I should probably begin this post by disclosing the following information.
I don’t like Brisbane.
Don’t get me wrong… the people are fine, hell, “some of my best friends are from Brisbane”. It’s just the collective feel of the place. The general “vibe”, if you allow me to channel Dennis Denuto for a moment. I’m sure it’s a fine and enjoyable location, full of culture and lovely salt of the earth types to bring up a young family around. I’ve been told the houses are affordable and the climate is mostly endurable. It’s just that I’ve never been able to get off the damn highway ramps there.
And before you dismiss this as the bitter rant of a Collingwood supporter, it’s not the painful results of the 02/03 Grand Finals that have influenced this feeling, it goes back a lot further than that. Back to a former Swan and Bear. It’s the residual Capper effect. Like the Doppler effect, but instead, the noise gets louder and more shrill the *further* you get away from it and its former “glory”.
And as for the game itself, the Lions are favourites, despite having having travelled something like 8000kms in the past week off the back of a loss. Obviously the bookies are taking into consideration that the Pies had to travel 2000kms, and 30 years back through time, just to get to Queensland.
The forecast is for heavy rain tonight, so the ins and outs are well judged. Rusling, the poor fella, is the obvious out and in dry weather, possibly Reid would have come in. But it’s Burns and Roids in, with Clarke the other omission.
Although with the torrential rain predicted I’d have found a spot for Cousteau, the promising back pocket from Marseille.
UPDATE:
And then there’s this guff from Michael Voss