PS. QUOTES OF THE (TRADE)WEEK

'I want to express my deep sorriness again.' - Brendan Fevola, Brisbane Lion.

'If he had of been carrying on like that in our day, Norm Johnson (a notorious Fitzroy hardman) would have punched his lights out to make him wake up to himself.' - Lions legend Kevin "Bulldog" Murray, with a clue as to how the Lions may change the Fev's ways.

TRADING

PHOTO: PAT SCALA

Just when you thought it was the end of season and time to put your mind up for a while …

Trade week.

Here are my thoughts from the week, written on the run:

I find trade week deeply unsettling. Never mind the world’s domino chain of natural disasters … every morning this week brings a new trade shock. It’s like losing members of your family. Or gaining new ones for that matter.

Consider being a Saints fan and learning that Luke Ball had rejected a three year deal and wants to go to the Pies. It’s like losing your kid brother to the school bully’s family, so that he ends up staring at you over the fence.

Consider being a Blues fan and losing Fev. I mean, some might argue that it’s a relief to lose the old uncle who can’t handle his grog, but you’ve got to admit that you know Christmas will be a lot more dull.

Consider being a Swan and learning that your ruck-man has gone to … Collingwood. It’s like having the tall capable brother-in-law of the family, the one you welcomed in a few years ago from the other side of the tracks, the one whose got a lot of trades and knows how to fix everything around the house, go off and marry into another family.

Baz failed his final year at the Sydney Swans Wellness Clinic. Tami and Paul Roos must accept that not everyone can be fixed with meditation and Bloody oaths. But imagine being a Bulldogs supporter and looking down at the next forward line, stacked with Aker and Bazza. Hard core Bulldogs must really feel satisfied that the club, by all appearances, is going back to its ‘westy’ roots.

How would Hawks fans feel about their big tough defender being ‘allegedly’ offered up as a carrot to the Power in order to get a Burgoyne? It’d be like losing your big brother, just as you were about to embark on a school yard brawl.

And what about Bombers fans? How would you feel losing speedster Lovett to the Saints. It’d be like robbing a bank with your cousins and getting outside to find that the getaway car driver has been born again a Christian.

At least you get Williams in return. One spunky blackfella with X factor for one spunky blackfella with X factor. A good deal. That’d do nicely in Sydney.

And finally spare a thought for the Lions supporters: with Buchanan, Staker, Raines and Clarke X brought in, then Fev at the final hour … it’d be like living with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. You’d never know where the next one was coming from.

In the aftermath of trade week, club supporters have numerous little emotional adjustments to make. There is a realignment of loyalties and interests to be undertaken before they sign off on the pink slip for the new season. There’s no easy week for a supporter of the oval ball.

Happy draft!

Others have suffered too. Nigel sent this to the backpocket on Thursday:

The Burial of the Dead

October is the cruelest month, breeding
Rucks out of the west land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Jolly roots with magpie rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful Mickey O, feeding
A little life with Barry Hall.

Summer surprised us, coming over the trades
With a shower of drafts; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into draft week,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Feel free to add your own sufferings below in COMMENTS.

SEASON OVER

THE BULLETIN

I watched every minute of the Grand Final. Every excruciating minute, with a couple of panadols and some sorely tested cuticles.

Long after Patrick had headed off to the theatre and the Eaglet was tucked in his nest, I watched Ten HD’s post grand final coverage in full, right to its final montage. At a quarter to nine on Saturday night, save for the days of newspaper skimmings ahead, season 2009 came to an end. It’s mostly relief I feel. I think.

I endured the Grand Final badly. I endured St Kilda’s loss far worse than I had anticipated. I expected it to be softened by the fact of Geelong’s win. But it wasn’t … much. Everyone had been selling this year’s grand final as a win/win. No matter which team won, you’d be happy. In theory, I agreed. But what I felt was the loss, not the win.

I didn’t expect to feel so deflated. I wasn’t sure whether perhaps it was all the slow motion replays to Coldplay or the sight of my teenage ‘objet du désir’, Mark Seymour, sharing a stage with Barnesy and Farnsey. Or whether it was the visible pressure on Nick Riewoldt’s shoulders or Kosi’s arm around his waist at the end, or the sight of all those bald heads and Gary Ablett constantly pumping his fists in the air or the fact that everyone kept talking about ‘deserving’. It may have been all those things. But mostly I think it is because I deal with built expectations and dashed hopes with particular sensitivity. It’s my emotional Achilles heel.

At the end of one hundred and twenty minutes of football, I didn’t have any of the ‘chin up’ or ‘it’ll be their turn next year’ in me. I had none of the cool and comfortable distance of a non-supporter. I couldn’t muster an even-minded ‘well, I’m happy for Geelong.’ I couldn’t even dig out a little ‘footy was the winner on the day.’ All I could see was the disappointment of those Saints, the captain in particular. I could hear their minds’ voices starting a chant, a building chorus of ‘if onlys’ that would crescendo in the small hours of the morning. I can’t bear to see people gravely disappointed and if the cup had ended up on the other side of the bay, I probably would have felt the same for the blue and white hoops. As Peter put it to me on Sunday, it was in fact a lose/lose situation.

Feeling it in this way, could it be a character flaw? Sign of a pessimistic disposition? Evidence of unhealthy empathy? No. Just another glance into the looking glass that is football.

And now, it’s time to turn away from the mirror and run outdoors for summer.

