halfway through to September

Long Sufferers,

The thing that shat me the most about the Swans loss to Hawthorn before the bye, apart from its unforgiveableness, was the useless niggle.
Only that week had The Powers That Be made it very clear they were cracking down on "jumper punches" aka 'rabbits punches' and clips to the ear, knees to the groin, and pats on the head and so forth, and what did the players decide to do?
Niggle themselves to exhaustion, when, if they were professionals, they should have been concentrating on the game at hand, which is what they are paid to do.
Instead they cocked their snoot at the authorities and said "well, if you're going to book one, then you are going to have to book all of us" - trash talkin'.
And then it was on - in yr opponents face all the time, make a goon of yourself, stinks galore...yeah right...all that's all well and good before the first bounce and at half time, but for the entire game, non-stop?
And if SC Horse had told them at quarter-time that they were fools to themselves and a burden on their supporters, would it have made a difference, anyway?
The Swans played very unattractive football, and were so rooted, buggered, shot birds by expending so much energy constantly niggling the Hawks in the very vain hope it might put them off their game, that they'd slowed to barely above walking pace deep into the last quarter when it really mattered, only to be beaten by a goal after the siren.
They will rue the day come September.
If Sydney can't beat the hapless Hawks - in the year they've both had - then the Swans can't beat anyone on their day.
The Stats Guru gave me a call and said it was his melancholy duty to report that, statistically speaking, the miserability is done and it's season over for the Swans.
Making the top eight - only to be had for breakfast in the first week of the finals - is now a very remote possibility; the Guru was so aggrieved he didn't even to bother to whirl the abacus to find out for sure, safe in the knowledge that all hope is lost with 52.17% of the season gone.
What do they say about "playing for pride" from here on in?
OK, their season has been cruelled by injury - we know that, as Bruce would say - and there have been some heroics, but some fairly spectacular failures also; no names, no pack drill.
But it's a fair bet to say that the likes of Jack, Hannebery, and Heeney the Cardiff Zucchini with a sea anemone upon his head...the mid-field in-toto actually...would be well out for the running for the Brownlow, in fact they would be lucky to have scraped together a vote between them.
The mix of yoof and experience isn't right, and they don't have a first-line first-rate ruckman - haven't had for years; don't get me wrong, Sinclair and Naismaith are handy players, but they're journeymen.
And they just haven't got - but need - a viscous mongrel like the Pygs' Toby Greene, who can play, but has disqualified himself from winning the Chas on account of the Bamfords took a dim view of him from the off.
Sydney have the makings of a good serial pest in Tom "Pearl" Papley, he just will not shut up - but he needs more work.
There is nothing for it now but to just enjoy the rake's progress of last year's and this year's draft picks; there are blokes going around who know right now that they will be making retirement plans at the end of the year.
What they did on a bog track last night in Sydney is all rather academic now.
It was pleasing to hear that they whipsawed the Evil Bulldogs [the game all but passed me by - Thursday night football, what are they thinking, footy four days a week?] in a tiny bit of pay back for last year's Grannie, but in the Grand Scheme of Things, revenge barely matters.
My Spy at the Ground was not moved enough to venture any comment.
Sydney's win-loss ratio of 4-7 is now significantly better than 0-6, but really, it should now be 5-6 if it weren't for the bugger-up shocker against the Hawks.
It was two weeks ago now, the Guru called it.
The Official End of An Era.
And what an epoch it was too.
The Swans have made the finals 13 times in the past 14 years, for just two Premiership bloody flags.
Don't mention the two lost Grand Finals under Longmire's watch.
Just don't.
Horse is into his 7the year on the job, so all you can do is trust the board to have a succession plan in place.
Just saying.
That's all.

