AFL Round 21 – The Pre-Wrap for the Philosophical Marngrook Follower

Round XXI – the WHERE ARE THEY NOW round?

For the Philosophical Marngrook Follower

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.  Or as we say on The Fatal Shore – déjà vu all over again.  Team Wrap is back in Oz after a refreshing R&R in amongst those Dark Satanic Mills.  As if the culture shock of the sparkling clean air and the broad boulevards isn’t enough, to pick up The Hun or The Sage and read, through the haze of jetlag, the same old names flashing across the reclaimed fish & chip wrapping sends one into tailspin, does it not.  (Watch it Wrap, this is not Fleet Street and you’re not writing a column for The Spectator or The Guardian – Ed)  I’ll be glad when the Spring Carnival gets under way.  At least the horses’ names are different each season.  Cop this lot of Football stories for instance.  Melbourne are rumoured to be fudging, or is that jockeying, for a favourable barrier draw at the Spring Draft Pick Carnival.  (You can use the T word now Wrap; Andreas has moved on since you left for sunnier climes – Ed)  The Tigers are making a late run down the outside for Glorious 9th.  Carringbush are in danger of missing the cut after challenging all season.  Geelong are sitting Top Four and could easily steal another Pennant.  All perennials, eh?  But the daddy of them al has to be the Posh & Becs Circus.

Fair dinkum, you couldn’t make this up if they paid you in gold doubloons and pieces of eight.  It’s been a fascinating journey hasn’t it Wrappers?  First we had the charade of the EFC coming forward to the Appalling Football League, shuffling, cap in hand, to tell the housemaster that they may have been a teansy weany bit over exuberant in their efforts to do well for the colours.  From there, straight to the headmasters office and a thorough dressing down.  The house was suspended from games for the remainder of the year.  The boys responsible, those whose parents had limited standing in the community, were expelled.  The head prefect was suspended, but promised the school captaincy at the start of next school year.  And that would have/should have been the end of it, except this wasn’t good enough for Jimmy Twoshoes.  His halo was dented, and he wanted it back the way it was.  Shining brightly, leading the lost lambs to the slaughter Promised Land.

Don’t know about you Wrappers, but here in the Wrapcave, logic and believability has long flown out the window on this one.  Like when the AFP declared, three days after Essendon self reported, that it was the Blackest Day in Australian Sport.  We’ve just got one question for you, Little Jimmy Fauntleroy, if you prove your point – that you actually were cajoled by threats and enticed by inducements* to take one for the team – will you be returning the inducements?  Because Sunshine, that’s the only way your honour and your soul, what’s left of either, is going to be salvaged.

Look, if he and the board of management was so sure that no lines had been crossed, as continues to be the stance taken at Melrose Drive and in the Hird Camp, why didn’t they both stand their ground at the time?  Why were they so easily bullied into taking the course of action they both did?  You’d like to believe that a board made up of some the staunchest and most upstanding pillars of Melbourne’s political & business elite would have the nerve to rationalize the situation, sum up their options and, based on their strongly held belief, and stare down those proposing the twin evils of mistruth and compromise.  After all, this is the EFC we’re talking about; the sanctuary of all that’s good and noble about our society.  The course they did take, as is being born out currently by the sworn evidence, would imply a huge degree of uncertainty about the validity of the pharmacological experimentation that had been going on at the club for a whole season.

True, Shoeless Jim has been saying throughout this whole process that the truth would out.  Now, the crux of all this is, has he been cajoled and induced to keep schtum while the charade was completed, and everything returned to normal?  If that’s the case, you’d be inclined to think he’d broken his word.  Not the look he’s after, you’d expect.  ….

We’d like someone to explain to us what this court brouhaha is all about, other than a cathartic showroom for the events of this boring episode in the long history of The Game.  Events that, quite frankly, have been the accepted recounting amongst Students of The Game from day one.  Their reguritation isn’t going to change a thing.  ASADA can, and it duty bound to, use the evidence to hand and re-issue the show cause notices, unless of course the collective legal mind of Sir Frank Downright and the team at Downright Lie & Procrastynate can find a double jeopardy clause buried away in ASADA’s mandate.

Speaking of DL&P et al, if The Game’s the loser in this battle of egos, the real winners would have to be the legal eagles and assorted catfish that make up the advocacy practitioners of Bleak City.  Downright Lie & Procrastynate v Loophole Mortimer & Sly.  The Bagmen have LMS a shade firmer than DLP, but with more silks than a Siamese mulberry tree this is going to pump up the volume at more than a few of the city’s white tablecloth eateries for a month or so.  Which should thrill the stakeholders out at Whingy Hill no end.  Expect to be accosted by the tin rattlers in Red & Black beanies outside the Essendon home games for years to come.

