The Wrap Report – June Edition

For the Philosophical Marngrook Follower

The search has drawn a complete blank.  There was one unconfirmed sighting on the Mornington Peninsular near Johnnie Govan’s Broiler Farm, and while it would appear that at least several lorry loads of manure have been removed from the stockpile, police have been unable to confirm how much, but it’s believed to be significant  – Ed – June 2016

 

WHEN WHAT IS DONE IS DONE, NEITHER BEAST NOR MAN CAN CHANGE IT.  NOT EVEN THE POWER OF THE UNKNOWN

 

1)      The Greatest Team of All – The Catters have got five tough ones coming up – all but one – The Scrays under cover – are down at Kardinia Park.  They sail through the August Doldrums against four Easybeats and already have the second best percentage in The Competition.  They’ve dropped Three – two of them in a lapse against The Figjams & The Bolters – but we‘re going to say they can pull themselves together and only drop a couple more, to take the Minor Premiership.  And that the Dangerman will be on the podium on Blondes’ Night.

2)      Sydney – of their last 11 matches, The Swanees meet five Contenders.  The toughest two, a Top of The Table Clash down in Hobart Town and a trip to Corio Bay.  They’ve got a percentage near the 150% mark and one of their losses was the night they ran into The Striped Marvels on one of their better nights.  If the Moggies & The Leviathans blink The Bloods be all over them like a bad suit.  And speaking of blinking, all these conjectures are made without taking into account any of the Top Teams meeting an up-and-comer on a good day.  The Old Dark Navy Blues are BIT, and while Hearts may have Beaten Truer, The Fuchsias can be a handful on their day.  As can The Unpredictable Struggletowners and Figjam’s Crippled Carringbush.  Now that The Tankers have got a win on the board there may be no stopping them; every trip to Perth could be a danger game. Nor are The Feeling Faints a gimmee either.  (If it wasn’t unpredictable Wrap, The Bagmen would be helping little old ladies across the road – Ed)  Or running for parliament as the Snake Oil Party.

3)      The Other Greatest Team of All – Greater Western Sydney –

There’s been a couple of mantras so far this season, and one is that GWS hasn’t got the finals’ experience to go all the way.   (Let me guess Wrap; the other one is that North can’t go all the way either – Ed)   More on that later Oh Monumental Manipulator of Meaning.  Anyone who still holds to the former mentioned hymn didn’t watch The Tricolours v The Jolly Orange Giants match up at The Showgrounds the other week.  The way the pundits have been carrying on you would have excpected to see a bunch of gangly kids not long out of high school sporting a scattering of razor nicks and a few rejected crocks trotting out onto the ground tightening their trusses.  Let’s dispel that rubbish right now.  The G-Men are as hard as iron and as resilient as titanium.  They’re fast, skilful, confident, and as for inexperienced, they’ve all got plenty of games under their belt over the last four years.  Oh, and that September thing.  You want to hear someone laugh until their side splits?  Tell that one to Stevie J.  And just for a chorus, include Heath Shaw & Mummy.  Heath Shaw’s in career best form and Jeremy Cameron’s in the running for The Coleman.  Callan Ward shrugs off tacklers like a spaniel shrugs off water.  Reece Palmer’s re-discovered his love for The Game, as has Toby Greene.  The whole team’s playing with the fearlessness of youth, and there’s the sense that they’d run through brick walls for Leon Cameron.  (Like The Unblooded Tigers did for Tommy, eh Wrap? – Ed)  For steak knives you can have this.  Of their last 10 matches five are at home and the only September Aspirants they play are The Weagles & The Shinboners.  North they play under cover, and The Raptors at home.  There’s every chance they won’t drop another game.

4)      Footscray – The Doggies only have to play four September Contenders on the home run.  And with a healthy percentage, they’re going to be hard to shift from a Top Four Spot.  They’ve covered the loss of Robert Murphy and Luke Beveridge has them full of Self Belief.  Depth may be a problem.  Their VFL side is middle-of-the-road and languishing mid-table.  But everyone has had to contend with injuries, is this the most even and unpredictable season since Climate Change began.

