the likelihood of it all going to merde in Brisbane

Canine Fanciers,

Pup, Pup, Pup!
What's shakin'?
What is going on?
Oh my dear Lordy Joisus.
Not the ol' hammy?
Tell me it isn't so, Joe.
How many years ago is it now that MJ Clarke retired from Twenty20 cricket on account of he was never really any good at it and so couldn't be bothered, and handed the short form captaincy to George "Bill" Bailey?
Why, oh why, didn't he retire from the 50/50 game at the same time?
Really, who remembers the great feats in one day cricket?
No one cares about it anymore, if they ever did - there's probably more silent interest in the Sheffield Shield - given it's the nursery for the only game that matters.
Only truly magnificent performances in test cricket can be re-called at will, especially if you happened to be at the ground at the time.
Everyone knows what it means to be your country's Captain, Pup, never mind the purists.
At age 33 and with a lifelong dose of chronic Shaggers Back to add to his woes, it's long overdue that the skipper reserved himself enirely for test cricket.
In truth, he's only got a couple more years at the top, at best, and that's if he's lucky.
Aggravating old injuries won't help.
At least he doesn't have old girlfriends on the lurk anymore.
There's plenty of other things to distract him, such as the likelihood of it all going to merde in Brisbane without him.
You'd want to give yourself the chance of making one more hundred at Lords, wouldn't you?
And Clarkey would want to win the Ashes next year before he wheels his wheelchair into the State Home for Crippled Captains, surely?
First class or nothing from now on, ol' mate.
You know it makes sense.

a gigantic tusk up the runter

Fellow Jesters,

Looks like MJ Clarke doesn't like Abu Dhabi much, as a cricket tourist destination.
Probably hates it even more than Dubai.
Seems the skipper had a problem about knowing exactly where his off stump was.
Didn't have an oustanding match by all accounts, being clean bowled in both innings.
Can't recall the exact details, but thinking Pup was bowled around his legs in the first innings just short of a 50, then had his middle peg taken clean out in the second, for bugger all runs
Suppose someone has stopped to think that they were playing on seriousy doctored pitches?
How come the curators in the UAE turn out a delightful featherbed that then turns into a four lane highay, a dusty road; purpose built for a side full of spinners.
Crafty buggers.
You'd have to reckon suitcases stuffed full of cash would've changed hands just to make sure it's so.
On the strength of only two games, the Stats Guru spuriously suggested with the tongue in cheek that Clarkey was in his worst form in a decade.
There were some hilarious moments in the match, like when Pup had a man field at straight hit, right behind the bowlers arm.
He was bagged from here to breakfast for being unsportsmanlike, but, as he said at the time, when yr a million runs behind, you'll do anything to get the bastards out.
When yr copping a gigantic tusk up the runter on the scoreboard, it's anything goes, isn't it?
Besides, it wasn't against the Laws - there's nothing stopping you from fielding a man there, as long as he doesn't move during the the bowler's run up; it's called common courtesy, which MJ Clarke always strictly observes.
There were a lot of laughs also in looking at the Strayan batting sheet and seeing GJ Maxwell listed at No. 3.
Who? Really?
In the denoument, that's the selectors fault, and the buck stops at the Coach.
They're just clutching at straws, aren't they?
Little wonder Mr Clarke sacked himself as a selector a couple of years ago.
You don't want to get tied up in that messy business.
The Chairman and the Three Wise Men have had real problems picking a top order for years, so you probably shouldn't expect anything dfferent.
It's not as if there's anyone else shouting out to be picked.
So, the bowlers are impotent on desert tracks.
Can anyone going around in first class cricket at the minute do any better?
Under the circumstances, you can imagine the Captain's surprise at his press conference on arrival at KSA, when some low blowie put it to him that his job could be under threat.
You could see he wanted to say WTF?, but wisely asnwered the question with a question "Why?"
Pup, obviously, needs to spend more time in the nets, he'd be the first to admit it.
The skipper also needs to be given room to call on our curators in a quiet and sociable way.
It's also a good thing, in the early part, that he dislikes Seth Efreakens intensely.
MJ Clarke's views about Indians are well known, which will stand him in good stead for the summer test matches at home.
You can only hope.

