"...and it's been a rather miserable afternoon in The Shire... "

Screaming Believers,

Three goals in about three minutes from the off and the faint strains of the Fat Lady singing could be heard in the distance.
It was Parker. Bang! Sinclair. Bang! McCartin. Bang! Sinkers, again. Bang! Franklin. Bang! Heeney the Cardiff Zucchini. Bang! Papley. Bang! Buddy, again. Bang! Zachary Jones. Bang! and then it was quarter time.
Phew.
In the modern game, there's no coming back from having nine six-pointers kicked on you in the opening stanza, and My Spy at The Ground, who had already been whipped up into a state of religious rapture, pushed through the telegraph message "surely it would take a certified MIRACLE for the Saints to get up here".
And so it came to pass.
It was clearly going to be a massacre, with no prisoners taken, and handing out a twelve-goal football lesson is just about as swell as it gets.
Given the processional going on on the field, did rather enjoy the television shots of SC Horse in the coaches box with Rhyce "Rick" Shaw and Captain Kirk sitting next to him, screaming obscenities down the microphone of his rarely used head-set, even though the Swans were a million goals in front.
It was only until someone told Coach Longmire he was on the telly that he then made sure he covered his mouth every time he yelled "FAAAAARK!" at some dodgy umpiring decision.
They're only human, after all.
According to the Stats Guru, Docklands Stadium might as well be Lakeside Oval, as the Swans have won every game there, bar one, for about the last three seasons.
That's why the Powers That Be only gave the Swans five games at Docklands this year, it's their second home - and why not?
In the league, Balmain have three home grounds: Leichhardt, Campbelltown and Cathy Freeman.
It's getting beyond 35 years since a destitute South Melbourne were punted up to Sydney to avoid extinction, but by the looks of the television wide shots of the crowd there was a big contingent of South Melbourne fans there, a good cheer squad in, and lots of folk in The Red and The White dotted throughout the crowd.
Given that the Swans' Sydney fan base in the Eastern Suburbs don't travel [much preferring Tahiti to Melbourne in the winter], it must have been the old "Keep South at South" brigade, and their descendants, and their children who are still following the good old way.
This year, Sydney couldn't win at the SCG, but have a perfect away record, so it's a ripping time to be going for Sydney in Melbourne.
And Melbourne and the whole of Queensland hates Sydney with a passion - just ask the hopelessly hapless Gold Coast Suns who could only kick four goals at the Showground in front of a thrilled crowd of 7,131 Pygmies supporters.
No one else in their right mind, including The Man and His Dog, would have gone to Spotto to see that, and you have to get under five thousand anyway to find the record low attendance figures in the history of the VFL/AFL.
Both the Giants and the Suns might as well be moved to China, and no-one would notice.
So, with the AFL's Queensland Experiment a miserable failure and the whole Greater Western Sydney Project Thing failing to take off year after year, Sydney are firmly entrenched in the top four at 9-3 and a good win ahead of the pack.
It's a grand place to be mid-way through the season, but there's always that gnawing fear about the wheels falling off or the Curse of The Minor Premiership getting in the way, but hey, that's OK; Buddy's been looking for redemption since 2015 and everyone is after atonement for being put to bed in the '14 denouement, and the less said about being found out in the '16 Big One the better, and SC Horse won't ever be happy unless he goes out with two Premierships, and gets one up on SC Roos.
Is that too much to ask?

ST KILDA: 1.1, 3.8, 4.10, 7.13 (55). Goals: Battle 2, J. Sinclair, P. McCartin, Weller, Membrey, Gresham.
SYDNEY : 9.1, 14.3, 17.7, 19.12 (126). Goals: Franklin 4, C. Sinclair 3, Papley 2, Hayward 2, Rohan 2, Parker 2, T. McCartin, Heeney, Jones, Kennedy.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 27,569.