5)      The Mayblooms – May have to reassess the Leafblowers.  They’re still playing that Brinkmanship Footy, but there are signs that they’ve started their run home.  They’re starting to blasting the opposition in the Final Stanza.  (Or in Essendon’s case, all four quarters – Ed)  The reason for the reassessment is that the opposition above them has come back to the field a bit.  A lot in fact. And if there’s any team that knows how to pace themselves for a September/October Campaign it’s The Yankee Doodles.  You want to hear something scary?  Of their remaining 11 matches, two are against The Kangas, One is against Steak & Kidney on Moore Park, (Where they play well – Ed) and the last is over on the balmy Indian Ocean landfall of the Fatal Shore.  Win half of those and they finish 17-5, and that should do it.  They showed on the weekend that they’re on a percentage drive, and with another Wranger presenting a moving target up forward, they’re starting to look their old ominous selves again.  We know they’ll just be taking it one week at a time out at Dingley Dell, which should send a shudder through the rest of us.  However, the irony of their fixture is that they don’t get many chances at those crucial Eight Point Games.

6)      The Soupboners – I know.  I know.  The Kangas are still on top of The Ladder with only two losses.  And they’re trying to build a bit of percentage.  But of their last eleven games, eight – yes Wrappers, E, I, G,H,T – are against the teams that are the ones most likely to miss the End of August Cut.  That’s 8 x 8 Point Games and only a bye and three soft matches in which to rest players.  (Settle down Wrap; there’s nothing you can do about what’s happened in the past – Ed)  Their momentum veritatis starts next Friday night when they meet Traditional Rivals Hawthorn.  (And they do it on wounded knee.  With The Mayblooms chasing percentage it may not be family viewing.  Better see if you can get the kiddies off to bed early – Ed)  Two of them they’ll play away – The Eddie Eagles & The Pride of South Australia.  They drag The Harboursiders down to Blundstone Arena and The Goliaths down to the Shifting Sands, but hey, it’s a real test, isn’t it?  Of course, we’ll be the first to climb aboard The Shinboner Bandwagon if they hold onto a Top Four Spot, but the only teams of note they’ve beaten have been The Crows under cover in Round I & The Dogs at the same venue in a Friday Night Shocker.  Neither side kicked 10 goals.  (They kicked 15 between them – Ed).  In this topsy turvy season the Roos could be migrating from the greenest pastures to more stonier ground.  (When you think of it, they’re only four wins & percentage ahead of ninth placed Port Adelaide – Ed)

7)      Adelaide – The Pride of South Australia can turn it on, but if The Hon. Edward A. Betts doesn’t fire, they can be handled fairly easily.  That having been said, the Mighty Adelaide Crows with the baying Adelaide mob behind them are a pretty tough assignment.  (As they demonstrated last Saturday Wrap, they can be a pretty tough assignment anywhere – Ed)  They’ve got three tough games and a Showdown in the run home. They’ve also got a couple of Danger Games; The Bluebaggers on The Shifting Sands & The Dees on The G.  They’ll be there in September, and so they should be.  More than that, if they really are The Pride of South Australia, and come home with a wet sail, they could easily slip in to the Top Four.  Percentage is a worry.  It reflects the fact that they have the second most points scored against them of all the teams in the Eight.  And cop this Wrappers, second only to The Forlorn Fourthorn.

8)      West Coast – after surrendering a five goal advantage half way through the Championship Quarter at Fortress Sooby to The Chardonnays, the tag of Flat Track Bullies may have to be revised.  Osrfednji je kao osrednji radi.  Of their remaining 11 matches five are away games, but one is up under the palms.  The others are The Chardonnays, The Four’nTwenties, the G-Men & The Silvertails.  Then there’s The Derby.  They host Hawthorn, which won’t be easy either, and The Roos.  If anyone’s going to make way for the Bluebagger Fairy Tale to come true it’s going to be this mob of poseurs.

9)      Port Adelaide – they should win five or six matches on the lead home, to finish Best Side Out of The Finals: Glorious Ninth.  They’ll be disappointed with that out at Alberton Oval.  But losing their compromised Essendon pair didn’t help.  They’ll be better for the run, make no mistake.  And they’ll worry more than a few before they mothball the Guernseys.  In fact, in a note to the more adventurous investors amongst us, we’d be confident in saying, that of all the Danger Games between now and the Vernal Equinox, the ones against The Tealers will be the most perilous.  And potentially the most rewarding for the courageous investors.

