31.8.12

HEY HO HEYLOW?


Can Ian get there at the death? Nah, probably not. But nice penultimate round to leap-frog Matt and sproing straight into third. It's always sad to see a Blues supporter endure pain and as such it's been a really sad week for all of us. Add to that pain Matty-Loves-Juddy's fall from the money-zone. Having said that, I'm pretty sure Fordy's a Blue-bagger (apologies for the slander if that's untrue mate) and he's not exactly hurting.

Of course Matty wasn't alone last weekend, Tassy and your's truly both went from hope to dope. We could have been anything. But weren't.

Both Juzzy and Ian have to catch up 2 games on Fordy this week to win the Cup, due to having inferior margin tallies. I can't see it with the games on offer, but then I picked 4 last week.

And so the season draws ever closer to its close. I reckon Mad Monday may fall on a sunday evening this year. It's been a long, tiring and dispiriting season, I even injured myself peeling garlic last week.

PUT IT IN YOUR DIARIES:

I'll whip up some kind of invite, but note this down: PunchDrunk Prize Night will be on Thursday Night, September 27th. See you there.

Mr September: ROBBIE McGHIE. Drunk Playmate of the Month

Former Doggie, Tiger and Swan, Robbie McGhie has bobbed up as the final Playmate this year. He was last year's PunchDrunk poster-boy, but I've double-dipped, mainly, I have to admit, due to discovering a shot which rivals my all-time favourite footy shot of a faggin' Robbie doing up his boots mid-MCG, possibly even mid-game (below).


The new shot is of Robbie downing a real TINNIE of VB, or Melbourne, or possibly VB on the hallowed turf. One of those real cans with the beautiful metal joinery and solder up the side, none of your smooooth seamless alubloodyminium here. The various exercises in hair self-expression just add to the magic, none more so than Robbie's sharpy number.
 
A couple of Drunks teeter on the precipice of greatness this week. Jim Richo and Andy "Logger" Lloyd.

The League of Drunks has dragged itself to Grand Final week. Richo has teetered there before and triumphed, can he take out his second LOD Premiership, having been best placed Drunk in 2010? Or can Logger, in his second year, scrawl his name on the imaginary teak Leaders' Board at PDHQ? Have the Cheesies got the depth at this end of the season to take the fast-finishing, finely tuned Loggers?

Questions, questions, questions and in true PunchDrunk tradition, absolutely no answers... We'll find out soon, but my long-held feeling than once the Loggers started rolling they may well be unstoppable has not dissipated.

Below is the trail of the dead...


And at the other end of the table, the Best of the Rest Granny will be a shoot-out between Coxy's catfish and Lygon St Limbo (I'm sure Matty-Really-Loves-Juddy-But-Can't-Stand-Ratts must have had a prescient epiphany just prior to conjuring that team name).


24.8.12

ROUND 21 CATCH UP: KANGA-WHOS?


Nice pick up on the weekend for those who chose the Kanga's. Of course we all thought it COULD go, but... Must be one of the more interesting results for the year. Does this mean the Kanga's are now a legit footy team. Damn, where did that come from? I hate those guys. Spent far too many afternoons with their unpleasant fans in that Docklands hell hole.

Fordy just keeps bustling on while the challengers stumble over each other to take that big step. Is it too early to call it? Maybe just. There are still a few contentious games ahead so you never know.
Minor places look to hold the most interest at the moment with Matt and Juzzy doing a bit of leapfrogging and, looming dangerously from the depths, last year's Club Champ Tassy on an absolute upward trajectory.
The final few spots in the 8 are still up for grabs, though even that is looking just a little harder.

My DreamTeam light has been extinguished, the thrill is gone. Joy is dead.

Shite form from all my former world-beater defenders + cruelty at the selection table + Swannie's indiscretion at the beer table = Decimation. Chimps out in straight sets. No back to back.

But seriously I hope the rest of you are having fun.

Here's what we've got. No second chances....

