all is forgiven?

Casual Observers,

Rolled in through the front door of my gaff having just touched down at KSA after a six-and-a-half hour flight across the sheer vastness of the Pacific from Apia, and clicked on the telly, only to see that there were four and a half minutes left in the Swans/Pies match at HQ, and that there was nothing in it, and thought to myself "Oh no! Sweet Weepin' Jesus upon The Cross! The Heat Attack Kids are at it again."
Just had time to drop my bag and gawk in fear of the wheels falling off with three losses in a row, when the Childe Tommy McCartin somehow got boot to ball just outside the goal square and the pill rolled through the big sticks with a flailing Magpie fully-sprawled on the ground but not able to put a finger-tip on it; the Goal Bamford gave the two fingered salute, waved the flags and the Fat Lady sang.
Note the scorebox tells the story that it is always the third quarter, The Championship Quarter, "The Champo" that more often than not decides football matches, with the Swans booting five big ones, while keeping the Woods to just three behinds.
On interview post-match, SC Horse identified The Champo as where the side kept their hopes alive of not slipping out of the Top 8, and when asked about Buddy being thrashed a bit more than usual on the training track and then kicking six goals - more than half the team's total - Longmire simply replied "Franklin played well".
Also of note was the triumphant return of Alex Johnson, the quintessential Comeback Kid.
It was six years since he last played a game of seniors - six years - absolutely rooted by injury, he was...time and time and time again.
SC horse noted that Johnno had become the Honorary Boss Cocky of Sick Bay, seeing he'd spent so much farkin' time in there, and blabbed on about how he was good for kiddies going through Rehab and dealing with the psychological impact of long term injury.
He's probably put Callum "Saw" Mills in the Room Full of Mirrors down on the Balmain Road and given him a damn good talking to.
Gawd help him, Johnson did his left anterior cruciate in 2013 and has had a knee ever since, enduring not one, not two, no, but five knee reconstructions after the first two were hopelessly botched, and he then got dropped from the Swans roster before being re-drafted as a rookie at age 26.
A lesser man would have given the game away long before now.
On interview after the game Johnno was was asked the ridiculously stoopid question on whether he could name all the players he played with in his last game - the 2012 Grand Final victory - of course he could - rattling off the monikers in quick smart fashion for television.
Also of note was the Wagga boy Harry Cunningham playing his 100th game for the Swans.
Cunningham is yet another one of those super reliable performers who always plays under the radar, and can reel off a hundred games without anyone really noticing.
Harry's had the odd quiet one, but he's probably never had a bad game, even after missing most of last year with a foot, which is still giving him taffy.
The run home is not what you'd call easy by an stretch of the imagination for Sydney [8th], with Melbourne [4th] away at the G in a last gasp practice for the finals, then the Battle of the Bridge [Pygs 3rd] at Spotto!, then not bloody Hawthorn [5th] abloodygain, before going headlong into the maelstrom that is September. Woo.
Stave off Mad Monday for as long as you can, Lads - that's all you can do at this stage of proceedings - there's no opportunity left to play Ducks & Drakes.

Just a footnote on the Andrew Gaff [what a wonderfully appropriate name] v Andrew Brayshaw Perth Stadium altercation, that was quickly dubbed as "a moment of football madness".