In the rugby league caper over at Leichhardt, it's been 'season over' for quite a while now.
It's clear that Clearly It's Cleary has made precious little difference as Head Coach in a club that is deeply riven and fractured by entrenched factionalism, favouritism, and foolishness.
It was a noble effort against St George last week, with an excellent second half comeback, to go down by two points, but with 50.00% of the season gone in the comp, at 3-9 plus the bye, with a points differential of -137, looks like they will be in a death fight with the Newcastle Knights to avoid the most dubious honour of them all - the Wooden Spoon.
Little point in going into all the tawdry politics of it anymore, the Mighty Tigers will not make the finals for the sixth consecutive year.
A hard team to follow all right.
Since The Glorious Victory in the Miracle Year of '05, Balmain have only finished in the top 8 twice.
That makes me sad.
Could go on, but can't.
Too upsetting.
Boo hoo.

28 behinds

Fortune tellers,

Good god, Fawlty, the Swans won - again.
It'd be great if anyone could make any sense at all of the football, at the minute.
The old adage "any team can beat any other team on its day" seems to apply in spades.
It's all upside down, Miss Pat.
Bookmakers peplexed, tipping comp contestants baffled, fans totally confused, players without a clue, and coaches at their wits end pulling out what little hair they have left on their heads faster than it can be replaced by Advanced Hair Studios.
Top spot in the AFL is just one win clear of 9th, with a third of the season played.
The Stats Guru is having a field day.
Just look at the last round, starting with all-but-bottom and top.
Sydney appears to have started to fasten the wheels that'd fallen off back onto the bandwagon, easily winning their last two, after going an utterly miserable 0-6, as more players get out of Sick Bay and match condition fitness comes into play across the comp.
Said it before, say it again, the game is gruelling, and it's too long.
The Swans need old blokes in the likes of Odd Head McVeigh and Reg Grundy Jnr to marshall the backs, but they are totally cooked at the end of every game by their own admission.
Smart football brains on crumbling bodies don't mix, especially with 18 year olds getting picked in your team.
JPK needs more time in the captaincy, he's very good when they are winning, but needs to lead more when the chips are down.
Buddy isn't phased by anything now, it's a laugh, it can't be taken seriously, but Plugger is teaching him well, and telling him to tell the young forwards what he wants...yell, wave yr arms, point alot, and give 'em heaps if they don't deliver for an inside 50 chest mark.
Will Hayward - "the goal kicker from North Adelaide" - is very raw, but he's a dead-set keeper for mine.
The kid can play.
The mid-field can, and must, look after itself.
In stark contrast, Adelaide, after sweeping all before them and going 6-0, suddenly get thumped by eight by goals in both their last two games in a case of the cobby-wobbles; a mirror image of Sydney.
And throw in a couple of spectactular nail-biting cliff hangers, and that's the round.
Stevie J doesn't seem to mind getting bad press when he can kick the winning miracle goal for the Pygmies in the final seconds against the 'Pies with a beautiful display of hard-nutted old school roving.
He knew in just that moment that no-one was going to beat him.
That kind of talent is enough to make a grown man cry.
That'll do.
And of course, mention cannot be passed on the game in Shanghai.
Toot! Toot!
All aboard.
A gaily festooned Gravy Train with all the bells and whistles rolls into town.
You can only imagine what the Chinese rank-and-file thought of The Great Australian Game.
Anyone's guess.
But you'd expect they'd love a team called THE POWER.
The ground that they somehow found to play on, in a city of 24 million, was an ancient athletics track built in 1934, surrounded by concrete bleachers and a tiny pavilion, which hasn't had a red cent spent on it since - apart from the hasty installation of a hospitality area.
Jiangwan 'Stadium'?
What a shit-hole.
How on earth has it survived?
Why was it left alone during the Cultural Revolution rather than have the bulldozers put through it?
And who knew that Poord and Surfers Paradise had five thousand supporters between them?
Well, that was the AFL's official estimate of the number of Strayan footy fans making the long trip away, along with some ex-pats and a few casual tourists who might drop in for the game.
That's where the Stats Guru got involved.
It was a Poooort home game so it was also officially estimated, again by the AFL, that the crowd size would not be any more than 11,000, of which about 3,000 carefully selected natives of Shanggers were expected to turn up.
3+5 = 8, so that leaves about 3,000 bludgers, corporate-types, hangers-on, acolytes, high-ranking party functionaries, communists, shady characters, and buffoons of the likes of David Koch, who all enjoyed themselves immensely indulging in the full-on hospitality in Chairman Mao's private box.
And, of course, the AFL's top brass don't slum it, ever - they were staying at the Shanghai Portman Ritz-Carlton, where the going rate is $US695 per night.
My Spy at The Ground says fine cigars and brandy balloons with a splash of top notch Cognac are certainly readily available in the front bar of the Ritz - a nice touch, for mine - there are photographs.
The actual attendance, officially and meticulously counted, was put at 10,118 without a shadow of a doubt, no cooking the books, or massaging at the turnstiles, no siree.
Exactly 10,118 screaming fans.
The highlight of the match was the 28 behinds scored on the day - wow - football was the winner!
And Poort won in a 12 goal smashing -- yippee, that'll bring the Chinese crowds streaming in through the gates.
But no-one ever asked the burning question -- was the beer cold [oh, no-fucking-no, a dry ground in the outer!] and the pies warm?
Who knows -- next year -- North Korea!!
Choco Pies for the South Australian Magpies imported direct from South Korea via China all 'round.
Fatboy Slim Kim loves his sport...especially the time-honoured traditional game of executing out-of-favour family members with an RPG.
Super Coach Horse could do worse than to threaten some under-performing Swans players with that particular one.