10)  Carlton – the Miracle on Royal Parade took a bit of a reality check over the weekend, but the romance of the story continues.  The Bluebaggers are definitely coming.  (So is Christmas – Ed)  Now you know where that anti Carlton bias so often levelled at the commentary team at Wrap Publications comes from Wrappers.  Here in the Wrapcave we have nothing but admiration & respected for The Silvertails.  They’ve picked up the Coach of The Season and are on track for the Season’s Greatest Improvers.  Their effort against The Red Hot Premiership Favourites was nothing short of heroic.  Down two soldiers in the first quarter – one of whom was their skipper – they maintained their ascendancy over The Sleepy Hollow Millionaires right to the end.  Narelle, who tipped them, answered the phone with We’re the Team That Never Let’s You Down all week.  Percentage & injuries a worry, but The Bluebaggers are BIT.  But unlike those chicks of childhood mythology, the ones who danced with wolves, the axeman who turns up at the end of August will be there to tell them there’s no happy ending this season.  (They’d take Glorious Ninth at Optus Oval – Ed)

11)  Struggletown – with the Richmond Coach saying – after playing some of the worst Football The Striped Marvels have put together for several seasons – that they can still make the Finals, and the CEO and The Prez with their heads in their hands, you’d be entitled to say there’ll be questions asked at board level as to why Dimma’s contract was extended by a further two seasons.  And with a convoy of manure trucks heading up The Nepean Highway the air is about to change around Melbourne Park and Punt Road.  Sure, they’ll worry a few, and sure they were cruelled by injuries down in Hobart, but there’s a difference between hanging in there and lamentable effort.  They hung in there against two of the Flag Favourites recently, and pulled off a Famous Victory against one of them.  (I believe the count is now up over the half million mark of those LSPRF who were at The G the night Sam Lloyd kicked truly after the siren to sink the Swans Wrap – Ed)  You can be sure there’ll be some changes made right throughout the Football Department before next year, particularly in recruiting.  Until then, watch their form closely.  This is a team that can flip from Perennial Losers to Famous Victory in the beat of a jungle drum.  (Nice to see them seal a fighting win against their Nemesis in the dying stages on Sunday, eh Wrap? – Ed)

12)  Melbourne –  Hearts are Beating True & The Grand Old Flag is High Flying again.  Caught between the Consultant Coach & the Coach in Waiting, they’re showing plenty of fight.  Some SOTG have suggested that they would do better showing more Football and less fight.

13)  St Kilda – The Feeling Faints are this season’s enigma.  Able to take it up to the Big Boys, they don’t seem to have taken the next step from last season.  They’re very watchable, and will shape The Ladder, no doubt, but not in a way that will see them moving up it.  They’ve been fixed with a shocking run home for such a young side, but they’ll be the better for it.

14)  Collingwood – we’ve worked out the problem at Carringbush.  They haven’t got a sense of humour down there at the Holden Centre.   When the 3AW – or it might have been 774 – interviewed Coach Figjam on the Sunday after The Mighty Magglepies had blasted The Sleepy Hollow Millionaires off the park, they introduced the segment with replays of some of the “sack the coach” talkback feed from a fortnight ago and back-played it with What a Difference a Day Makes to it.  Clever, witty, complementary, they’re just three thoughts that sprung to mind.  Figjam’s reaction?  Aggressive, defensive, grumpy?  You could say all of the above.  (Maybe he brings more of the Philosopher Coach to the Post Match Presser than we’ve realized – Ed)  Maybe he was having an off day too, but you couldn’t help but feel sorry for those Collingwood players as they sat through those analytic post mortems and game plan strategy meetings.  Some SOTG have suggested that maybe the players have worked out that the only way they’re going to get out of the torture is go out there and get the job done off their own bat.  Injuries, the Cloke Conspiracy, Locker Room Scuttlebutt, wild comments from Retired Players, and heart-to-heart exchanges wherever Magpie supports gather are creating a force for change in the Oval Office and the Coaching Box.  Like any carbuncle, it’s going to burst soon.  Maybe a flogging against The Bluebaggers will be enough to lance the boil.