Found myself in the back bar of the Lord Wolseley Hotel hugely enjoying a bowl of the tasty mutton flaps & tripe bolognese on offer, when a very large fish on a meathook was walked through and slapped down on the front counter of the kitchen - so football was just about the furthest thing from my mind.
The Mighty Tiges had the misfortune to have to go to Cronulla after a three inches of rain in the week in the Emerald City, and heard on the car radio on the way in that the Great Benji Marshall had done himself a mischief in the warm-up and had been ruled out of the side, and there were all sorts of changes to the team to accommodate that.
It was just very lucky that they had a spare five-eighth in the form of the flaky marquee player Josh Reynolds.
But the portents were not good, so thought nothing more of it while a foot-tappin' to the ol' time jazz toons of the George Washing Machine Trio in the front bar, before the telly went on for the four o'clock game and a couple of blokes stumbled into the bar.
One of them grabbed a felt pen and started crossing out boxes marked with the word WESTS on the Tipping Club's tip-sheet pinned to the pub corkboard notice board.
So, didn't even to bother to ask them "what's the score, Jimmy!?" as nothing surprises me when it comes to the Tiges.
Then they started talking, and one of them said "yeah, their full-back's too slow" and the other replied "oh, yeah, Lolohea, yeah, and he thinks his kicking game is pretty good too, but it's not really" to which the other bloke replied "but, that Valentine Holmes, he can run!"...my interest tapered off rapidly as it was as clear as day that Balmain had been done.
Hopping back in the motor and switching on the car radio, the announcer was doing an around-the-grounds summary of the scoreboxes, when he said "...and it's been a rather miserable afternoon in The Shire... "
Unless he was a massive Balmain fan, the announcer was most likely referring to the biting cold southerly and low-scudding Antarctic showers; but the urge to start bashing my head continuously on the steering wheel was almost overpowering - Jesus, Joseph and Mary they're a hard team to follow.
The radio squawked on with..."where Cronulla won 24-16, after Wests were leading 10-2 at half time".
You can read in the fishwraps all about how Balmain led by eight at the break, and then contrived to lose by eight.
WTF?
That said, on interview after the match, Coach Cleary was clearly very cranky with the referee's for sending off a Tiges player for ten in the sin-bin without any official warnings about persistent professional fouls, saying straight out that the Bamfords have less than zero match awareness, and it's impossible to coach against that.
Falling out of the top eight half-way through the year after a stellar start to the season knocking off good teams - some like Melbourne, twice - and then they go off the boil - never thrashed, but they never win big, or enough.
It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure that even in a modern game deeply rooted in defence, the fact is you can't score without some possession of the football.
It looks like the opposition might have worked Wests out, and it can only be hoped Clearly It's Cleary is working on Plan C as we speak
Coach Ivan must thrash them on the training track, but he still can't find a settled XIII, and the results are just not coming his way.
And then news filtered through that The Great Benji could be sidelined for as long as six weeks after picking up that calf, and he's been playing with "multiple niggles" anyway, and Nofoaluma is also rooted, and will be in Sick Bay for quite a while too.
It could be a very difficult back end to the season at 9th on the ladder at 7-7.
The eternal pessimist in me can be forgiven for thinking the seemingly endless disappointment will continue unabated, but hey, they're doing better than a lot of other teams, so let's see what happens, eh, bru?

CRONULLA-SUTHERLAND SHARKS 24. Tries: Gallen, Holmes, Lee, Ramien. Goals: Townsend (4).
WESTS TIGERS 16. Tries: Taylor, Lolohea. Goals: Marsters (4).
At Shark Park, Cronulla.
Crowd: 13,093.

football royalty

Barrackers,

It's been a while since the Swans have handed out a ten goal football lesson.
Let's face it, Freo were fairly hapless all night, so it turned into a light training run for the Swans, with an emphasis on high marking drills and pinpoint positional play.
In other words, a procession - a glorious procession just like the Royal Wedding, which was impeccably timed so you could see on the television the Royal Wedding Vows being taken during the ad breaks in the third quarter, with the Royal Wedding Carriage doing a lap around Windsor in the 25 minute Royal Wedding Procession straight after full-time, as the banjo was still playing.
Sweet as a nut.
SC Horse tied them up in knots with his backs - holding them to a single goal to half-time - and the Swans have got a forward line that's the goods, with the Childe Ronke the latest in a long line of top prospects over the years.
The eleven goal kickers came from all over the park, and even the Best on Ground, Lloyd, booted one cantering up from the back pocket.
The match was chockers with milestones; Buddy looked pretty ginger on his sore tootsie and is obviously out of match practice, but his second goal of the game was an absolute pearler, to notch up a magnificent 300 six-pointers for the Swans.
His only acknowledgment of this mighty achievement was to raise his right index finger to just under shoulder height, as if to say "I'm No.1, so why try harder?"
Lance Franklin now joins Tony "Plugger" Lockett as bona-fide dead-set living legends, being the only two players in world history to have kicked 300 goals for two different clubs.
The ten-million dollar man knows where he sits in the Pantheon.
Buddy could also have had another welcome week off next round against the stone-motherless last Brisbane - for reckless play - after accidentally elbowing some unfortunate Docker in the bonce, causing him to spit out a few teeth; got him good and proper, Buddy did.
But, they let him off.
It came as a complete surprise to everyone, except the Stats Guru, that Nick Smith has now played 200 games for the Swans.
Nick who? you could be forgiven for thinking.
Who would have thought?
Smiffy has always been that ever reliable back-man, possibly the best tagger in the modern game, and by all reports is a superlative mild-mannered club-man, but he's one of those footballers who has to work very hard at his limited born gifts of 'talent'.
Isn't he the bloke with the most number of games played without any Brownlow votes or something like that? So, he's obviously put in a double ton for The Red & The White without anyone really noticing, even though his name is probably among the first the selectors put down on the team sheet, week in, week out.
Nick would not be recognised by anyone walking down any street he liked, let alone being pestered for autographs, and you would expect that he would like it that way.
He's living proof that it is possible to have a very good football career while flying fully under the radar.
It came as no surprise to anyone at all that Josh P Kennedy also played his 200th for Sydney; he's got everything except a Brownlow, with the ol' hard-nut being robbed blind of that glittering prize on more than one occasion down the years.
JPK is just JPK, he was spawned by football royalty, and he's been a super-star for yonks.
One of those players who never gets injured and could go on forever -- he and Smith both played in the 2012 Premiership side, and they won't be going anywhere in a hurry until they win that bloody flag again.
Hawthorn will forever rue the day they traded JPK away in 2009.

