"Always get a good QC"

Nostalgists,
May his name live long in infamy.
You can imagine my shock this morning upon being awoken from a deep slumber to learn that the Great Big Bad Barry Hall has been inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame.
Never, ever, in my wildest dreams, thought that the day would ever be seen.
He is now an officially sanctioned reformed recalcitrant
All his offences, sins and long record of bending, snapping, breaking and riding roughshod over the Rules of The Game must have been forgiven, or at least put to one side, because there is nothing surer, they will never be forgotten.
What a player!
Christ, could he break things!
Bloke's backs, joker's arms, even bowled over a Bamford or two.
He was very big, very bad, and very Barry.
When he came to the Swans after being forced out at St KIlda due to salary cap constraints, they thought they would be able to reform and tame him through the "Sydney System"; oh, how wrong they were.
No regard whatsoever for authority.
Super Coach Roos essentially came to regard him as "un-coachable".
For all his grand service, he was eventually pushed out of the Swans, also, and wound up playing the twilight of his career at the [now very ironically] Western Bulldogs, before finally seeing the writing on the wall.
Upon hearing the news of his surprise induction, the Stats Guru was on the phone first thing telling me he'd reached deep into the record books and found that for all the wonderful games Bazza played and all the six-pointers he booted, he was suspended for a full third of his playing career.
In other words, for every two games he played, he was rubbed out down at the Tribunal for one.
One course the nadir came when he had a "brain explosion" and king hit Brent Staker of the Weagles at Cathy Freeman Stadium for no other reason than he was also a serial pest; Brent went down like a sack of potatoes, and Barry went to the naughty corner for seven weeks.
Saw it with my own eyes [just]:
http://crazycraves.blogspot.com.au/2008/04/all-over-bar-shouting.html
It is the one thing in his long illustrious career that he truly regrets...it haunts him now because for Staker "people he doesn't even know will be reminding him of it, he has to live with that, I have to live with that"
By reports filtering in from the Colonies, where the induction ceremony was held, Baz also remarked that he should not have played in the Miracle Year's 2005 Grand Final, after a beating a striking rap; clocking a St Kilda player, ironically, in the prelim.
Got off on a technicality, only because he called for silk.
“It sounds funny, but there was a bit of a clause, we had a good QC. Always get a good QC. [ed note: Terry Forrest QC - now a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria]. The number one ticket holder at that stage got us a private jet, he wanted no fuss. Put us on a private jet. We got a limo from Essendon Airport, out the back of the tribunal, got off the charge, back in the limo — on the private jet back home, quite enjoyable.”
Unfortunately, Barry didn't remark on the quality of the Champagne on the return journey.
However, he was without doubt one of my very favourite players at the Swans during that era 2002-09 [you only have to enter "BBB Hall" in the search engine on this bloggy blog blog thingy to see]...had all the skills, could turn on a dime, outmuscle anyone, a master exponent of the hip'n'shoulder, a brutal tackler, enjoyed a snap shot through the big sticks as much as a 70 metre set shot; and, most importantly, crikey could he kick goals or what?...a lot of them...all 467 for Sydney in a career tally of 746 big ones [which "only" brings him in at 15th on the list of the all-time greatest goal-kickers].
Talent to burn, charisma to set fire to, and a prime example of why footballers should not be required to talk to the press...he could hardly string a sentence together in any interview after a game.
But he never quite got to the 300 games that automatically qualifies you for Life Membership of the AFL, whether they like it or not; "only" played in 289 matches...but, of course, he would have easily hit the magic number if he wasn't such a bad boy.
He, like everyone else, thought that there would never be any acknowledgement from the Powers That Be of his career as an out-and-out Football Star.
Now he has reached the Pantheon, he can reflect on the fact that he was never ever like other great players who will never be admitted to the Hall of Fame, because maybe they won a Browlow on drugs or something like that [no names, no pack drill].
Off the field, Barry was a complete gentleman, never got into any scandals.
All of the above said tho', he was very impressive, for mine, on the panel on the two-part Insight program on the SBS television dealing with mental illness in retired sports stars.
Hall struggled for a long, long time with clinical depression after finding himself "basically unemployable" when he gave the game away.
A very brief career in boxing did him no good, as did running around with a suburban footy team at training - he could just not see a way forward; lost in space.
However, much to his credit and those around him, he sought professional help, found a degree of peace, got married, and is now a recently minted father at the age of 40.
All power to yr oars, Bazza.
Now, you are an all-time giant of the footy caper.
Bravo!
For all your human frailties, you will be long remembered as one of the genuine, true characters of the game.
And it's such a shame; there are not many of them left now, in this day and age of a homogenized sporting world.

halfway through to September

Long Sufferers,

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

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

28 behinds

Fortune tellers,

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

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

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

Fellow flabberghastee's,

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

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



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

Worth repeating...
What would Barassi do?

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

the worst possible football nightmare

Victims of cruel and unusual punishment,

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

what would Barassi do?

Long-suffering Club Loyalists,

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


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


Craves.

Cricket and the Law - "The Cake Code"

Bush Lawyers,

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


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

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