on the Pink Stink, Pt II & III

Traditionalists,

When confronted with something like the Pink Stink, the first obvious question you would ask yourself would be "What would Clarkey do?"
But, Pup appeared to be just as perplexed as anyone on commentary duty on the telly.
If he wasn't getting paid a handsome fee to say that day/night Test match cricket is the best thing since bottled Scotch or a years supply of KFC, as a newly minted Honorary Life Member of the MCC, you'd hope that MJ Clarke would say "Disaster. Tremendous waste of time and money for no purpose. Abandon it ".
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Test cricket.
There used to be a saying "if it aint broke, don't fix it, and if it is broke, and you can't fix it with fencing wire, then it's not worth fixing".
The Stats Guru is scratching his head also, and while his abacus is having real trouble trying to make sense of the crazy numbers, he ventures to suggest that playing the crucial hour before sunset and the hour after the orb dips below the horizon could just be a matter of developing a new tactical element in a game already chock full of known unknowns.
But for the purist, there is obviously something wrong with the ball, and no amount of fencing wire is going to help.
Apart from the hue of this year's model of the Pinkie looking very gaudy indeed, at first glance it can wildly favour the bowlers in the twilight hours, or, it may not.
So, if you are the Captain, you really can't put a tactical punt on it.
Otherwise how do you explain Pakistan being bowled out cheaply on the evening of Day Two in Brisvegas, and yet comfortably batting their way through the dusk on Day Four to push the game into the hitherto unknown territory of Day Five, on their way to what could have been the biggest winning run chase in the history of the game, only to fall oh so short?
Weird as.
But it's obviously no longer about the game itself; bugger the survival chances of Test cricket.
Doesn't matter how many swimming pools, pool decks, beaches, cocktail bars you put in the ground, or how many punters dressed in stupid costumes come through the turnstiles to be seen and get pissed, it's all about how it rates on the crystal bucket.
And cricket television ratings, it seems, are already going sub-Antarctic anyway, if it's not T20.
With a generation that has the attention span of a gnat, and the way things are headed, the BBL will end up being the only thing Cricket Australia has left to sell, but it's franchised, so they don't even own it properly.
And what was the official attendance on Day Five in Brissy?
A Sheffield Shield crowd -- less than two thousand.
Same as it ever was.
Reports suggest Kookaburra turned out the MkVIII version of the Pinkie for the current summer, and they are already working on MkIX to serve up to the Poms next year.
They must be so utterly frustrated, given that there is nothing at all wrong with the traditional red ball - it's worked for a very very long time, well over a century - and yet they can't, for all they try, get the Pinkie right.
And who was the bright spark who dreamt up the insane idea of putting flashing lights in the bails?
Gawd save me.
Wassup?
To me, the tactics in a day/night Test match seem to hinge almost entirely on whichever side bats first and can produce a batsman who can simply survive a couple of hours of a wildly swinging, curving, spinning, wobbling, bouncing, practically un-playable invisible ball under lights, and then goes on to make a big hundred in the broad light of day, wins.
Simple.
Ipso facto, the Token Muzzie's 145 in Adelbrain, and Skippy Smiffy's 130 up there in the sub-tropics.
But is that what the people want; survival in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, followed by a dead-boring daylight saloon passage on a road of pitch such as the one at the Gabbatoir, which was more like a six-lane highway?
Is that the new, manufactured for television, drama?
The whole thing has just got me completely bamboozled, flabbergasted.
Been saying this for years -- if you want to go about taking Test cricket out of the Intensive Care Unit, then Tubby Taylor's call for Test matches to be reduced from five days to four makes absolutely perfect sense, for mine.
As it stands, watching or listening to the Boxing Day Test and the New Year Test occupies half of the annual leave of the ordinary working man if the matches run their full course.
And there's form for it - before the era of complete silliness and "timeless tests" [1928-39], Test matches were routinely played, more often than not to a result, over four, even three days.
But that was back in the day of uncovered pitches and when over-rates was very rapid indeed, compared to today's placid wickets and the god-awful mind-numbingly pedestrian over-rates.
For chrissake, how long does it take to set a field and bowl six balls?
Four days, four hundred overs, in the time allotted.
If Test cricket is to hang on for grim life, which is currently in grave doubt if the Powers That Be keep fiddling about with it the way they are, that's probably where it should be at.
But that's only my, and Tubby's, opinion.
Clarkey might do it differently.
But there's no difference of opinion about Uzzy; beautiful to watch, style and grace to burn, has all the shots, and his ton over three days in Adders will be the best by far of the summer and remembered for a while yet.
The old boys can just plod along, the rookies can keep looking over their shoulders, but having been shamefully and shabbily treated by the now former selectors, The Uz-Man is the real deal and he's here to stay with a glittering career ahead of him.
But please, please, let's just go back to the clear light of day where everyone can plainly see what the faark is going on, and for the love of Joisus, stop messing about with lunch and tea.
It is, after all, the most civilized sport in the world - the only game that stops for afternoon tea.
What's broken about that?