By most reports - but not all - Gaff had had a "brain explosion" and OK, clocking a bloke cold well behind play, sending a few teeth flying and busting the poor bastard's jaw is a pretty low-dog act, and he got rubbed out for eight weeks for it, which is just about the right freight for mine, although you could argue that ten games is closer to half a season and would have sent a good message to jnr footballers that that sort of rubbish is just not on, but why oh why on earth do the Blowies in the Meejah still have to bring up that hoary ol' chestnut - the Barry Hall v Brent Staker king hit way back in 2008 - as if it's some kind of time-honoured benchmark of horrendousness, when there is simply no comparison?
Is that now all that Big Bad Barry will ever be remembered for?
Staker was a very well known serial pest who would just not shut up, and Bazza had simply had enough of him on the day, so he decked Staker simply to give him a fat lip to close his potty-mouthed gob, so he was unable to continue with his continual drivel-like sledging.
If you have a look at the archival footage, after Staker had gone down, BBB assumed the classic Barry Hall pose of both arms outstretched to the crowd as if to say "Wot? Me? What'd I do?"
Lance Frankin does it every time a free kick is awarded against him.
As Staker himself said of the wack on Perth radio mid-week "I've got no idea how it didn't draw claret".
Barry must be absolutely sick to death of that one being bought up every damn time someone gives somebody one on the chops, putting his stellar, if slightly troubled, career in the shade.
Will no one remember Bazza as the only bloke to have kicked a hundred goals or more for three different clubs, being an All-Australian four times, and yes friends, he actually did Captain the Swans in the Grand Final of the Miracle Year 2005, not mention being a fully paid up Life Member of the AFL, or that he's an inductee into the freakin' AFL Hall of Fame - Hall's in the Fame - for crying out loud.
His Very Big Badness has been firmly ensconced in the Swans' Pantheon for many years anyway, regardless of his foibles.

All is forgiven, remember?

SYDNEY: 3.2, 4.4, 9.6, 11.7 (73). Goals: Franklin 6, Dawson 2, Kennedy, Ronke, McCartin.
COLLINGWOOD: 4.1, 7.3, 7.6, 10.11 (71). Goals: Varcoe 4, Hoskin-Elliott 2, Cox, Daicos, Sidebottom, B.Grundy.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 39,238.

There is always a particular pleasure to be derived from the Mighty Balmain Tiges beating the hapless Newcastle Knights away.
The International Sports Centre in Newcastle has an ambivalent place in my heart; going there many times as a cub sports reporter during my time living in "Newy", but as a partisan Tiges spectator the last time the ground was graced with my presence it just so happened that moi was very seriously pissed throughout, and the only memory that remains is that Balmain lost.
But my abiding memory of the joint was back in 1990, attending a crucial game and having the misfortune of sitting on the hill with a small group of other Balmain fans, and we were targeted throughout by the local rowdies at the back of the hill, and in the second half when it became well apparent that Newcastle were going to lose, Knights supporters started to gob on us, and it'll be very hard to forget, let alone forgive, leaving the ground with a Balmain cap covered in the spittle of Newcastle fans - all class, those people.
So it was with delight that my portable light-weight bush telegraph that I had transported to Samoa lit up with the words from My Spy at The Ground: "Tigers up by 9. Newcastle lose at home, again".
What with jet lag and the time difference, it would have been a tough ask to see the Friday night game live on the satellite TV in some dingy bar in Apia, and while Samoans playing in the Rugby League are very well respected at home, it's Rugby Union that is undoubtedly king; everywhere you go you see hand-painted signs saying GO MANU! [the name of the national team].
In the meantime, there are few things worse in football than some utter utter bastard club sacking their useless coach, and then coming along blatantly trying to steal the coach of the team you support.
And it's happening as we speak.
Penrith punted Anthony Griffen as Head Honcho after the weekend with immediate effect for some entirely inexplicable unexplained reason as his team is well inside the Top 8 at the pointy end of the season, and then come out publicly and say they have put a handsome three year contract on the table for the Balmain coach Ivan "Clearly It's" Cleary.
Hang on a bit here, doesn't Cleary have another two-and-a-half years left on his contract at Leichhardt?
Little wonder the Balmain Club Secretary, Justin Pascoe, told the Panthers they could shove that idea clean up their runter, informing the fishwraps "this club will not be pushed aside or bullied or railroaded by anyone" and "we're not going to let anyone come in and just poach our coach without a fight and we're going to fight tooth and nail to keep Ivan. We're not going to release him."
Go in hard Pascoe, take no nonsense.
Who cares if Cleary's son Nathan is the star half-back at Penrith? Or that going back to the foot of the mountains would turn the wagon wheel full circle?
Penrith sacked Cleary after they narrowly avoided the Wooden Spoon at the end of the 2015 season, for Chrissake - and now they want him back? All is forgiven? WTF?
That's something virtually unheard of in the entire history of the rugby league universe; re-hiring sacked coaches.
It's obviously that devious shonky buffoon Phil "Gus" Gould who's behind all of this - 110% - so here's hoping that dead-set shyster is in for yet another massive fail.
Up yours, Chocolate Soldiers.

NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS 16. Tries: Mata'utia, Ponga, Guerra. Goals: Sio (1).
WESTS TIGERS 25. Tries: Packer, Brooks, Farah. Goals: Marsters (7). Field Goals: Brooks (1).
At International Sports Centre, Newcastle.
Crowd: 18,561.

a breakfast of kippers on heavily buttered toast

Screaming Believers,

As the two Wimbledon men's finalists were enjoying a breakfast of kippers on heavily buttered toast and a pot of tea, the competitors in Le Tour were sleeping off the cocktails of drugs and alcohol from the night before ahead of tackling the pavé to Roubaix, and all of France and Croatia were a quivering mass of nerve endings anticipating the World Cup final in Moscova, a pretty good game of football was being played at Docklands in Melbourne.
The Swans were fully fighting North right down to the last 100 seconds of the match and supporters of the Red and the White were going apeshit.
A perfect storm of world sport's hysteria.

It was undoubtedly the best game of footy Sydney has played this season.
My Spy At The Ground [who needed a very stiff whisky afterwards to get over the nervous excitement] had at least seven other operatives working the stands for this one, but they were all in such a state of tension, stress, freak-out, then elation, that they were rendered useless and left speechless, and only the sounds of wild a hootin' and a hollerin' could be heard coming down the line on the Bush Telegraph.
By the looks of the faces of the disappointed, nay, shattered 'Roos fans in the stands on the telly, they most likely would not have appreciated a rousing rendition of "What's It Like to Lose at Home?"
The Stats Guru was quick to point out that North hasn't beaten South at Docklands in more than a decade, suggesting the Tin Shed should be made Sydney's home ground forthwith, forget the SCG.
The Swans have a deserved reputation as the Heart Attack Kids, so my cardiologist should really warn me off this game for life, after yet another nail-biting topsy-turvy cliff-hanger - Swans two goals up at half time, two goals down at the end of The Champo, but they had more legs to boot a quite extraordinary six goals in the denouement and win by a single straight kick.
Joy on a stick.


Of course, Sydney came into the thing after having rings run around them by Richmond and Geelong and being soundly beaten in the previous two games - ruining their perfect away record - and leaving the Swans battle-wounded as the number of patients in Sick Bay continues to mount alarmingly, and now the team's field marshal, JPK, seems to have aggravated his Shagger's Back, and could be out for a game or two.
Don't usually name names in a side where the "best" below the scorebox should read "All Played Well", but for the first time in weeks the mid-field played up, with Heeney The Cardiff Zucchini leading the way; the most thuggish-looking man in the team, Gentleman Jones, thrusting forward; The Goal Kicker From North Adelaide in the Childe Hayward running rampant; and The Pearl Papley looking pretty in the crumbs.
Even without wise old heads in Odd Head McVeigh and Reg Grundy's love child, the replacement backs still built Sydney's trade mark brick wall, while up front the 20-year-old kid Ben "The Ronk" Ronke has the makings of one of the toughest, smartest goalsneaks in the game, and was Best on Ground for mine.
Speaking of young things, 18-year-old Tom McCartin, who comes from Tasmanian Football Royalty, is turning out to be Draft Pick of the Year and has a long and distinguished career ahead of him.

The best ding-dong-go of the day had to be to the pairing of the strikingly jet black Sudanese refugees in Aliir "Chands" Aliir ranging across the Swans half-back line, going head-to-head against Majak Daw coming off the bench into North's forwards.
Who would have thought of such a thing, just a few short years ago?
They took turns beating each other, trying to out-lead, out-mark and out-fox on the run for the ball and all arms and legs in the scrimmages - both played great - but you can't go past Daw kicking four to win that stoush, on a losing side.
We've all doubts about them, but when their athleticism clicks, they are well in it.