Over in Tigerland, the joint continues to be a seething cesspit of hostility, infighting and resentment.
The hopelessly fractured and dysfunctional board is essentially powerless after appointing Clearly It's Cleary as Coach with a carte-blanch mandate and players shipping out.
Who knows what the Club Secretary is doing?
A little birdy has been singing that the main reason Woodsy decided to go to Canterbury-Bankstown was not a matter of money, but the fact that he was "sick of playing in a losing team who never make the finals", and he's got more chance of playing in a Grand Final by going to Belmore.
Who can blame him?
But it's a good thing in disguise that he's now done himself a mischief and looks like being a long-term customer at Sick Bay.
Best to step aside for the moment and let a veteran like Chris "The Try Scoring Freak" Lawrence take over as Captain for a bit.
Coach Cleary was clearly unimpressed, as we all all were, with the Mighy Tiges losing to their arch-nemesis South Sydney 28-8, a right proper flogging; the Rabbitoh's pack was simply too big, too strong and there was no go forward, and most of the backs seemed disinterested.
CC let rip with a vitriolic spray post-match in the direction of Tedesco and Moses, singling them out, and accusing them of "not trying" because they have signed multi-million dollar contracts elsewhere.
Again, fair enough - you are handsomely rewarded and should repay die-hard loyalist fans in return, on match day...forget about tomorrow.
But the attitudes-a-plenty do nothing for club solidarity when you are 15th on the ladder in a 16 team comp.
Amid the crisis, everybody seems to have forgotten that rugby league is actually being played here.
The Good Lady Wife exclaimed in disgust as the Friday night match was deep into the first half on the Crystal Bucket: "Tedesco looks like he's saving himself for Easts".
Harsh, but fair.
Then, the loyal Luke Brooks and that serial troublemaker, Kyle Lovett, contrived to get themselves arrested for "breaching the peace" up the Balmain Road after getting involved in a fracas, described by sources close to the scenario as an All-In Brawl, at the The Workers Bar and Kitchen on Darling Street after downing a dozen in the Town Hall Hotel, just after midnight Saturday.
The fighting spilled onto the street, the cops were called, and Brooks, and Lovett - who you'll remember was rubbed out for four weeks earlier in the season after being busted with a deal-bag of coke in his pocket - allegedly had some harsh words to say to the NSW Police who were in no mood to cop it.
What a stink!
Both were released on sergeant's bail from the Balmain Watchouse in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Brooks will say it was all a terrible misunderstanding over his brother defending his honour [yep, his bro was there too], while Lovett will claim he just happened to be cruising by at the time to pick up his sister.
WTF?
Nice one, chaps.
It's most convenient that the club's major sponsor is Brydens Lawyers - plenty of work for them in-house.
With a "Player Welfare Dept" missing in action, show me a football club in any code right now that's better than the Tigers at lurching from one almighty cluster-fuck to another.
Holy smoke.
Balmain is a walking, talking, all-singing, all-dancing disaster area.
Lord, save me.

can you spell u-n-a-c-c-e-p-t-a-b-l-e?

