The End

Only 3 days to go 'til we can all sleep til late Feb.

In an otherwise troubling year it's been a relatively good and refreshing season:

- The Hawks are out. Thankfully they'll be in rebuild mode after next year.

- The Dogs are up and about, as a team, as a club and as a serious thing. The fact this has come pretty much out of the blue is a wondrous thing. It gives hope to those of us who support clubs on the south side of the success barrier.
- The Sainters have a rigorous heartbeat.

- The Dee's have a pulse. 

- The Crows have bounced back well from tragedy. We can hate them properly again next year.

- GWS are exciting, although as natural as botoxed plastic, and thankfully ultimately unsuccessful as yet.

- The Dons haven't yet rubbed there arses in our faces (wait til next year).

- The Cats showed it takes more than deep pockets and cherry-picking for ultimate glory.

- Likewise the Pies' recent habit of desperately purchasing celebrity big-name, high-flying, fan-appeasing footballers has led them arguably drifting further from the prize rather than closer.

- Tigers, Roos, Freo, Brisvegas, Gold Coast and, perpetually, Blues all in rebuild.

- Port scratching their heads.
- West Coast may as well go back to the crystal meth. It worked last time.

- And then there are the Swans. There's never a story with the Swans. They're like Kraftwerk only nowhere near as good.

In the land of the Drunk, Bernie, the peoples' favourite, took the silver-plated tinware.
Never has an award been more richly deserved, more popular. More surprising.
He's more than one of the family, he's part of the furniture. And he's really fucken comfy.
Congratubloodylations Bern!

The elephant in the room this year has been the League of Drunks fantasy league comp. Ok, small elephant, but unimaginably important to a very small number of us. It barely rated a mention all year, but all you need to know is Lloydy won again. It must be his 8th, 10th, who knows how many titles. Most importantly he beat The Traders. These are a bunch of, I think 3 guys who do this as their 'thing'. Professionals. Losers. We have the winner right here. Go Andy.

But there is, of course, still unfinished business. 

Tonight we eat, drink and potentially make arses of ourselves as we fork over bucket loads of cash to Bern, Tas, Dickwad and Jackpot Rob.

And on Saturday Ando and I go head to chest (have you seen how tall that fucker is?) in the Grand Final tip-off. May the best me win.

Here's the paper trail:

Finals W1

 Things look a bit like this now:

The tips. All one-sided games apparently. Seems no-one took reality into account.

R23

Today, that young man is no longer young, and the dream is now reality.

There are few PunchDrunk Founding Fathers still going around. From memory Franco Schena, Franco Trobbiani, maybe Harv and, I don't believe so, but maybe Stavros.

As those sage gents were cutting the ribbon on the first (pre) Drunk season in 1988, there by their side, was a young child, agog and still pyjama'd. Possibly still smelling vaguely of breast-milk and up way past his bed-time. That boy, that Founding Foundling, that tousled toddler was none other than Bernie. Bernard O'Seamus Padraig Phelan.

The boy has finally joined joined the ranks of adult Drunks. This year he can sit at the big table with the rest of us, this year he can have the avocado with his his prawn cocktail. This year he can pass on the shandy and have a real VB.

Today this boy is finally a man living his dream.

It won't come as a surprise to any of us that, after leading for the past 15 rounds, Bern has not only held his lead, but continually extended it whenever anyone even looked like making a move.

Congrats Bern old chum. In your modest manner you claim we were foxing and intended to cruelly snatch your impossible-to-lose victory at the last minute. Or worse, took pity on you and let you win. If it were possible both would be true, but alas, they cancel each other out, so you must have won fair and square. You may not believe it, and neither do I, but there you have it.

Tas and Dickwad each gave it a red-hot go, finishing second and third respectively for the second successive year, each with identical point scores to last year. Freaky huh.

Bob Brookmeyer finished 4th, thereby replacing her husband Heylow in this year's finals. Matt and Ando were always hanging about and hung on for finals berths. Garth, after a fourth last year finished 7th and is in for his second successive finals series, and yours truly, Drunkenstein, fell into eighth on the last game of the season after 5 years in the cellar. BobCatter stuck his neck out a little too often and a little too far in the final round, dropping out of the eight. Death or glory.

Here's the final ladder:

A voice from Tigerland

For anyone left on Earth who is yet to hear this or anyone else, including Tigers, who needs more of a laff (do the clicking thing):

R22

The dream bites the dust for yet another year. It all comes down to one final weekend for that dust to settle and officially see where we're at.

From where I'm at I can't see this round holding the necessary 2 or 3 swing games for Bernie to be dethroned or defrocked, even by Tas. But maybe that's why I'm not sitting up where it's at.

However the small places may come in for a bit of a shake-up and the 8 is still a little interesting. Especially for those of me who are sitting in what's become The Land of the Tiger – ninth.

The only other real point of interest was also wrenched from our grasp last weekend, when Rob took a small break from producing and feeding heirs to put his hand out for nine wins, a zero margin and virtually a year's complete jackpot. $380. Easily the biggest jackpot payout in the history of the Drunk, largely courtesy of the Demons' shameful capitulation to Rob's own Blues. Uninterestingly the only other Drunk to tip it was Taffa. This was Taffa's ONLY correct tip this week.