On a minor footnote, the AFL's second experiment in China again failed miserably.
It rained throughout in Shanghai and so ipso facto it was a dreadful game of footy by all accounts and there were nowhere near the 10,689 official crowd actually in attendance at the dilapidated old Jiangwan Athletics Stadium, after a bit of old fashioned turnstile inflation cooked the books.
But in a saving grace, for the first time ever, grog was made available for sale to the paltry crowd in the time-honoured Strayan way.
Gawd, you would have needed a drink or two just to get through the exhibition of awfulness.
Poor old Gold Coast lost a minor fortune on their "home game", and Port had been there with the Suns before, all to zero-sum effect.
The powers-that-be are now talking about taking a Melbourne club there next year, but who'd be foolish enough to sacrifice a home game in outer-suburban Shangers?
The AFL is as dead as a door nail in China and they might as well cut their losses and run, given that Pres. Ping is a fanatical soccer fan, and is pouring trillions into the game to try and buy a World Cup.
They've got much bigger fish to fry than a very strange foreign game from the Land Down Under.

SYDNEY: 3.3, 7.4, 11.6, 17.9 (111). Goals: Kennedy 3, Franklin 3, Papley 2, McCartin 2, Hayward, Ronke, Lloyd, Heeney, Parker, Sinclair, Hewett.
FREMANTLE: 0.4, 1.7, 2.9, 7.10 (52). Goals: Walters 2, Sandilands 2, Langdon, Ballantyne, Fyfe.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 27,481.

Nick Smith strikes a pose before his 200th game for Sydney Swans, SCG, May, 2018. Photo: Phil Hillyard/News Ltd.

Back in the day, used to have a licence to keep a brown dog who went barking mad at the sound of whistles on the television.
She'd yap-yap-yappidy-yap her head off and run around in circles when things like the basketball and the hockey came on during the Olympics and stuff, and you had to toss the hound outside as it was not possble to stay in the same room as her because of the racket when the AFL was on, as the whistle is the soundtrack to Aussie Rules.
That canine would have gone absolutely ape-shit at yet another game of rugby league being ruined by an officious over-zealous referee's whistle....there were an entirely ridiculous 22 penalties in the game as the ref blew the pea out of the damnable thing, ending any hope whatsoever of a free-flowing competitive game of football from the off.
At the risk of rudely defaming the bastard in question, Ben Cummins is a fool to himself and a burden on the community, as well as being an utter cockhead, if he believes imposing the strict letter of the law on footballers helps the spectacle in any way.
And he's got form to boot; the last time the Tiges played Cummins, he blew 20.
In the first half, the ning-nong pings Penrith three times in a row for creeping up over the advantage line in the play-the-ball, making them technically off-side, and the fourth time they did it, he sent off the nearest offending player to the sin-bin for ten minutes...this was fine with Balmain fans at the time, as my Spy at the Ground put it "Penrith lead the penalties conceded count in the comp this season because they are dirty rotten cheats".
But, as if to even things up for the home crowd, the Bamford did exactly the same thing to the Tiges in the second half - four times and yr off, and a Balmain player in Alex Twal duly gets sin-binned for persistent professional fouls, and to make matters worse, the Panthers promptly score the match winning try against the run of play, producing the 16-2 scoreline, which never changed again through to full-time.
They had the game handed to them on a silver platter.
In the end the ref had so lost control of the match, players were openly questioning him when he tooted his flute, shouting "what was that penalty for??" as the packed grandstands shook their heads in unison asking the very same question.
Give me strength.
Obviously, the fool does not know that referee's and umpires are there to be seen, not heard, and you can tell when a Bamford is having a good game, because you don't notice them.
As it was, only Balmain's rock solid defence prevented them from being thrashed; lesser teams would have been beaten by 30+.
Penrith are the real deal this year it must be conceded, and have now gone to a clear second on the ladder and will go deep into September
The game was full of ironies, of course, as Balmain coach Ivan "Clearly It's" Cleary's son Nathan Cleary plays half-back for Penrith...father-on-son...and Nathan had a blinder coming back from seven weeks out with a rooted leg, getting one up on his dad.
And the commentators nightmare was extended as the Tiges' Malakai Watene-Zelezniak's brother Dallin Watene-Zelezniak plays full back for the Panthers.
The banterists on the telly solved that brother-on-brother tongue-twister by referring to them by their first names only.
Phew.

PENRITH PANTHERS 16. Tries: Peachey, Phillips. Goals: Maloney (4 ).
WESTS TIGERS 2. Goals: Marsters (1).
At Penrith Stadium.
Crowd: 15,081