Fellow flabberghastee's,

The following did not turn up to play on the hallowed turf...

FF 9.W.Hayward 20.S.Reid 41.T.Papley
HF 29.G.Hewitt 23.L.Franklin 16.G.Rohan
C 5.I.Heeney 12. J.P.Kennedy 44. J.Lloyd
HB 14.C.Mills 43.L.Melican 11.J.Laidler
FB 40.N.Smith 39.H.Grundy 10.Z.Jones
FOL 8.K.Tippet* 26.L.Parker 4.D.Hannebery
BENCH 7.H.Cunningham 33.B.Jack 28.N.Newman 18.C.Sinclair
COACH J.Longmire
(*Did not turn up at all. Phoned in sick. Replaced by 1.J.Rose.)



Surely the End of Days is nigh?
At quarter time the Good Lady Wife was heard to remark "that mob are as useless as we are, so there must be some chance".
After the miserable exhibition was all over and the Fat Lady had sung long & loud, My Spy at the Ground limited his comment[s] on the Swans (non)performance at the 'G against the hapless Ol' Carlton Blues to one succinct word..."hopeless".
Amid much wailing, wringing of hands, and gnashing of teeth, the Stats Guru, after senslessly wrestling his abacus into submission, declared that the Swans are now the holders of the highly dubious honour of being the first team in HISTORY...that's right...ever, in the entire lifespan of any AFL/VFL side in the annals of all mankind, to lose their first six matches of a season on the trot, after appearing in the previous year's Grand Final.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Voila! 0-6
Only five more defeats to go to equal the all-time club record for worst season start from the depths of the Dark Ages back in '93.
SC Horse was clearly aghast and perplexed, saying the whole shooting match as it now stands is "unacceptable".
Can you spell u-n-a-c-c-e-p-t-a-b-l-e?
Mr Longmire - where the buck stops - also said he had his theories about what the trouble is, where the blame lies, but was not prepared to share his speculations with the long-suffering general public, as yet another fast asleep word cloud from his post-match spoutings for the fish-wraps indicates:

Worth repeating...
What would Barassi do?

CARLTON: 1.3, 5.4, 10.7, 15.7 (97). Goals: Wright 4, Casboult 2, Kreuzer 2, Weitering, Petrevski-Seton, Simpson, C. Curnow, E. Curnow, Cripps, Smedts.
SYDNEY: 3.2, 6.6, 8.10, 11.12 (78). Goals. Papley 2, Hayward 2, Franklin, Heeney, Hannebery, Kennedy, Jones, Sinclair, Parker.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 32,678.

the worst possible football nightmare

Victims of cruel and unusual punishment,

So, the worst possible football nightmare has come to pass.
The Crows on top of the table at 5-0, and the Swans at the bottom of the ladder, stone-motherless last, at 0-5 with the remarkable percentage of 75.8.
Horrific.
Done like a dinner at the Spititual Home by "cross town rivals" the Greater Western Pygmies in a seven goal football lesson.
There is no need to bang on about it, except to say it's enough to drive a man to drink.
Had some difficulty in interpreting exactly what Mr Longmire was getting at on interview after the game, except that Super Coach Horse appears to be working on the "she'll be right, mate" principal, and all the Swans need to do to right the sinking ship is "play footy":

what would Barassi do?