It's time call in the Drunk debts now, so you count up your bucks and I'll shoot through details of where to send them.

Remember to draw a line around Thursday 29th of September, that's when we'll have our knees-up.

R21

The Bern-out we've all been expecting and hoping for just hasn't eventuated. I reckon we can pretty much call it Bernie's Cup this year dammit.

But things are humming and spring-timey in other quarters.  A cosy bunch of Drunk loyalists had a small drink a week or so back at the Union, I'm just back from a week in FNQ, the new laptop's working, the new phone's good and, oh yes the Dees are up and about all dreamy-like. At least until Saturday, when new-found hope will most likely be dashed. But hey, 6 days of hope in a season is better than we've had for 10 years, better than none.

And so to this:
Bernie's bolted for sure but it's a multi-way battle for 2nd and 3rd, and for the 8. There are enough interesting games to shake things up a fair bit I reckon.

And more importantly the jackpot tab is up to a scary $380. The highest in Drunk history.

R17

An apology and explanation for lack of contact, lack of content. General lack.

Firstly, these Thursday games have been killing my momentum. I'd just about get the ladder done, my mind around writing some snippet of garbage and then BANG! It's Thursday and before you know it, before I'm ready, there's a game on and I'm knocked out of stride, thrown off my stroke.

That's the first excuse and now, well last Thursday actually, my laptop died. Really quite dead. Among the items not backed up it appears was a significant slice of PunchDrunk history and all this year's base files. The upshot I'm afraid is no more ladder for the year. I could remake it from scratch but I'm not going to. It's redundant anyway, the icing on an ever-diminishing cake. Now there's little cake, no icing and even the plate is looking chipped and dirty.

Since last we had a little chat we've endured 3 weeks of momentum-sapping byes, and a few full rounds, but you know what? Bernie's still perched on top of the tree like a cat who's not sure how he got there and is either too scared to come down or is just being, well... a cat. Annoying and playing with our psyche's. 

Here's your new ladder:

R11

This time last week the Tigers were finals bound, the 'Pies were still in bounce-back mode and our very own Leah Champs was sitting at 6th having won the round with 8 wins and margin-variance of a solitary point.

This time this week? Well, the Tiges are shot, dead, extinct (again), the Pies are cooked and Leah, having scored possibly the first zero in PunchDrunk history*, is sitting at 34th.  28 spots, not the greatest single-week fall in 'Drunk history as I recently explored with Harv, but a damn good effort nonetheless.

Bernie (who I used to like a lot) clearly missed my email on how to keep the comp interesting and pulled out 9 wins at a margin fail of just 4 points (possibly the best single week result in 'Drunk history*) to stride further out in front. As if he knows where the hell he's going.

If you're interested the most significant single week falls in the past 5 years have been:

R2 2012: Harv drops 17
R6 2012: Rob drops 19
R2 2013: Harv drops 30
R2 2014: Trobby drops 34
R4 2014:  Leah drops 23
R4 2015: Schena drops 20
R7 2016: Harv drops 21


* No idea really.

R10

If there's one thing that drives the decent, honest footy-goer crazy, it's the current craze of drawing a high tackle free from ducking, draping, head-butting etc. A couple of weeks back I endured watching Rhys Mathieson's dubious debut, wherein he cheated his way to no less than 6 free kicks through perfectly timed collapsing of his undercarriage as he was being tackled. Sucked the maggots in every single time but one, where he was rightly pinged for holding

And while Lindsay Thomas was in the news last week for the same misdemeanour, apparently his numbers aren't as incriminating, with something like 4 high-tackle frees for to date for the whole season.

I took it upon myself to do some research to try to ascertain whether this is a new problem.
As you can see by the images below, it seems this has been going on for a while now.

 Meanwhile here's where we're at:

R9

Ever get that Phelan? Well Bernie's got it right now.
After 28 years in PunchDrunk Bernie's finally hit the lead for the first time ever.*

* T's&C's: I have no idea if this is even remotely true, and I'm too lazy to look back and see if we've been going 28 years, 27 or whatever.  It's late, it's beer o'clock and I hereby hand over the reins of this potential pun-fest to to Tassy and Taffa.

Jackpot's hit $200. Phelan lucky?

R7

Seven rounds in and we can see what shape the AFL ladder's taking. The Final 8 is already decided, no-one else is going anywhere. Some big ins, some bigger outs.
The Brownlow is now down to 4 players. Danger, Viney and 2 others I've forgotten.
Fyfe's gone, Swan's sung his swan song, Little Gary's a little dead and buried. There are still some of those frizzy bad-hair-day guys from the West everyone gets mixed-up... I dunno who they are Priddis, Mayne, Ted Bundy and some others.

Pretty much it's all about who's gun forward is the gunniest. Buddy... seems he can still play, even though he's looking a little chubby-chopped yeah? I guess his wallet's been in a pretty good paddock. Then there's that guy from the West with the beard who goes out and kicks 13 goals every eighth week. There are 2 guys with the same name, the Lynch mob, one of whom is the shiznit. There's the highest paid teenager in Footscray, who barely gets a game, but goes OK. There's that guy from St Kilda, who reminds me a bit of that other guy from St Kilda from a couple of decades ago. The one who liked the 'dogs and pies. And then there's the $15m man.

