kicking boots week in week out.
Sirro Jnr, after a stellar debut, is now finding the first grade going a lot tougher than first thought now that he has to play it every weekend.
The leap up from the Under 20's to the seniors is like jumping a yawning chasm in terms of the pace, skills, and toughness involved.
To heap more trouble and woe and gnashing of teeth on a season already cruelled by injury, appears the Bludnut Keefy Galloway will be in the casualty ward for 3 to 4 weeks with a ruptured thing-a-me-jig; never a good idea to rupture anything, lets alone a what's-its-name.
Whoever they replace him with will no doubt be big and boofy, but won't have the same grunt.
If someone like Benji gets hurt, gawd forbid, then it's season over there and then.
The Tigers are really not much more than a week-to-week proposition at present, which is not a great place to be with the pointy end of the season looming.
If fact, it's a bad place to be.
The win was enough to push Balmain back into the top eight, but The Stats Guru has pointed out that on any calculation, only ten teams can realistically make the top eight, and ten into eight won't go.
Even the most mathematically illiterate among us, like myself, can understand that.
Two will miss out.
Nothing surer.
SC Sheens on interview after the game refused to be drawn into the futures market saying "obviously the two premiership points are very valuable, the way the competition is going, but that said, there's no point getting ahead of ourselves."
Well said.
Somebody must've had a word in the shell-likes of the Bamfords, because, much to their credit, they have pulled their heads in in recent weeks.
It's taken them this long?
Perhaps they have finally been told that the whole point of refereeing in the rugby league is to let the game flow and allow the players sort it out for themselves; minor infringements can be let go by and large as they will always cancel themselves out in the end, and the whistle should only be used sparingly, for obvious, blatant infractions of the rules.
You know it makes sense.

WESTS TIGERS 26. Tries: Farah, Fulton, Heighington, Lawrence, Murdoch-Masila. Goals: Marshall (3).
PENRITH PANTHERS 18. Tries: Kingston, Mansour, Walsh. Goals: Walsh (3).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 12,384.

Where is Grimsby?

Bored spectators,

What to make of the ill-fated, meaningless, 50-over tour of soggy ol' Engerland?
The 0-4 result certainly had the whole country all a twitter, and captured the imagination of the general public.
No idea why they played it at all, really.
MJ Clarke did not appear to be happy about any of it, claiming Australia had been "bewitched", "bullied" "blindsided" "hoodwinked", or some such euphemism, by an England side made up almost entirely of foreigners.
He must have been humming to himself...."Where is Johannesburg? That's in England! Where is Cape Town? That's in England! Where is Peitermaritzburg? That's in England! Where is Dublin? That's in England! Where is Perth, Western Australia? That's in England! Where is Copenhagen? That's in England! Where is Grimsby? That's in Lincolnshire."
No great worry, and certainly something that doesn't warrant anything like a Royal Commission.
Best left forgotten, as it surely will be.
Pup's record as an unbeaten skipper in a test series remains intact.
And let's face it, nothing else matters outside the Ashes when it comes to taking on the Old Enemy, and they've got exactly 12 months to get ready for that, with the first Ashes test due to start on 10 July 2013.
Perhaps Australia is the first of what will eventually be every country who've just given up on one-day cricket as a creaking, out-moded format well beyond its use by date, and will pour all their resources into the development of two very different, and hopefully very good teams in the Twenty20 and Test Match arena's.
Maybe it's time to let the Packer legacy go after all these years.
You know it makes sense.