And all the while through the first half, Buddy was trying very hard not to score his 900th goal, busy feeding the forwards for others to have a ping at the big ones, as if he didn't particularity want the adulation.
He's No.1, and he knows it, but there's a job to do.
The kick that finally made the milestone was a textbook Lance Franklin set shot from 50m; the long run-up, a few steps to the left, then bang! The ball comes off the left boot aimed high, wide and handsome as the pill gracefully arcs back in, to go straight through the high diddle-diddle.
What a corker!
900 x 6 = fifty four hundred and fifty points on the scoreboard, and that had the Stats Guru in paroxysms - giving Buddy a flying chance at making it beyond 1100 career goals, and retiring a very wealthy man indeed, touch wood.
The result appears to be the hinge on which the season swings - injury toll or no injury toll - they're in the top four with 69% of the season gone, so September action seems all but assured.
And that's saying something, coming from the eternal pessimist.
Keep that banjo tuned.

NORTH MELBOURNE: 5.1, 6.2, 12.5, 15.8 (98). Goals: Ziebell 5, Brown 4, Daw 4, Macmillan, Hrovat.
SYDNEY: 3.1, 8.3, 10.6, 16.8 (104). Goals: Ronke 5, Franklin 3, Hayward 2, Heeney 2, Papley, Cunningham, Fox, Aliir.
At Docklands Stadium.
Crowd: 25,633.


And...when too much sport is barely enough...it's not often you get the satisfaction of both yr football teams winning on the same day and it was the first time this season that the Swans and Balmain played simultaneously, so only caught fleeting glimpses of the rugby league telecast from one of the few grand old heritage suburban grounds left in the game, Kogarah Jubilee Oval, in the ad breaks during the Rules.
But by all accounts it was the day that Robbie 'The Best Leb In The Game' Farah achieved sweet revenge against the former coach, [Jason "Squeak" Taylor where are you now?] who outrageously and cruelly hounded him out of the club through no fault of his own [they just hated each others guts] - by playing an absolute blinder for Man-of-the-Match, with his deft dummy-half work and trade-mark short kicking game.
It was the Old Band back together again on a Mission from God, with the Great Farah in déjà vu mode, and his magnificent old partnership with The Great Benji Marshall now back and rolling again.
They hadn't played together for Balmain in 1,772 days.

It is still impossible to believe that two blokes who featured in Balmain's glorious Grand Final Victory of 2005 are still playing, both thinking they would never return to Leichhardt after taking off to earn their pensions in the wilderness of other clubs before retirement, and then being coaxed back to their Spiritual Home in a masterstroke by coach Clearly It's Cleary.
The maths don't work here - you've got a 33-year-old and 34-year-old playing with a new lease of life that no one thought even remotely possible.
Mr Cleary is well aware of the club's history and tradition, and it must have something to do with them now having a very significant place in it - both stars being Life Members - however, he's no sentimentalist, and neither should a coach be.
If they can both hold a place in the first grade side, then they richly deserve a last hurrah, if not, they can rest easy on their laurels.
It warms the cockles of a die-hard Balmain fan of 30 years standing to see things put right.

And to make things sweeter than a nut, the Mighty Tiges haven't beaten the Saints at Kogarah since 2005, also, and the Dragons was where Benji washed up before his Lazarus act [after a really silly really stupid totally avoidable gim-crack argument with the dysfunctional Balmain Board over money].
It's just such a pity it's probably come too late for everyone - on 8-9 and a bye with seven games to go, it's going to be a toughie to make the finals from here, but the draw is reasonably favourable, so see what happens, eh, bru?
Farah played so well that other jokers are now trash-talking him, with Sam Burgess of the South Sydney Rabbitoh's [who released Farah back to Balmain] reported as threating to "go him" in this week's time-honoured blood match.
While Burgess is a big, ugly, nasty bruising Pom; good luck, Sam.

ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA DRAGONS 16. Tries: Hunt, Widdop, Dufty. Goals: Widdop (2).
WESTS TIGERS 20. Tries: Brooks, Thompson, Nofoaluma. Goals: Marsters (4).
At Jubilee Oval, Kogarah.
Crowd: 15,992.

oh no, Pup's out of a job

Whingers,

As the footy season ploughs on, with the Mighty Tiges yet again out of the rugby league frame despite the triumphant return of the Best Leb in the Game to The Spiritual Home at Leichhardt, and the well-placed Sydney Swans now at very serious risk of having a season cruelled by injury and producing a bitter winter of discontent, it's now perhaps time to dream of the summer game and those warm, lazy, hazy days in the sun.

Never mind that Straya are now fielding the B team, as the Terrible Treacherous Trio have been getting in some match practice in what might as well be cricket injun country where sandpaper is legal - Canada [currently in the ICC's 17 member Americas Division along with other world cricket powerhouses such as the Turks and Caicos Islands, Costa Rica and Belize - a Sydney 1st grade side would beat Canada in a canter], it's come to my attention that Pup is out of a job.
You heard right, no longer to be heard or seen on the telly above the thwack of willow on leather, as flanneled fools cavort about the village green.
With the Seven Network having rudely pinched the cricket rights off Nine's Wide World of Sports, sending Mr Packer into a 78rpm spin in the his poor shallow grave, there's no room for MJ Clarke in the commentary box anymore it seems.
Always had my doubts about the meejah caper as a post-game career for the great man; a cricket brain the size of a watermelon to be sure, but that whining little voice was harsh on the ear, and he was never ever popular with the General Public who took a dim view of his first engagement to L.Bingle for some completely unfathomable reason, and he had an undeserved reputation among cricket followers as a stuck-up prick, smart arse and wise guy.
It was would be of no surprise at all to now see Clarkey relocate full-time to India, where he is fêted like God - as the greatest batsman of his generation should be - and he's been spending months at a time there anyway, lately with Star TV on the IPL.
Not much point staying at home when yr treated like offal.
And Michael could always just retire to obscurity on some blissful tropical island as a welathy absentee landlord and real estate baron, and no-one would notice.

But Pup is not the only casualty in the drama, oh no siree; Chappelli, Tubby, Heals, Warnie, and that almighty English dick-wad Mark Nicholas have all been brushed by Seven as has-beens and are now lining-up down at Centrelink, with only Slats being offered a job.
They would never ever be able to coax Bill Lawry across - he was an extremely loyal Packer man and wouldn't be seen dead at Seven, content now at age 81 to remain where it's all happening in his pigeon loft for the rest of his born days.
Seven have got Tim Lane [now a "veteran broadcaster" at 66], James Brayshaw [who can ever forget Jimmy's stellar 75 match Sheffield Shield career?], and Alison Mitchell on ball-by-ball, and a bevvy of superstars in RT Ponting AO, GD McGrath AM, MJ Slater, DW Fleming, JN Gillespie, SM Katich, BJ Hodge, GS Blewett and DP Nannes in the 'experts' chairs.
What a line up!
Ricky is widely acknowledged to be as boring as batshit, Flemo is all over the shop like a mad dog's breakfast, Whispering Ooh-Ahh is just Ooh-Ah, the last time anyone ever heard of Dizzy he was hooking big barra in the Top End, The Super Kat will strangle someone or something, Hodgo is there to sharpen up his undoubted skills at giving the selectors a spray, Blewy comes to TV via an undistinguished career in commercial radio, and Dirksey's only claim to fame is a rumour that he once played for the Netherlands.
You've got to be super excited to point of drooling in expectation about all those fresh faces telling it like it is.
Might have to just carry on regardless as usual, and switch on the steampunk powered wireless - the set still works, and wild out-of-control speculation that the Strayan Broadcasting Commission would be stripped and robbed of the radio rights proved to be unfounded.