The 2 Big Cats baring their claws at each other.
And an interesting week down at Regent St, with Rob and Andy shielding their teams from each others' prying eyes.

And down here in the lower reaches, Catfish, having just missed the top 8 at the last roll of the dice, should be able toset up a nice Granny with Matt's Lygon St. You'd reckon.

17.8.12

ROUND 20: SOMEONE BETTER DO SOMETHING PRETTY QUICK.

Sorry to have missed last week's update, a bit too much juggling going on at the moment, and having trouble keeping my balls in the air.

It all looked a bit interesting there last time we spoke. Fordy looked to be doubting himself, there were a few new hats being thrown into the ring. Two long weeks have passed since then and we're pretty much back to normality.





You really can't begrudge Fordy a front-runner's win, he's been a shining light, but, well it's like the Melbourne Cup. You want a Kingston Town, or Hyperno to come looming like a shark from somewhere near mid-field to make everything interesting and worthwhile.
So who could snatch it? Juzzy? From memory he's a Tiger supporter. Not a great CV for a come-from-behind champ. But he lives in Sydney so may well be bank-rolled by the AFL. Watch this space.
Matty Loves Juddy? Blues supporter, so knows how to bend the rules without the media showing any interest. Could well have some AFL approved dodgy deal with the cardboard people who no-one else in the comp is allowed to have. Possibility.
Dickwad? Another Tiger. But may have the game-plan to break the lines. Relative new-comer with definite creds and consistency.
Kurtz? The veteran. This may be his chance. It's really just a hobby for him, but has the talent to do it between Chiantis.
Tassy looking for back-to-backs and has to be said is looming from the depths at the right end of the season. Also funniest bloke on FaceBook.
Ian. Adelaide supporter. Where the fuck did he/they come from? Been around for a while, don't remember him this high at this stage before, may yet get a blood nose, but like the Black Birds everything seems to be working.
Dick. Demons supporter. Say no more, in the beyond unlikely chance he can get there, he'll lose it in some tanking-related count-back. And be stripped of his solitary previous Drunk win. And all others going forward.
Coxy: Tiges
Phil: Dees
Brenna: Tiges
I could go on...
Leah, a Cat, seriously good consistently over the past 4 or so years... our first First Lady?

Gotta go home now. Good luck all.

Richo won the jackpot. Running out the door now. More soon.

Over




DANE SWAN: YOU ARE A PISSHEAD ARSEHOLE

Absolute fucking disaster at Camp Champ last weekend. First Swannie forgets to call Last Drinks, then Callan Ward pulls out his Ostentatious Pudenda and takes a few weeks off, Josh "Don't Quite Feel Like It This Week" Drummond gets 'sore' and then Chappy misses the plane.

Worst round of the year just in time for the finals. And now we face Logger's Rope-a-Dope Legends. Jeezus. Straight sets.

And so to this week:

Other Top Half Game, can the Hawkers take out the more fancied PussyBoy Conglomerate?

Bottom Half: Dirk's Snags v Alex's House of the Holy Sh1t, a few sharpened elbows in the MARS office this week boys?
And Kurtz's SENWs up against Fordy's Fordy. Kurtz is probably sunning himself in the 'Hai or Hawaii or somewhere, oblivious to his footy fate, so big chance for Fordy here.

Big picture stuff, if you have time...

Top Half.

Bottom Half.

3.8.12

FORDY IS TANKING TOO: BROCK

Just last week the Dalai said to me "Dick, sometimes the barest trees bear the sweetest fruit". We were over at mine drinking mojitos at the time, so I assumed he was talking about my lime tree, which confused me a little because a) you wouldn't really call limes 'sweet', and b) that tree is pretty damn fecund. But now I get it, as always there's more to his wisdom than meets the eye. He's a smart guy.

What he was trying to say in his awkward funny-talk way was this: Just when all looks lost, when the horizon seems barren, when all hope is hopeless. Just when you start to drop your head and think about next season, opportunity comes bounding up like a large labrador puppy. And it happened last weekend.

