Red and Bluebeard

I have never heard a hangover called that before ...

If Frosty keeps kicking torps we will have to call him Frosty the Barrelman ... ?

Winning when expected to is a feeling I will have to get used to, OD ...

Home and away games don't get much better than this. Daylight game, at the MCG, beautiful day, even a curtain- raiser game. And a hoodoo-busting win by six goals. Hard to beat ...

Surely not! When was it that the AFL officially decided that there would no longer be a Grand Final replay if there was a draw? And now someone is proposing a best of 3? No, just no.

Don't they, OD? What is unnatural about a huge rabbit producing chocolate eggs?

The Aussie sense of fair play, which seems to have gone missing for some time ...

Nice image! I can just see an enormous mouth in the La Trobe valley spewing up lumps of brown rock ... because you just can't keep a carbon-based non-renewable energy source down!

I think our ball use is one of the key issues. When we play well, it looks great. The problem is when the risky kick doesn't come off, or we fumble, or miss a simple kick. We then seem to go into our shell for too long, and make clanger after clanger. I think we need to be a little less flat out. Roosey put it well in the broadcast I think, when they were praising one of Brisbane's good moves, when he said it is best when the players are moving quickly, but not at a frenetic pace, so something like 3/4 pace. That means they have enough poise to assess the options, while still moving quickly enough to take advantage of any lack of positioning of the defence. IMHO that is what Garlett and Hogan did best, ie moved quickly enough to take advantage, but with the poise and confidence to pick the right option. When we suck, like most of the second half, it seems we are a bunch of desperate chooks, all running like crazy but not getting anywhere. Perhaps it is confidence, perhaps it is coaching, perhaps it is experience (or all three), but somehow we have to get better at sticking to our stuff when the run of play is against us, and making sure our skills don't drop off.

Bump! Another red ball game coming up, 2.10pm at the MCG. Perfect! Now all we have to do is beat the Bananas in Pyjamas for the first time in a dozen years or so ...

Didn't Essendon do that? I am sure there are plenty of previous examples, without even mentioning underarm bowling ...

No, here in Oz we nurse them

I am with you DC. The ICC are giving out wet tram tickets, and Cricket Australia seems to be hanging people. The truth is surely somewhere in the middle --- what they did was wrong and worth punishment, but the punishment has to fit the crime (as Mr G and Mr S would say). The other bit that smells a bit fishy to me is that according to Cricket Australia, there were only 3 people involved, and none of them were bowlers. Sounds weird, at best.

You say that like you think the previous 948 were any different ...

Yeah, the one with the messianic complex

So you did find Handel?

Nobody mentioned Collingwood, DC ...

Try harder, Ernest. Be impressed!

Thanks for the recommendation. Shall do.

I love the caricatures. Great stuff!

Mantovani maybe, but in some ways I prefer Burt Reynolds ... And don't get me started on the difference between a Bach chorale and a bacchanal ...

Then don't forget your chopin Liszt

I don't think I can Handel this ...

You never know your luck in the big city. Can you compare it to another work? Verdi Requiem? Bach Mass in B Minor? Mahler 8th?

You be Beethoven, I'll be Bach!