like winning and losing mattered

Arid Date Fanciers,

Thinking that Dubai might not be MJ Clarke's favourite destination.
Haven't heard of or seen hide nor hair of the bloke for five months.
What has the skipper been up to in an exceptionally long break in an increasingly crowded cricket calender?
Probably been lunching well and then up on the work bench freshening up his chronic case of Shaggers Back.
If you weren't overly busy, wouldn't you live the high life if you were him?
But, obviously, he hasn't been spending enough time in the nets.
Nice work in the 1st innings, falling for the three-card trick to be caught in the leg trap for 2 off 13 balls, and then backed that up with a 2nd innings fail, simply not hitting some fairly ordinary spin bowling to find himself plumb for 3 off 9 balls.
Two fingers from the Bamford's.
Oops.
The report card would have been marked "can do better".
Oh well.
At least, in keeping with Ol' Emirates tradition, there's been no one at the ground to witness the debacle...a sea of empty blue seats.
They'd get more at a Shield match.
Just like at Mark Waugh's farewell test match, only The Man and His Dog, a handful of journo's, and the ground staff were there to see the miserable demise.
In a joint obsessed with money, no doubt the Dubai cricket authorities would have marked down the gate takings as "negligable" and you'd have to wonder if they would have sold many dry corporate boxes, with the weather reliably described as "farkin' hot".
The beer for the team probably came in through the Diplomatic Bag, let alone a bottle of Tanqueray.
Not exactly the best preparation you could imagine for an Strayan summer, without the benefit of hindsight.
We'll find out when they get home, and the day the selectors see common sense.
At least Pup had the decency and sense to take full responsiblity for the debacle - he knows well enough that the buck stops here, at the top - and refused to blame the coach or his players, saying the only difficulties appeared to be "the conditions" and a "lack of match practice".
Well, maybe, while everyone was at a loose end, they should have organised to play a couple of five-day practice matches...you know, Michael Clarke's XI v Brad Haddin's XI...Probables v Possibles...at somewhere like Alice Springs, in the desert on a rough track, that sort of thing, before they went to Arabia?
Play it like winning and losing mattered, but bend the rules for maximum time in the middle.
Did anyone think of it?
If not, why not?
At this time of year, it's all about horses for courses, isn't it?

Pakistan 454 and 2/286 dec; Australia 303 and 216.
Pakistan won by 221 runs.

that fatal air of invincibilty

Devastatees,

Having been in the back blocks of rural north-western France for the best part of the month of September, it's been rather difficult to get a handle on what's been going on at the pointy end of the season.
Even Le Monde - which is still put on the back of trucks for same day delivery to the provinces and prints pages and pages of sports results in very small typeface every day - doesn't carry the scoreboxes from the Strayan Rules or the Sydney Rugby League.
It was at least 12 hours before news that the Swans had reached the Grand Final filtered through on the bush telegraph in that part of the world.
So, in no position to comment really, but let me go on, as it can't pass without mention.
A friend of the Good Lady Wife's remarked "not a very good day to save your worst game of the year for".
Which got the Stats Guru to thinking about some eerie similarities between the Swans' first and last games of the season.
Soundly beaten, nay thrashed, by the GWS Pygmies in the opening round of the year, then whip-sawed without mercy by Hawthorn in the last, which just happened to be "the only game that matters".
Everything in between went swimmingly; far too swimmingly as it turned out.
A mate of mine, who takes only a passing interest in the caper, made judgement: "they were beaten before they got to the ground".
That's the truth alright
After an absolutely stellar second half of the season, as the Swans swept all before them to easily take the Minor Premiership, they thought they were shit hot and so did everyone else.
Then, by all accounts, they had a saloon passage into the Big One, strolling through the semi final and then winning the premlinary final in emphatic style, by which time even some Melbourne based pundits rated them as short-priced favourites to take the flag.
Only problem was, after all that, Sydney wound up imbued with that fatal air of invincibilty, and ended up playing the Grand Final over and over and over in their heads well before they even got to Melbourne in the Last Week, let alone the dreams of grandeur they had in their sleep the night before.
In finish, the Swans were completely outfoxed by a much better "big game team", who pulled off some sandbagging of their own brilliantly just when it mattered; almost falling at the last hurdle before the Grand Final, only beating Port in a cliff-hanger to qualify, calling up injured players, and stamping themselves all over as the clear underdogs.
But by then, the Hawthorn Football Department had finished pouring over the well-worked gin-soaked plans and secretly determined behind closed doors not only to beat Sydney, but annihilate them.
No one saw it coming, except the Hawks.
Never mind the ten goal football lesson to end all ten goal football lessons, the hair pulling, the gnashing of teeth, and self-flagellation that followed perhaps the Swans biggest disaster since moving from South Melbourne - "Psych War" is what it's called - and there's no doubt at all about who won it.
Found myself knocking about in Champagne the week before they started to pick the grapes on the 16th of September, which is always a very nervous time for folks around those parts.
They know all too well their livelihoods and reputations rest on it.
They were most unsure about what would happen, but they erred on the side of pessimism, given that they thought the crop was probably ruined by the howling winds and flooding rains of August, and predicted the harvest would be more or less buggered.
They doubted very much that any Vintage Champagne at all would be made in 2014.
But, with knotted eyebrows and that marvellous Gallic shrug of the shoulders with upturned hands they passed it off with whatever the French phrase is for "Oh well. There's always next year", and just got on with it.

