Pretty much the last place I would have anticipated spending my Saturday night was at the Hell on Earth Dome watching a St. Kilda game, but these are the kind of bizarre things that happen to me.
As much as I'm trying desperately to engineer a rivalry with the criminals (and heckling Powell every time he touched the ball was a start, even though nobody could understand why I was doing it) I've got to admit that they've got a potentially great team going around at the moment. I picked them to run fifth this year, but without much confidence. It was more a case this season of picking all the teams that weren't good enough to crack the eight and slotting the rest in after Port Adelaide and Brisbane. The Saints have won three in a row now, and it's looking increasingly like they'll be the breakout side of 2003. Which would be hurting me if they didn't have such an attractive side (Powell excluded).
They've still got some problems though. Fraser Gehrig is so crippled that when he lined up on Mick Martyn we joked that they'd need to have an ambulance parked in the forward pocket to cart them both off to hospital halfway through the first quarter. He kicked 2.5, both goals coming from tap-ins and all the points from set shots. He's also cultivating an absolutely shocking 'balding head with mullet' look (the Bruce Doull as it shall henceforth be known). They also benefited from a few shocking Carlton skill errors and a couple of mystifying umpiring decisions.
On the whole though I'd have to give the "Shut the fuck up" award for crowd participation to the Carlton bogans tonight. Every decision that went against them was greeted with a five minute speech on how biased the entire league was against them, what a conspiracy it was etc.. etc.. Some old guy sitting in front of me was on the verge of having a stroke halfway through the first quarter. Reminded of that great game in 1997 when Melbourne snapped the massive losing streak by beating the Blues (Schwarz with 4) and some Carlton psychopath started yelling in my face "THE UMPIRES GAVE IT TO YOU!" and I was like "Yes, they did. And we appreciated it".
So there you have it, I'm going to praise both St. Kilda's style of play and behaviour of their fans in one night. You may never see this again, so savour it. Next thing I'll be praising Manchester United and paying tribute to the excellent fiscal policies of the Bracks State Government. Or maybe not.
And, in tonight's special edition Telstra Dome whinge, it took almost an hour to get out of the ground. What dickhead decided to build it so all the exits funnel into just one or two places? Compare this to the MCG where at least 75% of the gates, if not more, lead straight into open space meaning the crowds can disperse in quick fashion. I thought it was bad at Telstra when you were trying to go home in the midst of a 20,000 crowd, but there were 45 thousand there tonight and it was an absolute nightmare. People were actually looking over the edge at a 20 foot drop with that "I wonder how much it'll actually hurt" look on their faces. One day some pisshead is actually going to take the leap after waiting 90 minutes to get to the train station.
I'm off to the MCG tomorrow to see Melbourne against Port Adelaide. Theoretically we shouldn't have a hope but I've got a feeling that some of our supposed 'stars' (*cough* Travis Johnstone *cough*) might have to play their asses off to avoid a trip back to the reserves next week.
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