It’s been a fine year in football. It’s been a long year. Well, in truth, it’s been a year with the same number of matches and rounds than any other year. But it has seemed long. Perhaps, as a Swan, the end-of-an-era business has played a part. It’s been a long time since the Swans were free in September and forever since the Tip Mistress faced a pre-season without Magic. There was also an element of ‘four seasons in one year’ about 2009: the dominance of the Saints and the Cats – the two horse race; followed by the encroachment of the field and the emergence of at least three other true contenders; followed by a largely competitive finals series and a return to the two horse race. It had a nice symmetry about it. And the Grand Final, with its repetitive grind, its relentless stoppages, its all contested ball, its war of attrition was a fitting full stop.

End of final chapter. Close the book. A good read. Recommend to others. Sequel likely.

It was suggested to me by one esteemed tipster that I might do a final bulletin – ‘a summary of the year and thoughts on 2010’. Well there’s my ‘I’ve already forgotten all the details’ summary of 2009. And as for 2010 …

Without the divets of the hallowed MCG turf having even been filled, the decibels on the whispering about salary caps and trades and drafts and the season ahead start to increase. They’ve even posted the odds for the Round 22 ladder for next year!? I simply can’t go there. Perhaps it’s age. My newly acquired three dozen years have slowed me. Or perhaps it’s the realisation that thinking ahead to next year feels to me a bit like riding the clutch. Sometimes it’s better just to apply the handbrake, let things idle for a while and be patient. Alert but patient.

Tipping too is a long, hard game. You have all played superbly this year, with commitment, stamina and grace. The Eaglet asked me in the car the other day:
‘So, how did you do mum?’
‘Not so great.’ I recalled. ‘But you did well.’
‘What did I come again?’
‘Oh, you came about 10th I think.’
‘Did you come last?’
‘No, not quite. I think I came 19th or 20th. Something like that.’
‘Out of how many?’
’25.’
‘Hmm. Not so good. Almost last.’
It’s good to be reminded by the next generation of your failures.

In the last couple of weeks, I have also come to the realisation that tipping largely confirms all the things which rile me about daily societal life more generally. It confirms that the underdog only rarely gets up; that fairytales rarely come true and mostly end up with everyone turning into pumpkins; that conservatism pays and standing out is unprofitable; that consistency will methodically thwart flair; that the unexpected is unexpected for a reason; and that, when it comes to quantifiable success, the head must dominate the heart. It confirms that lone heroes rarely triumph against consensus. Football is a little different. There’s more margin for nuance. That’s why I’m sticking with football. But tipping is another game, one I have found increasingly difficult to forebear. Hell, I’ve never been a numbers girl!!

Yes, most esteemed tipsters, I’m hanging up the spreadsheet. I’m retiring.

When I say retirement, there’s always the slim chance that I’ll end up just like Plugger or Fraser Gerhrig (or John Farnham for that matter) – on the comeback trail before the boots have stopped stinking, in a guernsey that’s a little too tight, looking for a gig in the goal square. I’ll probably find myself, come March, building a new website and begging for customers.

But until then, despite the fact that tipping in the backpocket has also been immeasurably pleasurable, I don’t have Saint Leigh Montagna’s determination to ‘butter up and come back for another crack’. Now that I’m over 35, I’m following the veteran on this one. I’m taking the Matthew Lloyd approach: ‘It’s better to go out a year too soon, than a year too late.’ So I’m looking forward to a year of football, in 2010, uncomplicated by tipping. (Well I may have the odd Friday night dabble on page 38 of the Herald, just me, the pen and the kitchen bench ... and, of course, the contrary voice of the Eagle in one ear.)

I thank you all for your participation across four years. You have deepened my inbox, charmed my footy brain and brightened all my weekends. You have made me think differently about winter days and nights. I hope you will continue to chat footy (or life) with me anyways.

Special thanks to Tony – the Statswally – for all his statistical genius and generous ‘help centre’ hours. If the Tip Mistress is the public face of the backpocket – the Gary Ablett, let’s say? – Tony is the football department and there’s no way we would ever have been on the field without him. And special mention to Richard, the Tigerheart, for his morsels which have delighted my soul no end and generally operated in reversal of the aforementioned tipping trends. I will be maintaining my domain name if only to host the ‘Tiger Diary’ during 2010's Chinese year of the Tiger.

To our champions – Mark, Anna/Miro, Peter and Sharolyn – you are great ambassadors for the backpocket. I heartily salute you and hope you will carry the memories of your titles for all of your days and perhaps even hold a little reunion in the years ahead and invite me for a beer.

If anyone would like to take the baton, it is only a handball away.

And, if you are looking to extend the season just a teensy bit … can’t let go yet, you might like to try these: this lovely piece on 'the decisive moment' over at the Almanac. And a solid season review from Tim Lane, with a little bit of bite. Just the way I like it.

Otherwise, happy summer!

