I’ll be damned, Pies upset Cat cart again, and our tempo

Been waiting for a Geelong town crier’s report of the game against Pies. Only saw half of quarter 1, but it wrote on Hua Hin guesthouse wall. Damn tempo footy. Those seeds were sown the previous week against Crows. Damn seeds, working their way through subconscious pathways. Fertile ground that grey matter.

 

The Cats are no good at tempo footy. Not in our psyche. Going sideways, going backwards, trying to win easy. What’s the point in having tall forwards? When the Sherrin finally arrives they kick points. Tempo footy does that to you. Always brings us undone against a team on its mettle. Too much stop-start, too much time to think – instinct’s polar opposite.

 

Tempo footy; let me pronounce ways I despise thee. You make me want turn off the telly by hurling the remote. Make me want to storm outside and scythe lawn. I don’t have a lawn. Make me want to scythe the neighbour’s lawn. Grim’s passionless dirge. You make me yawn, make me nod-off, make me daydream about what I might be eating for din-dins in a year’s time, and planning the menu for everyday in between, even if it always involves spuds. You make me fantasise about medieval dental appointments. Get ye to a tempest!

 

Swans are the only team any good at it. Should be, it’s their child, born out of soccer wedlock. Hawks aren’t bad either, in a faster-motion kind of way, with their skilful sideways passes. Damn Hawks.

 

Tigers suck at it too. When they ditch it look like a different team, win even. Maybe it’s a cat thing.

 

Damn Pies. Found form at the wrong time. They love doing a number on us. Did it in AD2008 – they planted fecund seeds in subconscious soil that day. Nearly upset us in the prelim the year before too. Just as well that failed, ‘cause those seeds would have mutated and multiplied, leading to never-ending famine.

 

Mind, we’ve done deeds on the Pies too. Did in circa 2011. No tempo footy in that game plan. Good Cats.

 

Whoever hunts, wins.

 

Is this clutter of Cats hungry enough yet to go the journey, meworries? Damn carryover doubts. Could get lucky – hard to say – season’s sundial still bathed in late morning rays.

 

Followed the game on AFL website. Lost connection. Damn WWW.

 

Even if didn’t see all stoush, I can visualise. It was a reprise, a repeat, seen it before. Damn repetition. Pies playing close, smothering, tackling, finding space, running free, their fans baying for blood stained fur.  Sometimes we come back to frustrate with hope’s glimmer, and force imaginings about what could’ve been.

 

Don’t hate the Pies, though, but have moments. Sometimes see scaled-down us in them. Large supporter population make them like a one-team village. Anyway, many footy brethren in Geelong town don’t cheer for Cats, and their frothy hatred for we something recognisable to Magpie faithful. Both have experienced humiliation of Big Dance ineptitudes. Damn failure. Moggies and Maggies.

 

Apparently, a beanpole Septic cruelled us in the end. Our game now too easy for foreign kind?

 

Damn tempo footy. What happened to fast flowing tussles starting the season? Where’s the spirit of Phil Walsh?