we want the cigars

Barrackers,


Gawd almighty, what a damned missed opportunity on wheels is was last Saturday night here in the Emerald City.
It should have been a draw, by rights, given North and South had run in each other into the ground and were so completely buggered by the stalemate they couldn't kick a match winning goal to save themselves.
The Stats Guru had had enough and gave up counting the numbers in that vital statistic, 'fluffed goals', in what turned out to be a dirty, untidy affair - not pretty to watch - as each side couldn't take clear chances to run away with the game.
In the denouement, it was Sydney who were strangled by two points.
Two farkin' points, but the Kanga's got away with the four Premiership points on offer.
Go figure.
If last year's 1-6 start wasn't enough, what's with the Swans now at 4-3 after losing all bar one home game they've had, and winning everything on the road with 29% of the season completed?
Not so long ago the coaching mantra was "never lose at home", a tactic usefully employed by teams like Geelong and Adelaide down the years, as they, like Sydney, have a real home ground advantage, so whatever happened to that time-honoured theory?
Talk about being the models on inconsistency when winning games on the trot, a purple patch here or there, preferably two, will get you into the top four.
Never mind this ugly "sandwich press" move in defence, can't that bloody whistle echo around the SCG?
What a shocking umpiring display from the Bamfords, with no less than 39 free kicks awarded.
WTF?
Just can't understand the Umps current antsy-pantsy fascination with pinging any arms that are anywhere near the back, shoulders, arms, head of the would-be winner of a marking contest.
If you try and take the aerial contest out of it, yr left with a rabble of players who've flooded their backline, and with skill and agility smothered, it's really no better to watch than the U9's.
They way it's going, watching "the big men fly" will become a thing of the past.
After the Swans were caned 16-23 in the frees, My Spy at The Ground telegraphed through the mssg "Robbed Blind. It's Official", writing the headline for the back page of the fishwraps for them, after a crucial North Melbourne sausage roll was clearly touched across the line, but the Victory Assistant Referee [VAR] wasn't even consulted, never mind that some deranged Kangaroo official would have probably switched it off at the critical moment anyway.
At 8th, it's a typical slow start to the season - you could go on and on and on about the Swans strengths and obvious weaknesses [that's SC Roos' job anyway] - but any more major injuries and they're toast - look at their list of emergencies that's published every week.
The roster seems very shallow; down to one ruckman and there are too many blokes in Sick Bay as it is.
The miracle win over Geelong - five goals down at the end of The Champo at Kardinia Park and gorn for all money - storming home with a seven goal final quarter to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, proved the Swans can win, Buddy, or no Buddy.
Before that match, everybody down Mexico way was saying "no Buddy, no cigar", but heck, up here in ol' Sydney Town we want the cigars we've paid for - all the time.
Big fat Cubans, if you don't mind.
So, Lance Franklin better make a triumphant comeback from his sore footsy this Friday night.
Buddy? At The G? The Hawks [who he kicked 580 goals for]? The hype & The hatred? And they're playing for the BeyondBlue Cup to boot.
It's all a promoter's wet dream.
Bring it on.

NORTH MELBOURNE 3.3, 5.5, 7.10, 9.14 (68). Goals: Wood 4, Hartung, Higgins, Brown, Simpkin, Cunnington.
SYDNEY 2.1, 4.4, 6.8, 9.12 (66). Goals: Hayward 3, Sinclair, Towers, Fox, Parker, Jones, Lloyd.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 29,124.


Don't you just hate it when you come home after a day out harbourside on a picture postcard perfect autumn day and crank up the steam-powered wireless to catch the score in the footy being beamed in live from across the Tasman, only to hear that Balmain are well behind just after half time?
Then, in short order, your hackles are up after hearing Balmain's Elijah Taylor being sent off for ten minutes in the sin-bin for the most marginal of professional fouls [ok,ok. "he'd been doing it all day", right, ok], only to then find out that David Nofoaluma had been also been sin-binned in the first half.
Lord Crikey! It's not as if they play that dirty, they're just trying to bend and warp the advantage line to their own good, some creative shape-shifting that's beyond the comprehension of the average Bamford.
So, the Tiges were down to 12 men for a full 20 minures - that's half a half - in which the Worriers proceeded to scores tries willy-nilly, it seemed.
The New Zealand radio commentator then said in his thuck Kiwi accent "it would have been a competitive game of football if only the referee had put his whistle away."
With an unheard of 20 penalties in the game - 10 each - predictably, the Tiges heart's just weren't in it after Elijah was sent off.
They knew they were cactus.
Not only did Balmain have to play the opposition, and the crowd, but the Bamfords were agin 'em too, so they were fried to a crisp in the cone of a dormant Auckland volcano in which sits Mt Smart Stadium, a hell-hole to end all hell-holes.
Tough shit.
Still, after being widely tipped as dead set certainties for the wooden spoon at the start of the season, the Tiges continue to surprise everyone to go 5-4 up against some very good sides with a third of the season already done.
There's nothing at all wrong with the backs, Marsters and Brooks are the real deal, and Noafaluma & Naiqama have always made an odd but sometimes very effective couple, while the Prodigal Son Benji Marshall is just like the Great Barrier Reef - beyond belief.
The front row will do nicely but they could use a little more grunt up front, Russell "The Meanest Man in Football" Packer is sorely missed, while the marquee buy Josh Reynolds appears to be a clapped out crock, having played half a game on one leg in nine rounds before doing himself a long term mischief.
But how about never being beaten by more than two points [until last weekend]...what were the odds on that mate, from the off?
Coach Clearly It's Cleary has got the team clicking; the one he more or less handpicked after the Squeak Taylor Debacle Era finally finished, and it looks like he does have a flexible game plan, although it's still deeply rooted in defence, and why not?
Just like the game plans designed to suffocate the Swans, it also might not look that pretty, but after being written orf, they'll take seventh on the ladder any day this week, any way they can.
For the diehard, anything better than last year will do, just for a start off.
But, it did have a tendency to rather spoil a lovely day...when yr robbed blind!, for the second time this rugby league season, alone.
Fleeced.

NEW ZEALAND WARRIORS 26. Tries: Lawton (2) , Fusitua, Johnson, Maumalo. Goals: Johnson (3).
WESTS TIGERS 4. Tries: Fonua.
At Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland.
Crowd: 16,727.

"What would Justin do?"

Urgers,

It's all happening at the MCG!
Only this very day has The Right Honourable Alfie Langer AM has been appointed as the new Big Kahuna of Cricket Straya's vast Coaching Empire.
Which of course begs the age-old question in times of trouble..."What would Justin do?".