Long-suffering Club Loyalists,

Can someone please tell me just what on earth is happening with the bloody football?
Open the back page of any Melbourne newspaper and you will see that the journo's are smelling blood and circling like sharks on the fact that it has been 24 years since the Sydney/South Melbourne Swans have gone 0-4 at the start of a season.
Worse still, they are rubbing their hands together with glee when they explain to their readers that there are 10 [that's right, ten] players on the Swans current roster who have appeared in at least one game in the seniors who were not even born in 1993.
Wassup?
Suddenly the Swans go from being last year's Grand Finalists [no need to mention "beaten"] to feather dusters in the space of a month?
Something's going on.
If you ask any club loyalist they will talk you up and down the street about what is going wrong.
The Good Lady Wife is very good at lip reading, an art she has finely honed since her yoof, and saw she the television camera spotting Super Coach Horse just before three-quarter time at Sooby in the box leaning back in his chair after something appalling had happened with the Swans [this was after Horse had already thrown down his pen and papers in a desultory fashion] on field and she translated accurately the movements of Longmire's lips which went unrecorded "ABSOLUTELY FUCKED!"
A fair assessment from the coach of the situation, you would have thought?
On interview after the game he said he was very disappointed to be at 0-4 at the start of the season, but it is, what it is.
What is it?
See above.
You will never win a game of football trying to soil the opposition out of the game.
They'll have you all grasping at straws.
Go forward and kick long!
As it was Maundy Thursday and the Messiah was going to be pretty much had it by tomorrow, at one point found myself crying out in exasperation "what would Barassi do?"
Cranked up the old Bush Telegraph in the corner of the loungroom and pushed the message down the wire and across the Nullabor Plain to my Spy at The Ground.
The thing soon clattered back with a reply from the terminal at Subiaco Oval..."Barassi would tear the earlobes off the lot of them and then move Chanders into the ruck, Kennedy behind the ball, Dan into the forwards, and Jack to murder someone every five minutes"...
The Stats Guru slooped over his abacus in discontent and pronounced that any chance of making the top four, if still mathematically possible, is now long gorn.
The Swans went top last year on percentage with just five losses so only a dead-set fully-certified Miracle could see them win the Minor Premiership two years in a row.
Making the Top Eight at least, having the missing-in-action mid-field firing, sorting out the ruck properly, protecting Buddy and Reid so they can star, Plugger training W.Hayward "the goal-kicker from North Adelaide" solely as a goal sneak, and getting the former Captain Jack to simply play better and fight better, are just some of the other problems the Swans face.
Add to that a Sick Bay that's full to overflowing with the barely walking wounded, doctors and nurses working hard, plus a jaw-dropping bottom-scraping shallow depth in the playing roster.
It's all very well and good to "blood young players" but you usually only get one in four who is really any good and becomes a long-term keeper.
That can take years.
The Swans have done precious little buying of experienced journeyman players on the open market to plug the gaps for a quite a while now, which only begs the question, why?
Surely they can't be short of a bob, even given the major league losses on potential merch sales last year?
Beaten Grand Finalists, by their very nature, are not invincible.
Don't get any lover of The Red and The White all riled up by talk of Umpires or you'll get an almighty spray about the iniquity of it all and just the plain & simple denial of natural justice.
It's difficult to see the predicament after such a long string of success [with strings attached, of course, like, they lost the Grand Final last year'n'stuff], or to read any direction, if there is one, into the grand scheme of things.
Sydney hates losers, though.
Joisus, who can forget '92-'93?
Wasn't in town at that juncture, cleared out; it was that bad.
The nadir to end all nadir's.
Staring into the chasm, they were.
The Swans lost their last 15 games straight in '92 - what an absolute shocker - and started '93 with another 11 straight losses and then managed to chalk up their single win of the season to end the losing streak at 21 games, and finish up the year dead set Wooden Spooners at 1-19.
Thanks for that football lesson, Guru.
And the crowds at the SCG were truly and utterly abysmal - the club nearly disappeared altogether, written off as a stupid mistake and a bad loss, and were about to go down the financial suck hole via the gurglar to oblivion, if they didn't sign a contract with Barassi on the back of beer coaster to come out of retirement and go through the joint throwing the weight of his bargerase around and using his very peculiar stentorian voice to full effect, and most fortituously, they had Carroll and Kelly on contract who became marquee players and genuine superstars.
South Melbourne crowds at "away games" were bigger, but they still amounted to only a few thousand.
Nobody likes to be seen with losers in this town, oh no siree.
So the situation at the present minute could be worse, alot worse, it could get worse, alot worse, actually, statistically.
The Dark Ages will take some beating.
But, yup, it is 24 years since the Swans went zip-4 at the start of any stoopid VFL/AFL season.
It was reported on Good Friday that someone had had a Road to Emmaus experience on Facebook, recognised the Messiah, and uttered "I have complete faith in Horse and the boys".
Ahhh...faith, don't get me started...football teams, for God's Sake.
What would Jesus do?
He would point out that Sydney were only beaten by Port by a "bloody point" the week prior, and battled on gamely all day in a hard-fought hand-to-hand combat style match to only go down by three goals in the denoument in the Golden West, and there's absolutely nothing to worry about, wouldn't he?
Nothing for it now but for SC Horse to have spent some time over Easter down at the Magic Waters puffing on his pipe and staring out to sea before thrashing them on the training track; just get things right.
Otherwise, the faint and distant sounds of the song of the Fat Lady start getting louder.
Sweet weepin' Jesus upon The Cross, they've got the Pygmies at home this week in what used to be called "The Battle of the Bridge" but has now been re-branded to the all-inclusive peace & love style "Sydney Derby XII".
Everybody knows GWS would love nothing more than to make Sydney toast, very early in the season.
If they win, they will.