the interminable imponderables of the selector

Decision makers,

Forget about the small matter of the thievin' cheatin' Seth Efreakens and the breaking of Law 42 regarding "fair and unfair play", there once was a saying in Strayan cricket "it's harder to get dropped from the Test team that it is to get picked".
Not anymore, unless you have the negatives of the photographs of the selectors like Shane FIGJAM Watson did.
How many first class games did Mike "Mr Cricket" Hussey have to play before he got picked at age 30?
Just how it was...and that's in recent times.
The system had long history.
The Stats Guru is still manically whirring the beads on the abacus trying to work out when the last time was that six players were dropped in one fell swoop from a Strayan test team, outside the World Series Cricket era?
He's still looking for the answer.
After throwing RW Marsh MBE under a bus, seems like TV Hohns has been down to the local costume shop over the weekend and picked up the full Grim Reaper outfit.
Off with their heads!
You can say anything you like about it, but there's no doubting it's a gutsy call from the Interim Chairman and the Temporary Three Wise Men.
Always thought, to do their job properly, selectors should act like judges - shun the limelight altogether, be the Faceless Men, and should not necessarily be asked to give reasons, let alone volunteer them.
All Trev had to say...Madds "enormous potential", Renso "in-form", Chadds "plays good in Adelbrain", The HandyComb "made a double ton on the weekend", Bird's "just Bird" and Wade "can bat"; nothing at all to say about those dropped apart from the wicky Nevill - "unlucky".
No mention of one-test wonders Ferguson and Rennie having already put their Baggy's in glass display cases.
Back in the day when he was skipper, MJ Clarke got right jack of being a selector, quite rightly pointing out that he thought it was a conflict of interest.
But they forced him to be one anyway.
Then he dusted off his little history book and found out that up until the very recent past Strayan captains were never required to be a selector, except on tour, when the skippy, his deputy, and the team manager would pick the playing XI from a set-in-stone squad of players, chosen by the selectors.
Soon enough Pup told The Board they could "shove this job for a joke", and promptly resigned as a selector while retaining the Captaincy, home and away.
Clarkey said "just give me a team, piss off, and I'll captain it, OK?".
Of course he wasn't very popular in certain circles and found Boof, Pat the Freakin' Freeloader and a myriad of other hangers-on in his way, busy protecting their own patches and their own bloated stipends.
In the entire course of cricket history, "coaches" never used to have a role in the main game; yoof would learn, and learn hard, how to play a hard game from experience.
When they got over the utter nonsense that was the Amatuer/Professional pommie class shit, the proscribed method of team management worked - by and large - pretty well for a very long period of time; that's not to say there weren't unholy stinks, perceieved slights, accusations of favouritism, nepotism, sheer bastardry, vitriolic acrimony, fisticuffs and bar brawls, etc etc etc et al over who, or who shouldn't, be in the team.
That was all part of it.
But persistency and consistency were still valued.
What do we want? Gradual change! When do we want it? In due course!
Things are different now in the age of instant gratification, and yet, people still hate change.
Could very well be starting on down the road to losing it, but do find the current debacle all very confusing, perplexing.
Pup had nothing nice to say about the Rosy Ball last time out, so what will he be expected to bark on about on Channel Nine, who are fond of paying the piper and towing the CA party line?
As My Spy at The Ground was heard to say "imagine making your Test debut under lights in the Pink Stink at Adelaide Oval. No wonder Trev's asking everyone to be very patient".
Five days in the glare of the spotlights is a long time to be treading the boards - so, now for some Shakespearean oratory! Heroics! Comedy! Tragedy! and chin music in five acts.
Bring the fans flooding back through the turnstiles for five nights in a row.
That couldn't be too much for Marketing to ask?
Surely?
Wandered into the Front Bar at The Local for a quick mid-morning Monday cordial and found The Philosopher, as is his wont, in his usual corner nursing this week's favoured tipple [a strong bone dry vermouth and soda on the rocks], looking rather dazed and disheveled poking his bony finger into this photograph from AAP on the back page of the paper; so impressed was he by the Captain's quizzical visage, he decided to caption it:

"In the name of sweet weepin' Jesus upon the Cross! Who the Hell are you?"

Where's Jim Higgs when you need him?

I'm surprised Trevor Hohns is still alive.
Where's Jim Higgs when you need him?
Wasn't Greg Chappell sacked as a selector a few years back for being a rude vegan prick, and now he returns to the interim panel as if he was a knight in shining armour?
And, it seems, if you thump a ton in a single Sheffield Shield match, yr in.
"Go to the top order for Straya, son, and see if you can join the ever growing ranks of one-test wonders".
After committing the cardinal sin of being run out in a Test match, and with his 32nd birthday on Monday, CJ Ferguson has already put his Baggy in a glass case.
No matter, they'll be handing out baggy's like confetti, anyway.
Crisis?
What crisis?

bad moon rising

Fellow aghastee's

Nothing good ever comes from a Super Moon.
Straya get thumped in the test cricket by an innings and then some in 2.2 days by the Seth Efreakens on a lovely batting deck in Hobart sparking a full-scale crisis of confidence and calls for ruthless recriminations, the south island of the Shakey Isles only confirms why hardly anyone lives there with an apocalyptic size tremblor right bang smack on the full moon, and a member of a "prominent Sydney crime family", which turns out to only be the Mafia, cops it up the runter in a "hail of bullets" coming from a schmick Audi cruising past in broad moonlight on a street behind the Coles supermarket in the next suburb over from my gaff.
Just ask Smiffy, the good burghers of Christchurch, and Pasquale Barbaro Jnr...they'll tell you.
The Good Lady Wife also blames the bad moon rising, saying somehow, somewhere along the way the team got on the wrong side of the Cricket Gods, as they stare down the barrel of the first home series white-wash by Seth Efreaker in centuries.
There's a lot to be said for that theory, but it's a bit too superstitious for mine.
Maybe someone, somehow, somewhere along the way forgot about the concept of first class cricket.
It's as if Cricket Australia and the Board of Control have entirely neglected to remember and honour the great Lord Sheffield and his Shield.
>From one who doesn't mind a drink in a crisis, the knee-jerk solution is, of course, to sack the lot of 'em.
Swampy, Boof, and the greatest hanger-on in the history of Australian cricket, Low Performance Manager, Pat Howard, must all be GORN by Xmas.
The Chairman of the Board, The Board, and Mr Sutherland and his myriad of acolytes and cronies might as well all follow them out the back door without so much as a sausage.
The Stats Guru has been whirring the abacus, and the ancient abacus he uses never lies.
He has calculated that the collective batting average of the top six Strayan batsmen in the first two tests is, you guessed it, 23.70.
And if it wasn't for a couple of half-way decent knocks by Dave "Boy from the Burbs" Warner, Smiffy, and the Token Muzzie, it would have been closer to zero.
You can draw yr own conculsions from that.
Never mind that the previously much feared Strayan bowling attack is old, tired, injured, and/or underdone.
All power must be returned to the Captain, as it should be, and has always been, until the Honky Dollar [or more accurately, the de-monetised high-denomination Rupee] took over the game.
Having switched the telly off in disgust, never did see SPD Smith on interview after the match.
They say Smiffy went just about as ballistic as the skippy can go ballistic in public, but having read the transcript, his words seem to be rather more sober and measured to me:

Joisus, the Pink Stink dead-rubber in Adelbrain will be a whole lotta fun.
Needless to say, none of this would ever have happened back in the day when Pup was in charge...aaahhh...back in the day...