The photogenic and very well qualified Pommy, Alison Mitchell, is of note, being added to the Seven team "not because she's a woman" but in the name of politically correct gender balance.
It's 35 years since a female was last heard regularly in that masculine bastion of a television cricket commentary box in this country, the last one of course being the great Kate Fitzpatrick way back in '83.
Everybody was scratching their heads back in the day as to how Kate managed to land a job as a cricket spruiker as she came from a background as a popular stage and screen actress, people worried desperately if she had some kind of extra-curricular relationship happening with KFB Packer, and she seemed to rub the Old School Tie brigade up the wrong way everyday anyway, so she only lasted a single season.
Given that Kate is now 70, it might be too much of an ask of her to make a comeback as an Honourary Grand Dame.
Shame.

go figure

Gawkers,

Going off piste here, as these pages don't often deal with "other" codes of football, but everybody's been talkin' about that #OptusFail on the World Cup, and how it's a "brand damager" and such like, but nobody's saying how its both a windfall for SBS and a win for good old fashioned out-and-out satellite television.
SBS gets a free kick for all the money they ended up not paying for the broadcast rights now written off by Optus as a dead loss, and that'd run into many many millions as they laugh all the way to the bank.
Thought there used to be "anti-siphoning laws" - they may have gone by the wayside - but the general public's the winner, baby, that's the truth.
Satellite TV's been doing it for decades and it works perfectly well, and let's face it, who's ever felt the need to experience watching any kind of football "on the go" on a massive 6.5 inch iPhone screen with their reading glasses on, when only recently the best telly's on the market used to be the 55 incher in millions of pixels, but now they're passé, and anything under a 60 inch television set next to the bush telegraph in the corner of the loungeroom will not do.
Go figure.
Nothing wrong with the wiring or the Cathode Ray Tube, Optus, [you could try turning the computer off and on again], you've just rather seriously underestimated the enormous appeal of the goddamn World Cup - undoubtedly beyond measure the most watched television event on the planet every four years.
Do your math.
Did they not realise that the whole world goes absolutely and entirely ape-shit over it, and made the fatal mistake of following the good ol' Strayan racist/sexist line of thinking that soccer isn't football, and, as the legendary Johnny Warren fondly used to say, it's only a game for Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters anyway.
That's Australia's world view precisely to a tee; it's full of Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, and that covers everyone on the globe, and some have even been known to be all three of them at once!
The problem for Optus is the Wide Brown Land is also chockers with Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, so of course they would be overwhelmed by demand for $15 "live streaming" when there's no other choice.
In days gone by you could happily watch it all on satellite TV at the flick of a switch. [On this occasion, preferably, in an over crowded partisan bar drinking killer quantities of vodka like there's no tomorrow].
But, really, who'd watch it on the dog & bone or plug that blower into a telly - or god forbid, a 'tablet' - at ungodly hours of the morning? What were/are they thinking?
Back in the day here in the "multicultural" heart of "ethnic" Sydney, the people over the back fence put up a satellite dish solely for the purpose of hooking up to the 1998 World Cup in France because SBS was then like a fuzzy analog Ethnic Community Broadcasting Station, and four years later SBS had to do some serious upgrading of their low-powered suburban transmitters and relay stations to bring reliable coverage of the World Cup in Japan and Korea without ghosting to the whole of the Sydney metro area.
That was 15 years ago and there was great rejoicing that clear pictures could finally be had on SBS.
It's beyond doubt that the Special Broadcasting Service is the natural home of soccer, or 'football', or 'wogball' or call it what you will.
Capitalist Running Dogs, Greed & Madness tried to prevail, and yep, failed.
[and, just by-the-by, how much would the ABC be worth in a Stock Market float? - but that's another story...]