Over at Tigerland, the fun & games and unmitigated trouble and strife continues unabated - the least of which is going through three coaches in six weeks.
Jason "Squeak" Taylor quite rightly was punted for being a hopeless joke and a mean spirited vindictive bastard, then the assistant coach in Andrew Webster takes over the reins for a couple of weeks and appeared to do little else than coach from the sidelines while constantly yabbering on into a walkie-talkie to God only knows who - was he tyring to get Jesus on the line?
Then the Board in their eternal wisdom appointed another sacked coach in the form of the [not so Great] Ivan Cleary, who's been sitting on his fat arse for a whole year doing nothing after he was let go by Penrith for not doing a very good job.
Clearly Cleary came to the role with the expressed intention of keeping the "Big Four" intact and on the books - never mind that he won his first game in charge, his side ran out of legs in a comedy of errors on Easter Monday - and failed at the first hurdle with Moses, casting down the tablets from the Mount, deciding to up stumps and go to Parramatta on a "lucrative" two year deal.
Balmain of course said no way, José, you must play out the rest of yr contract to the end of the year, but of course money does the talkin', and an accomodation will be reached where Moses can move to the Eels before the end of the new contract window, because you don't want a turn-coat at the club who couldn't give a blue root about Balmain's fortunes, despite what he might say about it.
See you 'round, Mose.
As far as the other three go, Tedesco is the best full-back in the world and can write his own ticket - good luck to him; it's highly likely to be more than the Tiges can afford.
C'est la vie.
The half-back in Brooks is a very good one and, being a Balamin boy born and brred, and the good sense to sign on for two more years - he's well worth keeping, good half backs are hard to find, while Captain Woodsy, despite his comedian impersonations and happy-go-lucky nature, knows full well that he is earmarked as the next New South Wales State-of-Origin skipper and is looking to secure his long term future and will go anywhere they're prepared to seriously entertain his asking price of $850K+ per season as well as a genuine chance of a Premiership.
Just please, let it not be the Bulldogs.
And the hyper-dysfunctional Balmain Board complains that their hands are tied because the powers-that-be are yet to decide whether next year's salary cap will be increased to ten million dollars.
You heard me right.
You need $10,000,000 to buy enough players for an at least half-way decent competitive team that might see semi-final action.
Ten million bucks to pay a rugby league team and maintain the big load of baggage?
It's come a long way from the working man's game.
Said it before, say it again, the Tiges look a million bucks on paper, and have for years, but for one reason if not another haven't been able to fire, also, for years now.
A lot of water has been passed since 2005.
They've always have been a difficult team to follow.
Now, at 2-5 after the longest long weekend for losers, their finals chances are already getting well away from them.
The best you can hope for is the unlikely event of a purple patch at some point to renew hope, as the underpinning slips away.
Or at least a couple of weekends a year when both yr football teams win.
Think about that when next you cry "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Chin up.


Craves.

