ceremonial burning of a stolen Crows scarf

Innocent bystanders,

Did note that after Richmond's win in the Grand Final, coach Damien Hardwick was asked whether he would be taking The Boys down to Swan St, Richmond, to join club die-hards in the wild celebrations.
It'd been a long time.
"No fuckin' way!" he replied "it'd be far too dangerous down there".
One of the commentators on the television said out of the blue soon after half time as if he'd had some kind of epiphany "Oh My God! You can only imagine what it's going to be like in Richmond tonight! I'd hate to think how many pubs there are in Richmond, and they're all old school pubs too!"
And so it came to pass.
Tigers fans have never been known for their couthness in the ranks of AFL club supporters; it's not a very savoury part of Melbourne let's face it, and so there was no end of unconscionable conduct going on.
Including this...enough to engender deep stomach churning disgust and sheer horror among any self-respecting Adelaide fan - a ceremonial burning of a stolen Crows scarf, complete with obscene soundtrack:

http://www.sportingnews.com/au/afl/news/watch-richmond-tigers-burn-adelaide-crows-scarf-swan-st-afl-grand-final-triumph/nxv9x8znj69619y89gjwcc616

That's low.
We can burn what we like up here in the Emerald City, but don't they know that there's laws against that sort of thing in the Colonies?
Adelaide, exactly like the Swans last year, were badly affected by hearing the voices singing..."to lose, the unloseable game"...too many times.
Backed in as un-backable favourites, the players had tossed and turned in their beds all week playing the game over and over in their minds before it started to seep into their dreams, and when that happens, you know yr in deep doggy-doo-doo-voodoo.
Just ask the Swans, they'll tell you; the thought of 2014 reared its ugly head again.
At least the Crows weren't given a ten-goal football lesson, the raging red-hot certainties this year only went down by eight,
Never mind that Adelaide were simply outfoxed and outplayed by a very well coached team that didn't set the world on fire on paper, but did the job on the day.
Again, just like Sydney last year, it was simply a matter of who wanted The Flag the most.
A 37 year gap between drinks beats a 19 year interval since the last Premiership.
Any delirious Richmond fan who'd put down a case or two of 1980 Grange or Château Lafite to crack open next time they won the Premiership would find that it might be seriously sensational drinking this week, but you'd have to doubt that many Tigers fans would have extended to that.
Any cheap piss they did cellar would be well off by now, vinegar maybe even, it's been that long.
The fact of the matter is that Adelaide were carrying no fewer than eleven passengers who'd been shut down by Richmond - Adelaide's forwards were very effectively neutralised - and the Crows were spanked, and spanked good, held goal-less in the second quarter - albeit with a little help from the dirty cheatin' Umpires - bloody Bamfords! Crows fans cried.
But the ship was already listing by half time, and with everything on the line and all to play for, it came down to the Championship Quarter, as it always does in virtually every game.
Richmond rolled Adelaide over and they copped a gigantic tusk up the runter; the Tigers winning the Champo five goals to one and the strains of the Fat Lady singing on the Punt Road could be heard over the roar of the crowd at the cricket ground.
The last quarter was just a football exhibition - it was game over, goodnight nurse, not even close.
In any case, by rights, it should have been South Melbourne who were whumping the Crows in the Grand Final, but that's venturing off to Fantasy Land there.
You have to begrudgingly admire a bloke who looks for all the world like an inner-suburban thug in D.Martin who won the Chas, the Normie, and The Flag all in the same week.
Not too many have done that before, and - bugger the record books - it certainly makes for some stellar contributions to the gaudy trophy cabinet behind in the bar in Dusty's man cave at home.
As usual, everyone north of the River Murray couldn't give a blue root about the AFL Grand Final, and the NRL Grand final between Melbourne [Melbourne? WTF are Melbourne doing in the Sydney rugby league Grand Final?] and North Queensland [which wasn't sold out for good reason] was little better.
So, with no Sydney teams in either Big One, the 'care factor' was on the low side...it was a very quiet long weekend in this town.
Swans loyalists had had their "rue the day" moment in the 2nd Semi-Final, and the Mighty Balmain Tigers' run was over well before they narrowly avoided the Wooden Spoon to finish 14th at end of the regular season.
Not another winter of discontent.
So, in order not to bore you and shit you to tears for months on end again next year - on my solemn promise - there is no way in this wonderful wide world that football of any code will interest me in any way whatsoever from now on.
Won't give a stuff about season 2018...won't hear a word of it...you can bet on it...a certainty...
Promise.

AFL Grand Final 2017

ADELAIDE: 4.2, 4.7, 5.10, 8.12 (60). Goals. Sloane 2, Walker 2, Betts, Greenwood, B. Crouch, Cameron.
RICHMOND: 2.3 , 6.4, 11.8, 16.12 (108). Goals: Graham 3, Townsend 2, Martin 2, Riewoldt 2, Caddy, Houli, Grigg, Lambert, Castagna, Prestia, Butler.
At Melbourne Cricket Groud.
Crowd: 100,021.

