branched out into selling toothbrushes

Marketeeeers,

Australian cricket captains have flogged many things over the years.
Bradman favoured the Elasta-Strap panties while batting, but implied in the advertising that they were also good for kinky situations etc.
The Don also endorsed Mick Simmons Sport Stores and General Motors for a small fortune, and it wouldn't have taken much to put his name to a jig-saw puzzle, among the many many other odds and sods he had going for a filthy pound or two.
Nothing was beyond him.
Greg Chappell patented a peculiar style of floppy white hat that sold in their millions.
More recently, Tubby Taylor is the most honourable fellow and among the nicest blokes you'd ever want to meet, but whatever you do, don't mention "Australia's favourite air" in his presence.
In the lower grades...Keith Miller was a fantastic front man for Rothman's, Doug Walters spruiked Toohey's as if it was the finest brew in all the land...the list goes on.
Currently, Shane "Figjam" Watson - the richest Australian cricketer - sells expensive menswear and quality new cars
MJ Clarke flogs luxury watches and BP petrol, of course, and now he's branched out into selling toothbrushes.
Toothbrushes?!
Scrubbing the things with Oral B toothbrushes is something that has characterised my bedtime routine all my adult life, Clarkey, and guess what?...there's not many of them left.
Just a few pegs; don't think the product works very well, mate.
This is pretty funny, if only for the dead-set give-away hat he's wearing.

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8968826

a boy named sue

Wonderers,

Why they bother with playing first grade football at Campbelltown is beyond me.
With the Wests Tigers board irretrievably split with long standing bitter infighting between the factions [which the NRL said they would fix up in the off season, but of course, haven't], why go there?
Campbelltown?
Wouldn't go that far on me holidays.
The Balmain faction complain long and loud about what the Western Suburbs faction bring to the table in terms of heritage and tradition, while the Magpies complain they are being teated like offal by Balmian, and on and on and on it goes.
And that's before anyone starts to talk about money!
Surely the joint venture is on it's last legs?
Balmain has the upper hand in the argument, but have no leagues club [itself the subect of a bitter dispute over Backdoor Benny's controversial redevelopment proposal], while Wests have plenty of Leagues Clubs that aren't prepared to give any pokie profits to the football team, and yet they still complain.
That's why the opening home game of the season was relegated to the unloved Monday night time slot at the Gowdorsaken Cambelltown Sports Ground; a long drive from anywhere, difficult to get to by public transport, no parling to speak of, no facilities, cold pies and warm beer, and no atmosphere in a dump that last had anything done to it in the 70's & 80's.
Poor crowds means it must run at a loss to put games on there, even given the inflated crowd figures published by the league, and to top it off, there were many thousands who were stranded oustide the gates and missed the kick off.
as the antique turnstiles gave up the ghost and refused to functiion.
A lack of staff left the disgruntled fans furious; only the dead set hard core Wests diehards will ever go there again.
Many punters, by all accounts, weren't admitted to the groud until 20 minutes had elapsed, by which time pretty much all the action in the game had occured.
You'd hope they would pursue a very good case for getting their money back.
Oh dear.
As far as it goes personallty, it's never been hard to work out that you are reading a Balmain loyalist here...never did like "the merger"...nothing's likely to change after 28 years...
In the meantime, a game went on, apparently.
You have to feel sorry for all the St George fans who find themselves supporting a team that looks like a hapless rabble.
The Mighty Tiges just put in some really solid hits and then took the ball up in the forwards in the "traditional softening up period", while the sprinters put on the razzle dazzle out the back.
What's not to like about that?
Of course trhe match was full of irony.
Who would have thoughtr that the regular Dragons captain was rubbed out due to injury, and Benji Marshall was appointed as the stand in skippy?
Against his old Alma Mater.
Here's a bloke, who, after playing 300+ games for Balmain and said "I will never ever play for anyone else", captaining another side against them.
The filthy turncoat had a shocker of a game by all accounts; dropped ball, useless passes, weak defence etc.
Good.
The Tedesco Kiddie must be wondering how he pulled the right rein when he had a lucrative three-year contract with Canberra a couple of years ago, signed, sealed & delivered, and then tore it ip a few days later in the cooling off period on the advice of who?
Benji Marshall.
Who along with the Best Leb in The Game [Balmain stalwart, skipper etc] advised young James that it wasn't all about the money.
"Look lad, you can really make a name for yrself here at the Tigers, and from there you could be a superstar"
By all reports, he had a corker of game.
But for mine Kevin Naiqama was a clear man-of-the-match; a big burly winger...110kg coming at you at pace...how do you stop "The Refridgerator"?.
A spot-on off-season buy from Penrith on a one-year contract, so he didn't cost much at all; happy to play for the rent, a couple of schooners and a cut lunch.
My spy at the ground also reckoned Sauaso Sue had a fine game in the second row.
A lot of work has been put into the kid over the last few years, and at 22, he has this year to reach new heights, otherwise he's out of the game.
It was all done and dusted at half time and Coach Squeak put out the order to just work on the defence in the second half - only two points were scored - and he'd reckon that's a good win by any measure.