The Pup & The Tumor

Literature Critics,

Nothing quite like a tell-all autobiograpy for a noice bit of juicy summer reading if what the boffins down in PR are saying is anything to go by.
The Big W catalouge, along with half an old-growth forest, lobbed on my front doorstep on Monday morning last week, as usual.
Noted that Pup's new book...
Michael Clarke, My Story, [Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2016], 480pp.
...just a day after making sensational front-page headlines, had already been rudely cast out upon the remainder table at the Big Whoop at $28.
Shame on them.
RRP is $44.95.
But therein lies a business opportunity.
After hours of endless practice over the years; got his signature down pat.
Thinking about going there, cleaning out their stock, and flipping forged autographed first-edition copies on eBay at a healthy premium?
Certain money-spinner.
According to the screaming banners on the fishwraps, Shane Watson is a "tumour", ie worse than a festering sore; might have even been a cancer in a cluster-fuck of cancers.
Anyway - it's official - FIGJAM.
SR Watson - as everyone knows - had the negatives of photographs of all the selectors in compromising positions, and finished with jackshit averages.
The Stats Guru reckons that Shane - the selectors' great white hope of all-rounders [Australia really hasn't had a genuine one since Keith Miller] - finished with the world's record for getting out in the 40's and 90's in Test cricket.
At least Michael had the decency and sense to leave it at "tumour"...could have said a lot worse.
And of course after a giddy-up from Pup's people, Watto vehemently denied that he had, or has, any kind of tumourism about him.
If fact, Mr Watson reckons he's the nicest bloke you could ever meet.
That's until you're asked to believe Mitchell "Joke Johnno" Johnson's autobiography - called Resilient and in all good bookstores this week - in which he apparently claims Watto once flushed his head down a toilet.
By God, Fawlty, what fun these cricketer's have!
Thought that it was very honourable and humble of Pup to acknowledge, at last, that MJ Clarke called SM Katich called a "weak-cunt" before the now infamous dressing room attempted strangulation incident, saying only that it was 'inappropriate language'.
Simon says he was unable to accept the apology that wasn't forthcoming, and reckons his relationship with Pup has been "non-existant" ever since, despite Clarkey saying their differences have been 'patched up' and they are now best of mates.
Just goes to show that everyone who was in the rooms at the time the Super Kat tried to choke Pup to death will have an entirely different recollection of what happened - even though they all saw and heard exactly the same thing.
It's simply not possible that any one story will be the same.
According to My Spy at The Ground, Clarkey also admitted on interview in a 60 Minutes puff-piece - which passed me by - that he had been called "a dick" and a "dickead" on more than one occasion.
This is straight talk from arguably the greatest batsman of his generation; history, it seems, has already decided on his captaincy.
By all accounts, Pup could have been a top notch leader of men, but he says he just didn't much like being a middle manager.
Who would? When you're meant to be Number One.
Thanks Boof.
And in all the press reports and the odd book review, have not heard one single mention of the "L" word or of a woman being involved - Lara Bingle likely gets a scant mention, given that she was probably scantily-clad when they first met, but surely the outrageously expensive engagement ring down the S-bend and the team of plumbers' three-day search for it in vain would rate a mention because - an old journo speaking here - now that's a story.
So there's yr book review of reviews of a book that this critic hasn't read, and you'd have to suspect that not many will get through the ripping yarn either.
At almost 500 pages, you'd imagine it as more a coffee table number, something to flip through in a desultory fashion over mixed drinks and petit four.
There'd be a quotable quote on every page.
When it turns up in bloke's Xmas stockings, depending on their disposition, it'll either go straight in the wheelie-bin or up on the shelf in the trophy room with all the other sports books they got on Christmases past, but never got around to reading.
Shame on them.

