Well, the hiatus is upon us. What on earth could we possibly do now that football finals have finished in both codes? Will the Rugby World Cup step up and fill the void? When does the cricket start?
Saturday started before the sun passed the yardarm and we settled in, as is tradition, at Patio 84 to watch the 2015 incarnation of the AFL Grand Final. We had quite a few punters later on in the day, but the hardcore (pictured above) were there very early on. As usual, it was a long day, the highlight for me being the presentation of the tipping winners at halftime. Somehow, many years ago, this job fell to me by default, and its been kinda fun to run it and end up presenting the winners with thier cash.
I'd won the comp last year for the second time, but this year languished in a lowly 12th position. Our great mate Shaun managed not only to get his first placing, but his first win and was very happy with his results. A crew of us managed to wring every last piece of emotion from the day by extending our stay far beyond the last kick and I imagine all sorts of problems were solved!
Cass and I huddled around her laptop to watch the entralling contest played out the following day in the NRL Grand Final. We should have realized we were in for something special when Cold Chisel wound back the clock and played a boutique set of vintage quality, far outshading the AFL pre-game entertainment the day before. I think it always helps the NRL that they play in the evening...the light shows are just so much more spectacular.
The game itself was mesmerising: these were really two superior teams, deserving of their spots in the top game. We felt a little twinge of "what-ifs" when realizing that the supercoach, Bennett, had managed to drag this Broncos outfit into the big game in just one year. I wonder who accepts the blame for his three year tenure at the Knights? Regardless of this tiny niggle, we loved the back and forth fortunes of each team and the final minutes were just impossibly scripted by the footballing gods. I said to Cass with a couple of minutes remaining that the only way the Cowboys could win would be to do a "Joey Johns- Darren Albert from 1997". So, of course they did just that!
We watched all the aftermath, the postmortems and the interviews with great delight, partly as we re-experienced the euphoria we felt when Darren scored that try right in front of us all those years ago (and to think we were initially a little bit disappointed with our seats down near the tryline when we first arrived!) A great day of football watching and a wonderful advertisement for the game: it was so much more entertaining than the game the day before.
We're super busy at work at the moment, hence the late posting, the brevity of the script and the paucity of visual aids! I'll try to do a better job next week....