THE FINAL QUESTIONS

1. Are the footy Gods the same for all codes or are there code specific deities?
2. Does the AFL realise that it is very confusing having two Roos in the comp – 1. The coach of the Sydney Swans, Paul Roos. 2. The North Melbourne team. Have they considered demanding that one of them develop an AFL name in the spirit of the clash strips imposed on all teams (except Collingwood) these days?
3. Is there an ante-natal test to predict the likelihood of the foetus having a ‘footy brain’?
4. Could the AFL and NRL come to an arrangement whereby they swap Israel Folau for Barry Hall?
5. Is this question now obsolete given the G17’s signing of Karmichael Hunt?
6. What sport could the Swans trade Barry to?
7. What about horse racing? The Swans could do with a nippy small forward. We’d have to restrict use of the whip though.
8. Is Matthew Lloyd considering a career in boxing?
9. With the number of guys talking about 4 quarters these days, is there any actual alternative?
10. Why is a ‘behind’ called a ‘behind’ and not a ‘beside’?
11. And why is a strawberry called a strawberry?
12. What will Etihad Stadium be called next year?
13. Will a coffee table book of ‘What Dog is that Coach?’ be available for Christmas? Greeting cards?
14. Can 2009 Swans Club Champion, Ryan O’Keefe, win best and fairest on Celebrity Master Chef?
15. Is there any point continuing past Question 14 – the number of the great Swans Skilton, Kelly …? (I can't find the 'strikethrough' font option at blogspot, otherwise this one would have been struck through ...)
16. One more thing ... does Kosi know something about some kind of pressure point just under Nick Riewoldt's right breast? See photo above and just below too! Oppositions may like to look into this. It seems to bring a pained expression and even tears. Could be useful.

THE TIGER DIARY - THE LAST PAGE 2009
Monday, 28th September 2009 BC

Deep in the back of the lair there is something stinking.
The stench wont let you think.
It's more than a losers' locker room kind of smell.
It's more than the dynamic lifter that some idiot keeps digging into the pebbles around the base of the plastic palms.
It's deeper than the wretched carpet and its mouldy unholy underlay.
Is it just rotting yum cha?
Is it perchance a little too much Proust?
Has anyone seen Lazy Susan lately?
And why wont Sheeds collect his 1979 sports bag from lost property?
What IS that smell?
One man has the job to find out before the Year of the Tiger can begin.
He’s The Head Exorcist,
Damien Omen Hardwick.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK/YEAR

'The only constant in AFL football is change.' - Ross Lyon, post Grand Final.
I noticed that Max Hudghton blurted it out in the carpark before the Grand Final too. I think it could be Ross Lyons' scary brainwashing tool. Spooky! Can we expect to hear it on the podium on the last Saturday in September 2010? Keep an ear out.

* * *

grand final - the build up

first things first.
brownlow schmownlow. ablett schmablett.


our very own 'miro' of the anna/miro team last week won the best and fairest for the newtown swans U11s. he has taken home 'the golden boot' which I am told now has pride of place on the entrance table. it is also miro's birthday in five days so we wish the soon-to-be-11 year old champ a big thumbs up for a seriously solid year in the centre.

grand final is only days away.
here are the teams.
gerard whateley's thoughts on the teams are here.
the almanac's finals chat is here.
the AGE's grand final week news is here.
AGE tipsters are here.

good luck.
happy tipping.
have a great sat arvo.
x tm

BULLETIN - PRE ROUND 22

This week, I was going to write on what it is to create a winning culture. I was going to bring in tanking and resting players (sorry, team management) and list appraisal and succession plans. I was going to quote Gerrard Whateley and Mick Malthouse.

But I think if I were to try a meaningful come-back now, after such a rest (I mean injury), I may pay for flirting with form. It may end up the way it has for the Saints. Loss/es.

I hate the slow, shameful fade out. So, with that in mind, I have no choice but to deliver this offering more in the style of the retirement press conference, flanked by my supporters (where are they?), in the team polo shirt, faced with an array of microphones (well, letters on a keyboard). I’ll keep it short in case I tear up.

How do you know when it’s time to go? You’ve heard those older guys say it – ‘you just know’.

For the last four weeks, I haven’t made it through one whole Friday night with the ABC 630 team. I have swapped Franklin for Foucault, Dangerfield for Derrida, Eagleton (Terry) for Eagleton (Nathan). What has the world come to when I am trading a night at Homebush with the sculpted bodies of the Swannies (not to mention the O’Reilly boys) for a night in Marrickville with Deleuze’s ‘body without organs’?

The retirements have been gathering speed: Bowden, Whateley, Lucas, Barry, Crouch, Burgoyne, Dew, Lade … on and on. What about de Hauteclocque? Is it premature? The body is sound but the mind cannot cope. The mind’s not 25 anymore.

I've thought long and hard about it, talked it over with my family (well actually I haven’t) and it comes as a relief to sit here and tell you that … there will be no more bulletins for 2009. There will be no more metaphors, no more unpicking footy’s great mysteries, no more references, no more footy philosophy.

I'm not sure what the future holds. I may go skiing for a week (dream on), have a holiday (double dream on) and take some real time to consider my options (I’ll be lucky if I have time to wipe my bum this week!) I may do posts that are full of links (get somebody else to do the work for me) or a run on stats for the finals (we’ve been relatively stat-less this year – always a good fall back position) or I may just take the public service approach and do as little as possible until the session is sat. Or I may become a stockbroker.

I will however be attending Saturday night’s great Swansong. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I am leaving James Joyce in Dublin for the night and taking my place in Row U, Seat 136 to wave my tissues in the air for Magic (and the other two … what are their names again?).

But, as the old Swans are being dragged out onto the park for a farewell game this weekend, there are some clubs who do not dare be so sentimental. I play for one of those. There will be no farewell for me. No one will chair me off (God help them!). There will be no one spraying me with Powerade in the rooms. Just a hot shower, all the room in the queen sized bed and Albert Camus … a man who knew a thing or two about a ball and a foot.

Happy tipping!

WHILE YOU WAIT ...

Now that my bulletins never come ... I thought you might need some reading matter. So may I suggest ...


I had a little something to do with this new book. It's out this week. I should be sipping champagne with John Harms this coming Thursday night at the launch in Melbourne, but alas I will be turning the Eaglet's dirty socks in the right way before I stuff them in the washing machine and pouring over empty writing notebooks ...