But boy, Clarkey has been a busy boy, announcing a more or less full-time summer job on a pretty penny with the wonderful Wide World of Sports.
Turning out for Western Suburbs in this season's Sydney grade comp appears to have now almost certainly fallen by the wayside after two games.
The concept of a renewed career in T20 is long gone - dead, buried, and cremated.
Even though he has a very large cricket brain and is a pretty good analyst of the game, employing Michael - who, let's face it, failed to be wildly popular among the general public for reasons unknown and has a kind of whiney little voice which is not his fault - is ratings death for mine, not that that's my decision.
It pains me, nonetheless.
The Twitterati were all a twitter.
It was as if the world as we know it had ended.
'A shocked and horrified Max Cartwright declared “this is a dark day in sport” and “clarke?! u serious channel 9? obviously trying to turn viewers off. might have to just watch on mute and listen to ABC this summer” raged Michael Cavanagh' [probably a troll who forgot about the seven second delay - still, can't you get an app for that?]
If you actually go to the ground for any first-class game, Test or otherwise, none of any of the above actually matters; you get no official commentary at all - just the game, a few barrackers and the ground announcer on the Tannoy.
How easily people forget the thwack of willow on leather and the gentle ripple of applause.
And there's always time for afternoon tea and a snooze.
Bring it on.

and the flavour is tart

My Fellow Aghastee's,

Please excuse my apoplexy, but.
The Bullies didn't win the Grand Final.
The Swannies didn't lose the Grand Final.
Sydney were robbed.
Plain and simple.
Robbed blind by the Umpires.
Highway Robbery, in fact.
Something the national folk hero, Our Ned Kelly, would have been very proud of.
Now, if you think this is all starting to sound like a bit of sour grapes, then you are dead-set right.
And the flavour is tart.
Makes your lips curl into the shape of a cat's arse.
My Spy at The Ground was onto it early, as we all were, and pushed through a message on the Bush Telegraph machine at half-time saying "Bamfords give 12 free kicks + 2 x 50m penalties to Scraggers. Swans? 4."
Sydernee were lucky to still be in it at the main break.
The Stats Guru was quick on the phone post-match - you could hear the sound of the abacus whirring in the background building the prosecution case - saying the total free kick count went 20-8 in favour of Footscray.
And the Swans were worried they were the cleanest team in the comp.
That was just the plain stats, never mind the no free kick and no report for trying to break the Hannebery Kiddie's legs; K.Jack being thieved of a free at a critical moment in the last quarter, etc etc etc - the list goes.
Never knew that Bulldogs had been put on the protected species list.
And most of Footscray's 13 goals, apart from the outright gifts from the officials, came as a direct result of the passages of play from free kicks.
Everyone knows, in a game where kicks are hard to come by, every free one counts.
Admittedly the Bulldogs coach "Beery" Bevo was very clever, as he knew the only way to get their way through the Swans defence was to knock the ball to ground inside their forward 20m, and then pick it up quick smart, and snap it over your head in hope; and in the miracle of miracles, they all went through the big sticks
Must have been practicing that set-pay all week prior.
The Bulldogs didn't kick more goals than behinds for nothing, and they knew it takes more than ten maximums to win a Grand Final.
The Stats Guru also said something about the Swans being awarded no free kicks at all in the entire second and third quarters - none, zip, zero.
