the Australian cricket team's moral compass

Pom Baiters,

Trust David "Burbs" Warner to kick off the Ashes series hype a couple of weeks back when he said that "more hatred" was required when playing England at cricket, firmly focusing the Australian team's moral compass.
A couple of days later, the PR people at Cricket Australia forced him to retract the comment saying it was in jest and he didn't really mean it.
My arse.
This from the, formerly disgraced, now Vice Captain Warner who only four years ago clocked the now Captain of England, a bloke known as "Rooty" to his mates, for being an idiot in some dodgy, non-politically correct nightclub known as the Walkabout Bar in Birmingham.
Warner later said he did it because Root was being a twatty ol' clot and a dickhead, and he had his excuses, as he'd had a few Jägerbombs and voddies and Red Bulls, and it was the drink talking and he only got Rooty with "a glancing blow" anyway because he was so pissed and regretted he didn't really connect and deck the little shit out cold - Benny Stokes-style.
Off-field violence aside, Warner is just the ticket for getting inside Pommy heads and driving them utterly insane.
More than one England player has been sent home with mental disintegration problems after getting the treatment.
On being anointed to make his test debut, CT Bancroft was asked how he would approach opening the batting with Warner: "I played against him a Shield game once. He sledged me for four days".
Right on, brother - you've been taught by experts.
Needless to say there is nothing unusual about Strayan selectors going right off piste and coming at you from completely out of left field - you can debate forever who should and shouldn't have been picked - my problem with the current 13-man squad is the fact that it is largely made up of dried up old turds.
Give Chad Sayers a run!
He's on the wrong side of 30 and the Token South Australian, to boot.
At an average age of 28.53 years, only two players are under 25, and Bancroft and Cummins are both 24.
Where's the future in that?
Whatever happened to the young tearaways and child prodigies and the much vaunted policy of selecting the brightest and best from the ranks of the Yoof of Today?
Gorn by the wayside as an imagined exigency...it is the Ashes after all...has the Chairman and the Three Wise Men freaking out.
What would Pup do?
He's got form when it comes to threatening to break "fucking" Pommy bones.
Well, win in Brisbane for a start, he reckons.
If the Poms do that, Straya are toast, by his account.
Simple as that.
No one but the home side has won at the Gabbatoir in the last 29 years - as Bruce Mac is fond of saying, "we know that".
But that was a West Indies team that had Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge opening the batting and a fearsome four-pronged pace attack the likes of which hasn't been seen since with Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh, Patrick Patterson and Curtley Ambrose rolling their arms over.
The Engerlanders certainly haven't got any of that going for them, being the mob of dead-set work-a-day county cricket clock-watching wilting shrinking violets that they are.
However, the whirring brain cogs of MJ Clarke have concluded that victory at The 'Gabba means triumph for the Poms in the series, and they get to take that stoopid little urn home.
Don't you worry about that, Pup, it won't happen at Fortress Brisbane, officially known as "The House of Pain".
And there's a new curator up there now in the form of some unknown called David Sandurski, after Kev Mitchell decided to retire from being in the job for 27 years, so that was always going to be a bit of a worry.
Then, lo, Kev decides to make the Ashes his last hurrah on an honourary basis and lets the television camera's film him riding atop the heavy roller for the very last time.
Vale Kev, job's right, job's done.
With any luck, the Durski Kid will be as patriotic as Kev was being most amenable to Strayan captains' requests to prepare a pitch to order, y'know, put a bit of good ol' doctoring into it and it'll be made sure there's a keg or two in it for the ground staff to keep the boys happy, that sort of thing.
And the coin will then be weighted at the toss.
Captain Smiffy has also revealed to the meejah that he is under pressure from the buffoons at CA "to modify my on-field body language".
Fat chance with Poms involved.
Can't see that happening after he graciously endured the most appalling dirty tricks and tactics seen in living memory displayed by that 24-carat card-carrying nasty piece of filthy cheatin' work, Mr Viralrat Kohli Sir, who recently took great delight in robbing Australia blind in India.
He had every right to be emotional, upset and downright angry at the Laws being bent and broken left right and center by a subcontinental chappie who thinks the sun shines out of his arse.
Any Pom that tries that on better watch out, or Smiffy will get snarly and sool Burbs onto them.
And Dave won't hold back, oh, no siree.
People forgive, but they rarely forget, especially in Ashes cricket.
It's not that we, as a nation, dislike the poor poor English folk as a general rule, we just HATE bastard English cricketers, jeez, there's history here chaps, nobody forgets bloody Bodyline back in the '30's do they?
Which itself was just a natural extension of WG Grace touring here at the end of the 19th century as the quintessential pompous Pommy prick, setting a blazing trail for all who followed.
Wandered into the Front Bar of The Local for a quick one over the weekend, and found the Philosopher in his usual corner - nursing this week's favoured a tipple, a whisky sour - while he was studying a story on the back page of one of the Sunday fishwraps which featured Starkers promising to go for the throat and give the Poms a bit of chin music to go on with at The 'Gabba.
Everybody knows that the Poms don't like the fear up 'em, don't like it up 'em, at all.
The Philosopher poked the paper with his bony finger and remarked "few things give me greater pleasure than seeing Poms ground into the dust, slowly, over five days".
Loose the bears on the midgets and let the gaming begin.