Boof is currently updating his memoir...Darren Lehman(with Brian Murgatroyd),Coach,[Penguin/Ebury Australia, Sydney, 2016], 336pp...to tack on some extra chapters detailing where it all went so horribly wrong, and why.
However, word in the publishing industry is that it's unlikely to include a "mea culpa", and instead concentrate on the slow-burn destruction of his career and the trashing of his brand.
More along the lines of "after all my years of service to the great game, I was spat out the back door without so much as a sausage", and his failure to follow Rule No.1 of employment "Never resign! Make the Bastards sack you!"

At last report, Smiffy had gone to ground in New York NY, getting on the work bench with his feeonsay.
There are no cricket nets in the Big Apple to distract him from the task in hand.
Plenty of time there after being rubbed out for 12 months to put a bun in the oven, get wed, and watch the missus drop a bundle before his triumphant return to the XI as a batsman only to do a Nikki Lauda, with the finest work of his illustrious career coming after a near-fatal flame-out.

Dave Burbs Warner is with the accountants to determine whether he will have to let any of his five choice investments in Sydney real estate go in a fire sale and/or trade-in the Lamborghini for a Toyota Corolla in order to fund he and his wife's lavish lifestyle.
According to Candice's Instagram account, Davo's also been doing some part-time brickie's labourers work on his long derelict 900sqm absolute waterfront Maroubra block which he picked for a song at $4M two-and-a-half years ago, while wearing a white safety crash hat with the words Project Manager and Celebrity Apprentice written on it in black texta, as a funny ha-ha-joke.
He's currently at a loose end, so why not?
Burbs always wanted to be a "Bra Boy" and now he can!

While The Great Rick McCosker is sorting the wheat from the chaff in his inquiry into the fall-out from the fiasco, Cricket Straya has also seen fit to appoint one Simon Longstaff, a failed lawyer with a philosophy PhD from Cambridge to head up an Ethics Review of the whole Shooting Match.
Longstaff has been the Large Cheese at the St James Ethics Centre for 27 years, longer even than James Sutherland has been the Boss Cocky at CA.
A couple of old timers there chewing the fat over a schooey of Carlton Draught tossing the wisdom of the Ancient Seers in the air like confetti, to see where the tea leaves fall.
But really, how many probes and inquests do we need into a simple case of ball-tinkering, when all the player's really need to know is what grain of sandpaper will be acceptable to rub on the ripe cherry and get away with it in the future?
And tell me, where does the word "ethics" appear in the new Cake Code of the Laws of Cricket?
Ethics?!
That well known unabashed rogue and cheat and the world's first celebrity cricketer, WG Grace, would be revolving in his grave, absolutely appalled at the idea that ethics would even come into it.
What have the Great Philosophers [who can't even agree on whether we actually exist] got to do with the most ruthless, brutal, and unforgiving game on the face of this earth?
It's got me beat.

And the answer to the question that the General Public have been desperately crying out for remains unanswered...What would Pup do?

pleasure, joy and righteous triumphalism

Bleacherites,

For an old rusted-on Balmain supporter, with Western Suburbs tendencies, there is nothing that gives more pleasure, greater joy and a sense of righteous triumphalism than to beat Manly, away.
There is a hackneyed old saying in rugby league "I support [insert name of team], and anyone playing Manly".
The Silvertails have a long and storied history of utter utter utter bastardry towards us Fibro's.
It's a Wests Magpies thing this "Clouds of Dust and Buckets of Blood" stuff, back in the late '70's when rugby league was a really violent game, and there was a class war on.
No-one has quite forgotten about it, and Balmain gleefully adopted the very deep-seated detestation of the Sea Eagles when they merged with Wests in 2000.
Saw on the TV coverage that some Manly fool on the hill had a banner which read YES. WE HATE YOU TOO.
Funny ha-ha.
My particular hatred of Manly goes way back to 1990, on my first and only visit as a biased spectator to Brookvale Oval, when Balmain's Steve Roach was outrageously sent off for 5mins in the sin-bin for constantly back-chatting referee Eddie Ward about the fact that he was being deliberately and unfairly targeted.
Blocker then had a brain explosion - but to me it was more a gesture of abject pitilessness - when he patted Ward on the head like a he was a child, in a time when touchy-touchy feely-feely of the authorities was strictly off limits for some reason, and looked upon poorly by the powers-that-be [four week suspension, rubbed out for deliberate contact with a Bamford].
As Roachy took the long, lonely walk to the pavilion - indignantly bad-mouthing any official in sight on the way - he was treated in an appalling fashion by Manly fans, who lobbed gollies and full beer cans in his direction and called him all sorts of vile perverted names.
They're all class there on the Northern Beaches.
To cut a long story short...have to consider myself very lucky to get out of that one alive, after being chased loud, drunk and disorderly, livid and furious, out of the Manly Leagues Club by a group of thugs intent on giving me a good ol' fashioned beating, and my bacon was miraculously saved by a passing Palm Beach bus.
That's very ancient history now, but you can see where the extreme animosity comes from; it's not only tribal for me, it's personal.
The Tigers hadn't won at Brookvale for a million years - the Sea Eagles are all but impregnable there - and despite a stellar start to the season, Wests were still rated by the bookies as the underdogs.
Given coach Clearly It's Cleary's game plan to date has been been entirely based on defence and denying the other team points at the expense of attack, the Mighty Tiges unexpectedly roared out of the blocks as Manly were still rubbing sleep out of their eyes, running in try after try against rice-pudding defence, to lead by an incredible 26-zip at half-time before a stunned full-house.
Manly fans booed their own players off the field at the break.
All class they are on the Northern Beaches.
The Tiges pack of forwards did what forwards should do - take it straight up the middle - and despite not having the Nastiest Man in Football, Russell Packer [knee] on hand, the Try Scoring Freak Chris Lawrence and Benny Matulino the Tongan Refrigerator did the hard yards required.
The Great Benji Marshall is astonishing everyone with his form at five-eighth, looks like he's grown a third leg, and his trademark "the step, the jink, the weave", is with us again.
Not bad for a bloke who came back to his Spiritual Home as an aged mentor and only expected to be an occasional bench-warmer at best - and now he's bringing out the best potential in Luke Brooks who's finally turning into a first-rate half-back.
David Nofoaluma and the man with the worst barber in Sydney, Kev Naigama, were really dangerous in the backs, the curiously named Kiwi, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak [a commentators nightmare], solid throughout, but the goal-kicking local junior Esan Marsters at centre three-quarter was Best on Ground for mine.
And the journeyman full-back Corey Thompson was safe under the ball all day.
Star recruit Josh Reynolds took until Round 6 to get right after doing himself a mischief in the warm-up before the first game, and is so lacking in match fitness, they sensibly wrapped him in cotton wool, and he just waddled around at dummy-half for the limited time he was on the paddock, but he did a shoulder anyway and will be out for at least another month.
An expensive flaky buy?
Will come good, you'd hope.
They look like a team, they've got some depth in the roster, and it's the first time Balmain have gone 5-1 at the start of the season in eons, after being written off by all and sundry at the start of the year as dead-set certainties for the Wooden Spoon.
They've got a game plan to suit the occasion, have knocked off some highly fancied sides with 24% of the season gone, and Cleary is now clearly developing some smart, clever set-plays.
Balmain fans travel -- in numbers; we have infiltrated the entirety of this heaving city and way beyond -- so did rather like some of the banners seen on the telly on the Brooky Hill...INCH BY INCH in alternating black and gold lettering was a nice one [possibly referring to the fact that rugby league is the most territorial of all the football codes, where field position is of critical importance, or it could have had something to do with a gigantic tusk up the runter along the 'do you slowly' line, who knows?], but the one that took the biscuits for mine was a lovingly hand-created Balmain coat-of-arms surrounded by the words TILL THE DAY I DIE.
Now, that's hard-core fandom.