Also worked out that against the five interstate teams the Bulldogs played in Melbourne in this year's regular season, they got a free kick count in their favour to the tune of 111-70.
Even Blind Freddy could see the fairytale ending was not achieved honestly.
The most shameful display of downright biased Melbourne umpiring seen in living memory.
The Fraud Squad would have been through the Bamford's rooms looking for potato sacks jammed full of fat bundles of pineapples, if they hadn't been paid off.
It all smacks of an elaborate joint criminal enterprise, for mine.
My lawyer agrees.
And didn't they nick Our Ned on that charge [oh, and murdering a few cops as well, just by and by]?
And we all know what happened to Mr Kelly...hung by the neck, until dead.
The same fate awaits the umpires.
When the revolution comes.
After such a stellar season and winning the Minor Premiership, only to be shockingly shaken down by corrupt officialdom at the final hurdle, is insanely insufferable.
On interview after the game, asked about the standard of the umpiring, Super Coach Horse sensibly said he "hadn't seen the video" and would consider it in the "the cool light of day" [rather than go ballistic which he was perfectly entitled to do], and left it at that.
But, you can just imagine Horse fronting up to AFL HQ on Tuesday morning and asking ever so politely to see the Boss Cocky of The Bamfords.
When he was shown up to The Grand Poohbah of Umpiring's office, Mr Longmire would have gone utterly berserk; chuckin' chairs, overturning tables, smashing computer terminals, video machines; umpiring memoriabilia of all kinds flying hither and thither, leaving the place looking like a mad woman's breakfast after he'd finished with it.
That John Longmire, when he's in the mood -- Christ! can he break things.
However, when it's all said and done, you have to graciously but grudgingly allow that Footscray was probably the better team on the day.
Shame.
The Swans were carrying far too many passengers who were barely sighted all day, and Buddy got his kicking boot stepped on by a team-mate early.
Of all games for it to happen in.
Excuses, excuses.
But to add insult to injury, JP Kennedy had the Norm Smith Medal scandalously stolen from him by just two votes.
He was shattered.
We were gutted.
How can you possibly win, when you are playing against a pretty good young football team for the Premiership, and the umpires as well?
The odds are simply impossible.
Could go on, but won't.
The Stats Guru also had a cursory look for chinks in Sydney's amour in the season just gone - and found the most most telling of them to be the fact that of the five games Sydney lost in the regular season and the two they lost in the finals series - the Swans went 0-7 after trailing at three-quarter time.
Which suggests Sydney are first-class front runners in defending leads, but can't play catch-up football when it really counts.
A problem.
It's plain the Swans roster needs a good off-season shake-up if they are to stay competitive in the Brave New World, which starts next year, with the GWS Pygmies having "stolen all of Collingwood's money" well on their way - just as an example of the future.
Sydney are well supplied with juniors, but with retirements and de-listings to come, they need to pick well again in the draft, use their smarts to buy in the free agents market, and do a few shady swifty's on other clubs and pinch some of their really good players.
They have form in that regard,
Otherwise, SC Horse will stay as Mad As Hell for the next five months.
And that aint a pretty sight.
But, in the end, all things being equal, it will be - trust me on this one - it will be onward to victory in '17.
Us loyal, time-honoured, die-hards will go through all the joy and suffering, all the pleasure and pain, yet again, just to put that damnable thing - The Flag - in the dilly-bag.
You know it makes sense.

