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?