15)  Fremantle – When you let Carlton beat you in a tight one at home, and The Troubled Tigers in weather that would have Noah heading for Bunnings, you know you’re in more shyte than a Werribee duck.  But it’s not about that, is it Roscoe?  And here in the Wrapcave, we reckon more strength to your arm.  Like The Bombers, he’s taking an R&R season while he gets The Mauve Miasma ready for season 2017.  (Season 2020 more likely Wrap – Ed)  Does anyone have a problem with that Ed?  And now they’ve been forced out into the open, they could trouble a few.  There’s no doubt that Rossy Lyon’s coaching to win; to win with what he’s got to win with.  Keep an eye on things over there.  The Dangerous Dockers would love to knock over those High Flying Raptors from up on The Swan to ruin their season.

16)  The Gold Coast Sunsets – how well do you remember your Sunday school lessons?  Look up Matthew 24: 14-30.  Not sure where they go from here.  Not sure too many care either.  Other than about the cost.  The salvage fee on this train wreck could be much better spent elsewhere.  (Like lowering food & beverage prices at the ground, eh Wrap? – Ed)  That’s just one Oh Torpid Tinkerer of Tense.  Try greater support for grass roots football.  Suburban & Country Football get as much backing as Premier Andrews is currently giving the CFA.

17)  Essendon – Day after day, day after day/We stuck, nor breath nor motion/As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean.  And that Wrappers, just about sums up 2016 out there where the big jet engines roar.  And to draw once more on Coleridge – Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks/Had I from old and young/Instead of the cross, the albatross/About my neck they hung.  Come on Jobe, do the right thing.  Or are riding off into the sunset on us?  The Mighty Bombers are but a footnote to this season, but we’re saying that they are going to miss out on their first Coveted Sylvan Shield since 1933, and only their 5^th ever.  You see, we reckon we’re going to predict that they’ll blow that in Round XVIII when they host Lepper’s Bad News Bears.  Our hearts go out to all those Schadenfreude Ghouls who piled it on for a Peptide Spoon in 2016.

18)  Brisbane – it’s a real battle up there under the palms.  The best they can hope for is to regroup and have another crack next season.  They’ve shown some semblance of a Football side, but find it hard to sustain that façade for the full 100 Minutes.  A lot of talk of a new coach, and you’d have to expect that there’ll be some heavy reviewing going on right now, and into the post season.  The term Basket Case has been bandied about, and if the appalling football league wishes to run two teams up amongst the Cane Toads they’re going to have to go into the reasons that term is having such resonance. They’re on track to win their first Coveted Timber Trophy this Century, and only their fourth ever.

The Flag

 

Still wide open.  The Sleepy Hollow Millionaires went from Red Hot Flag Favourites to just Another Good Geelong Side in a fortnight of Lack Lustre  Football.  The Orangemen have gone off a tad, but still look very very capable.  The Kneeboners are yet to be tested in the fire, but still hold Top Spot.  The Bloods must be lamenting running into The Striped Marvels on one of their better nights, otherwise they’d be sitting astride The Competition Table right now.  The Sons of The West are doing everything right with what they’ve got.  They’re playing a Winning Brand of Football; on their day they’re quite awesome.  And Fourthorn are sitting two out and one back.  (The term Bonecrusher has been mentioned in some forums Wrap – Ed)  Presuming history holds, the Premier is going to come out of the Top Four, and you don’t have to be Mandrake the Magician to work out that four into five won’t go.

The Coach most likely

Also still wide open.  Lepper’s got to head the list, but the ground swell for change along Olympic Boulevard is rising, as it is not at Punt Road.  Sorry Justin, but you’re the name at the top of the frame right now.  Second rung is the Sun’s Mentor, followed by Bucks & Dimma on the third line.  Bucks’ aspirations have been cruelled by injuries, and will hope he can get the message through before the season ends.   Coach Hardnose hasn’t always had the starting XXII he’d wish for either, but around at Punt Road it seems not so much a matter of getting the message through, rather a matter of what’s the message?  Both sides have knocked off Fancied Opposition, but then again, so have The Bluebaggers.  Boasting the worst list in The Competition, one well qualified to wrest The Coveted Timber Trophy from Essendon’s steely grasp, they’re leading a bunch of Mediocre challengers for a September Berth.  You’d have to say he’s the right messenger with the right message.  (Has the Messiah’s finally arrived at Princess Park, you reckon Wrap? – Ed)