Cricket and the Law - "The Cake Code"

Bush Lawyers,

Cricket and the Law.
Got a few lazy hours up yr sleeve and a horsehair wig?
Maybe five years for a law degree?
Keep up.
After 17 years, the MCC has had a go at a new lot...piffle and poppycock it is mostly...and mucking about with the numbering system for no good purpose, while still leaving the answer to life, the universe and everything at 42.


https://www.lords.org/assets/2017-Law-Changes-Summary-Paper.pdf

Red and yellow cards disguised as really weird arm and hand movements?
Flapping about like a chook with its head cut off.
Who's kidding who?
Law 42 becomes an insane jumble tumble of a Mad Woman's Breakfast.
Most unruly players would be more than happy to call a cunt-a-cunt at the risk of a warning and a five run penalty, no?
Strengthening the "Mankad" Law?
The sad demise of the Lost Ball?
Where's it gone; outer space?
Outlawing super-duper thumper bats, but they are still four and a quarter inches wide?
Tethering the bails to the stumps with brightly coloured ribbons to avoid eye injuries?
Could go on and on and on without end.
What would MJ Clarke do?
Folk who have difficulty with the Queen's English now eligible, in theory, to officiate?
My arse.
Reckon you'll need to be a QC before you can become an Umpire.
Of course, in legal circles, the new legislation will quickly become known as "The Cake Code".

