All Going To Script For Geelong! (The Lost Weekend)

The Bullies are still trying to figure out what just happened to them…

If that was just a dress rehearsal, how good is opening night going to be! Geelong showed the second-placed Western Bulldogs what the big stage is all about with a crushing second-half performance and, coupled with Hawthorn’s loss to St Kilda, appear to have top spot in the bag. Unless Paul Chapman and 10 to 12 teammates get suspended for a few weeks by calling the umpires ‘cheats‘…they don’t like that too much.

Scarily, the Cats still have a few top line players to come back into the line-up; including Gary Ablett, provided the star midfielder survives his life-threatening ankle injury. But despite the big win, coach Mark Thompson doesn’t believe his side is developing a superiority complex over the Dogs …but, honestly, they should be!

Dogs coach Rodney Eade seems to think that it was a closer contest than the scoreboard indicated. If this were actually true, it would make this match the tightest ten-goal loss in the history of football!

The Cats score a massive win…and don’t they look excited!

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Here’s a look back at the weekend’s action on Dress Rehearsal round:

SUNDAY

Paul Roos was pretty pumped after the win but has a few injury worries…welcome back Barry Hall? Maybe. Welcome back Nick Davis? F@!# no!!!

• Sydney squeak past Carlton in a nail-biter at the Telstra Dome that Paul Roos described as a ’special day’ for his club. The Blues looked like winners for most of the day before being over-run in the second half but the coach had every right to be pleased with the effort…especially Bryce Gibbs who handled Adam Goodes pretty well. In a side note, Paul Roos thought that the ugly, boring Joel Bowden stalling tactic was pretty sweet – does this surprise anyone?

That victory was ass-grabbingly good for Port Adelaide!

• The fortunes of both teams may not have inspired the usual level of excitement for the Showdown but the Power made the most of their chance to screw up the Crows’ finals push by claiming another famous local derby win. And is it all thanks to a former national coach…from an entirely different sport?

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• The Fremantle Dockers win!!! At home!!! And didn’t belt anybody doing it!!! It looked like another disastrous day for Freo as they fell behind early but they recovered uncharacteristically well to smash Melbourne…they being ‘Matthew Pavlich’, of course. Freo now move one game clear from the bottom of the ladder…where Melbourne lives! But the Demons are determined to avoid the spoon…which works out for the West Coast Eagles because they would love nothing more than to finish last. The two teams meet at the MCG in round 20…

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SATURDAY

After all these years, Joel Bowden and his backwards-sideways bullshit actually helped Richmond win a game!

• In the forgotten Saturday afternoon game, Richmond kept their ninth-placed finish hopes alive with a last-gasp win over Essendon. The Bombers lost Dustin Fletcher before the game then three players were forced out through injury before a second half comeback fell just short thanks to the ass-backwards exploits of Joel Bowden. While it may be a little karma working against the Bombers after they pioneered the chip-kick keepings-off tactic in the nineties, the manner in which the Tigers won means they are still losers in the eyes of the football world.

St Nick is on fire!!!

• St Kilda are still a touch shambolic off the field but when it comes to winning games, they are doing quite nicely…a thrilling second-half effort securing a memorable comeback win over the Hawks. After four wins in a row, the Sainters are certainly moving in the right direction…which is a wonder when you consider what happened to Malcolm Blight, who finally showed how pissed off he was about it, and how that ended up with the B.S. appointment of Grant Thomas. And that didn’t end so well either…

Beat West Coast one-handed? ‘Piece of piss’ says Jamie Charman!

• Brisbane climb up to sixth on the AFL ladder by beating the West Coast and while Leigh Matthews is pleased that his Lions are winning again…it was only West Coast! The Eagles are closing in on dead last and want Daniel Kerr to prove himself in four meaningless games to see if he wants to stay. Yeah…that’ll work.