The Fevola

This month’s Fevola nomination is an easy one.  The gnomes deep in the bowels of Jellymont House should form a linked daisy chain and pat each other on the back.  You really do have to marvel at their insensitive greed don’t you Wrappers?  And their sense of history.  If ever there was a 21^st Century re-enactment of colonial oppression & dispossession, this would have to be up there with the best of them.  In case you’ve had the telly & the radio turned off the avoid being patronized by those Canberra based Pygmies who aspire to our vote during, we’re talking about those deeply embedded gnomes who took the opportunity to make a grab for the IP of the indigenous players and artists who designed their respective club Indigenous Round Strips.  They’re happy to glean the kudos & the royalties from the promotion of an Indigenous Round, but when it comes to sharing any reward, the indigenous designers have to sign their rights away.  Our American Cousins have a name for that; it’s a short phrase that includes the words Indian & Giver.  And the appalling football league wonders why the Football Going Public has no respect for it.

And the mob that came in a very close second was none other than The Only Team All Carlton Knows.  They based the theme of their Indigenous Strip on Pastor Doug Nichols, to whom this year’s round was dedicated.  The same Pastor Doug who left the club to go to Fitzroy because the trainers at The Club That Never Lets You Down wouldn’t rub him down after a match.

The Akker Award

This month’s Akker Award – for those who by giving so little thought to what they say, contribute so much more to The Game – goes to the drongo who first suggested the Order Off Rule.  Do we really need it?  Do we really want it?  (Could it be un-Australian anyway? – Ed)  Every chance of that Oh Almighty Tinker of Text.  It hasn’t been deemed as part of OGG for neigh on two centuries, so why now?  Sure, we’ve had Mothers who have run out onto the ground and attacked offending players with their umbrellas when their Little Johnny, Donny or Andy has been dropped behind the play, but even they have never called for an order-off rule to be instigated.  Come on Wrappers; think of the implications. Firstly, it would have to be the spur of the moment decision of the adjudicating maggot.  (Wouldn’t every Razor Ray aspirant have a ball with this one? – Ed)   Exactly.  How comfortable do you feel with that Wrappers?  Secondly, how many times do you hear commentators change their opinion of a dubious contact after they’ve seen it in slo-mo a couple of hundred times?  Thirdly, and the most dangerous consequence of all, it opens wide the door to corruption.   If you thought the Blackest Day in Australian Sport was behind us, imagine the overriding power to influence a result this places in the hands of any one of three adjudicators.  And please don’t suggest that we stop the match for an off-field panel to make a call on it.

However, the unfairness of the situation to the team that loses a player to concussion has not been lost on those of us who are battling on here in the Wrapcave.  How does this sound as a solution to levelling the playing field?  If a player has to leave the field after an unfair collision, the player who made the contact – the Collider – is ordered off at the same time.  (Unfair collision Wrap?  Where did you find that flowery turn of phrase?  Surely you mean shirtfronted – Ed)  Okay Oh Bottomless Well of Wisdom – unfairly crunched. He is not allowed to return if the felled player – the Collidee – is unable to return.  If however, the Collidee returns to the bench, or the field, the Collider is cleared to return.  Before you start on accidental contact, under this protocol there’ll be an off-field adjudication panel who will decide within five minutes whether one, the contact was accidental, and two, whether the Collider was actually at fault.  In either case the Collider is cleared to continue playing.  You see, it could be a situation in which the Collide was actually at fault and came off second best.  Furthermore, the on-field adjudicator(s) can make this call on the spot if they feel confident that the Collider has no case to answer.

At all times, judgement of this situation is made to ensure that the team that loses a soldier from unduly rough play isn’t a soldier short on the interchange bench.  It is not a punishment per se.  Normal judgement by the Star Chamber on Tuesday night will follow in the established manner.

 

The Bazza Award

This month’s Bazza has to go to those soccer fans who marched down to the Shifting Sands of Docklands from the corner of the CBD the Greeks have claimed as their own setting off flares and generally behaving like an unruly mob.  They continued with the banned flares under the dome.  True, no one lost an eye, but they could have.  And, without paraphrasing Pauline of Ipswich, it raises the question: what would have been the outcome if Greece had been playing a friendly against Macedonia?  But the saddest thing is that they’ve once again branded their code as the happy hunting ground of selfish hoons and lairs.