All contributors have been given pseudonyms but you might find a bit of a clue, as to who (else) I am, here (thanks for the tip, Mark). I haven't seen the fully finished product yet, but from my dealings with Joy and John, I imagine it will make amusing reading.

Also, esteemed tipster and valued (on time) columnist, Richard the Tigerheart, sent me this on the 29th July. It seems appropriate that I post it after the weekend that has just been.

A Family of Collingwood supporters head out one Saturday morning to do their Christmas shoplifting. While in Rebel Sports the son picks up a Richmond footy jumper and says to his 10 year old sister, "I've decided to become a Tiger supporter and I would like this for Christmas". His sister, outraged by this, promptly whacks him round the head with her carton of Winfields and says, 'Go talk to Mum'.

Off goes the little lad with the Richmond footy jumper in hand and finds his mother. 'Mum?' 'Yes son?' 'I've decided I'm going to be a Tiger supporter and I would like this jumper for Christmas'. The mother is outraged at this and throws her moccasins and a full stubbie of VB at him, promptly whacks him around the head and says, 'Lets go talk to your father'.

Off they go to Pentridge during visiting hours with footy jumper in hand and find Bubba, his father. 'Dad?' 'Yes son?' 'I've decided I'm going to be a Richmond supporter and I would like this jumper for Christmas'. The father is outraged and promptly whacks his son around the head with his fists and says, 'No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT', and then kicks him from one end of the rec. room to the other for further good measure.

About half an hour later they're all back in the car and heading towards home. The mother turns to her son and says 'Son, I hope you've learned something today?' The son says, 'Yes, Knackers, I have.' 'Good son, what is it?'

The son replies, 'I've only been a Richmond supporter for an hour and already I hate you Collingwood bastards.'

BULLETIN - POST ROUND 18

I finally learnt my lesson on Friday night. Emotion doesn’t get you up for everything. There are things, many of them, that emotion alone just cannot shift. Lord knows, I try. But, last week, at least in the footy arena, I finally went without my heart and scored from the realisation.

My Friday night tipping record is not good. The boys in the house have come to a position where they now wait to see which team I am picking for the Friday night chocolates … and they pick the opposite. It was touch and go last Friday night.

I passed the open fixture many times during the afternoon as I brought in washing, buttered fruit toast, read the latest article on the evolution of the Kindle and rewired the house after days of ongoing short circuits. Each time I passed it, waiting patiently on the bench top, raising its black and white eyebrows at me in anticipation, I seed and sawed. Blues or Roos? There was an irresistible emotional tip sitting under my nose – the noble ex-captain, loved by all, farewelling footy on a Friday night. So I went, breath held, fingers crossed, eyes covered … Carlton.

It unfolded Friday night – the perfectly tragic tale of Adam Simpson’s last hurrah (or last boo hoo as the case ended up): the mid week announcement, the accident in the final drill of the last training session which tore the calf in two, the medical team propping him with every anti-inflammatory and painkiller legal on ASADA’s lists, the hero on the bench and then off again, his soldiers unable to win the battle for him with nine last quarter shots!! Those Roos had all the emotional charge in the world but it wasn’t enough. Ironic that not even Shinboner spirit could compensate for Simpson’s calf.
‘No fairytale, no,’ he said post-match.
No. But a point for the heartless mistress.

* * *

It is a generally accepted fact that each generation is smarter, taller and better looking than the one that goes before. In our house, it is certainly the case on all fronts. The small one has inherited not an ounce of my sentimentality, not an ounce of his father’s slow and private deliberations. He is not beholden to emotion in decision making.

I announced the final match of the round 18 fixture, a big one for him – Eagles v Bombers. He was clinical. Eagles. He did not contemplate, waver or sway. He does not feel equivocalness, or if he does, he does not reveal it. Is this truly my flesh? I asked myself, as I watched him scribble his O above the eagle, I was half proud and admiring, half dismayed.

* * *

Ian was back in the fold on Saturday night, serving a healthy slice of nostalgia. Ten years a member and his first live game of the season. Welcome back. The SCG was shiny bright, a perfect chilly wind reminding us there was still time til September. Peter was along for Riewoldt, but at least he was along. Tucked in between 4 of the finest O’Reilly men you could muster (but missing you, of course, Toby!) I felt sure our collective energy could a fairytale make.

Boy we came close.

But even bringing in the boys, pounding a roll of record into the hand, yelling and screaming and calling for frees that weren’t there, shifting forward in the seats and willing and pleading and standing for each unlikely goal – none of it could get them over the line. As a Swans victory or draw seemed likely, it occurred to me that I was alone with a tip for the red and white. An old habit. The exception that proves the theory?

We live in a world where 93 can be a win by two points (Cats v Crows), or a loss by one. And the pounding and willing, the wishing and hoping, the crowd and the sound counts for nought.

Standing with Patrick on the concourse, Adam Simpson came into my mind. ‘I just want one of them to end in the fairytale,’ I bemoaned.
‘They don’t exist. That’s why they’re fairytales.’

* * *

On Sunday, the Eagles dodged a tank and won. The Eaglet was resolute. On Sunday, the Tigers rolled the Demons with a must-kick goal after the siren. 'Every kid's dream,' said McMahon. 'Fairytale,' cried the AGE online. 'Tank,' cried Michael Voss.

And for the rest of us?