NRL Grand Final 2017

MELBOURNE STORM 34. Tries: Addo-Carr (2), Kaufusi, Slater, Finucane, Scott. Goals: Smith (5).
NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 6. Tries: Martin. Goals: Lowe (1).
At Sydney Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 79,722

"looked a bit buggered"

Devastatee's,

Even for the eternal pessimist, it was so easy to forget the time back then when 'all hope was lost'.
Sydney were gone - gorn for all money - after Round 6 of the regular season.
They were completely cactus in anyone's language.
Toast.
No team had ever come back after straight losses to Port, Dogs, Pies, Weagles, GWS, and Carlton to make the Top 8.
It was season over right there and then with some tough teams still to come.
But then...
For months on end, false hope was engendered by winning 15 of their next 17 matches, and against all odds they did make the finals, as undoubtedly the 'form' team of the comp.
The Bush Telegraph in the corner of the loungeroom chattered into life just after half time in the semi-final; ripped off the tickertape to find it was a message from My Spy at The Ground.
"Season over. The Banjo is full of penny bungers and it's on the fire. One, just one, lesson learnt. Never lose six on the trot. Ever"
Had a bad feeling in my water about the Geelong game pretty early on, on match day.
Had to perform an enormous nervous shit straight after coffee, just for a start off.
Dangermouse, Selwood, Hawkins, Motlop etc etc; Geelong'd been disgraced the week before by Richmond - beware the wounded Cats, that sort of thing.
It was made worse, this bad feeling, by the fact that all the so-called pundits had been tipping a saloon passage for the Swans through to the Prelim against Adelbrain, also away, in a "Promoter's Dream".
But, Coach General C.Scott had other ideas, and he must have laboriously gone through the video tapes of the Swans two losses to Hawthorn frame-by-frame, to have a very good lookie at what they did right.
[Saw the second loss to the Hawks on the international satellite television while in Port Vila, and thought to myself "mmm, there's a few chinks in the armour there", but convinced myself that it was only the kava talking.]
So, Scott employed the very same tactics, and also told his players to suck in the Umpires with a few judicious "dives" in front of goal, and suck the Swans into putting all their eggs into one basket trying to shut down the Boogey Man Geelong Dangermen, leaving the Cats with loose men everywhere.
Worried out it they were, and in any case it was pretty clear that Sydney had played the match too many times in their heads already.
It was plain for all to see that Plan A wasn't working from fairly early on, and SC Horse was also sucked in by not employing Plan B and then Plan C, before it was way too late.
Never mind that the Swans just didn't turn up to play.
Still gurgling and frothing at the mouth over that particular one.
It's not as if they put on a jolly good show and made a close run of things to go down gallant in defeat by a handful of points.
They were thrashed senseless, after their previous biggest loss of the season was in Round 1, by five goals.
It always begs the unfathomable and unanswerable question - WHY NOW?
It reminded me very much of the '14 Grand Final, having just flown in on the morning of the match from Paris via a couple of days in Saigon having missed the entire finals series but looking forward to an easy Premiership win, only to see them taken apart by their nemesis, the bloody Hawks, again.
Found myself asleep on the lounge at half-time through jet-lag and awoke to find the Swans had been done like a dinner in a ten-goal football lesson.
The similarities were plain eerie.
Six goals down at the main break again and also whipsawed by ten goals at the finish, and, just quietly, the Swans score of 5.9 [39] was their lowest, in any game, in 20 years...twenty years!
The Stats Guru also found it his melancholy duty to report, after whirring the beads on his abacus in a desultory fashion, that it was the South Melbourne's lowest score in a finals match in a century.
The Swans kicked 3.17 [35] in the semi-final against Collingwood in 1917, for chrissake.
Thanks Guru, didn't need to know that.
There's nothing worse than ending up as burnt toast in The Big One, so perhaps, just perhaps, it was better to be found out in a semi-final rather than on That One Day in September, when losing becomes excruciatingly unbearably painful.
Geelong had not lost a game all season after leading at quarter time; guessing that that's why they finished second on the ladder.
Just goes to show yet again the critical importance of finishing in the top 4 and getting the second bite at the juicy cherry; the Cats had already had their 'off day', but they lived to fight another...in quick succession.
Longmire, after giving his charges an almighty gobful at quarter-time, and an even bigger rocket up the runter at half-time, had pretty much given up on them mid-way through the Championship Quarter, and by the final stanza the television camera's showed him beginning to nod off in the Coach's Box - he'd had enough - there was nothing he could about it.
After pulling out all the hair that he had left on his bonce, SC Horse fronted the press on interview after the debacle and simply said "Our blokes looked a bit buggered tonight, to be honest".
A bit buggered?
It didn't auger well from the off, when Lance Franklin appeared on the ground with a pure morphine poultice strapped to his corked thigh; clearly injured - would not have played but for the fact it was a semi-final - so it was an open invitation to the Cats, they just put two rotating tags on him and squashed him flat...he was two or three yards too slow, all day.
No Buddy goals, no cigar.
The Swans were carrying nine passengers - they know who they are - who had less than a dozen touches each.
In an 18-man boat, you can't get very far with that many crew doing nothing on the oars.
Just as a random sample, Sinclair went from absolutely huge one week, to touching the ball but twice the next.
He had two blokes and the Bamfords on his back, all day.
SC Horse then went on to concede the bleeding obvious "We didn't really fire a shot".
Not at a goal a quarter after quarter time, they didn't.
Nope.
It was a very good thing that betting on football is not really my thing, as you wouldn't want to be the punter who'd had $100,000 on the Swans straight out at $1.38.
A certainty gone badly awry, and the bookies would have been laughing all the way to the Tattersalls Club.
And it's a shame that Old Man Jarrad "Odd Head" McVeigh went out a loser on being admitted as an AFL Life Member by playing in his 300th game, but as JPK pointed out post-match "it's season over and we have a long six months ahead of us".
Don't we all, Josh?
2017 is gorn.
All that we now have left to cling to is to wish the Greater Western Sydney Pygmies the best of British luck in their quest for an inaugural Grand Final berth.
They are an excellent team now, and good on them if they make it, but even after taking full advantage of super generous draft concessions and the reported $25M+ cash the AFL has tipped into the vast pit that is the "second Sydney experiment", they still can only attract the lowest AFL/VFL finals crowd [14,865] since World War One...at the Sydney Showground...their home ground.
No-one there to hear the Fat Lady sing.
Ouch.
Aerial Ping Pong still has a long way to go in the heartland of rugby league in Sydney's Armpit, and let's face it, it will never be the dominant winter sport on this side of the island.
Maybe us fool Swans supporters, as The Professor obliquely suggested, have wasted far too much time and money on trying the re-live the "Miracle Year" of '05; what's the point of trying to be better than perfect?
That's a long time ago now, and this is an eternal pessimist speaking.
Missed.
Bugger It.