When the Keepers of The Lore and the Tellers of The Story come upon this bleak chapter in years to come, how do you think they’ll write it?  And will it really matter, when the last surviving humans on the planet are getting the BBQ ready to watch a Finals Series made up of The Kemp Coast Krill’s, The Wilkes Land Whales, The Shackleton Sealers, The Adelie Penguins and The Prince Olav Mountain Orcas it won’t matter a pinch of goat droppings whether Essendon’s amalgamation with The Heard Island Walruses was in the best interests of The Game, or whether it was in fact a legal transfer of funds and playing list.  Or even whether Prince James & Taniaella lived happily ever after.  Although we expect PJ and Taniaella dolls to remain the epitome of kitsch, even though the full meaning of why this is so has long been lost in mythology and marketing hype.

But enough of my yackin’, let’s see who’s going to be holding the gun after Round XXI.

The Miseries v The Catters, under cover tonight.  The Bluebaggers have been playing some inspired Footy these last few weeks, and with a modicum of luck may have been setting out tonight in search of September Glory.  The Juddanaught has signed his aging body on for another season, and the Philosopher Coach seems to have finally got the Sleepy Oxen pulling hard on the chaffing yoke.  But every newsboy along La Via Lygon knows Lady Luck rides with The Cats of Nine Lives.  For instance, Stevie J should consider himself the luckiest cat alive after getting off what was nothing more than a kick in the back of the head against an unaware opponent.  But hey, who are we to question the decisions of the invertebrates at the Star Chamber so close to the Finals?  The Pivotonians, and at $1.42 this better than a Telstra dividend.

The Battle of the Lakeside – the Junction Oval Seagulls v The Emerald Hill Swans, at Moore Park Road for the early one on Saturday.  A no brainer.  The Sin City Flouncers aren’t going to drop this one.

The Gold Coast Sunbeams v That Old Port Adelaide Aggression, up on the Metricon at the traditional time.  It was a fine romance, while it lasted, but now the party’s over and it’s time to call it a day.  (So who’s it going to be over for Wrap? – Ed)  Little Gazza and The Sunbeams I’m afraid Oh Noble Decipherer of Diction, we’re all the way with Westie & Jay, even up there under the midday sun.

The Club That Dare Not Speak Its Name v The Western Wedgies, on the Shifting Sands.  The Weagles have hit the mother lode and are storming home to September.  The Gliders came crashing to earth against the aggressive tackling of The Punt Road Excitement Machine last round, and copped a frank assessment of their effort from their Locum Coach.  Their vulnerability under pressure wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by their opponents of the day and they can expect plenty of close attention under The Dumb.  Whether it will do any good is anybody’s guess.  The Marshmallows need to nail at least two of their last three to miss the cut.  The next one’s The Metermaids down here.  The other’s on the Big Stage, and it wouldn’t be the first time that The Silvertails have been underdogs in a crucial match against their Traditional Rivals.  The Bombers would love to have this twilight meeting in the bag before they have to face Carlton, but they won’t.  The Eddie Eagles are playing their best Footy at the right end of the season.  The Coasters for ours.  It will be tight, but The Visitors can make it.

The Pride of South Australia v Struggletown, on the Picturesque Adelaide Oval under lights on Saturday.  Another couple of teams that have hit a rich vein of form.   The Tigers have made it six on the trot and need to win their last three matches to have a chance of making it through to September.  (Those wake up calls against the Doggies & The Dees proving costly Wrap? – Ed)  Even to be assured of Glorious Ninth they’d need to win them all.  On form they can give this one a good shake.  But their opponents on the night are also full of Self Belief.   It’s going to be a ripper match.  The Chardonnays have the third highest scoring attack in The Competition.  However, The Tiger’s defence is back to its meanest best.  The Hon. Edward A. Betts has always been a thorn for Richmond, and he’s likely to be so in his new colours.  The Tiges have a deep midfield with youngsters Miles, Ellis & Gordon taking the load off Cotchin, Deledio & Martin.  Throw in the improvement in Petterd & Shaun Edwards and the return of Big Ivan and they’re a formidable combination.  The Crows are no slouches in the midfield either, and despite their awesome scoring spree up under the palms last weekend, we’re saying The Striped Marvels are going to catch them napping, and go on with the business.  The Rabid Adelaide Mob will be in full throat, but they’ll be wending their way back across the Torrens to drown their sorrows in the fashionable bars & bistros of North Terrace with scant reward for a great effort.  The Tigers.

North Melbourne v Footscray for the early one on Sunday.  It’s at Ethelred stadium BTW.  We’d love to talk The Doggies up in this one, and it’s not that difficult, but we can’t see it.  Too much at stake, even for the Enigmatic Kangaroos, to let this one slip away.   The Shinboners comfortably in the end.