Fordy started tanking.

Yep, the mysterious Mr Ford who's led pretty much from round 1, failed to submit tips on the weekend. The man who's been just out of touch all year, has possibly moved into our sights. Certainly the past few days has seen Mr Juzzy G walking the dirty streets of Sydney with a skip to his step, betraying a decided schoolgirlish excitement. I know, you're right, that's not uncommon up there.

Mr Ford has yet been unavailable for comment.

Here's the wobbly chart:


Sadly for the rest of us, if ever there was a week for our leader to pull in the default non-tip "lowest of round" this was it. Lowest was a 7, so in reality he only dropped one game to most of the contenders, and more importantly kept the lead.

All this however had me dredging back though the archives to 2009. Fordy, the same Fordy when he wore a younger man's clothes, hit the lead at round 9 and held it all year. All year that is until the very final round, when young Sam leap-frogged me and pick-pocketed Craig (a move he learnt from watching 'Oliver', I believe). See below.


Surely this couldn't happen again. Surely.


AFL LEAK - VLAD'S INTERNAL EMAIL ON TANKING

First thing, this is not my work, I stole it from the Demonland site, where it was posted by a correspondent called pantaloons, but thought it was relevant and a good insight into the workings of the Evil Emperor's mind:


"What an exclusive I can break to you all on demonland. Andrew Demetriou's email addressing all things tanking to Adrian Anderson. Major news. Here we go:


Yo Adrian,

How's it going? Things are pretty sweet up here at the Olympics in London. I went to the badminton last night - awesome. Got some autographs at the basketball. But I could go on and on about the awesome time I'm having. I hear there have been some dramas around tanking in the last couple of days. Boy, thought we'd heard the last of this one. Oh well, I wrote this letter during the men's 100m freestyle final, so if you could put this out as a press release that'd be just great. Just edit where necessary. Try to make me look funny.

"Dear media members, AFL fans and employees who are back home enjoying our great game while I conduct important business in London. It is with great sadness that I must inform you that the AFL has today decided to administer some penalties in light of public comments made recently by Northern Bullants player Rock McLean. As a consequence, we have decided to harshly penalise the Melbourne Football Club for their flagrant tanking in, well, pretty much any game between 2007 and 2012. But more on that later.

Sadly, while strenuously digging around for evidence of Melbourne's foul play, we have discovered that they were not alone. It is with a heavy heart that the AFL hands down the following penalties to various clubs for breaches of the newly created Tanking Act:

Carlton: The Blues appear to have been the trailblazer for Melbourne's rorting. You can't tell me the Cruiser (look, I can't spell his name - you don't think having to deal with the pronunciation of bloody R Nahas on Brownlw night is enough?) Cup wasn't a little fishy. I seem to remember T Johnstone having something like 67 possessions and 6 Brownlow votes on the night. Total debacle. Where was Fev? No, not literally - I couldn't care less what he was doing at Crown that night - why was he dropped for the last 9 games? As a penalty, Carlton will be forced to swap their #1 pick from 2007, the aforementioned Cruiser, with Melbourne's #4 pick, Cale Morton. My apologies to Cruiser and his family.

Collingwood: It's very sad (but hilarious when considering what Eddie's reaction will be) to acknowledge, but Collingwood have been found guilty of some shenanigans of their own. Hmm, losing the last 9 games of 2005 while stuck on 5 wins eh? Didn't think we'd pick up on that one, did you? And just two years removed from back to back grand final chokes no less. Collecting Thomas at 2 and Pendlebury at 5 was a hefty return. Given that Pendlebury won the 2010 Norm Smith, and no one was fooled by calling him Embleberry up there on the stage, we've decided to strip the Pies of the 2010 premiership. (Adrian, let me know when it's safe to come home. PS. Don't read that last bit out.)

Hawthorn: Like Collingwood, the Hawks will have to surrender their most recent premiership triumph. Such was their willingness to send players off for season-ending operations in 2004 in great number, numerous children missed out on hospital beds for life-saving operations. Please note, steel reinforcement has been added to the walls of the MCG coaches boxes.