Once the lifting balloon of September is exploded, emotion gives way to preparation – glimpses of the future replace the quest: good signs for the future; good game time into the youngsters; good growth for the kids. Retirements will be slated, lists will be trimmed and recruitment officers will take centre stage. All of it without emotion. Whatever’s best for the club.

And what of the Mistress?

As successful as my Friday night was, I don’t think I’ll fall in line too easily. I will have a forest of tissues on hand as Mickey kicks out his last few games. I will be willing and tipping the Hawks into the eight and a chance at collateral damage. I will be wishing the Woods the wobbles (sorry Lucie!). As the blossoms bud on the boulevards, I will be gripped with the emotion of the final weeks, the denouement of the Home and Away, the segue into finals and probably beyond. I’m trying to take it one week at a time. But old habits die hard.

Happy tipping!

BULLETIN - POST ROUND 17

I got home from my Theory and Writing class last night and realised that there is far too much depth in my life. Not enough superficiality in this girl’s house of cards.

One of our esteemed tipsters remarked to me last Sunday morning that she struggled to understand how someone who knows so much, or at least absorbs so much, about football could be such an unsuccessful tipster.

‘I’m too emotional a person’, I defended.

We’ve been over that turf. We’ve gardened my personality in these pages enough to know that I am someone who prefers to believe in the dream rather than the reality, someone who bucks the interminable ‘expected’ with a small but willful effort to divert it, someone who sacrifices accuracy for the throngs of the narrative. We know this turf. We’ve been there before.

But another thought occurred to me.

On Saturday night, I had been at the Legs on the Wall fundraising cabaret and a female friend and I had been admiring a young man – a young man, I might add, who we both know. It was not a silly perve. There we were, having this conversation about this boy, when Patrick – who agrees with our assessment – asked what was so impressive about him. Said female friend astutely replied that he is simply one of the most 3 dimensional people she knows. He is good looking – in an off-centre, dark eyed kind of way; very cool; creative - a musician; demonstrably intelligent; well read and well thought; charming; extremely personable but aloof enough to maintain your interest. Voilà. Three dimensions.

Later that night, back on the living room floor in my woolen fair aisle socks, mug of chamomile in hand, I watched the Saints demolish the Doggies. And what occurred to me was, that the Saints are finally looking three dimensional. They’ve always been pretty boys – Riewoldt, dal Santo and all those blondes down back … Gilbert, Gram … they have a ready made ‘boy band’ down there. They’ve always had the creative potential. But up until this year, this group had never quite mustered the umph, the seriousness of what they could do. And now … they’ve got it. They’re the boy coming out the back-end of the worst stages of puberty and realising his power as a young man.

It occurred to me then, that this business of young men … it affects my tipping. It may account, in part, for my poor record. Young men account for a lot in the world. These boys, in their different colours, remind me of the boys of my teenage years, the boys of my early twenties, the boys who awakened me to the world of all things male.

The Saints have just become the prized catch – the boy who was good looking, smart enough, good with the girls, but not overly so, skilled at something with enough disinterest in the mob to go and actually make something of it.

The Cats used to be that, until they pursued it so well that they made an interminable gap for themselves. Nobody likes old, established talent as much as the thrill of a new find.

The Doggies are the brainy boy who was good looking enough. He was smart enough to be fascinating but lacking the confidence in himself to turn your whole head. Unfair. The Hawks are the school dude who was equipped for everything but ruffled to the hilt in a disguise that made it look like it came all too easily. The rich kid with a bit of brawn. Charismatic but not totally reliable … which just made him all the more attractive.

The Pies are the boy with skills but no class, the over-entitled bully. The Blues are the boy who always came an admirable second in the class, got the girls on the rebound and was too shy to take the baton and run for first. Even if you liked him, you knew he wouldn’t go all the way.

The Dockers are the ‘spunk’ who rode on his looks and let the substance he didn’t fully understand trail behind. He was charming enough to get away with it, but likely to have peaked at the age of about 17. The Cokesters are the older brother of the guy you liked, narky and agro. You always knew there was something ugly brewing behind his bedroom door. The Port boys were the boys who looked up to these older brothers, heading in that direction.

The Bombers are the quick witted boy up the back making all the girls laugh, with enough potential not to be a mere disruption. He had cheek to burn and was the year’s most likely to mature into an interesting person.

The Lions … maybe it’s just the Jonathon Brown thing – although Daniel Rich is keeping the mould alive – they are the big, tough country boy, the boarder. I never had anything to do with them and their moleskins. And the Roos, Tigers, Demons, Crows … don’t think I said a word to those boys ever, only if they were on the stage management team of the school play.

And … my own boys? The Swans are the boy who had your heart for real, the one you phoned a few times a week, the one with whom you pretended you were just best friends, the one who talked to your parents when he came to your house. Good looking but not suspiciously so, smart, sensitive and funny, more hard working than flashy and never on the wrong side of the jerk-o-meter. You figured you’d know them the rest of your life.

It’s a personal thing. Your view will be different to mine. As it should be. Cause we all traversed those moments of discovery about boys and/or girls on fragile and particular ground. We made our own archetypes, they crossed and traded places over the years, experience deepened or scratched them. But they prove to be imprints which are hard to discard.

On some deep but superficial level, I think they’re just another thing affecting my tipping. I may be, in part, tipping for the boys of my adolescent imaginings, showing my preferences, fulfilling old longings. Sigh.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Back to literary theory.

Happy tipping!

BULLETIN - POST ROUND 16

As of next week, I will be a single mother beginning a Masters degree with a part time job and a terrible habit for perfectionism. The anticipatory sleeplessness has begun already. I turn and turn and turnover – but no one grabs the ball and runs off with it.