WESTS TIGERS 22. Tries: Richards (2), Naiqama, Tedesco. Goals: Richards (3)
ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 4. Tries: Nielsen.
At Campbelltown Sports Ground.
Crowd: 11,837.

a 60th of a minute

Loyalists,

It's that time of year when you'll find me clambering about in the rafters in Dad's Shed trying to connect the antenna to the short wave radio set in order to pick up football calls from distant parts, given the Mighty Tiges and the Hapless Bluds play all over the shop in far flung places nowadays.
Managed to lock onto a curious tin-pot commercial radio call from the Gold Coast on the AM band, featuring the "Lowes Menswear Scoreboard", who appeared to be their major sponsor, with the local garage and chemist shop also on board...payola from here to breakfast...that sort of thing.
They did have some pretty good turns of phrase; when a Balmain forward came to within inches of scoring a try, the commentary team of two threw to the sideline eye for comment.
"he's come down 16 blades of buffalo short of the chalk".
The Balmain Tigers/Wests Magpies team looks pretty good on paper even though they spent no money at all on recruiting.
They preferred to let the very expensive failed experiments in Blair and Anasta go, bank the cash, upgrade a few existing contracts, and spend a bit on junior development with a view to the long term, given they have a good clutch of promising Islander lads going around in the lower grades, some of whom you would expect to break into first grade at some stage during the season.
In a year or two, almost the entire team list will have unpronounceable names; a commentators nightmare.
The Tiges went into the opening match of the season without playing too many trial games, and pretty much put their best XIII on the paddock.
Of course they were handed the super-duper advantage of playing a Gold Coast side from which four of their best players had been suspended by their own club on account of being hauled before the courts charged with doing lines of coke on the cisterns of Surfers Paradise night clubs and generally having a jolly good time during the off season.
Stung by the QLD Crime Commission, or whoever they are, and turned over by the cops, the offending Titans players swallowed the bait - "it's only illegal if you get caught" hook, line, and sinker.
Sweet as.
The rugby league pre-season would be nothing without a ridgey-didge scandal.
The Tigers under new coach Jason "Squeak" Taylor elected to play almost the entirety of the pipeopener in the forwards, while the backs trotted around like show ponies thinking about and working out how to get their combinations together and the set plays going in a real game scenario.
Titans followed suit, so it was a dour game of put 'em up, knock 'em down.
By all accounts, most of the Balmain forwards are followers of fashion and now sport full beards, which only begs the question about the sensation you have when you have one those shoved up yr arse by yr own team-mate in the scrum.
How bizzare, how bizzare.
The relatively clean cut in comparison Pat Richards is a dead-set freak.
On the TV newsreels he looks old, and he is, at 33 years of age, being one of only two survivors of the '05 Premiership winning campaign.
Most players of his age would be well & truly resting on their laurels and counting the cash
So, he scores two tries in a match that failed to reach any great heights until the denoument.
Then, just as it looked like the game was headed for extra-time at 18-all, Richards picks up a short pass, gets himself on an even keel, looks at the goal posts and drop kicks the most improbable, unlikely, field goal from a million miles out for all intents and purposes.
Didn't have a spy at the ground, but some spectators recall seeing the ball catch the hefty breeze as it sailed high, wide and handsome and then curled back in at the last moment to just clear the black dot, the linesmen raising their flags, to procure the miraculous 19-18 win with 1 second, that's right, a 60th of a minute left on the clock.
Nurse! Brandy!
Still, Balmain would be happy just to go home to Leichhardt as Coach Squeak makes his mark in the column of the Ol' Coach's Ledger that's headed "we'll take our wins", while the Titans would be reassured by the fact that you can't lose the Premiership in the first week.
Yet, everyone knows, the road is long and the way is hard over the next 26 weeks.
Wandered into the Front Bar at The Local on Monday morning dressed in a Wests Tigers polo top [just to show solidarity] and found The Philosopher in his usual corner, enjoying this week's favoured tipple, a plain old fashioned Screwdriver.
On seeing me, he unusually rose to his feet and poked me right on the club logo on my chest with the forefinger of his bony hand and said "Goodluck Jonathon".
With no apologies to the President of Nigeria...