AFL 2nd Semi-Final 2017

GEELONG: 3.0, 9.4, 13.4, 15.8 (98). Goals: Dangerfield 4, Menzel 2, Menegola 2, Duncan 2, Stanley, Smith, Motlop, Hawkins, Blicavs
SYDNEY: 2.2, 3.4, 4.9, 5.9 (39). Goals: Jack, McVeigh, Mills, Papley, Reid.
At Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 55,529.

Mungo Jerry comes to the SCG

Ecstaticists,

While die-hard supporters of other, mediocre, clubs may well fervently disagree, isn't it great to see the Swans on fire at the pointy end of the season?
An exploding fireball rolls across the field destroying all the Bombers before they could even get off the ground.
Caught by surprise, out-witted, out-classed, and then fully out-played.
JPK leads the team by example, earning the Best on Ground award.
Sinclair knew when he kicked his third goal, with a wink of the eye to the bloke who delivered him the ball, that he has at last cemented his place in the side as Tipsy "fails to fire" in the NEAFL Grand Final [Sydney somehow lost to Brisbane by three points. Go figure. Lessons to be leart there. And just how much are they paying Kurt to play in reserve grade?]
Heeney The Cardiff Zucchini gets a broken nose, but plays on regardless, going beyond the pain barrier.
Parker, in his 150th game, ripped the heart out of Essendon's mid-field, while Jones, Mills and Grundy locked down the backline with great effect.
Whoever said Dean Towers can't play is lying.
But what stood out, for mine, was the spectacular steady marking from the talls, and the accuracy of the smalls.
The Swans hardly dropped a ball all day.
Champagne football.
After all, Strayan Rules isn't rocket science...the team that can cleanly catch the ball and kick straight, usually wins.
And everybody talkin' 'bout Lance Franklin, and what a superb big game players he is.
And how's Buddy's form, just quietly?
Kicks a bag of ten goals in the last game of the regular season, then in the first final, cops a "bad corky" on his non-kicking leg in his first tackle of the game, shakes it off and gets around a bit proppy in the first quarter, then comes out and kicks four goals in the second stanza just to keep the cork warm, spends the Championship Quarter on the stationary bicycle with a big smile on his face humming the old Mungo Jerry toon "just riding along on my pushbike, honey", and then SC Horse decides that he's not required at all in the final quarter, and doesn't call on him, given the issue was by then well beyond doubt, and he needed to save his legs.
Did like Buddy on interview on the crystal bucket before the game when he said "the thing I have enjoyed most this season is teaching the young forwards I'm playing with at the moment how to play the game mentally".
L.Franklin, of all blokes, knows the fundamental importance of this, and as he openly admits - 2015 is "well documented" - he learnt the hard way.
Nothing can replace being taught by experts.
The Fat Lady started singing when the Swans had a ten goal lead at half time.
Sydney piled on 10 goals to register their biggest quarter of the season, and as the Stats Guru was quick to point out, it was also the club’s equal best second term ever... ever...in the entire history of the South Melbun/Sydney Football club.
Yet more firsts.
And doesn't Sydney like a winner?
The biggest crowd seen at HQ for a Rules match in 20 years [admittedly the ground has been re-developed since then, with total capacity now officially published as 48,601].
Sydneysiders get really interested when their team starts handing out thumpings.
None of this low scoring defensive rubbish seen in the first two Qualifying Finals.
[In the other Eliminator, Port, btw, were not hard done by, they only had themselves to blame for not being able to put the Weagles away].
It's always noice after the opening finals weekend when two teams are eliminated from the off... because things start to become so much clearer...and, of course, there are now only three possible combinations of teams that can play in the Grand Final:
1. Sydney Swans v Richmond Tigers.
2. Sydney Swans v GWS Pygmies.
3. Sydney Swans v West Coast Weagles.
Probably in that order.
Admittedly, Sydney has a lot of hoeing to do before then - the way will be long and the road will be hard - having to tackle the Deadly Hume as the team bus makes it's way down to the MCG this weekend so they can whip-saw the 2nd placed out-of-form Geelong Cats, before catching the overnight Overland Express train to Adelaide Oval to have the Minor Premiers, the Pride of South Australia, like kippers on toast for breakfast in front of their home crowd in a football exhibition, to qualify for the season decider.
Phew...
Some good training, there, but.
And they have to do it in a hurry.
Of course, the Swans Marketing Dept have hedged their bets and put out limited-edition merch in the form of "Defy The Odds" scarves in the hope of quick sales in case it all goes belly-up, and you could be forgiven for thinking that we might be getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, nay, preaching to the converted, but Sydney has to beat 1st and 2nd on the ladder, away, after all [when they do that - they might as well just give them the Premiership Cup without bothering to play on that One Day in September], but eh, bru, miracles have already happened; making the finals at all after a 0-6 start to the season - cop that, never happened before in 121 years, and is unlikely to ever happen again.
Still Super Coach Longmire must be a lay-down-misère for 2017 Coach of The Year, as he's made his usual vow of never being caught on camera smiling during the finals, indeed, looking extremely worried throughout, and while he was required to say in his post-match press conference, predictably, that he is taking it one match at a time, what he's really doing is a plottin' and a schemin' for The Atonement; he wants this flag, and wants it real bad.
With the losers now forgotten from here on in, SC Horse gave absolutely nothing away:

It's business time...