they said it was impossible

Fervent Patriots,

They said it was impossible, and so it was.
Before the whole shebang started, my bookie was offering 100/1 about Straya to win the series 4-0, and if you were fool enough to have a punt, yr eyes would have lit up like Xmas trees after Poona.
Yr money was already well gone before they were finally ambushed more than a month later in the 2nd innings at Dharamsala by a better bowling attack complete with a Mystery Chinaman [who must have quietly slipped across the border] on a dirt road with potholes of dusty dried mud in the shadows of the sunny Himalayas.
So, we lost the cricket...somewhere up in them there darn hills.
The impressive Border/Gavaskar Trophy, no less - lent to India for the interim.
Great parcels of old growth forest have been spent on newsprint about it, but in the end, it all came down to the Captains.
Said it before, say it again: The Viral Rat, V Kohli, is an absolute disgrace to himself who brings shame and dishonour down upon the game and the head of his nation in his ruthless disregard for anything that gets in his way.
As a Captain, he is probably among worst type seen in living memory; a snarling, nasty, ugly peice of rabid work.
HIs intolerable on-field arrogance is childlike [ever seen a spoilt five-year-old chuck a tanty? And that's not the half of it], and his final press conference was simply laughable.
Doesn't Kohli know that no-one gives a blue root as to whether he is friends with Australians anymore or not?
Has he got any friends?
Doesn't he realise that the General Public in the Wide Brown Land will never ever ever like him?
Needs his head read.
Not the sort of person you'd exactly want to spend a pleasant evening with in convivial company, you'd expect.
Excuse me, your Honour, but the nutjob is nothing more than dickwad, and that's the truth.
Kohli showed throughout every minute of the series a complete and utter disregard for Law 42[1]. "The responsibilty lies with the Captains to ensure that play is conducted within the spirit and traditions of the game, as well as within the Laws".
And the mad dog constantly and deliberately put the Umpires in an unacceptable, invidious, and impossible position under Law 42 [2] "The Umpires shall be the sole judges of fair and unfair play".
Having smashed the most important Law in cricket to smithereens, Kohli was more than willing to bend and break every other Law in the book, if he saw even a glint of the slightest advantage in it for him.
What is the difference between "sharp practice", which is an accepted part of the game, and "downright cheating", which is not?
Where do you draw a line in the sand?
The authorities were as weak as gnat's piss on that, with no fines or suspensions handed out after the spitefulness of Bangalore.
The powers that be seemed to let it get away from them in Ranchi; sledging is perfectly fine, it's OK, been part and parcel of the game since the dawn of time, but name-calling steps over the line for mine.
The fact that Kohli didn't play in Dharamsala is beside the point - he ran the team from the stands and personally curated the pitch that strangely turned into a dustbowl after picking the hitherto unknown Chinaman in his place to bugger things up nice and proper for the unsuspecting Strayans.
That is very very sneaky in anyone's language, but it is also legal, as the Laws are silent about foolin' around, getting some jiggery-pokery going and playing ducks and drakes with the pitch, before the start of play.
Remember seeing some footage once, a long time ago now, of groundsmen in the West Indies, somewhere, setting fire to the test pitch with jerry-cans of kerosene after someone forgot to cover the strip in a thunderstorm.
India has a very long history of doctoring pitches - they're world class at it, we know that - ever since they graduated from playing Test matches on hessian matting, and started picking batsmen but more particularly bowlers to suit the featherbeds, roads, irrigation channels, dirt tracks, six-lane highways, and right-angle turners from Day One, served up as wickets to play on.
So, how can you ever beat the Munchers at their own game at home?
They will trick and cheat you out of it every time.
What would MJ Clarke do?
If he was still skipper, he would have lost his shit, gone off his tits ballistic-style, and fisticuffs and attempted strangulations would have been a certainty.
But he was up in the television commentary box looking after a horse called Self Interest.
The rupee does the talkin' in that part of the world.
Pup would have issued orders for no quarter to be given, and no prisoners taken, but to Smiffy's great credit, he now knows when to call a fookin' cheat a farkin' cheat.
Knowingly claiming a fake fair catch when you think no one is looking is downright cheating, right there, and one of the worst offences against the spirit of the game there is, to boot.
What did the Umpires think about that?
Smiffy came to the first class game with the looks and reputation of a Baby Faced Killer, and as a batsman he's on the next planet and could be by far the best of his generation.
All class with the willow; in a world of his own.
Just like Pup was.
But Steve's mind sometimes wanders in the field, and he still has a thing or two learn about the fact that the game is all about conflict and the way it's resolved - he already knows well enough that the scoreboard never lies.
There is no need to publicy apologise for anything, Smiffy, let alone do it twice.
Never take a backward step.
The Stats Guru has been through the score sheets, and blames the bats fair and square.
if it wasn't for Smiffy's outstanding 499 runs on tour and his tremendous form as a slipper, Straya most likely would have gone home 0-4 by his calculations.
Even though Nice Garry and Keefey toiled manfully enough at crucial moments and went large with some good bags to keep Straya in the game, it was deadly when Starkers was sent home injured; that really was a pivotal point most of the commentariat missed.
Starc should be considered the "all-rounder" in this team, the way he gets his wickets and doesn't leak runs, and boy, does he know how to tonk 'em clean outta da park, if and when required.
Hazo and Cummo will tough it out to see who's first change on Strayan wickets.
The Marsh Experiment was clearly a spectacular, bright shining failure, at last, full stop.
To leave Uzzie The Token Muzzie on the bench for the entire tour when SE Marsh couldn't bat to save himself was a very serious tactical blunder by the selectors.
How many times does it have to be said - The Chairman and the Three Wise Men continue to bother themselves with the seemingly never-ending fruitless quest for an freaking "all rounder" as if it's some kind of Holy Grail.
The guernsey was given to MR Marsh who made a handful of runs and hardly bowled an over in two games, ahead of GJ Maxwell, who has trouble getting into the playing XI because he once complained that he should play above the wicketkeeper in the batting order.
The fact that Sir Burbs Warner could not even buy a run didn't help, but who can blame the two newbies in Reno and HandyComb who were dropped in the deep end of the cauldron to be boiled alive by savages?
They did well those two under the trying circumstances, and are batsmen who are about as orthodox as a Greek cross thown off the end of a jetty; they're good sized fish - keepers - and if they play their cards right, have glittering careers ahead of them.
It has the makings of a very good cricket team if only the selectors would just pick the best six bats, four bowlers and a wicky; forget the myths and remember that Straya really hasn't had a "genuine all-rounder" since Keith Miller, for gawd's sake.
No point in stewing in their juices or crying over spilt milk [it could have been scotch]; what happened in India, stays in India.
The boys will be mightily relieved to come home now [apart from those picking up a lazy crore or two in the IPL] and go straight to the bar, take the winter off, and then start thinking about their next Test match assignment...Thursday 23 November 2017 v the old foe Engerland, that's right, The Poms! The Ashes! at the 'Gabba, in Brisvegas.
Giddy Up.
5-nil.
Again!