SYDNEY SWANS: 1.2, 7.3, 8.5, 10.7 (67). Goals: Kennedy 3, Mitchell 2, Parker, N. Smith, Rohan, Franklin, Hewett.
WESTERN BULLDOGS: 2.0, 7.1, 9.7, 13.11 (89). Goals: T. Boyd 3, Dickson 3, Picken 3, Cordy, McLean, C. Smith, Stringer.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 99,981.
Norm Smith Medalist: J.Johannisen [WB].

no banjo, no cigar

True Blue Bloods,

On interview after the Preliminary Final, Mr Longmire was asked by some blowie in the Press Gallery:
"Was it better to play three hard finals in a row or have a week off, win a game, have another week off, then...well, in Geelong's case, lose?"
Super Coach Horse replied "I don't know. I just don't know. I don't think anyone knows".
That's a lie.
Of course he does.
He's been a planning and a scheming for this for a whole season, and making a closer study of Sun Tzu's The Art of War in his spare time.
Lets face it - football - it's all about conflict.
Nothing less.
How best to strategically shove the tigantic tusk up the runter of the enemy.
Strengths and weaknesses, adaptability, the lay of the land, horses for courses, defensive arrangements, attacking with fire, heavy artillery, surprise, the use of spies...it's all there...has been since around the 5th century BC.
Horse has done it all this year - looked at it with an eye that's used to gazing out to sea down by the Magic Waters at Sunday morning smoko.
The Big Picture Man.
The Big Kahuna.
Having won the game at quarter time against Geelong, My Spy at The Ground pushed through a telegraph message saying "best finals coaching effort since '05".
Hard to argue with that.
Did SC Horse throw the Qualifying Final, so that his troops would be battle hardened going onto The Biggest Stage, safe in the knowledge they could beat anyone else left in the race?
Did Cleverman reckon on not playing the Pygmies in the Grand Final from Game 1 this season?
Also asked on interview after the game who he'd prefer to meet in the Grand Final, SC Horse said "Don't care, I'll just go out there and see who it is".
That's a lie.
He's planted spies all over the shop, especially at Puppies HQ, so he knows that they don't know that he knows what they intend to get up to.
When you've got the enemy's plan of attack slipped under the hotel room door, the defensive seige mentality is pretty simple:
"If a side can't kick goals on you, they only win rarely".
On that basis alone, they didn't take out the Minor Premiership for nothing.
Build the brick wall and they will come - to throw themselves against it, time and time again, hopelessly in vain.
Old Man McVeigh, Ace Aliir, the weirdest looking man in football, The Great Teddy Richards, Rising Star gongee "Saw" Mills, along with J.Laidler and H.Marsh, all know they're not certainties to be picked in the backline for the Granny.
It's that good.
Yoof and Experience is a two-way street.
Said it before, say it again, the Swans mid-field can look after themselves.
Do like how "Pearl" Papley seems like he's grown another leg in the finals series in the forwards, the way he gets out the 9 iron, swivels and chips through traffic, off two or three steps, and bang!
The pill sails straight through the middle of the big sticks, landing many rows back in the second tier.
The perfect rover for Franklin.
And it's very handy indeed to have that hugely expensive genuine marquee bull-in-a-china-shop up front; not only does Buddy kick straight from 70m through to 2m and throw his weight around like there's no tomorrow, he reads the game so uncannily.
No one man in any opposition team can mark the monster with a massive football brain.
Helps to have Heeney the Cardiff Zucchini, in form, and loitering with intent in the forward line, also.
Any number of Swannies can play in the ruck at a pinch, and have, through the year.
So why not have the tallest man ever to play for Sydney or South Melbourne in Big Sam Naismith at six foot ten in there?
It goes without saying, as it did last week - JP Kennedy can do as he pleases, he don't need no coach to tell him what to do - a major cog in the wheel, the key to the lock to That One Day in October, for mine.
Ring up the Stats Guru and he'll tell you the Bulldogs have far too many voodoo's on their plate.
Most people alive today were aint even born when Footscray won their last Flag [1953].
And for them it's been "bleak ever since".
That is, since birth.
Fairytales do come to an inevitable conclusion, and they mostly end in tears.
7th has never beaten 1st since the Hare-Clark-McIntyre-Duckworth-Lewis finals system was introduced.
No team ever has won four hard finals in a row, all of them sudden-death, to pinch The Flag.
Teams don't come out of being bashed up senseless in a cliff-hanger of a Prelim, and then go on to win the Premiership against a side coming home with a wet sail on the back of handing out two consecutive hidings.
The list goes on.
The Dogs have already played their Grand Final, and will continue to do so in their heads all week - a trap the Swans fell right into two years ago - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
And no club with a team song as bad as the Bulldogs 'tune' has ever won the Premiership in living memory.
Sorry Footscray - no banjo, no cigar.
Loyal supporters have long memories, so being beaten by the Bullies twice at the SCG in the last two regular seasons, and the Swans being unbearably ashamed after the 2014 Big Dance is like modern history to us.
A little birdy has been singing that Andrew Ireland - a living legend in own own right, and the Wise Old Man among the the Swans' long-serving adminstrators - having personally lost three grand Finals himself as a player at Collingwood - admits in private that 2014 "burns in our guts".
Failure is not an option.

GEELONG: 0.5, 2.8, 7.10, 8.12 (60). Goals: Taylor 2, Hawkins, Bartel, Selwood, Caddy, Dangerfield, Stanley.
SYDNEY: 7.2, 11.3, 14.4, 15.7 (97). Goals: Papley 3, Parker 2, Tippett 2, Franklin 2, Rohan 2, McGlynn, Heeney, Richards, Naismith.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 71,772,