galling & irksome

Disgruntledee's,

It was only a matter of time until Balmain were robbed blind by the Bamfords.
Robbed blind.
Didn't take long, did it?
Only Round 4.
And it was all the more galling that it came on the weekend after the Boss Cocky of The Umpires had called on the hopeless jokes in his charge to stop blowing their whistles and just let the flow of the game go.
Advantage, field position, distance from goal are all premium in rugby league.
So what did the referee's do?
They blew the bejesus out of pea in the whistle for the slightest technical infraction of the rules or some petty imagined regulation that no one had ever read in the rule book...nit-picking of the highest order is the last thing you need in football umpires.
It seemed like every few minutes the Bamfords blew up the game and stopped the play dead in it's tracks, just when things were looking good for one or another of the two teams involved.
What the referee's don't understand is that rugby league is not a girlie game; by and large these are grown men who should be well left sort it out between themselves.
They don't need any help from the authorities.
Penalties should be reserved only for clear professional fouls - the home crowd will tell you when it's not on - while fighting, biting, headbutting, tripping, spitting, scrotum re-arrangement, chicken-winging, spear tackles, blatant clothesliner tackles, stomping etc should be send off offences - as they were back in the day.
Otherwise, the referees should just stay right out of it.
In the second half found myself launching off the lounge and screaming at the television "can you just put that farkin' whistle away!"
Most tellingly, it came into play against the Tigers late in the second half when fatigue and lack of match fitness and a big set of penalties for the most trivial of infringements let the Bulldogs in for two irksome tries to level up the scores, after Balmain had the better of the game all day.
Grrrr.
A 24-24 draw at full-time.
You would have easily come to the conclusion by now...that in my opinion... uneducated, blind, ignorant, useless Bamfords are the biggest blight on the game in the modern era.
Could get really riled up, but there's little point.
The extra time field goal was nothing to write home about...it wobbled and dobbled off the boot to just clear the cross-bar by an inch or two, and the second most hated team in the league beat Balmain, again.
The scoreboard never lies.
Still, on the sunny side, it's pleasing to see the Mighty Tiges can match it with the teams currently running 3rd and 4th on the ladder and come out of both games far from disgraced.
And Coach Squeak knows it, marking down those games in the "we'll learn from our losses" side of the Coach's Ledger.
By no means any call for panic in the early part of the season.

WESTS TIGERS 24. Tries: Tedsesco (2), Lovett, Brookes. Goals: Moses (4).
CANTERBURY-BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS 25. Tries: Rona (2), Lichaa, Morris. Goals: Hodkinson (4). Field Goals: Mbye (1).
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 20, 212.

The Barbers of Balmain

Brave Beserkers,

As you'd no doubt be aware, the merits of opposition teams usually don't rate much of a mention in these highly opinionated weekly diatribes...but there are exceptions.
You've got to hand it to South Sydney.
If you had all the tea in China, you couldn't buy a better team.
They have some huge mobile units in the forwards who put up a better defence than the Atlantic Wall: along with backs who have flair, speed, and prodigous talent to burn in attack.
Their set plays are some of the best in the league; when they pull one off it's more often than not undefendable.
Plus, the Rabbitohs players by and large have that rare ability to think strategically on their feet.
Somehow, no one knows how, their talent scouts are known for picking excellent players with big football brains.
Little wonder punters are clamouring at the doors of betting shops trying to get on Souths going back to back premierships.
Faced with that, the Tiges would be more than happy that they matched the Rabbitohs sheer physicality - and had some moves of their own, that never quite paid off in points.
Balmain could have come close to winning it, had it not been for the unforced error rate which Coach Squeak would have reminded his charges in no uncertain terms bordered on the unforgivable.
All in all, a top-notch game of football - all the skills on show; even a couple of customary stinks between these two sides, complete with some class-act hair-pulling.
Don't let anyone tell you there's no money to be made in hairdressing in Balmain.
They'd be lying.
The Barbers of Balmain have always been known for doing much sought after fancy hair-do's, and they charge like wounded bulls for the priviledge.
In the current climate, they must be making a small fortune off the football team alone.
It was the first time this season that the Tiges appeared on free-to-air television, and you couldn't help but be struck by the wonderful array of bouffants.
Aaron "The Smiling Assassin" Woods hasn't had a hair cut in years, just the odd trim to tidy up the split ends
He looks more and more like the Abominable Snowman, with his wild mop taped to his head with Elastoplast.
You'd run for your life if you ever came across something that in a dark alley at night.
Kevin Naigama sported a beehive, yep, you read right, a beehive, arranged with a match-day bird's nest, perched on top.
At one point during the second half, as he was trying to field a long-kicked, high-ball coming in over the top, Big Kev actually managed to catch the ball with his hair.
Never seen that!
The Boy Named Sue has a coffuire that makes him look for all the world like a Top-Knot Pigeon.
Dreadlocks are also a popular at the moment.
Two Poo has the best set; no doubt to look the part when he finds himself bonging on with his mates after hours.
Most of the old blokes on the team have perfectly sensible hair cuts, and just for the sake of stark contrast, Good Ol' Keefy Gallaway is entirely bald.
The Stats Guru did point out that the current Balmain first grade side looks very good on paper, tip-top in theory, and it's a classic mix of yoof and experience.
In the run-on side on Sunday, Balmain fielded seven players under the age of 23, while the rest of the team are hard-nut journeymen or veteran ol' timers in their 30's.
That's good...the children on the side need to be shown and told...the trap for young players is it looks simple, but to play it at the elite level sure aint easy.
Still, if they escape not having yet another season cruelled by injury and keep close to their best team on the paddock, they could go places.
You never know.

SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 20. Tries: Walker (2), Johnston, Inglis. Goals: Reynolds (2).
WESTS TIGERS 6. Tries: Farah. Goals: Richards (1).
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 23,211.

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.