SYDNEY: 2.3, 5.3, 8.5, 11.8 (74). Goals: Franklin 4, Goodes 2, Jack 2, Kennedy, McGlynn, Tippett
HAWTHORN: 5.5, 11.9, 16.11, 21.11 (137). Goals: Roughead 5, Breust 3, Langford 3, Gunston 2, Hodge 2, Burgoyne 2, Hale, Hill, Puopolo, Suckling
Norm Smith Medal: Hodge.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 99,454.

just about as close to a perfect season as anyone could imagine

Loyalistsa,

Little wonder the hapless Tigers found themselves out like a shag on a rock on a Thursday night for a game against the Contemptible Bulldogs.
Thursday night, eh?
Brilliant way for the NRL to begin their hastily cobbled together scam aimed at World Domination, by having rugby league matches played five days a week.
But really, it was just plain embarrassing to watch.
To have not one, not two, but three tries put on you inside the first ten minutes of the match - that's not even half way though the Traditional Softening-Up Period - is simply unacceptable.
All concerned knew it.
Their hearts were obviously not in it.
As things stand, they know they are incapable of winning even a rigged chook raffle.
Said it before, say it again - probably said it right here a year ago - it'd be the same form of words: the club is in very serious need of rebuilding.
A couple of young fella's have stepped up well enough to first grade this year by necessity given the nightmarish horror of an injury run this season, and the rest of their junior ranks - by and large farkin' huge South Sea Islanders - is bristling with talent, the potentional of which is as yet unfulfilled.
The main problem is they desperately need more experienced journeymen in the forwards and the backs, but they just don't have any money to buy them, let alone retain their youngsters, with cashed up clubs always sniffing around.
You'd have to imagine Coach Potter would be on shifting sands having seen his team have nigh on 150 points scored against them in the space of just three games.
And that after The Board, under pressure to pull the sack, decided to keep him on for a few weeks to the the end of the year, because they had nowhere else to go.
Poor Harry, he's entitled to say "but, what'd I do wrong, Guv?", but that won't help him, he'll be shown the door at season end, and be shat out the poop shoot without a sausage.
Mad Monday can't come soon enough.
It'll be many many years until they come close to winning the JJ Giltinan Shield again.

CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS 30. Tries: Lafai (2), Jackson, Thompson, Ennis. Goals: Hodkinson (5).
WESTS TIGERS 10. Tries: Brooks, Woods. Goals: Paterson (1).
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 9,877.


Little wonder you can rest Sam Reid on a whim, when the Buddy-Tipsy Show kick ten goals between them!
Really, they couild have rested the entire first grade side and turned out the seconds and they still would have won.
This is really starting to sound like a broken record, but yet another leasuirely weekend stroll in the park.
The other seven sides in the top eight must be worried sick about how they are going to come close to beating the Swans, who if memory serves and chortling of the Stats Guru is anything to go by, have won 16 of their last 17 games.
If they hadn't inexplicably gone down to the Greater Western Sydney Pygmies in Round One, and 1-3 after the first month of the year, it's just about as close to a perfect season as anyone could imagine.

