It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

Blogs are everywhere. Campbell Street, Hobart CBD, October 2010.

Theme Thursday yet again and this week I wanted to talk about the current touch football season.

Now, I could bore you with vivid descriptions of our SOMNOLENT defensive line (or lack thereof), but I wouldn’t want to bore you with clichés.

I could talk to you about the myriad of injuries incurred in what is supposed to be a non-contact sport – game one = sore shoulder, game two = bruised thigh, game three = jarred knee – but I won’t.

I won’t lie to you: we’re struggling. Zero and three three rounds in, we remain [mathematically] still in contention for the finals.

We’re taking it one week at a time. There is no point getting ahead of ourselves, but (like the boy with the barrow), there is a big job in front of us. The reality is that we have had a number of injuries to senior players (my long list, a broken finger, back spasms, bruised egos), but we are looking at it as a chance for the kids to step up.

Despite the results, the coach has the full support of the board. We have all heard the rumours of friction in the dressing room, but at the end of the day, it is a team sport, and even if there is no I in TEAM, there is A ME. The other teams have just wanted it more. We are better than our record indicates, but we do need a result. We miss out again, he’s a dead man walking.

In many ways the team is in a in a rebuilding phase, in terms of the premiership clock, we are around the upper right quadrant. That said, we have a number of determined players, but the turnovers really hurt us.

It is a game of two halves, unfortunately, at the moment we are playing both equally badly. Although we’re still in with a shout, we are not getting ahead of ourselves and thinking finals, we’re focusing on next week.

We need to cut the costly errors, play a full 60 minutes, work on our fitness and get back to basics, work on the fundamentals and stop playing like millionaires. We need to take our chances, find another gear, get out there and have a red hot go. If we don’t, it’s guaranteed to end in tears.

If we get out there next week, give it 120%, I reckon that the next match can be a great advert for the game. At this level – Southern Touch Mixed Division Seven – there are no easy games. We have it all to play for, and although the opposition look good on paper, the game is not played on paper and touch is a funny old game.

It’s all to play for. If we want to be in with a shout, the guys have to put their bodies on the line, win the one percenters, take centre stage and provide the spark that lights the touchstone, let's us grind out a result and get our season off the ground. It’s a real battle for survival, and weed to get out there, take no prisoners and take the game by the scruff of the neck.

Time to draw a line in the SAND. I know that the opposition coach has been talking a good game, but one day the chickens will come home to roost. We are at the business end of the season and we’re not going to throw the towel in. If we win this one, we are in the hunt. We lose, and we’re in free fall and the knives will be out.

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...

This will hurt me...

Search This Blog