GOLD COAST TITANS 18. Tries: Roberts (2), James. Goals: Sezer (3).
WESTS TIGERS 19. Tries: Richards (2), Tedesco. Goals: Richards (3). Field Goals: Richards (1).
At Gold Coast Stadium, Robina.
Crowd: 14,319.

See you soon Chrispy

Vale Christopher Paul Nalletamby.
7th May 1968-12th February 2015.

Friend.
Eccentric.
Raconteur
Cricketer.

One of a kind.

We'll miss you Captain.

treated like offal

My Fellow Bewilderee's,

It's very distressing when you hear a little birdie singing that MJ Clarke and The Board have fallen out.
You might as well make a serrano ham out of it.
It just begs the question, doesn't it?
Why?
It's difficult to believe, as some would have it, that Pup has gone out of his way to piss off everyone that matters in the last month or so.
Difficult.
Why is the Australian Captain being hounded out of the game?
Please, please, does anyone have a credible explanation?
Here's a bloke, who after a slow and sloppy start to his career on and off the field all those years ago, went on to Captain his country most admirably in how many goddam test matches, scored a stack of tons that will go down in fookin' history and will be remembered long after he's gone, averages 50+ and made a million runs to boot.
The Stats Guru has twisted his hair into dreadlocks while pondering the conundrum and then pulled them all out in the ensuing imbroglio.
Sure, Smiffy is the next Captain, he knows it, everbody knows...
SPD Smith is the skipper with "the form guide in his back pocket" while Pup does tend to ride his high horse, to which he is entitled, surely?
What's the diff?
Just ask that consumate arsehole, Bradman, he'll tell you.
Is Michael's private life still being held against him?
Has anyone got any pictures of him lately?
By all accounts he's a happily married man who should get out more.
Or, and here's the rub, are they telling him "yr old, yr crippled, yr tired, and you really should retire gracefully at age 33. Crikey. You made a hundred in yr last test match. Isn't that a good enough farewell for you?"
It's got me beat.
Apart from being injury prone, what has MJ Clarke done wrong in the last little while?
Didn't Clarkey display an uncommon diginity around the Phillip Hughes saga, behaving in an absolutely impeccable manner throughout?
And, it seems, he gets no credit for it, even as they try to push him out the back door with not so much as a sausage.
If you were being treated like offal, you'd be upset, as well.
All for a pissy one-day tournament, for gawd's sake.
The Board made the fatal mistake of putting a date - Feb 21 - in the diary.
Certainly hope they've got the full face masks and eye protectors in the office.
They'll need them for when the merde hits the windmill that day; nothing surer.
Light the blue touch paper and stand well clear.

the complete kit of hand tools

Artisans,

At the Sydney Test match this year, they had a few Indian Chappies out of the back of The Members near the nets, making cricket bats.
The full workshop inside a small tent.
All the motors and lathes and grinders, and the complete kit of hand tools, planes, fine shavers, little chisels, frightening swords, Ghurka knives, that sort of thing.
Channel Nine filmed MJ Clarke down there at what looked like a bit of a distance with poor sound; don't know if it was a hastily cobbled together ruse, or if it was something in passing and he really didn't know the camera was there.
Probably the former.
In any case, Pup, dressed in an immaculately cut blue suit and tie that looked Italian, so fitted him like a glove, was chatting to one of the bat makers and doing this machine gun rapid stream of conciousness thing while gesticulating:
"Now look, see here? This is what I want. [points out with thumb and forefinger that the bat can't be anymore than four-and-a-quarter inches wide]. That's all good up and down there, but I like the shoulders a bit lower than that, and they have to be shaved off there, curved off a longer than usual bat handle, you know what I mean? and here, I'm a right hander, so I need the right hand edge here to be shaved in a little in comparison to the left edge, and here, see on the spine of the bat [turns the bat over and turns it upside down], what I need is all the weight of the bat, right here, just get it all up in here".
From time to time the Indian Chappie would interject with "no Sir! yes Sir! three bags full Sir!"
Clarkey, as always, was looking for the "sweet spot".
Later in the match, after Warner had lent one of his favourite bats to Harris to go the tonk, all the old blokes in the telly commentary said "why on earth would you lend your favourite bat to someone else?".
Obviously Pup knew different "Davey couldn't care. He always has two or three on the go, because he doesn't want to get too comfortable with one, or have a favourite bat, in case it breaks"
Smiffy must be thinking the fairytale honeymoon can't be true.
He would've never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would score four first innings tons on the trot batting at four or five, let alone three of them as a new skipper, to stand alone as the first and only to do so.
Never mind the six-lane highways they were scored on, lovingly prepared, as they were, by friendly curators.
Not his fault - thanks for coming!
Some might quibble with the inexperienced tactics and field placings on the last day in Sydney, but hey, the bloke's young and new to the leadership caper.
2-0 will do.
He can only go on what he's been shown and told.
All the while the fielding coach - surely they'd have one - would've be driven mad by the number of dropped catches.
He's probably in the lunatic asylum drugged out of his mind dreaming that if only they'd just held them all, they would have gone 4-0 up, easy.
You know what they say about catches and winning matches.
As always, what could of have been, and all bets off.
The Stats Guru has had the abacus whirring for a while now, and even he can't keep up with the records, so much so he slumped exhausted in his beanbag and sighed "Oh, Joisus! A lot of blokes went large"
Wandered into the Front Bar at The Local on Saturday afternoon and found the Brown Bros carrying on in a grand fashion; some of them were even barracking for the Strayans.
Most unusual.
Asked them why?
They pointed out their mob of Kiwis had just beaten Ceylon 2-0 while no one was noticing, and all the bats went large..."see you next year, eh? bru!"
Couldn't refuse a middie out of their jugs of beer; and they know their cricket.
Everyone's a winner, baby...