Just as the season well and truly reaches the pointy end, it seems that this bloggy blog blog is about to fall off the radar, and go into premature abeyance.
That's it as far as commentary goes here.
Will find myself spending the entire month of September in north-western France, where, as far as can be gathered, the local population couldn't give a blue root about The Rules, that's our Rules, not theirs.
People keep asking me "why are you going to miss the entire finals series, Craves?", which is a good question, to which the obvious answer is "they say it's nice over there this time of year".
Little does anyone know that my jet bird will be touching back down at KSA on the morning of Grand Final Day.
Cheer, Cheer, The Red & The White...
Onward to Vic-Tor-Ree!

WESTERN BULLDOGS: 1.2, 5.5, 7.10, 9.13 (67). Stringer 2, Boyd, Cooney, Liberatore, Bontempelli, Hrovat, Johannisen, Griffen.
SYDNEY: 7.3, 11.5, 17.7, 20.10 (130). Goals: Franklin 6, Tippett 4, Lloyd 2, Goodes 2, Malceski 2, Jetta, Towers, Hannebery, Parker.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 22,430.

a tale of two cities

Mudlarks,

Buddy kicks nine.
Now that's penetration for you.
The Saints didn't have a hope, no way of stopping him going in through the front and back doors whenever he wanted at will.
It was only a matter of time until Franklin did something mad.
Before he came to the Swans, he had a reputation as a big game player, and he delivered in spades in his 200th, and found himself being chaired off the ground after the final siren.
Just getting his act together for September?
You'd have to hope so.
The sandbagging continued when JP Kennedy was subbed off during the 2nd quarter at the slightest hint of a niggle, which the commentators, to their credit, tried to talk up as a full-blown hammy.
They're obviously on the Sydney payroll.
Coach Horse must be confident JP already has the Chas Brownlow in the dilly bag - he could bench him for the rest of the season and he'd still win the thing.
After last week's stroll in the park that is finals time HQ - the MCG - they made light work of an undermanned St Kilda, who just didn't have the strength or height to match them.
Swans threw a few youngsters into the game, as My Spy and The Ground remarked "to shark the pack" to see if they cut the mustard, if they're required at the pointy end.
You'd think they'd go top on that showing, especially with Geelong and Hawthorn playing each other this weekend in a Promoter's Dream.
The late season run is being timed perfectly, and Coach Horse knows a thing or two about orchestrating the games that matter - just look at the genius moves that went into the back end of 2012, and we all know what happened then.
Excellent to see the Ugliest Man in Football given a lap of honour of the SCG to mark his retirement from the caper; he just took the accolades like the dignified man that he is.
Unique in every way, you have to wonder if there ever has been a finer ornament to the game?
Who can ever forget Lewis Roberts-Thompson's exploits in the 2005 Grand Final?
Robbed of the Norm Smith, for mine, what's more to say?
And here's a bloke who "honestly, I never thought I would play AFL football", and after a chequered career dogged by injury, was asked what it was like to reach the 100 game milestone, to which he replied "I am astonished. No one told me that I'd played 99. I had no idea. I'm gobsmacked".
When he did play, there was rarely a player as good as him across the half back line, gangly as hell, all arms & legs, hands everywhere, and could run, yessiree, and had a deceptive amount of height about him so could take those high marking stops at goal, and kick the ball back to the forwards, who's already turned on their heels when they saw who was coming.
And there's been few braver men in the melee, worked the stacks-on-the-mill brilliantly, perhaps the hallmark of his career.
And could kick a goal to boot, if he was asked to.
Gave more to the game and got more out of it than he ever imagined, despite the pain and suffering that took him there and in the end bought the curtain down on an illustrious career.
Vale L-R-T.
You will be sorely missed.

