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.