four captains on the Gravy train

Gourmands,

Did note that Pup was used sparingly on the Channel Nine Commentary Team, in his television debut.
You'd imagine that it'd be a bit difficult, as a current player allegedly in rehab, to commentate on other current players, so he was used as some kind of analyst - there's no doubt MJ Clarke has a large cricket brain, and he has learned to speak media speak very well.
The bloke has probably got a future in it.
Found myself spending whole days, weeks, months, nay years, as a cub sports journalist lounging around sports grounds in my early professional career, and it wasn't very hard.
Far from it.
Pup will soon work out that it's an easy living.
Discovered from the get go, much to my astonishment, that a free lunch at someone else's expense was pretty much available in some part of the ground, no matter what ground, or what game was being played.
And it was tip top.
It had a name.
The Gravy Train.
Toot! Toot!
With the right sort of media pass you can get yourself into all sorts of places that you really shouldn't have been in, but hey, it was all off the record.
So not that too surprised or dismayed on hearing SK Warne on the telly recounting the fact that he was responsible for the creation of the spaghetti bolognaise pizza at his local pizza a bar just around the corner from his place.
You heard right, a pot of spag bol dumped on a "dirty rotten" pizza dough, doused in cheese and tomato sauce, and then baked, baked good.
Michael Clarke, who just happened to be in the same pizza bar with Shane this week, was sceptical at first, according to Warney "Pup said, 'oh come on Warney, you're giving me a gee up here'".
But no, Pup smashed a few slices of SB Pizza with gusto, and pronounced it good.
Mr Warne said they went down a treat with "a few frothies".
As far as rehab goes, Pup, that's the end of the section right there - yr mate has turned you over and dobbed you in.
In the meantime, back at the ball park baby, Smiffy is going from strength to strength, scoring a crucial century and a half and then some that gave him the whip hand throughout the course of the five days.
Some pundits say his handling of the last day didn't reflect very well on his captaincy, which is plainly bullshit, for mine.
With the mighty time-honoured Border-Gavaskar Trophy on the line, SPD Smith was perfectly within his rights to play for the draw, and win back the godawful thing, there and then.
It was only fitting that MS Dhoni fell on his sword and was then hoisted on his own petard.
Good on him for just admitting that he'd simply lost it.
No point in going on.
The BCCI gave him an offcial Au Reviour via press release, and thanked him for "bringing laurels to India".
They were probably refering to World Cups and stuff, not the series he'd just lost
The Stats Guru says there's not too many other blokes who've scored nine tons in ODI's and six centuries in Tests, going large and making all those hundreds at home, all of them, nowhere else.
The potty-mouthed Kohli Kiddie has some big millionaire shoes to fill.
MS likes motorcyles, and he owns a lot of them, so enjoy, and Goodluck Jonathon to you in retirement.
Getting a bit off topic here, so back to the free lunch.
Burgers, schnitty's, fried potatoes, buns, creamy salads, you could almost always find a roast [with baked ham a particular favourite], and you might get lucky with a beef stroganoff.
On the best buffet's you could get shellfish; in the run up to Sydney 2000 the prawns were the size of yr elbow and smashing a dozen oysters while no one was looking became an art form.
But that's another story.
Also seem to remember that if you knew where to look there would be a generally pretty good vindaloo of some description on offer, almost always with fried rice, strangely enough..
The next test match at Sydney will be a different bottle of mussels altogether compared to Melbourne.
Rather than appearing on the telly, MJ Clarke should just content himself with a long lunch in the SCG Members Dining Room, every day for nigh on a week.
Throw in a couple of breakfasts as well, and who would blame him?
He should do some stretching and limbering up before he tackles the entree and a cheeky glass of Chablis...