The Fuchsias v The Leviathans on The Paddock That Grew at the same time the Knuckle Draggers get under way.  (Just say 3.30 Wrap – Ed)  The winner here, you would like to think, blows any chance of wresting The Coveted Sylvan Shield from St Seaford.  And we’re saying it’s going to be The Demons.  Fresh from signing the Consultant Coach through to the end of 2016, they’ll be keen to impress.  And the perfect stage for Jack Who to secure a new contract with The Redlegs.

The Mauve Miasma v The Leafblowers, over on the balmy shark infested waters of TheWideBrownLand.  The GF replay.  The Kangaroo Court that passes for a justice system has deemed Roughie’s wayward thigh a trip and given the Western Australian team a bunk up for a favourable September scheduling.  The Stevedores have either been just scraping in or smashing their opponents of late.  The Hawkers have been more convincing over the same oeriod.  They’ve regained Gunston & Lake.  Some SOTG are saying they may be A bit underdone, but our feeling is that champions are always ready to step up to the line.  The Anchormen will run out without McPharlin, which negates to some extent the lost of Roughie.  Look, we’re going to stick our necks out here.  The Leafblowers to be roaring in the Lefy East to finish off Round XXI.  The Hawks.

Good tipping and even better punting.

And remember, if you read it in The Wrap, you’ll know it’s not crap.

* The legal definition of Inducement – as per the Free Dictionary by Farlex.

An advantage or benefit that precipitates a particular action on the part of an individual.

In the law of contracts, the inducement is a pledge or promise that causes an individual to enter into a particular agreement. An inducement to purchase is something that encourages an individual to buy a particular item, such as the promise of a price reduction. Consideration is the inducement to a contract.

In Criminal Law – the term inducement is the motive, or that which leads an individual to engage in criminal conduct.

The on-line Oxford Dictionary has Inducement as a noun, and gives a couple of examples of its use in a sentence, and even gives a synonym.

A thing that persuades or leads someone to do something –

 

Companies were prepared to build only in return for massive inducements.

 

There is no inducement to wait for payment

 

A bribe: – it is claimed that she was offered an inducement to plead guilty

 

You have our word that we’re not making this up.

 

 

 

 

 

About John Mosig

I'm an Aussie Rules tragic who can remember, as a four year old, shaking the hand of Captain Blood in the rooms just before he ran out onto the ground after half time, as my Old Man slipped him a packet of under-the-counter Craven A cork tipped. Now it's my turn to take my grandson Ben through the ritual of character building that is the journey through PUNT ROAD to the outside world.

Comments

  1. Grateful to have you back refreshed, Wrap. Just when I thought I’d heard them all before – “more silks than a mulberry tree”. Classic.
    Been studying Roget’s bon mots over in the Old Dart?
    My Eagles and your Tigers both need the win this weekend to keep us in the hunt for September (or the battle for 9th?)
    You’ll hear the Avenging Eagle and I booing across the Nullabor as the disgraced Brownlow Medallist takes the field again on Saturday arvo.
    Hope Sir Frank Downright buys you a long lunch with the proceeds.

  2. Great to see the Wrap’s words on the page. Most of these games, as they say in football, could go either way. Either one team could win or the other team could win, which is fairly logical in a two horse race. But, as they say in football, the best team normally wins. The only problem is, as regards the Tigers and Crows, which is the best team? As they say in football, time will tell.

  3. Great to be back Mr B. And isn’t the run up to September going to be just as exciting as September itself? As a matter of fact, if the Riges can roll The Chardonnays under the stern gaze and vocal directions of the Rabid Adelaide Mob, i reckon they can come good on the Last Saturday in August and bloody The Swans. But hey, that’s what dreams are made of.

  4. On Sir Frank’s largess, we’ve already consumed the trophy rewards of the St Henri Cup after a premature forfeiture. The Tiges were 3&10 at thew time. We’re studying the rule book and the court proceedings for precedents AWS. The legal firm that gave us ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ is now sprouting “Show me in the rules where it says you’re not allowed to cheat”.

  5. The Best Team will win Dips, that’s a given, as the say in Football. I read how much you enjoyed the English Summer. The weather at that time of the year has to be one of the world’s best kept secrets, eh? Of course the locals kept saying I should have been here last Summer, and the one before, and the one before that. But you’re never going to believe a bunch of Pohmmies, are you? After all, they told us they had the world’s best cricket team not that long ago.

  6. Dave Nadel says

    Loved your comments on the trials of the Same Old drug cheats and the Student Prince but you seem to missing something from your preview. You have pre-Wrapped eight games for this round but there are nine scheduled. How do you see the match between Carringbush and the Lisbon Brions shaping up? We tragics from Victoria Park await your predictions.

  7. Sorry Dave. And join the queue. Put it down to jetlag Dave. I’m with The Mighties all the way in this one.

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