MANLY-WARRIGAH SEA EAGLES 12. Tries: Thompson, Parker. Goals: Cherry-Evans (2).
WESTS TIGERS 38. Tries: Marshall (2), Lawrence, Watene-Zelezniak, Brooks. Penalty try (1). Goals: Marsters (7).
At Brookvale Oval.
Crowd: 15,456.

Found myself in the front bar at the Lord Wolseley Hotel in Ultimo for the Red and the White up against the Evil Bulldogs, so there was a fair amount of boozing and caurousing going on and not a great deal of attention was paid to the footy, and we had to wait until the racing at Woyal Wandwick had finished anway until we could get it on the "big screen" - read, a normal sized telly.
During the final quarter, fell into the company of an absolutely rabid Swans fan who creamed his jeans on the final siren, as well as a GWS Pygmies supporter [never come across one before, but yes! they do actually exist] and a died-in-the wool Geelong loony, and even though they had no skin in the game, they were jumping up and down with excitement in the final minutes.
At the bar when somebody bellowed that Buddy had butchered a certain goal [he'd left his kicking boots at his Mum's], only to return to see Lance bang one through the high-diddle-diddle, and then the Florent Kiddie ran away with the ball and scored from 40m out to extend the lead to a lovely seven points with about a minute to go.
How sweet it is, but talk about playing the classic "get out of jail free" card.
3-1 up at the start of the season sure beats last year's absolute shocker of 0-6, but they still have a long, long, way to go, and there's trubble out back and a lot of other problems for SC Horse to sort out.
Any more injuries and well, mmm.

Still, it's not that often that both yr football teams win on the same weekend, let alone on two weekends in a row.

WESTERN BULLDOGS 5.3, 7.7, 9.10, 11.13 (79). Goals: Dickson 2, Bontempelli 2, Redpath, Gowers, Jong, Dale, Wallis, Daniel, Dahlhaus.
SYDNEY 4.0, 6.3, 10.4, 13.8 (86). Goals: Franklin 3, Parker 3, Papley 2, Heeney 2, Cunningham, Towers, Florent.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 32,870.

sold a pup and Pup out of a job?

Aghastee's,

On the face if it, it seems the Seven Network has been sold a pup, and Pup is out of a job.
Hang on, maybe not...

The only thing for certain is that Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer would be revolving in his grave, screaming the foulest of obscenities.
So, was World Series Cricket all for naught?
You may remember 30 May 1979, when Packer won The Great Schism which ended after a long legal battle in complete & utter capitulation by the then Australian Cricket Board.....Nine got the TV rights for ten years, and the ABC was brushed forever.
Back then, cricket fans were simply horrified that television advertisements would intrude on the sanctity that is Test Cricket, never mind that almost 40 years later, Packer's greatest invention...one-day cricket...would be hived off to pay TV.
That's no great loss to the genuine student of the game, but Kezza would be absolutely furious.
After paying a poultice for the tennis, Nine were very clever to bid up the price to the point where they knew Seven would fork out a king's ransom to hold a very expensive baby, while Ten weren't even in the game.
Seven is keeping the domestic Test Matches on live-to-air as a sop to the anti-siphoning legislation [which they still have to get around for the one-day internationals].
It's fairly clear to those who have an interest in the media landscape that Seven will run a hefty loss on those, and hope for handsome profits on no less than 43 Big Bash League matches.
Forty-three! "More than ever before!" trumpets Cricket Australia.
Christ Almighty, they'll be playing day and night every day for weeks.
Forget the theme tune to Nine's Wonderful Wide World of Sport, let's be blunt here, the so-called "Sound of Summer" is long gone, with The Goanna, and Tony G and then The Benood, all dead.
Is Keith Stackpole still alive? [yep, 77, he is].
Why not bring him back?

