The 2016 Jack Miller Cup – Round Fourteen

  1. Greetings Tipsters

 

I am Thor!  I am very damn thor.  My back, arms, legs, knees, this is what comes from hacking away at a fallen cactus with an axe, then picking up the bits and carrying them to the van, again and again until I had over 650lbs whch I then took to the tip.

 

I hurt most everywhere this evening, but it’s more an ache and nothing compared to coming off a motorbike.  I hit the ground real hard once, fortunately wearing leathers, and I was dead sore, barely mobile and gobbling codeine for several days.  This, I reflected, is what a footballer must feel like every Monday.  Apart from them being young and muscle-laden and well versed in the art of taking hits that would leave most of us in bed for a week, and to jump back up and do it again.

 

Professional motorcycle racers have been falling off since they were three years old, they know how to do it right.  Young Jack Miller from Townsville, who skipped a grade on his way to the Moto GP, won his first GP race on Sunday.  It was pouring rain, red-flagged and restarted, he passed MM93 on the last lap and drank champagne from his boot on the podium.

 

Onya Jack.

 

Not that I saw it.  A bunch of us were sitting around a fire in the backyard by then, it being a party for my Fiftieth birthday, drinking whiskey and shooting the breeze, as you do.  Numerous bits of wood were combusted, a few branches, a dead murraya, some big palm leaves, a good piece of timber that I was gonna do something with one day, fortunately the festivities wound down before furniture or structural supports encountered the blaze.

 

Almost exactly nine years ago, a party guest took exception to the curtains and decided to burn them.  Trouble was, they were rubber backed and didn’t light too well until I poured some two stroke mix onto them.  I was evicted two months later and the stain was still there on the concrete.

 

That stain now has a job putting together the AFL draw.  How else to explain North (six day break) flying to Adelaide to play the Crows (near two week break)?  Crows might still have won on Sunday in Melbourne but it’s blatantly unfair to the Roos.

 

They have other things to worry about, like whether Petrie should be in the team.  Perhaps he went a year too long, thinking that glittering trophies awaited.  Can’t blame him for that.

 

Frinite, the match was so dreary even the 4&20s fans didn’t show up.  Worst crowd at the Big G since 1940.  Satarvo and the Monaros/Blues match was equally lacklustre.  The Orange Tide made a big last term (I’d wandered off to do something else by then) but dicking around like they were for three quarters is – I dunno, at least they won, unlike Geelong.

 

Why do we need the bye?  I’m on record for favouring the Nineteenth Man.  I’ll go as far the Twentieth Man.  If a limit of 90 interchanges has made the game better to watch, then two – okay, four – will make it even better, right?

 

Of course I’m right.  This is 2016 and players are fulltime professionals.  Daryn Cresswell didn’t need a bye, almost never used the interchange bench and slapped his dislocated kneecap back into place at Kardinia Park.

 

Bloody hell, all this and now Hawthorn are atop the ladder.  The Mayblooms’ Big Footy page is a place best avoided.  My fave puter, the Ol’ Groaner, used for little but writing these days, is wearing out.

 

That’s it.  I’m 50.  I ache all over.  The Groaner is hitting senility hard.  I gotta make some fone calls and line up money for next week.

 

Cheers Tipsters

 

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About Earl O'Neill

Freelance gardener, I've thousands of books, thousands of records, one fast motorcycle and one gorgeous smart funny sexy woman. Life's pretty darn neat.

Comments

  1. Rulebook says

    Entertaining Earl yes people have gone to jail for things far less than the farce of this years draw what the roos copped was farcical to say the least and Petrie is struggling you must wonder if retirement conversations are happening geez that sounds like a interesting party

  2. Happy birthday Earl. Long may you rain over us. Happy. Victorious.

  3. Earl O'Neill says

    Who wrote the subheading? “Motor GP driver”, indeed!

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