SYDNEY SWANS: 6.3, 8.8, 15.9, 19.13 (127). Goals: Franklin 9, Tippett 3, Cunningham, Malceski, Jetta, Lloyd, McVeigh, Towers, Parker.
ST KILDA: 1.1, 2.4, 5.7, 8.8 (56). Goals: Riewoldt 3, Stanley 2, Gwilt, Armitage, Steven. At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 31,361.


The heavy rain set in just before kick off.
The Spiritual Home is uncomfortable at the best of times, but is plain miserable in the wet with next to no cover except under the mighty Port Jackson fig trees that really only convert the precipitation into large bucket like drips that will soak a hat in one hit.
Only foolhardy die-hards would have made the supreme effort of getting to Leichhardt Oval, in the almost certain knowledge that all they'd be going see would be Balmain's season nadir.
Needless to say, didn't find myself among them, never mind me following the team for a quarter of a century, still regarded as a fair-weather fan.
Donned the Driza-Bone in the howling winds and flooding rains of a classic East Coast Low, to trick up the aeriel on the short wave radio, only to find the wireless dominated by a call of some rugby union game between the Wobblies and All Blicks that no one in Dad's Shed cared about.
So, shut down the crystal set, turned off the light and retreated from the severe weather to the house to get in a hot tub, on the grounds that "you can always read about it in the papers" in the morning.
By all accounts, the game itself was by no means pretty.
That'd be more than 100 points scored against the hapless Tigers in the space of just two matches - believe.
Much to his chagrin, the Stats Guru has been burrowing deep into the archive to try to find another instance, and is struggling to come up with one within living memory.
Surely you'd have to call for the mercy rule and just excuse them from the rest of the season, no point turning up fellas, just go on post-season holidays as usual via the Room Full of Mirrors and contemplate your navels.
Nothing for it.
Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
The best thing to come out of the whole schemozzle was the long-awaited retirement of Braith Anasta before the game.
The bloke has spent half a season in sick bay, where he remains, and at long last decided that he simply can't go on.
Probably one of the worst buys in club history.
Braith had a stellar career at the Bulldogs and the Roosters, playing more than 250 games, won a Premiership, appeared in four test matches for Australia, and turned out ten times for NSW in State-of-Origin.
Now, that's good, very very good.
But as he reached his twilight years, Easts could see the writing on the wall and could no longer keep him under their salary cap so they sold him on a short-term deal to Balmain, who were fool enough to buy him.
He was the incumbent club captain at the Roosters when they punted him, no less.
Played just 31 games in two years for the Tigers, and did absolutely nothing.
Anasta never did fit into the Balmain culture, no one ever really liked him, and in the end it was a bitterly disappointing, costly denoument to an otherwise glittering career.
But he only had himself to blame.
So sad to see great players - as shadows of their former selves - play well beyond their use by dates, purely for money - Balmain supporters will only ever remember that, not what he did for someone else at the height of playing days.
He came to Leichhardt on a contract that said "I'll play anywhere, except at lock".
Where did he end up playing his last year?
Lock.

WESTS TIGERS 4. Tries: Hitchcox. Goals: Paterson (1).
SYDNEY ROOSTERS 48. Tries: Minichiello (2), Jennings, Moa, Waerea-Hargreaves, Kenny-Dowall, Tupou, Pearce. Goals: Maloney (8).
At Leichhardt Oval.
Crowd: 5,297.

for the sake of completeness

Due to unforseen circumstances, the bloggy blog blog will not appear this week.
Back next week.
The scoreboxes are included for your consideration, and for the sake of completeness.

PORT ADELAIDE: 2.3, 3.7, 5.12, 7.16 (58). Goals: Boak 2, Neade 2, Wingard, Lobbe, Westhoff.
SYDNEY: 2.2, 5.6, 8.9, 12.12 (84). Goals: Cunningham 3, McGlynn 3, Franklin 2, Tippett 2, Rohan.
At Adelaide Oval.
Crowd: 50,087.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 64. Tries: Wright (3), Taumalolo (2), Winterstein (2), Moga (2), Morgan, Sims. Goals: Thurston (8).
WESTS TIGERS 6. Tries: Woods. Goals: Paterson (1).
At Townsville Football Stadium.
Crowd: 12, 317.