BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!!! Especially if they fall in April, June or any other month!
I give this clear warning to you all for we know catastrophes and/or disasters come in threes.
The first alarm rang when the brace of Heavenly Cohorts (The Glorious St George and The Scintillating St Kilda) both won their games several weeks ago and then backed it up by both winning their next games a week later. If that’s not a harbinger that something’s afoot, then I know nothing. Then again, and this might muddy the waters a tad, those wins were sandwiched either side of The Notre Dame inferno, so how are we mere mortals to read those portents or tea leaves or chicken entrails?
Our Year
But I am ever the optimist and I just know green and verdant uplands await us as this is OUR YEAR. I prefer to think like that because if you follow another team say, Collingwood, what have you got to look forward to: the arrival of the inevitable September collywobbles and time until then is life on a knife edge awaiting the next Eddie Everywhere completely inappropriate verbal spray!
Yea Winx!
I don’t normally talk about horses in this rant because I hold the same opinion Frank Hardy did: they’re a four-legged lottery! But I guess I have to say something about Winx and her run of fifty (whatever) wins in a row. I know nothing about horse racing but I suspect Winx ran in a special category (weight-for-age, maybe) and over a less than full distance hence the small fields she ran against. I also noted that at her last start the bookies had her at $1:04. Now I could be wrong here, but if she’d have started at (say) 10 to 1 and I’d put $10 on her to win, when she did I’d have got my $10 bet back and another $100 as well. That’s a 10 to 1 bet. However, if the bookies think a horse is going to bolt in, they shorten the odds. I suspect (again) she was set to start at around 25 to 1 ON and that means if she won the bookies have limited their payout. So, at her last start, if you backed her to win with a $10 bet, when she got up you got your $10 back and (if I’m right) got another $0:40 cents! In short, you risked $10 on a four-legged hay burner to win forty cents! And some folk think I’m dumb following St Kilda?
By the time you read this epistle The Federation Cup will be over and you’ll know if the Aussie ladies have done good. As I write this Sam Stosur (why did we select her – we know now-a-days she’s hard pressed to go two rounds with a revolving door) lost her first match but Ash Barty beat Victoria Azarenka. The reverse singles will begin this afternoon and then (if required) the doubles. Ash has really stepped up in the last year or so and she deserves every dollar and championship she wins.
Religion
There are several topics I don’t normally mention in this rant and they are rugby, competition walking, basketball and synchronised anything. Those four “sports” (though there are several synchronised thingies) are I think, at the very derrière of sporting involvement and should be banned. Now bear with me a second. I can still recall the interview I had with the Chief Clerk on my first day, in my first job, in a bank. Under no circumstances would Mr Dixon permit his staff to discuss with customers, anything but the weather! No sport, no politics and definitely NO RELIGION! It was Kick-In-The-Butt-Time if we transgressed! With that 55-year-old advice still indelibly carved on my brain (Mr Dixon had a way with words) I pondered how deep in old muddy Israel Folau and the ARU are at the moment? He’s a deeply religious young man and I have no problems with that. Your religion is your business and provided you’re able to live your life, in your way in the society you choose to live in, then all is sweet. Izzy however, has a BIG contract to play rugby here in Oz but he then chooses to comment – in line with his religious beliefs – on our life style. I’d have to think that’s biting the hand that feeds you! If this was his first visit to this subject, it may not have been too bad but this is his second visit and it comes reasonably close behind the referendum and law change here in Oz on the subject he’s uncomfortable with. This time I think, he’s rowed his boat up that well-known sewer, he’s in a barbed wire canoe and just to compound his situation, it looks like he may also have lost his paddle! By the time you read this we’ll all know what happened but I think he could be in deep do-do!
The Man
It’s just been announced that Anthony The Man Mundine is to play Rugby League again. He played many years ago and was good, but was a loner. He could read the opposition well but then did his own thing too often. As a result, his teammates couldn’t support him and his failure to gain further selection was part of the reason he turned to boxing. It’ll be interesting to see how he goes this time.
Talk at you later,
The Hillside Critic