That's enough of that, but speaking of the Good Old Days and honest public service, it warms the cockles of the heart of an Old Balmain Supporter to hear that the Best Leb in the Game and prodigal son has made a triumphant return to Leichhardt, after his shamefully disgraceful exile.
It's only right and proper that The Great Robbie Farah should join another Honourary Life Member of the club in The Great Benji Marshall in coming back to their Spiritual Home.
You'll read plenty here from the past about Farah being outrageously hounded out of the club by that ugly human being Jason "Squeak" Taylor - a fool to himself and a burden on the community - who should never have been allowed in through the front gate, let alone as coach, in one of the worst decisions ever made by the board of any football club in any code in the history of the world.
http://crazycraves.blogspot.com/2016_04_24_archive.html
Could go on, but won't.
Everything's now been put right.
But, it is like old home week as it's very difficult to believe - to the point of impossibility - that both Benj and Robbie played in Balmain's winning 2005 Grand Final team, and are still playing 13 seasons later...[from that team, only The Great Chris Heighington is also still going 'round in the twilight of his journeyman career, somehow washing up in Newcastle playing for a pension top-up].
Not that the presence of these two legends of the game is likely to save the Mighty Tiges as it becomes more and more apparent that it will be yet another season cruelled by injury.
Now on the wrong side of the win/loss ledger and outside the Top 8 after the absolute shocker against arch-nemesis Canberra - getting rolled by the Green Machine by 36 points, in a second-half try-a-thon.
Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

WESTS TIGERS 12. Tries: Lawrence, Thompson. Goals Marsters (2).
CANBERRA RAIDERS 48. Tries: Leilua (2), Tapine (2), Austin, Papalii, Cotric, Oldfield, Knight. Goals: Croker (6).
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 10,237.

meantime, over in Rules Land, it's time for the mid-season shake out, where the men get separated from the boys, and injury puts previously fancied teams out of the finals equations.
[the AFL, like the NRL, could do with mid-season transfers to the June 30 cut-off date].
In theory, those lying 18th-11th are now "gorn for the season", so there are only ten teams left to fight out the Top 8, with the current top three starting to get away from the pack.
Against a quality side who were running top of the ladder, it was perhaps the Swans most impressive win of the season, and what stuck out for me was their brilliance in the marking contest, taking clean grabs all over the park in a very tough blustery breeze, after it'd been blowing a southerly gale all day straight off the Antarctic ice sheet.
The wind was so tricky all night that My Spy at The Ground remarked that virtually every ball that was kicked along the Bill O'Reilly Stand side of the ground went out-of-bounds on the full.
With Reg Grundy's love child playing out of his mind at his age and anchoring the brick wall down back, and players like Will "The Goal Kicker from North Adelaide" Hayward and Tom "The Pearl" Papley, not to mention the rookie Ben "The Ronk" Ronke, turning into real stars as Buddy just throws his weight around being Buddy up front while the mid-field looks after itself - they're looking as good as they've done all year.
But what a weird match it was - the Swans have not been held goal-less in the first quarter for years [literally] and the Stats Guru is still scratching his head as he whirs the abacus trying to work out the last time a team didn't boot a six-pointer in either the first or last quarters, but still went on to win handsomely and comfortably.
Go figure.

SYDNEY: 0.3, 5.3, 10.6, 10.12 (72). Goals: Franklin 2, Papley 2, Ronke 2, Cunningham, J.P.Kennedy, Jack, Hayward.
WEST COAST: 1.3, 2.7, 5.10, 7.15 (57). Goals: J.Kennedy 2, Yeo 2, Ryan, Waterman, Lycett.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 36,402

a world record size gigantic tusk up the runter

Purists,

Excuse my French, but...

Fuck my brown dog, Harold, if the Strayan Z team isn't embarrassed, then humiliated beyond belief, then degraded in ghastly fashion before copping a gigantic tusk up the runter good and proper, as Engerland tonk up a word's record score in an ODI.
And the 6/481 beat the previous world record by plenty and then some.
U-16's bowlers could have done better.

Little wonder TD Paine described it as "the hardest day of my life" with his poop-shooter in awful disarray.
Under usual circumstances, 50 over games are of little or no consequence, but the dreadful shame of it being England is dead-set fucked-in-the-face unbearable....forget the World Cup, there is no worse sight in world sport than seeing drunken Pommy cricket fans go utterly ape-shit with delirium as Straya are miserably hung, drawn, and quartered.

Trent Bridge will never be the same.
Where's the Sandpaper Sinners when you need 'em most?

What would Pup do?
Probably work on the principle that if you can't beat 'em, bash 'em, and gone around breaking Pommies arms and backs.
May the Good Lord Joisus help us.

"...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