SYDNEY: 3.2, 13.5, 17.5, 19.7 (121). Goals: Franklin 4, Towers 3, Sinclair 3, Kennedy 2, Rohan 2, Heeney 2, Papley, Jack, Lloyd.
ESSENDON: 1.3, 3.4, 5.8, 8.8 (56). Goals: Daniher 3, Begley 2, Myers, Fantasia, Heppell.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 46,323. [Ground record for AFL match].

mad monday

Long-sufferers,
So, a 12th fruitless season comes to an end, and Mad Monday finally arrives.
At least we can now put on women's clothing and drink heavily.
Said it before, say it again...jeez...Balmain are a hard team to follow.
It's exhausting when you are in a death fight with Newcastle for months on end to avoid the Wooden Spoon, which [wipe of brow] they did, and actually leapt into 14th on the table on percentage in a 16 team comp, after winning the last game of the season
However, when you are just about the first team of the year to have no hope of making the top eight, that makes it tough.
Seven wins in a 24 game season is a long time between drinks in a bitter winter.
And it makes it even worse when quite a few of the really important games were lost by small margins, never mind finishing near the bottom of the ladder...there aren't even any draft picks as compensation as there is no draft in the rugby league...money does the talkin'.
Just two finals appearances in the last 12 seasons.
None in the last six.
The Stats Guru also reckons that in a 13-a-side game, the Tiges fielded no less than 29 players in first-grade this year.
Not exactly a "settled team".
The appalling litany of hideous woe goes on.
It still hasn't ceased to amaze me how a team can look a million dollars on paper for years, and still can't get anywhere with it.
The worst team money can buy?
Surely not.
It seemed the season just lurched from one disaster to another - as usual.
As everyone knows, the season got off to a magnificent auspicious start, with the dysfunctional board finally sacking coach Squeak Taylor at long long long last for being a fool to himself and a burden on the football community, not to mention just being a very difficult turd.
Ivan "Clearly It's" Cleary is plucked out of obscurity to coach, on a not great record viz-a-viz the ol' win/loss track record - and then does nothing at all for the rest of the year to improve it.
Then the club's three best players walk.
Moses throws the Tablets down from the Mount in a hissy fit and worms his way out of the rest of his contract and goes to Parramatta, where he finds a purple patch helping the Eels into the Top 4 for the first time in eons, so he now has a reasonable chance at berth in the Grand Final [that everybody knows will be won by the Storm].
The best full-back in the known world, James Tedesco, then immediately signs on the dotted line for a King's Ransom at Eastern Suburbs, but finds his Balmain contract is as water tight as Huon pine, and he has to play on in the Black and Gold for the rest of the year, but to his credit, has a very good season under trying circumstances to prove he is worth every cent that the Roosters can pay him.
Good luck to him, he wants to win a Premiership too, and why not?
Anyone would pay Teddy big money, and Easts finished second on the ladder this year without him - who knows what they'll do next year with him.
Chances are he'd be waiting all career at Leichhardt, ending up without so much as a sausage.
Captain Woodsy links up with the evil Canterbury-Bankstown mob, plays on at Balmain, but only gets about 20 mins game time in the State of Origin's, and loses interest in club football as the season wears on, and then finds karma could come back to bite him on the arse.
Seems while he has a contract at the 'Dogs, Woody's deal is yet to be signed off at League HQ until they have had a very good look at Canterbury's salary cap arrangements, and if the cards fall the wrong way, Woodsy might not be able to fit in under the cap at his current price and Clearly It's Cleary has made it clear "we are not going to retain Woods in a fire sale. There is no offer on the table..."
Aaron's plaintive cry of "I would never have left if I knew Cleary was coming" has obviously fallen on stone deaf ears.
Ah...rugby league - a brutal game on the field and a cruel one off the park - that's why we love it!
And there's never any shortage of palace intrigue, rumour and innuendo, unconscionable conduct and sheer bastardry.
Won't even mention the time mid-season when some players were arrested on "affray" charges after an all-in brawl in some seedy bar spilled over onto the Balmain Road, and spent overnight in the local lock-up to get sober.
A real traffic-stopper.
Only Luke Brooks of "the big four" remains for 2018, but while there's no doubt he's 'the goods' - he's had an ordinary '17 struggling with chronic niggles.
Cleary, at least, has brought in a few reasonably good journeymen on a couple of matchday beers and a cut lunch contracts and blooded a some promising youngsters, but hey - where's the quality full-back, five-eighth, whole pack of forwards, not to mention a new Captain for '18?
There are a couple of new Islander boys who are built like brick shit houses - really athletic men mountains who can play - they'll go far, you'd think.
The 18-year-old debutant Moses Suli, and the imported Tuimoala "The LoLo" Lolohea come to mind.
It's the way the game is going anyway; the side with the biggest artillery usually wins.
Then the whole damn caper comes full circle with the announcement that the Prodigal Son, The Great Benji Marshall, will make a return to the club next year in only god knows what sort of capacity at the real arse end of his career, at age 32.
Been warming a bench somewhere while he's been away.
He should never have left anyway, but that's another long, tawdry story you can read elsewhere in this thingy.
Only half jokingly, Benj says he's coming back on board to play "18th man".
And in a very bizarre twist, Benji's brother, 21-year-old Jeremy Marshall-King made his NRL debut for the Tiges in the final game of the year.
My head is spinning.
Among the flaming wreckage of the season - special, notable and honourable mention should be made of Chris Lawrence who struck me as such a "Try Scoring Freak" early on in his career in the centres, that it became his middle name.
The quintessential club man goes and equals Benji Marshall's all-time try scoring record for the Balmain/Wests Tigers joint venture.
Club Life Member, 209 games, 76 tries, in an 11 year career - turns 30 next year, and is newly contracted for another two seasons to end his illustrious career in the second row.
A dead-set genuine champion who never gets the credit that is his due, which may have something to do with his nick name "Rowdy"; he'd rather break yr back and tear yr throat out than look at you on the field, but he is the meekest, mildest-mannered kind of regular guy you could ever meet by all reports; the compleat gentleman, off the paddock.
Something every footballer should aspire to; sheer class, modesty...there are more than enough show ponies in the game as it is.
But as they say in The Classics - "there's always next year" - even though the prospects for '18 don't augur that well.
Supported this mob through thick and thin for more than 30 years now [for three grand finals and one premiership]; you do that, and you learn all there is to learn about hope.
Take it up the middle, and scream down the blindside.
Go you Mighty Tiiiiges!