West Coast: See the last two. 2006 premiership cup: gone. Blatant malarkey required to get into position to draft Chris Judd, let alone NicNat. Couldn't get em for 'recreational reasons' in 2006, nailed em here.

Adelaide: the Crows will be forfeiting the 1997 premiership. Before half of SA chokes on a Farmers Union iced coffee, squealing about not doing anything wrong, ask yourselves - how many times has Shane Ellen played in the forwardline before or since the '97 Grand Final? Positional experimentation is for after hours, not grand finals, thank you very much.

St. Kilda and the Bulldogs: One premiership each? Really? Nice try. You now have zero each.

Richmond: like the last two, you are an embarrassment to the competition, and not just for introducing the roar-o-meter to the AFL. Two finals appearances since 1982, and this in an era when we've rigged it so half the teams make the finals. We punish Richmond and its supporters by allowing the club to continue as is.

Brisbane: You weren't fooling anyone with the 'we only want 8 Fitzroy players' shtick. What, couldn't find a spot for Jason Ramsey or Brent Frewen? Could have been a five-peat (we would have bankrolled it too). You lose the 2001 premiership. Well, no, we need the game in Queensland. Just change your logo, would you? It makes me hungry.

Essendon: since 2008, only Richmond and Essendon have disgraced the stae of Victoria by losing to Melbourne. You want to debate that Michael Hurley s better than Jack Watts? Fine, he's a Melbourne player now.

Fremantle: LOL! All the advantages afforded to an interstate club in an AFL-mad city and you've made the finals thrice? For being the perennial skidmarks on the AFL's underpants for 18 years and without any accomplishments to remove the Dockers must revert to their original clown suit uniform.

Port Adelaide: playing the kids eh? Hmm, Chad Cornes and Dean Brogan excelling at GWS - clearly flogging players off before their use by date. AFL license is hereby revoked. (Adrian: phew, that was easy - I've been wanting to do that for a while).

Geelong: one of the more I sickening cases of tanking I've seen. The corruption not only of the sport, but of the female womb. How long did it take to establish this "father-son academy"? How many women tanked themselves out of regular relationships to take part in this production line of prodigies? All three premierships from the modern era are hereby removed.

Sydney: (just leave this bit out, Adrian. No one will count the teams anyway).

And so we come to Melbourne. This hotbed of treachery and asking is met with the swift hand of the law. All premiership points for 2012 to be stripped, and their #1 pick from 2009 taken away. They will however be given an additional priority pick at the start of the first round in consequence of their third wooden spoon in five years.

We hope this is a warning to all teams, not just Melbourne, of the seriousness of tanking.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Andrew Demetriou (just watched the equestrian with the Queen - think I talked her into it)"

Thanks Adrian -AD"

Interesting week ahead for DreamTeamers this week. It's the final week before the finals and there's a 3-way battle for the last 2 spots in the 8. And as many as 5 Drunks tussling for the all-important 4th spot, with its double-chance.
Here's what happened last week:


And hereare the highhlights of what's on the menu for this week: 

Demonskis need to beat the Mongrels to stay in the running for 4th, and looking at last week's scores that should be a ring-a-ding-ding battle.
Next 2 games, well, I don't want to be impolite, but doesn't really matter.
Then the Big One, Catfish v Coreys. Coxy's boys with have to be at their best to knock of the JCEs and stay safe in the 8, because.....
You'd reckon Logger's boys would burn Dirk Currysnags and bound eight-ward, with his superior percentage.
My Chimps should hopefully be able to wipe out Sh1thouse, but we've had 4 selected players not bother turning up in past 3 weeks, so you just never can tell. Win that one and Chimps stay top 4.
Brenna's against top-of-table Cheese, should be a quality hit-out. Can the B-Boys jump to 4th?
Pete's Hawkeyes should be able to do Grant's PapaGs. Prediction: Hawkeyes to finish in the 8, but not the 4.