I’ve been thinking that the best way to tackle a long, lone spell with the Bomblet and a full schedule, is to face it like a full back: presence and intimidation; playing with a close check; relying on my capacity to read the play better than him. He is an impressive opponent, the Bomblet. He plays hard and fast, the ball and the man and he rarely accepts a rotation. The problem with the full back model is, I don’t fancy sticking to my man like glue and I’ll be limited in my capacity to run off him and create play, without the support of any team mates. The risk of ending up in a game of catch up is too great. He can be explosive, the Bomblet!

I need an alternative approach.

* * *

In the first thirty minutes of Saturday’s Swans v Blues clash, I became more than a little bewitched by the shining light of the big #18 – Jesse White. Like Hamlet’s ma I sat, with Bazza’s corpse hardly tepid, admiring the lead and leap of the 21 year old. An in-form Dwayne Russell (see quotes) agreed: ‘Barry’s been keeping him out of the spot too long’. With his facial hair arranged like a novice gangster – sideburns, scratchy mo and goatee – White’s 105kg frame gave the Swans much needed confidence up forward.

And then, it came to me like a pleasant dream where desirable strangers play bit parts and all the signs make sense.

In this dream, I saw the haze of life for the next two months: work to get to, trains to wait for, preschool curfews to make. Morning cuddles to allocate, meals to dream up, lunchboxes to stuff, a tired face in the mirror to fix. A trolley to push and garbage bins to drag, sheets to tuck and pets to keep alive and skirting boards to vacuum. Reading to do and writing to do and thinking to do. Clothing to wash and magic tricks to teach and birthday presents to procure and ugg boots to air and stories to listen to and stories to read and realities to shield and cosmic events to explain and tips to do and heaped up teaspoons of Milo to forbid. Afternoon chatter to horde and horde. Comfort for his bouts of loneliness, for things that don’t work, for the irrational desire for incompatible friends. Endless negotiations over quiet times and ‘nothing’ times, over the execution of the most basic human tasks and which of his four alter egos would be joining us for dinner. Getting to night time university, dinners to leave and kisses on pillows, babysitters to arrange and yawns to suppress, opinions to have and opinions to share and quiet drives home on night-time streets to savour. Contempt for routine to stifle and mind traffic to censor so sleep can come and it can start all over again.

And, in the dream, into the picture rides … Jesse.

‘Could he be the “white” knight Sydney’s been looking for?’ asked the commentary team.
‘Well he’s certainly all-white,’ they guffawed.

Wide awake, it occurred to me, with his fourth goal for the half, that whether he was the answer to the Swans forward structure or not, he would be the answer to my structure, my white knight, a 196cm bolt of inspiration delivering a master class on dealing with an opposition. I would face my months ahead, not like a full back, but like a full forward.

Put the body work on early. Don’t wait until I’m in a one on one. Move, move, move. Be in the shower before he can complain about dressing; be in the car before he can spoil with reluctance to go to preschool; be in the kitchen chopping before being smothered by another LEGO police narrative; be in bed before it’s under 6 hours until he’s up again.

Get front position. Anticipate what is coming. Have confidence in the 1762 previous meetings with the Bomblet. Take away doubt and back myself.

In moments of uncertainty or indecision, spin. Strong leading forwards run up to the wing, prop and spin the ball in their hands while waiting for options. Spin the hands on the clock, the lid on the whiskey bottle, Justine Clarke on repeat, the hills hoist, lies, remote controls – whatever it takes to buy some time or space.

Be prepared to double lead when behind. Eliminate the risk of staying back in the contest and bringing things to ground. Without reliable crumbers, I’ll just be left with crumbs.

By the time I’d gotten through a half of footy, I was feeling supremely confident. If ‘the kid’ could do this well in just his 14th senior game, and his first at full forward, so could a veteran like me.

Fake it ‘til you make it.

As the match progressed, I was so inspired by the revelation, that I was even taking hints from the opposition ruckman floating to full forward. The commentators remarked on Kreuzer, ‘Even his misses go through!’ Good point.

Score off your bad shots. When I find myself, accidentally, in the die cast toy car aisle at Woolies, think bribery. When all I’ve organised for dinner is left over self-saucing chocolate pudding, think bribery. When I haven’t done my ‘homework’, think the 3 hour, M rated dinosaur DVD … and bribery.

Even other key position players were making sense. Swans, Mattner and Grundy, the #29 and #39 respectively, are constantly being mistaken for each other. Great idea!

Pretend your somebody else. I have often observed the Bomblet snuggling the leg of his aunty at a family function when both of us have been wearing knee-length denim skirts. Dress like the other mothers at preschool.

Despite heading into August/September without a pre-season to speak of, underdone, with only a handful of runs in the reserves, I was feeling super confident of my chances by now. I was even anticipating a night out at Crown and possible Legend Status in the new Hall of Fame.

Play the full four quarters.

Super confident, that was, until the siren sounded for the fourth quarter.

Maintain a lead of more than 15 at all times.

The steepest denouement unfolded, the structures fell apart, the opponent ran rampant, the supply dried up and … Jesse was rendered lame.