The very last match played in the NRL regular season 2017 - Game No. 192.

WESTS TIGERS 28. Tries: Naiqama (2), Lolohea, Marsters, Nofoaluma. Goals: Lolohea (4).
NEW ZEALAND WARRIORS 16. Tries: Kata, Tuivasa-Sheck, Nicoll-Klokstad. Goals: Luke (2).
At Leichhardt Oval.
Crowd: 10,231.

Shock! Horror!

Loyalists,
Oh no!
Shock! Horror!
A whole weekend without any football?
In Melbourne?
Have they gone mad?
The good burghers of the Athens of the South will be beside themselves with absolutely nothing to do, as the AFL in its infinite wisdom again deciding to take the weekend off ahead of the finals.
There are Veteran's and Ladies matches scheduled to try and fill the gap, but it's not the same.
OK, it' been a long season for the players -- the poor things - but you'd expect that, at peak match fitness, they would be itching to rip into each other in the race for The Flag, while the fans are left bereft.
It's beyond me.
Still, Melburnians better get used to it, with only two Melbun teams in the top eight - there's two from Sydney, two from Adelaide, and one from the Golden West, while Geelong is certainly not in Melbourne by any stretch of the imagination.
Tell that to anyone down Corio Bay way, and they'll deck you.
It really is a minor miracle that the Swans are in the top 8, after losing their first six games of the season.
It didn't take long for the Stats Guru to work out that no team has ever achieved the feat in the 23 year history the top eight finals system.
And who cares that its been almost 20 years [Crows, 1998] since a team has come from outside the top four to win the Premiership?
If anyone can do it from sixth, Sydney can, after winning 14 or their last 16 games of the regular season.
As the Guru points out - if they had only won those two stupid games against Hawthorn, where they lost by a bloody point, and then a single goal - Sydney would have won the Minor Premiership.
In the back half of the season, the Swans beat all of the teams who finished in the top four -- so, surely, with Super Coach Horse calling the shots - they fear no one.
No one at all.
So, let's have a brief look at these jokers in the top 8, and their chances of thieving the Big One off the Swans.

1. Adelaide (9/4). Will probably win it, have the best team, but also a long history of shooting themselves in the foot, to wit, losing last game of the regular season to West Coast. The Curse of the Minor Premiership to contend with. Go close.
2. Geelong (5/1). The Bogey Man team. No-one likes playing the Cats, with good reason. Top chance if the cards fall the right way for them.
3. Richmond (5/1). Enigma. How did they finish 3rd? Who knows? They must have had a dream draw while no-one was looking. Likely to go out early, or could surprise, again.
4. GWS (4/1). Has the team to do it, but must return to early season form. Less than ideal warm up for finals losing last two games of regular season. Hankering for this. Top chance.
5. Port Adelaide (12/1). Dark horse. Been lurking around the top eight all year, and an outside chance of saluting the judges at good odds.
6. Sydney (4/1) In form team of the comp, sweeping all before them, except for one hoodoo side. Playing Champagne football at the pointy end of the season. Should be outright second favourite. Will go deep into September.
7. Essendon (40/1). Pretenders. Little hope.
8. West Coast (50/1). Very lucky to be in the finals at all, squeezing into the top eight on a 0.08% differential on for and against. No hope.

And who knew that L.Franklin would kick a bag in one of the best performances of his stellar career in the final match of the minor round?
Well the player and the coach did, from the outset, for mine
No one has kicked ten goals in a game in two years, and the highlight reel has been sent straight around to the National Film and Sound Archives.
My reading of it is it was all a well laid plan involving a bit of quid pro quo between Buddy and SC Horse.
Longmire might have said to him "now look Buddy, we'll make this Carlton mob toast, so what I want you to do is play like an old-school full-forward, don't stray out of the goal square or your pocket, and I'll get the mid-field to put it on yr chest so you can kick as many as you like and win a fourth Coleman Medal, but in return, I want you to win the Premiership for me".
Buddy would have jumped at the chance.
[It's not like the olden days, when proper full-fowards used to boot 100 goals a season, e.g. Plugger did it for the Swans in '98 and Warwick Capper did the triple figures twice in '86 & '87].
A bit of bling around the neck and something else for the trophy cabinet never hurts, but Lance is looking for redemption and sweet revenge after being unable to play in the 2015 finals through illness that was no fault of his own, and he experienced the unspeakable cruelty of being ROBBED BLIND in last year's Grand Final against the Western Bulldogs, who this year have been exposed as the frauds that they always were, failing to make the top eight.
The Stats Guru says it's been eight years since the reigning premiers have not featured in the top eight.
At long last the Swans mid-field is on fire - they could afford to rest the Hannebery Kiddie and the Papley Pearl in the last game after they'd been bashed from pillar to post in the back half of the season.
It's always handy to have two ruckmen - everyone knows it's the last chance saloon for Tipsy, while Sinclair is one of the most under-rated players going 'round.
Remember, West Coast traded Sinclair for Lewis Jetta, who can hardly get a game.
Guess who got the best end of the pineapple out of that one?
With Odd Head McVeigh and Old Man Grundy in form - what they lack in a yard or three of pace they more than make up for with footy smarts, both having football brains the size of watermelons - the backline is even more impregnable.
Appointing The Great JPK as skipper was a masterstroke, while the Coach's Pet, the Goal Kicker for North Adelaide in the form of Will Hayward can have just three touches in the game and score three goals, or something or another like that.
It's in his contract.
You have to be very very sorely tempted to take the 4/1 being offered about Sydney.
What's not to like?
So, relax, get mellow, knocked out, copastatic, this weekend - there's nothing else to do - and then we'll see what happens, eh?
Bring it on.