Which brings us to the vexed question of who's in and who's out of the commentary team.
It is quite sick-making to think that Seven Network boss-cocky, Tim Worner - a filthy self-confessed adulterer, cad and bounder who's wasted far too much of Seven's money being in court for far too long in recent times, and resigned in disgrace from the Swans board - has the final say on this one.
The fool knows nothing of cricket.
Noted with dismay in the weekend fishwraps, that Grubby Worner is seriously considering personally bringing back a retired football caller in the form of 69-year-old Dennis "Centimetre Perfect" Cometti.
Now that's thinking outside the box, not.
The last time Cometti called cricket, Alan McGilvray was in the commentary box, and he's been dead 21 years.
Mark Nicholas is the first one out of a job because he only got it in the first place as he was KFB Packer's "go-to" and fix-it" man whenever he was in London - anything Kerry wanted, Nicholas could provide.
81-year-old Bill Lawry only really retains an interest in racing pigeons for serious money, Chappelli, Tubby and Heals are all Nine men through and through and know no other television culture, while Warnie is, well, just Warnie.
MJ Clarke can say some insightful things on the telly, but that high squeaky voice is hard on the hearing, and he is unpopular with the Australian general public, so it's something of a surprise that Pup is currently calling the IPL on Indian TV, along with Slatts, so on that evidence alone, they're in with half a chance of being re-employed.
Thank the Good Lord Joisus that that pompous pommy prick Michael Vaughan is instantly out of work, and the less said about that obnoxious gormless god-awful serial pest KP Pietersen, the better.
By some reports, James Brayshaw is good for a gig, but where's Greg "Long Donger" Matthews when you need him?
Mo's brief stint at radio commentary was excellent; he has a cricket brain as big as a watermelon, speaks his mind eloquently, and he's the man you really want when the going gets weird.
Stuart MacGill had a go at it once on TV and once on radio, but he ended up writing cook books instead and decided to continue on unabated with what some folk in cricket circles cruelly described as his "red obsession" - uninterested in beer - the wine aficionado was also considered a bit left-field because he openly confessed to reading books on tour.
Magilla the Gorilla was also a first-class arguer with Umpires, took the moral high ground against both Robert Mugabe and Kentucky Fried Chicken, didn't mind taking CA to court for $2.6M in back pay, and only recently described the selectors as "morons" for picking Tim Paine.
What more do you want in a television commentator?
Oh, where are they now?

But all that's by-the-by.
Nine still has the rights to the next Ashes in England, and various upcoming World Cups etc, entirely confusing the ordinary sensible punter who won't know which channel to watch.
Check yr local guides....but in any case, as the Foxtel people will tell you, television is dead anyway, and the future is all about "streaming"...why watch the cricket on a 65" flat-screen, when you can now view it on a 4.5 inch screen on yr telephone!?
Gee whizz, reminds me of the time after the advent of colour TV, when people used to take their new portable battery operated black and white telly's to the beach with them.
But lets get down to tin tacks here..."show me the money".
CA did very well indeed to flog the rights for $A1.182B over six-years.
Which begs the question - where does all that cash go?
My Spy at The Ground noted that at the same time the list of centrally contracted players for 2018-19 was very quietly released, which unsurprisingly did not include Smiffy, Burbs or Bonkers, who've been paid off to keep quiet.
Here's the stellar top 20 cricketers in Australia, right here, right now:

Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine, Matt Renshaw, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye.

Sheesh...a mob of world-beaters there, and playing "Pick the Captain" out of that motley lot will be like trying to pin the tail on the donkey.
What central contracts are worth is now for some reason "confidential", but at last count the top 20 get a minimum of $900,000 each [the skipper gets a premium that pushes him well over a mill], so that's roughly $18 million a year, or $108 million over the six years in central contract money.
That's chicken feed, in relative terms.
There goes all of Packer's promises to pay professionals properly.
Never mind last years protracted "pay war" which, after the industrial action of striking for the Australia "A" tour of South Africa, was appalling handled and botched by one J.Sutherland - the players said they came away with "a better revenue-sharing deal".
Really?
For sake of argument, let's leave out the match payments and bonuses, they've settled for contracts that are worth 9.13% of the TV revenue.
So where exactly does the other 90+% go?
There's no question that the powers-that-be, the boss cocky's, head honcho's, top banana's, grand poo bah's, big kahuna's and the vast legions of hangers-on down at Cricket Australia HQ are paying themselves handsomely rather than spending it on fuzzy intangible things like 'grass roots' cricket, of course middle management would be bloated to simply outrageous proportions, and the size of CA's media department alone surely must rival the almost 100 press officer's employed by the AFL.
Staff to burn and, now, the number of in-house lawyers at CA would be staggering.