Oh no. What if it all ended up like this for me? What if I find myself, after a couple of weeks, with my early get up and go deflated, run off my legs, toyed with by the Bomblet like impotent prey, rendered completely ineffective? It gets worse. What if, in trying to play both forward and back, in trying to fill the gap in front of the danger man, I too end up like Teddy, taken down in courageous backward flight, prone on the turf with the Bomblet’s knee cap imprinted on my shattered rib cage, coughing blood? It’s no coincidence that the man taken down on Saturday is the Swan with the greatest amount of time on the field this season – 94.5% of all game time. That’s about what I’ll be doing! (Although, without the broken ribs, punctured lung, chest drain and ground transfer, a few non-negotiable days in hospital and some heavy painkillers could be just the ticket.)

I felt grim after the match, desperately grim, but began an immediate review. All of Jesse’s good work was undone by the Fab 4 in the navy blue. Change of plan! Perhaps this stint is best taken on like a midfielder? But I know I don’t have the tank to match it with the Bomblet in the midfield.

I joined him in a bath on Saturday night, suspiciously staring into his bottomless green eyes, wondering what he has in store for me. After a curative dinner of pungent cheeses and a generous balloon glass of my father’s finest medicinal Calvados, bed beckoned. There’s a TV in the bedroom at my parents’ place. It was just before 11pm - footy broadcast time in NSW. Time for a night with the old flame. Buddy. Just as my hope needed recharging, a reinvigorated Buddy reminded me how the full forward can indeed get the job done.

He was mercurial, he ran on the ball and then re-appeared in the forward line, his defensive pressure superb. He wasn’t afraid of a bit of biff, baiting and niggling Didak – ‘unsociable football’ I think they call it.

Don’t be afraid of being a bit unsociable with someone a fair bit smaller than you.

He retrieved, fended off and, by the all important fourth quarter, Buddy was finishing them off. ‘There’s nothing better than a forward keeping their feet’, called Matthew Lloyd in commentary.

Keep your feet. Don’t go to ground.

I slept well, bound in sweet dreams of my ‘white knight’ and my best buddy.

* * *

On Sunday, we were back in the city and back to reality. Watching North versus the Tigers, the inevitable became apparent.

Any battle between human souls is never usually one-sided.

My months one-on-one with the Bomblet will be a time for raw courage. For all my silver lined dreams of the big boys at full forward, no doubt it will eventuate into a skill-less scrap, every disposal a 50/50, missed shots, turnovers, attacks and counter attacks, all the play under pressure, no easy possessions, endless stoppages, raw nerves, scoring opportunities without reward, goal for goal for a deadlock in the end, the type of game where you need a third man up, but there isn’t one available. Perhaps a draw is desirable in my case.

Don’t, whatever you do, lobby for extra time.

Probably just as well my team is not heading to September. But we are headed to Rivalry Round – a perfect warm up for a couple of months with the Bomblet.

Happy tipping!


And to better bear the angst of whatever might be worrying you, you need to read this and this. Life is a rich field of dung just waiting to sprout edibles and these guys completely understand that.

BULLETIN - POST ROUND 15

The Eaglet and I have flown the coup this week … to the country.

There’s nothing like the change of air, a change of scenery. As you drive south along the coast, you are weaned from the city first by the southern suburbs, then the national park, the mounts above Wollongong, until you are driving in vulgar, rolling green hills, hills that look like they’ve greedily swallowed all the water of the state and are only too happy to boast about it. Every time I make the trip, I expect that the physical transposition will affect a similar kind of internal change on me – that I too will become clear thinking, spacious, wholesome. If only it were as simple as changing the concrete greys to greens.

As Barry Hall’s white ute rounded the boundaries of the SCG on Saturday afternoon, past the little Auskick kids whose shorts meet the cuffs of their socks as they willingly drop balls just past their boots but gallop forward no matter, his face became more and more broken. Each metre seemed to give way to a dawning, for him, of everything he had given away by not being able to change his ways. Many suggested that the big leopard never would. It wasn’t for a lack of opportunities.

The sadness for me, what I read in the trickle of the big man’s tears, was a knowledge of the potential regret that will come from never knowing whether he might have had a better exit, whether he could have changed those spots.

Unless, that is, he changes his stripes. Unless he finds a new guernsey to pull over that scone in 2010.

* * *

On the eve of Round 15, esteemed tipster and provocateur extraordinaire, Travis, sent me a brief message:

‘I don't know if I would feel good or bad about Barry kicking a 'bundle' for another team. He's says it would be tough to play the Swans, in fact he said he couldn't. If I did feel good about this prospect it would be coming from a bad place.’

He qualified this for me by revealing the ‘bad place’ to be the desire to see Swans people ‘have to ordeal with the Medhurst Principle’.

How the sting of the traded player remains.

There are a bag of notables running around today: Judd, Cousins, Gardner, Medhurst, Akermanis, Motlop, Hudson. Whether voluntarily traded, caught in the bonuses of November deals or looking for the yellow brick road ‘home’, however they got there, there they now play. They wear the colours, they sing the song.

When your traded player goes and plays about the same, there’s not so much to begrudge. No-one’s crying rivers over Schneider, Dempster, King, Johnstone or (Judd’s fall guy) Kennedy.

When they go and break down, well, that’s the footy Gods closing their karmic circles: Nathan Brown and his broken leg, Playfair and his irreparable hammy.

There are those few – club champions, high achievers – who leave to a chorus of ‘good riddance’ and what follows is largely irrelevant. Somehow, these players never look quite right in the colours they end up in – Aker in blue and Carey in Crow hoops. Hall in …?

When the heart and soul of your club goes, it’s unfathomable. Imagine being an Eagle and losing Judd and Cousins having already slipped a grip on Gardner. Can you conceive of Kirk leaving the Bloods or Richo leaving his nomenclaturally appropriate Richmond? It’d be like giving away your grandmother’s antique furniture to Vinnies.