SYDNEY: 3.4, 6.7, 13.10, 21.12 (138). Goals: Franklin 10, Hayward 3, Rohan 3, Tippett, Reid, Kennedy, Heeney, Newman.
CARLTON: 1.0, 5.1, 8.4, 8.9 (57). Goals: Boekhorst 3, Curnow 2, Kruezer, Casboult, Pickett.
At Sydney Cricket Ground.
Crowd: 38,965.

Cheer, Cheer.

the most enormous reserves bench on the face of this earth

Football sides are meant to be made up of 18 players with a few reserves on the bench, right?
So what is wrong with the above photo?
Had the good fortune to be at the annual Strayan Rules Reclink Community Cup grudge match at Henson Park, Marrickville, between the Sailors and Whalers, on a picture-postcard perfect late winter's day in the Emerald City last weekend.
The Musicians had the team called the Sydney Whalers, who took on the shonks in the Media who had the moniker of the Sydney Sailors.
In the five previous editions of the match, the Muso's had never won; outsmarted, outmaneuvered and played like a fiddle by those shifty, shady types in the meejah.
There's always an artistic argument about who gets the most airplay and which band or that gets high rotation etc etc etc.
So, it was on.
A full, properly umpired, 18-a-side serious Strayan Rules football match of four full quarters, mixed-sex with local rules [i.e...the boyo's were not permitted to smash the gals in a tackle, but the ladies could take on a bloke - and there were some big tattooed bruisers among them, who took great delight in tackling and dumping hefty men into the turf - and when the ball was being contested by two players of the same sex, it was anything goes - and the most enormous reserves bench on the face of this earth], for both sides.
It was the second year in a row since happening upon this extraordinary thing, and found myself again supporting The Red and The White Sailors - same colours as the beloved Swans AND, of course, could only show my solidarity with the media team, being a prominent retired disgraced former Sydney radio & TV journo.
A couple of old friends from London were in town and decided to tag along to the ball park, on the promise of a carnival atmosphere.
What they call in the tourist brochure's: "the quintessential Aussie experience for a tenner'.
Five dollars in, and a fiver for an Official Program, with free parking inside the ground for earlybirds and cripples.
["I wouldn't park there if I were you mate, the ball could dent a few panels where you are"].
One of the Poms had never seen a game of Strayan Rules being played before, and appeared to be quite taken with the highly unusual nature of it.
Once you'd gone through the mantra of "and it's six points for a kick through the big sticks and a point for anything between the little sticks" stuff, he eventually made out the rules about half way through, but the difference between "holding the ball" and "dropping the ball" eluded him to the end
"where did this game originate from?"
"oh, there is much debate about that, but it goes well back into the 1800's , and basically it's a game some dude dreamt up to give cricketers something to do in the winter".
"ah, that makes sense now. very clever."
There were about five or six thousand folks in for the match; of all sorts and stripes, from babes in arms to creaking ancient folk, extended families, picnickers, millennials, yuppies, hippies, funny drunkards, old stoners and too many dogs, yes dogs; a couple of loose hounds had to be shooed off the ground at the start of the Champo, after it had been taken over by hundreds of spectators [and dogs] for a big Kick-to-Kick at the long break.
Footies flying everywhere.
There was someone dressed as a jester in the crowd, there was a hula-hoop girl, cheer squads with pom-pom girls for both sides, water boys, ambulance personnel and an army of volunteers, as well as an attractive merch stand, two bars, and typically rudimentary toileting arrangements; old style latrines and things underneath the brick Scorer's Box near the tennis courts.
In a sad indictment of the times, you could not buy a meat pie for love nor money, and yet vegan hot dogs were freely available.
You heard me right - yes, vegan hot dogs, with real American mustard.
Go figure.
But, the carnivores among the carnival goers were well catered for with whopping wood smoked burgers in a brioche bun - straight in, down the gullet, thank you very much.
No idea what was going on in the Mexican food van, but they probably came from Melbourne.
The Bloke from London was most impressed with the lay-out at the "old brickpit" at Henson Park, being an aficionado of historic architecture.
Particularly the original King George V Memorial Grand Stand, built in 1936, the year the King died, after the sports field project was finished after filling in the quarry as a Great Depression work-creation project in 1933.
And he's still there, apart from the odd lick of paint - hasn't changed at all in 80 odd years.
You can still see the brick walls of the old pit up in the north-western corner of an expansive spectator hill, but it's better sitting on the aluminum bleachers in the shadows of the old King's stand as the sun goes down behind your back.
The Whalers got off to a blinder with a five goal first quarter; a blitzkrieg, whip-sawing the Sailors, who struggled to even get the ball to their end of the ground.