Just rambling now. Here's this:

Bob Brookmeyer's bobbed up, cream floats. Where'd he/she come from?

Bern's a bit pissed at that low-life Roo. The one with the stop-watch and the goal at the end of the day. Reckons he cost him the $140 jackpot. But then he kicked the goal anyway and cost him $140 by even more. Which is a bit confusing really.

Our ladder's a bit more shapely too, starting to get a bit of a taper happening after about 6 weeks of pretty-much total verticality.
About half the top half of the table are previous winners (6 of the top 11? 8 of the top 16?). I'm predicting we'll get either a former winner take it out again, or if not, a first time winner pinch it.

Rambling over. And out.

R5

It's all pretty-much locked up on the Drunk ladder at the moment, some pretty close games coming up in the real world this week too.

5 weeks in and footy's still more weighted toward interesting than controversial. Apart from that stupid out of bounds rule, or its policing at least.

The bombers are pretty much where everyone wants them to be. The Tiges are back to where we all think they should be, deep down. Everyone's happy about the cold Pies. And no-one has any sympathy for Freo.

Anyway, that's them, this is us:

Basically nothing between 1st and 22nd really. Or 24th. Or 27th, or even 31st.

It's pretty much a dead-heat, BUT Lex is back on the top of the heap, and we all know she's got it in her, she's done it before.

The jackpot's still jacking up, still in the pot. $120 now and looking very attractive indeed.

R4

Never quite got this up last week, but here it is. Dirk Yellow and Blacks may be struggling, but he's in top form personally and here's your proof:

R3

Some pretty interesting footy again this week. 

The Pies are gone, the Tiges are gone, the Dockers are gone, Bob's gone. The Bombers are gone, again. A lot to talk about and I know just the place.

See you at the Union Club, 7pm-ish Thursday night for the first 'Drink of the season.

Some familiar names in the mix up the top with some fresh talent.
Lex is still up there, Coxy's still hanging close.

R2

 Back to more normal transmission I'm afraid.

R1

I know we're only one round in, but something feels better already this year.

A win? Better tips? Better footy? The sense the Bomber issue is finally behind us? The Hawks getting beaten?

I have a friend called Mark, who often introduces a Big Footy Statement with "I'm not a smart man Rich, but..." and then makes an observation that, indeed, often reinforces that point. Well, I've just got Foxtel (don't get me started, it's shizenhausen, but having no telly reception in the house we've just been forceably resettled into I was desperate), the Smart Men on the telly with the sheets of paper with the numbers on them assure me that, yes, the footy IS better this year. Quicker, more open, more offensive. And by more offensive, of course I mean less offensive, more attractive to watch, if you know what I mean.

It's a small sample, but bring it on. After all if we'd wanted to watch something as dull as Rugby League we'd all have been born in Sinny or Brisvegas, and would probably be stimulating an Alsatian right now.

And so to the PunchDrunk news:

37 Drunks seem to have turned up to work this year. That's two off and one on. Corey, after several seasons of giving it a nudge without knocking it over, has decided putting a tip into a computer once a week is more onerous than his schedule can bear this year. We hope to see him back soon. And young Nick, who dropped off the perch around May last season hasn't re-surfaced and seems to be chasing greener pastures elsewhere. 

Our new fella this year, young Sam, is another second generation Drunk, and I believe a rabid Demon to boot. Welcome young man, we wish you and your team of very handsome and sporty Demons all the best.

And so to the Round 1 ladder.

Look who's back on top...
 Lex, after letting someone else have a go and win it last year, is back for more. And that 'someone else', Coxy, sitting in third. 

But it's early days, and I, for one, am not about to let anyone else win it this year but me, and I'm sure you all feel exactly the same way.

See you at PUNCHDRINK #1, April 14.

drunk again

We're just days away from the 28th season of PunchDrunk action.

It's Easter, the perfect time to resurrect a game sorely in need of a heart transplant and a little mouth-to-mouth. We've suffered several seasons of the ill-effects of performance-enhancement, free-agency, deaths in the footy family and a few fairly strong doses of basic ineptitude, on and off the turf. Surely NOW IS THE TIME to bounce back, take the bull by the horns, dust off the fruit on the sideboard and kick some goals.

Surely this is the season we can rediscover our lost love for this faded rose of a game, this once near-perfect of all sports. I'm up for it. Come, take my hand and let's walk this walk together.

As the Dalai Lama once said to me: "Remember Dick, we're in this for the eternal glory, not the monetary gain. Oh yes, money will get you so far, but a win against the filth or the scum is equal to several lifetimes of nirvana... Oh, and I'll have a pint of Yak and some salt and vinegar chips if you're going up." He's such a calm and quiet man he never shouts even when it's his turn.

So gird your loins and hoist your main-sail, we're heading into sharky waters in a very leaky boat. I'm a little scared, but very excited. Hope you are too.