a basket case full of excuses

Diehards,

It had that air of inevitability about it.
What with Balmain having a basket case full of excuses.
SC Sheens was forced to field a scratch, makeshift, hastily cobbled together ensemble that he couldn't have trained as a unit all week.
They played brave and some how managed a 10-4 half time lead, but it was never, ever going to be enough against a Bulldogs outfit playing in their best form in years.
Things were not helped when Lote "What'd I do Guv?" Tuqiri went down inside the first ten minutes with a broken arm after a collision with a team-mate, in the shape of, you guessed it, Adam Bloody Blair [could rant about how Blair literally stops, comes to a complete halt at the advantage line! But won't].
Obviously, that's season over for Lote, and sadly, it could well be career over too.
He's not getting any younger, and if anything, is probably getting uglier with age, and for a bloke who's been plauged by injury in the past two years who's been struggling to renegotiate a contract with the Tigers [who aren't prepared to give him another two years] it could well be the finish of an illustrious career as a dual international.
Tragic way to go out if it is.
Plain awful to see live footage of the bloke with his arm in a sling in the first class medical facilities at the SFS being shown the x-ray print by the radiologist, which clearly showed a radical break in the bone.
At least Lote could develop a lucrative career in retirement as a consultant advising up and coming players on how to "Live The Lote Life", i.e. how to have a mighty fine time off the field without drawing any attention to yourself.
There'd be money in that.
Matty Utai was out at the last minute and Timmy Moltzen also failed to take the field without notice, forcing Beau Ryan to full back, where he's ill equppied to play, thus leaving both wings exposed after Tuqiri went off.
Joel Reddy, who was plucked from nowhere [probably the bar] to play, had a very good game despite thinking he had to cover for every position where they were well down on talent.
Add to that the long term mischief done to That Pom Ellis, who'd be lucky to get back before September, and it's looking eerily like yet another season cruelled by injury.
Haven't gone through the old team sheets, but SC Sheens would not have been able to field the same team from one week to next at any stage of the season.
The Club Secretary now has a problem.
From being touted as a Premiership favourite at the start of the year, and being ensconced in the top four a few weeks ago, they've now slipped clear out of the top eight into ninth at the two thirds mark.
He'd have the abacus working overtime and would have the boardroom divining rod out, trying to work out the probababilty of making the finals at all.
And the mathematics are reasonably stark.
The Tigers are eight wins and eight losses with eight games to play - four against teams above them on the current ladder, and four below.
The Stats Guru was quick to point out that winning four will not guarantee them a start in September, any less will be certain death, so they have to in effect win almost all of the last eight games to make it, and the lot to get back in the priceless top four.
Whatever margin of error they might have had is now G-O-R-N.
Gawd crikey, the boss would be thinking, the gate receipt projections will be shot, and if they don't make it deep into the finals the club balance sheet will be worse than Barclay's Bank.
So where will the money be to replace the casualties and lop off the dead wood?
Little wonder The Secrertary is prone to palpitations and night sweats.
Having lived in the heart of the Canterbury Bankstown district for 14 years, it's always very hard to swallow losing to the Bulldogs.
Never mind that they have nasty supporters and have the worst ethos of any club in the caper, it's just the sickening sight of Bulldogs merch on people down at the shops that upsets me.
Not feeling so good, so popped into the Front Bar at The Local on Monday morning for a medicinal snifter.
The Brown Bros were in a boisterous mood and well pleased with the recent form of their beloved NZ Warriors, or as they prefer to call them, the Auckland Worriers.
The Philosopher looked up from his perusal of the back pages of his fish wrap and spoke:
"As Socrates used to say 'looks like it's all buggered'", before refocussing his attention on his high ball of vodka & tonic with a twist of lemon.

WESTS TIGERS 20. Tries: Iosefa, Lawrence, Reddy, Ryan. Goals: Marshall (2).
CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS 32. Tries: Morris (2), Reynolds (2), Barba, Inu. Goals: Inu (4).
At Sydney Football Stadium.
Crowd: 19,034.

It had that air of inevitability about it.
A solid, reliable [except for the occasional inexplicable brain fade] well-coached football team up against a mob who consistently struggle against good sides.
Brained 'em cold in the Champo and went on to give 'em a seven goal football lesson.
And, however momentarily, go top, with a healthy boost to an already impressive percentage.
Go top, eh?
Who would have thought it possible at the start of the season?
Must be doing something right.
It's probably got to do with the theory that champion teams will always out-do teams full of champions.
Apart from The Train and the Jetta Kiddie, none of them get any mention in the fishwraps.
Craig Bolton used to say he liked the fact that he could walk down any street in Sydney at any time and not be recognised, let alone be asked for an autograph.
And there they are, undisputably, top.
And yet, even with the introduction of a two-team town this year, the marketing has been hopeless.
Swans are still relegated to the inside pages of the back pages, get no coverage to speak of in the Melbourne press, and they can't even attract 20,000 punters on any calculation to HQ on a fine, albeit brisk, Saturday evening.
They talked about them flying under the radar in the Monday morning editions with little understanding of how it happened.
SC Roos and Mr Ed have only been working on it for the past seven years, since the moment they won the last game of the season in the '05 Miracle Year.
It's taken that long to get the mix of yoof and experience exactly right.
Pleasing to the Young Sam Reid Kiddie find some touch in the goal square and boot six maximums.
Perhaps he will after all fufill his promise of becoming a proper full-forward, something the Swans have been sadly lacking since Big Bad Barry Hall went west.
Nice to see The Train back on song after a difficult fortnight on the field, while Odd Head McVeigh celebrated signing a new two year contract that will see him retire as a one-club man, with a very good game indeed.
The highlight of the game would have to be In Like McGlynn not happy about Black going on with a tackle and letting the big bastard know all about.
Ben wasn't having any of it, and was quite happy to take on a bloke twice his size in the jostling and air-slapping that substitutes for a stink in the AFL nowadays.
The Stats Guru has calculated that at eleven and three, even if the Swans lose all of their remaining seven games they will still make the top eight, they've got away that much.
If they win the games they are expected to, then it's home finals time, baby, and if they also beat West Coast away this weekend and Collingwood at The Bush in a few weeks time then they will give the Minor Premiership a very good nudge.
At the least, it's valuable to play good sides in the run home, so you can get out the yardstick and measure yourself by it.
While it's never a good idea to get ahead of yourself on account of the wheels could fall off the bandwagon at any moment, as they say in the classics, Sydney is "well placed".

SYDNEY: 4.2 10.7 15.12 16.14 (110). Goals: Reid 6, Goodes 3, McVeigh 2, McGlynn, Hannebery, Jetta, Pyke, O’Keefe.
BRISBANE: 3.4 7.4 8.7 9.9 (63). Goals: Rich 2, Brown 2, Karnezis 2, Raines, Crisp, Bewick.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 19,419.