The Sailors steadied the ship in the second quarter, but were still a few goals behind at half-time, and with the early ascendancy for the Whalers, things were looking a bit grim for meejah.
The Member for Grayndler, the Hon. Anthony Albanese MHR aka "DJ Albo" played for the Muso's team last year, but a lack of commitment to training this year saw him assume the role of assistant coach of the Whalers.
He was obviously very good at it, brooking no possibility whatsoever other than a glorious victory for working men and women playing musical instruments.
A punter near me on the bleachers was leafing through the Official Program, and, pointing to the team list in disgust, cried out loud.
"How did so-and-so get a game?? He's no bloody musician. He's just a drummer in some band, you know?"
Albo was in good form on the Tannoy, describing the Sailors as the "Evil Murdoch Empire" or just calling them "the Murdochs" for short.
And decrying the fact that the Federal Gumnut had just given FOX hundreds of millions of dollars in free taxpayers money to cover "minority sport", but he did acknowledge that the Tories had also tipped in a fair truckload of cash into the charity [Reclink provides sporting and educational opportunities for disadvantaged yoofs], and he was pleased with that bi-partisan support, which he promised would continue under a Labor Government.
A consummate retail politician is Albo, who lists his main recreation as "beating Tories"; and a jovial bloke to boot, always ready with a smile and a joke, at ease with his popularity among the good burghers of his electorate; the faithful.
The Bloke from London learned that there are still a lot of Pinko's left in the Marrickville area, even after the yuppie scum bought in.
It used to be solid working class; factory workers, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese mainly, living in worker's terrace houses that now go for north of a million smackeroonies, baby.
It wasn't until after the game as we walked out behind a set of goal posts that the Londoner realised what an important & difficult job the goal umpire has to do, give the quite small, but a very tall target - in theory, infinitely tall.
The scoreboard never lies.
At one point the Pom had to be corrected when he yelled out "good catch" when someone took a screamer, being informed that it was more correct to call out "oooaah, whaddascreamer!" or just "onya, great mark there, mate!" would do, if he was playing for your team.
At another point felt myself compelled to yell out in contempt " 'BAALLL!! whaddya reckon'bouthatforajoke - UM-PIIIRE?!!" and the other Pom with us turned to me knowingly with a sunny smile on her face and said "I have absolutely no idea what it was you just said".
Assured her that there would be no point even beginning an explanation, let alone a long discussion on the finer points of barracking.
There was an entirely naked male streaker in the third quarter, clearly drunk as per tradition, no security required here; raised a good laugh - "show us ya donger!" - and there was a fair degree of a hootin' and a hollerin' when a, female - - how do you say this? - "rather shapely" female streaker appeared on the ground in the last quarter - fully nude - except for a picnic rug draped over her shoulders, which she then wrapped herself up in at at the completion of her run across the ground - the match, of course, continued as normal as if nothing was going on.
The Ground Announcer said on the Tannoy "ah, ya gotta love the RecLink Cup, where too much nudity is barely enough!"
Boom Boom!
Happens every year.
Reliably informed that the beer ran out just after three-quarter time after rationing of two cans per person was introduced at half-time, due to the unexpected size of the crowd.
But what did that matter with the historically & creatively named Henson Park Hotel just up there by the back entrance to the ground?
It was a bloody good well contested, well umpired, game of footy too...excellent standard for a social match...some could really play...good talls among the men, a couple of top goal kickers, and there were some first class crumbers and rovers among the women, who generally had better kicks-in-play on them.
The Sailors put up a good fight in the Champo but they could never get ahead with catch-up football and the five goal margin remained at the finish.
Local legend and on-field hard bastard, Freddy Crabbs, of the Whalers was awarded Best on Ground, to much acclaim.
It was noted that Shane "Mummy" Mumford, formerly of the Sydney Swans, now of the Greater Western Sydney Giants, was at at the ground, and found out that both teams had been training together for this for many weeks under the guidance and tutelage of the Great Mummy, who was a towering figure at the Presentation of the Cup, the day after playing for the Pygmies in the AFL game in Canberra.
With about a minute to go, and the result clearly beyond doubt - all of the 80 footy players listed in the Official Program, 40 a side + "emergencies" as well as the coaching staff and hangers-on, cleared the bench, and ran onto the ground - everyone - for an all-in free-for-all: Suburban Strayan Style.
And the crowd went ape-shit.
A happy chaos, mad minute.