"a piece of dog meat"

Aficionado's

Did like the Foghorn, Jim Maxwell's ABC radio commentary [the match was not on any television - even pay] on the last session of the women's test match at North Sydney Oval last night..."not much happening here, as the game settles into a tortoise-like pace".
Never mind that the Pommettes were playing for the draw.
That may be the problem with the Ladies game in the "long form" and the reason why the last women's test match before this one was two years and three months ago.
Despite the heroics of EA Perry and her 15 mins of fame [it was a fabulous performance, any double-ton in any format of the game - male or female - is not to be sneezed at], and the fact they they do OK with the over rate, with 387 overs bowled in an hour short of four days...the run rate for the match was 2.35 runs per over.
That's an average of 117 runs every fifty overs, with an average of 5.5 wickets taken per day.
Now that's entertainment.

Then there is the uselessicity of the Pink Stink, writ large.
Of note was that one of the male commentators likened the Ladies pink ball to "a piece of dog meat" after about 60 overs of use.
And one of the female commentators remarked that while the Ladies ball, by law, is smaller than the Men's ball...the Ladies pink ball's all weigh roughly the same, but their dimensions apparently differ quite markedly, so it's very important to pick one out of the box of new balls that fits right for the female hand on your team.

mmmm....dunno...
What would Pup do?

"a ridiculous decision and the umps should be held accountable"

Bush lawyers,

Sack the bastards!
The Bamfords are clearly right out of their minds.
Their heads are right done in, goddammit.
What's wrong with a bit of white-knuckle cricket?
Sack 'em all!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-16/cricket-australia-investigates-decision-to-call-off-nsw-v-vic/9055302

For the picky, Law 6.2 comes into play here..."the umpires shall be the sole judges of the fitness of the pitch for play".
That's where the buck stops.
On the ground, that's that, but there's nothing preventing people who are not playing from disagreeing with or bagging the umpires before, during, and after a game.
Oh no siree, barrack yr life away.
Never mind Laws 2.7 and 2.8, which demand that it is "solely for the umpires together to decide" what Law 2.7.3 "it would not be sensible for play to proceed", means, under the circumstances.
It's up to the umps, the Bamfords, alone; no one else involved, no appealing under ideal circumstances, but the cheatin' thievin' refs were still surrounded by players, who were told in no uncertain terms it's none of their business.
The sacks of pineapples would have taken utes to distribute.
Oh, sorry, made that bit up, yr Honour.
And the season was on the line, for chrissake!
Lord, help us.

In the meantime "some kind of hatred is in order" it turns out.

http://www.cricket.com.au/news/david-warner-hatred-for-england-ashes-war-australia-verbal-aggression-cummins-starc/2017-10-15

What "kind" for some Poms, 'Burbs?
Sledging is a bit passé, so some Psych War, perhaps?
Maybe just ask Stokesy over after he's finished his anger management course, and see if we can't get him into a spiral of mental disintegration while he's hanging out for a drink.
Done it before.
Cruel game...cricket...just ask Clarkey...anyone remember August 2015?


BTW> Ferdinand has nothing to do with Magellan - merchant investment bankers - who've probs bought the Stupid Little Urn for a song.

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.