The Bradbury Certificate

Due to the confusion with the armada of hot air balloons rising out of Canberra, The Bradbury Certificate has been suspended until after the 2^nd of July.  (But if it wasn’t, the reigning prime minister would be the club house leader – Ed)

The Brownlow

Really, who cares?  Apart from a stack of wives & girl friends who want to frock up and a bunch of young blokes out on the town at the end of a long hard season?  Crown make a motser, Bruce runs off at the mouth, and Hologram Man picks up the tab.  Yawn.

The Coleman

Put down the glasses.  It’s Buddy Franklin by the length of the straight six at Flemington.  He sprays a few, true, but he gets his own ball and loves the Big Occasion.  Beautiful to watch.  Awesome to behold in full flight.  And hey, you’d ride your Malvern Star down from Coober Pedy to catch his duals with Alex Rance, wouldn’t you.

The Robbie Flower Medal – The June nomination is Brendon Bolton’s Smile.  Isn’t it a refreshing break from the usual post-match moans, evasions, stupidity, and dare we say it, outright indifference, to have someone who has no tickets on himself, tells it as it is, and is writing a fairy tale at Princes Park to make Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks look like gothic horror sagas about a paedophilic axe murderer with a psychopathic hatred of carnivorous wildlife. And are we alone in noticing that the change in the Post Match Pressers has coincided with a change in the on-ground performance of the Old Dark Blues?  We’ll leave it up to you to work out the chicken and egg sequence here, but we may be witnessing a rewrite of the definition of Super Coach.  (And a reassessment of some past recipients of that panegyric – Ed)  Hey Ed, some of our subscribers are down in Tassy; keep it simple will you.

Pre-season Ladder

1)      Geelong.

2)      West Coast

3)      Hawthorn

4)      Collingwood

5)      Fremantle

6)      Richmond

7)      North Melbourne.

8)      Port Adelaide

9)      Sydney

10)  The Greater Western Sydney Giants

11)  Footscray

12)  Adelaide

13)  The Meter Maids

14)  St Kilda

15)  Melbourne

16)  Brisbane

17)  Essendon

18)  Carlton

 

April Predictive Ladder

1)      Sydney

2)      Hawthorn

3)      Geelong

4)      Footscray

5)      The Metricon Marauders

6)      North Melbourne

7)      Adelaide

8)      West Coast

9)      Richmond

10)  Port Adelaide

11)  The Greater Western Sydney Giants

12)   Fremantle

13)  St Kilda

14)  Collingwood

15)  Melbourne

16)  Carlton

17)  Brisbane

18)  Essendon

May Predictive Ladder

1)      Geelong

2)      The Greater Western Sydney Giants

3)      Sydney

4)      Footscray

5)      Hawthorn

6)      North Melbourne

7)      Adelaide

8)      West Coast

9)      Port Adelaide

10)  Melbourne

11)  Carlton

12)  Richmond

13)  St Kilda

14)  The Metricon Marauders

15)  Collingwood

16)  Brisbane

17)  Fremantle

18)  Essendon

The June Predictions

1)      The Greatest Team of All

2)      Sydney

3)      The Other Greatest Team of All – Greater Western Sydney

4)      Footscray

5)      The Mayblooms

6)      The Soupboners

7)      Adelaide

8)      West Coast

9)      Port Adelaide

10)  Carlton

11)  Struggletown

12)  Melbourne

13)  St Kilda

14)  Collingwood

15)  Fremantle

16)  The Gold Coast Sunsets

17)  Essendon

18)  Brisbane

Two weeks ago we received a post card of the Princess of Tasmania with the words Good tipping & even better punting spelt out in the unmistakable pink cuttings from The Sporting Globe.   At the time of going to press we received another, this time of the Devil Cat.  In the same style, the words from a paperback novella were pasted alongside the address.  They read “It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done before”.  Time is of the essence here Wrappers.  Please. Please, Please, any sighting, any possible clue, regardless of how insignificant it may at first appear, contact the office immediately. 

– Ed