And what to do with those rare few, like Josh Carr, who go for some time and come back again? Port to Fremantle and back to Port. How are you supposed to feel about those guys? They give their best years to someone else and want you to nurse them through the dribbling.

The pain to which Travis refers – when your traded player departs, only to find a very blustery second wind elsewhere – that must sting. Farren Ray has slipped into Sainthood this year with as much ease as Mary MacKillop is having difficulty. Words are sworn over those releases.

Travis is right. Us Swans have rarely ordealed with the Medhurst principle. Perhaps it is our turn with Baz. We have, until now, been on the other side of the bridge. It’s a risky business – like doing the Saturday garage sale circuit. You can find gems or get exactly what you paid for. We have been mostly lucky, or astute. The Swans have absorbed the discards of other clubs and after a quick wipe and a new set of batteries, they have become favourite additions. These players change like phantoms as if they never were who they’d been, appearing to have only ever been who they now are.

Sydney took a triple grand final emergency player in Craig Bolton and made him into an All-Australian club captain. Does anybody remember him in maroon? We took a second tier ruckman and made him into one of the big men to beat in the middle. Can anyone still ‘see’ him in the navy blue and red? We took an inconsistent, hot headed thug of a kid from St Kilda and made him into an imposing, hot headed thug of a man in Sydney. We won a Premiership with these three. The jury’s out on Richards and Mattner, although both have been more than handy. And as for the # 2 … sometimes you have to invoke a kind of colour blindness. Swans supporters were reluctant when a Shaw came to Sydney. But, now, as he heads the Swans’ kicks and disposals, is 4th in the league’s rebound 50s and 1st in bounces, he is ‘Rhycey’ to all of us in the O’Reilly, as familiar and uniquely ours as the intersection of the SCG’s centre square and 50 metre arc. It’s better to take from Collingwood than to give to them, n’est-ce pas Travis?

It’s not easy to give away your colours nor to take the colours of others. It messes with your sense/s of loyalty.

I have dealt with the inevitable duality posed by loyalty, in general, since the day we took the tram back to Paul’s place after the 2006 grand final. While we expressed our sorrow over the Swans, the look on the Eaglet’s face told us that his heart had already been tempted to the other side of the continent. I have strummed his defiance gently. But there is a part of me that longs for him to lie in the gentle down-lined nest of the Swan under the wings of his mother and father.

And then, on Saturday, the Eaglet changed his wings from the noble wedges of the great bird to the steely span of the Bomber. What do you call a baby Bomber? A ‘bomblet’? Well, yes. Toby informed me, on Saturday, that there is such a thing as a Bomblet – any of a number of explosive, incendiary, or fragmentation bombs packed into a larger bomb or canister that releases or scatters them to explode separately. Multiple trouble. Sounds extremely appropriate.

Just like players, supporters (and tipsters) have been known to seek greener pastures. To be fair to the Bomblet, he has always laid claim to the Eagles and Bombers. He started his barracking life with the two team system in place. (There’s a whole separate bulletin to be written on the politics of ‘having a second team’ – Can you only be a true lover if you love one? What about parents with more than one child? Don’t they profess to loving two or more equally? Can you switch your second team from year to year? …)

People say that children lack the complexity to understand loyalty, because they don’t have any years behind them in which to have cultivated the hindsight-only benefits of long term commitment – the strength that comes, the lessons learnt in steadfastness. We treat their shiftiness as flippant and are lenient on its lack of experience.

But somehow, looking at the sometime Eaglet, part-time Bomblet crying for the big Swan looking for a reincarnation as … a Dog?, it was apparent that he was not shirking the complexity of loyalty by trying on all the colours, he was embracing it. Sitting looking at the Bomblet and at Barry, with Travis’s puzzle ringing in my mind, made me realise that the possessive, one-eyed supporter or the proud, one-club player, has no exclusive monopoly on heart and soul.

Children understand the essence of things not the connotation of things. They know they can love two parents, so why can’t they love two teams? If Tilda Swinton can live a polyamorous life, why can’t we all? Perhaps the Bomblet truly understands that human loyalty transcends singularity, that humans are good at switching their own loyalties, even while defending their right to loyalty from others. He is an honest loyalist.

I suspect our attachment to loyalty as a singular thing comes from the hope that it guarantees some kind of sturdiness and familiarity, a hearth to return to when we feel like we might get lost – the club as a home, like the central powerpoint into which the multiple powerboard is plugged, the server which allows you to go off wandering somewhere and welcomes you back after your adventures.

So, as the natural daylight tilted and Barry bundled up the opposition race, I decided that if he were to go and kick a bundle for the Dogs or the Crows … can I truly add Pies? … I’d be sad he couldn’t do it with us and I’d be pleased for him and for them. A little bit of my loyalty would go with him. And most of it would remain. And I'd be pleased that he might finally be able to check his spots in the mirror.

* * *

The Bomblet and I sat out on the deck at 7am this morning, fresh from a silent night’s sleep, seeing ‘cockatoos’ and ‘hens’ in the newly sunlit clouds hanging out over the coast, waiting for its rays to warm our own small patch of ground. I asked him:

‘Do you think Barry should play footy again?’
‘I think rugby league or union.’
‘But what if the Bulldogs offered him a guernsey?’
‘No. He looks a bit too much like Eagleton so I don’t think the Bulldogs. Maybe boxing.’

The sun popped over the escarpment and turned the grasses green. Danny Green.

Happy tipping!