SYDNEY WHALERS: 11.6 (72).
SYDNEY SAILORS: 6.3 (33).
At Henson Park, Marrickville.
Crowd: 6,000 [est.]

what's the score, Jimmy?

High Fliers,

The Boeing 737 touched down at Bauerfield International Airport in Port Vila just before 11:30pm on the Saturday night.
During the three hour flight from Sydney, the Swans were in the process of whimp-sawing and whumping St Kilda at the SCG.
As much as fever pitch ever gets in Australian Rules football circles in the Emerald City, there was some keen expectation that The Red and The White would come back from a 0-6 season start, then win 10 out of their next eleven, giving themselves a red hot go of making the finals with five games to play.
The Good Lady Wife decided to wear a Swans team shirt on board just to make sure everyone knew that she was Loud and Proud, even though we were already aware that Air Vanuatu was yet to discover a way to connect the aircraft to the internet; everyone was in the dark about the wash-up at the game as the plane hit the deck.
As the jet rumbled along the taxi-way, got a clear view of the bloke waving the paddles to bring the Big Bird into its parking spot at the terminal.
He must have spotted the GLW as we disembarked, because by the time we'd gotten to the bottom of the gangplank to the tarmac, he was waiting at the stairs, and with a smile on his face said without any introduction, and much to our astonishment -
"Do you want to know who won?"
"Ah, yes. That'd be great! Who won?"
"YOU WON!" said Paddle Man over the din of the winding down turbines.
We high-fived.
"How much did they win by? Do you know?"
"Too many", he said, with a look of faux sadness on his face.
Turns out this chap was an Australian from Melbourne - he was a FIFO worker, and an avid St Kilda supporter.
He was a happy kind of a fellow, and after we offered our thanks for the info and our commiserations, he just said "yep, you thrashed us", and we we're on our way.
Small world, eh?
Welcome to the great Republic of Vanuatu.
It wasn't until the next day that we learnt that Callum Sinclair kicked a bag, and the Swans punted on to a very comfortable 42 point victory.
During the week, we happened to be driving in from east Efate, and came past the brand spanking new athletics/sports stadium they are flat-out building, in time for the 11th edition of Pacific Mini Games to be held in the first and second weeks of December.
It's been literally carved out of an old cow paddock on the outskirts of town; the architecture is quite interesting and the superstructure is in - but there's still a lot of heavy concrete pouring work to be done out the back of the stands and in the seating...and they were getting on with it, as hundreds of workers crawled all over the thing.
Right next door, we spied eight distinctive poles - a dead giveaway - and remarked almost in unison "look! there's a footy ground!"
The bus driver pointed out that it was the not only the only Australian Rules Football ground in Port Vila, but the only one in all Vanuatu.
It is a big ground, well marked out and maintained, and appeared as lush as anything in the dry season.
It had the regulation four posts at either end, there was no grandstand or bleachers, but there was a mighty fine spectator's hill all along the northern boundary, that is heavily shaded by large banyan trees and cocnut palms, and it's been graded up to a fairly sheer volcanic rock face.
One of the more picturesque football grounds in the world, you would have thought.
A small group of boys off in the distance at one end of the ground were playing soccer, using the space between a goal and a behind post as their goal.
On cross-examination, the bus driver intimated that the ni-Vanuatu were prepared to give Aussie Rules a go, but it didn't really catch on and is now played mainly by ex-pats, as rugby union was more their thing [they're playing rugby sevens and soccer at the Mini Games], and they have a side interest in the rugby league that's played over there in Polynesia.
Right next door to the footy ground there were four well-appointed cricket nets, all going in full swing.
There are many cricket grounds in the 87 inhabited islands of Vanuatu, which has a proud history and love of the game.
It was something to do with the British trying to establish their superiority over the French, after they found themselves in the appallingly impossible position of jointly ruling the archipelago as the Condominium of the New Hebrides for more than 70 years.
The Poms and the Frogs didn't get on, so how they worked that one out was with crazy stupid duplicate bureaucracy gone mad.
But that's another story.
However, as us Colonials in Australia did, the locals fell for cricket, and pinched the game off the Poms.
It's particularly notable that cricket was first played by ni-Vanuatu women, before the men, and even today the serious top-class female cricketers are apparently considered better and more stylish than the men, and have a very good following.
They're the stars of the game.
But the boys aint bad either; Vanuatu has an excellent chance of playing in the ICC's Division 5 World Cup.
Didn't see any cricket being played, but social games by all reports are generally free-for-all free-wheeling mixed-sex affairs, but the women batting in the much favoured social uniform of the ol' Mother Hubbard dresses are allowed the advantage of using their calf-long bell-bottom garments as very effective fly swats against the LBW rule.
In those get-ups, slow bowling would appear to be de rigueur.
But back to the next question at hand - what's the score, Jimmy?
Fast forward six days to the following Friday night and me and the GLW found ourselves around sunset gazing out over the limitless azure of the sparkling south-west Pacific Ocean, as gentle waves broke over the reef.
After a quick saunter down the darkening road to the dingy, dimly-lit, dirt-floored kava bar for a couple of shells of the really good gear they serve there - just to get in the mood - found myself wandering at a much more leisurely pace back to the place where we were staying, which was in a small cove on the Pango Point Road out there, sheltered from the constant sou'easterly trade winds - the weather it was fine, and it was about 25°C all the time, 24-7.
Perfect.
[Kava certainly makes being an idler easier, and it's true, the stars do shine brighter for one thing; the Milky Way appeared to stick out like dog's balls...that sort of thing.]
However, the joint boasted but one small colour television set which was situated in the appropriately named "TV Hut"; but most fortunately, it was somehow linked by two tins cans and a piece of string to the satellite-thingy that brought in the AFL telecast through Channel Seven's digital transmitter in Darwin, of all places.
So with the GLW again donning her Swans merch, we settled in to watch Sydney go around against the evil Hawthorn side, away, at the MCG.
We were soon joined by a goddamn Hawks fan, for chrissake - wouldn't you know it - but he was a magnanimous man who knew his football onions - and couple in their 60's from Hobart -- the husband barracked for the Saints, while the wife - for some reason which was never asked for and of course never explained [how could it be explained?] - was a Port Adelaide fan.
As the match meandered in the second quarter, the bloke from Hobart - slumped on the lounge with a stubbie holder of Tusker beer in his grip - began to wax lyrical about how he played against the"Riewoldt boys" in the Hobart U-19s comp back in the day, and claimed he could have gone on with it to greater heights, if only he hadn't become more interested in girls and the drink.
He described the Riewoldt's as a bunch of hard bastards, but noted that that was back then, when what happened on the field stayed on the field.
"And, Christ, could they drink piss after a game", he said in passing.
And who knew that Jack Riewoldt's father Chris [eventually a Tassy AFL Hall of Famer - 297 games for Clarence] went by the nickname of "Cabbage".
"Jeez, that's an odd one. Why was he called Cabbage?"
"Because he had this big head on him that looked exactly like a cabbage, but he was built like a brick shit house, mind you - great ruckman".
After a slow start the Swans were in trouble at quarter time and then in real strife at half time - four goals down in a low scoring game - as Hawthorn dominated the mid-field, and played man-on-man to a tee in their backline, and anxiousness was starting to set in as the kava began to wear off.
At half-time, the Hawks supporter said "there's really nothing in it, you know, your blokes could be in the lead in four minutes".
And so it almost came to pass as the Swans got off to a blinder in the Championship Quarter, and despite Hawthorn not scoring a goal in the stanza, the Bluds were then ground down to a halt and forever had to play catch-up football for the rest of the night and that was that; they fell short - the distant sound of the Fat Lady singing could be heard amid the barking of the local dogs about ten minutes from full-time with the Hawks getting up by single solitary goal, after earlier in the season beating Sydney by a single solitary point - a bloody point.
Hawthorn are a '17 hoodoo side now, with form going back decades, so it's little wonder we hate them with a passion.
The Hawks fan shook our hands and said "A good game, that - your blokes will take some beating in the finals".
"That's if we make the finals".
"Oh, you will make the finals, don't you worry about that".
Mr Hawthorn then added offhandedly "aaah...I think I'll stay on for the team song", but it was nearing midnight, that was beyond the pale anyway, and for us, the carnival was over...for now.