The upshot is there will still be at least two competing live radio networks [you'd hope - how much are the radio rights worth at the minute? Jack Shit?], One-Day Internationals and T20's can go to hell in a handbasket behind a paywall as far as the purists are concerned, and in the final paralysis, there will be nothing for it but to actually go to the ground and start barracking, drunkenly.

copping it sweet

Casual Observers and Innocent Bystanders,

Noted mid-week that SPD Smith, DA Warner, and CT Bancroft have all decided to cop it sweet, "guilty as charged".
So, obviously made the wrong call in these pages last week by foreshadowing "QC's at ten paces on appeal"; they'd taken legal advice that lawyers should not become involved because, you'd have to now suspect, if they did, the whole truth and nothing but the truth might come out.
As it stands, we will never know what went on inside their stoopid heads or in that dysfunctional dressing room.
The quicks and potential reverse-swingers must have known what was going on - as My Spy at The Ground commented "if a ball had been tamperised without the knowledge of professional bowlers, surely they would have been within their rights to complain to the umpires about the condition of the match ball?"
The stand-in captain for the final test, TD Paine, had the ball in his wicket-keeping gloves all the time and was better placed than anyone to see what the cherry was, or was not, doing from behind the stumps.
So, ipso-facto, everyone in that team who handled the ball in the field on that day was implicated in some way or another and were at a minimum "guilty by association".
And for how long had the deceit been going on?
Burbs Warner has been Straya's chief "ball conditioner" for yonks, and the South African's reckon he'd been having a good ol' twiddle with it from day one in Durban.
Remember how Starkers and Hazo took 13 wickets between them in that match, and were simply un-playable from time to time?
It's a harsh view propounded by The Philosopher in the Front Bar down at The Local this week, but maybe the known offender's miserable remorse and humbled contrition was all about the fact that they got caught - busted! - not the simple act of "cheating" aka tinkering with the nut - which, let's face it, has been going on since the dawn of time when the game was first professionalised way back when in Hambledon.
You've gotta think that there must be much more to it if Smiffy - a man who "lives and breathes" cricket is prepared to drop more than $5 million over the course of 12 months - even as the Cricketers' Association claims they've been harshly dealt with and decry the sentences as "disproportionate".
It's fairly clear that Warner has burnt all his bridges and has had his dance card marked "never to play for Straya again" and at age 31 should have the decency and sense to retire [but won't], Bancroft of course will have to live out the rest of his interrupted career as a fully-branded cheat, while there's a chance, but only a chance, that Smiffy could come back and continue his glittering career without the burden of captaincy for a few years yet, even bigger and better than before, Niki Lauda style...
Boof is gone, but not forgotten, and of course the CEO and The Chairman of The Board must go too.
James Sutherland cannot possibly be the direct report for the up-coming so-called "inquiry" into the "culture of Australian cricket", as he was the one who has presided over the whole shooting match and did nothing.
Fiddled while Rome burned.
He's been in the top job for far far too long now [17 years! Big corporations should be turning over CEO's every 5-6 years] and, of course, everything is all now bagarup on his watch.
Sutherland might be a chartered accountant, but good luck flogging the TV rights now, son, with the two biggest names in the game gorn...not a lot to sell there, because where are the ratings in seeing Australia thrashed for a potential viewing audience who hate losers?
[In contrast, just yesterday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India sold their world-wide TV rights to the highest bidder, Star TV, for $US944M for five years].
And anyone remember how much fun we had in India?
God it was good.
Possibly the most spiteful series in recent memory, and of course they all said they were goaded into it by that master law-bender and serial pest Viralrat Kohli Sir.
But what good did that do them?
None.
They lost on the sub-continent, they knew that could beat a Stokeless England vulnerable to 'psych-war' in a canter - and now they've been utterly destroyed on the Veldt.
Look at the winning margin in the final Test of close enough to 500 runs; under normal circumstances the Strayan's could have been accused of "not trying" in the 4th innings - they'd had more than they could take and couldn't wait to get out of the joint fast enough.
So where to now?
The subject of who will be the permanent new Captain is a different bottle of mussels altogether, and will no doubt became the subject of acres of old growth forest newsprint in the weeks and months to come.
In the fine details of the suspension orders, you'll note that the trio "will be encouraged to play district cricket during their suspensions", so they are not banned from all cricket [which is just more hypocrisy in a thing that's riddled with hypocrisy], just domestic first-class and test and A-list games for Straya.
Even though they've voluntarily given the IPL away, there doesn't appear to be anything preventing them from playing in English county cricket this northern summer, and as as we all know, the Poms have absolutely no scruples whatsoever and would be falling over each other to obtain the services of players of such quality.
Even if that doesn't happen, you can still imagine Burbs, Bonkers and Smiffy knocking up double and triple tons all over the shop against suburban bowlers in grade cricket next summer, as the Strayan team struggles big-time to beat Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India at home, and the TV ratings fall away to nothing, and test cricket becomes a "minority sport" available only on pay TV, if that.
SEN Radio in Melbourne must be sorely regretting the time, trouble and expense they went to in poaching Whateley to compete with the publicly poorly funded ABC radio broadcasters.
Oh we'll, just have to go to the ground now for Test matches and join the Sheffield Shield-sized crowds.
There won't be any beer queues.
In the final paralysis, it's a timely reminder that it doesn't matter how great you are, or how low you are prepared to go, you will always eventually be "put out to pasture" or end up on the remainder table...

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.