The Terrace

U2, Robbie Williams, Andre Rieu, Steve Johnson: the biggest names in entertainment to have graced Etihad Stadium. With distinctive flair, unpredictable brilliance and a masterful skill set, Stevie J had outscored Essendon from his own boot at ¾ time. If the Johnson (of pickled-banana fame) of last week had your heart skip a beat, this week’s Johnson made your heart sing to an upbeat.

On arrival at the game, the sighting of former players Paul Brown, Tim Darcy and Rangtheon member Neville Bruns was definitely a good omen. From the first bounce it was clear that Geelong were primed and Essendon were in for a long afternoon. The late withdrawal of Joel Corey gave Shannon Byrnes a lifeline and first gamer Nathan Djekkura was impressive with relentless tackling (game high 9) and pressure.

Each quarter in four words or less;

1st: We are switched on
2nd: The Bombers are done
3rd: We are lucky supporters
4th: The game’s over anyway

The Terrace Soap Box

There are certain players (many, in fact) that are irritating for a number of reasons. For us, Adam McPhee is one such player. He has talent; however, here at The Terrace we find it hard to reconcile that on one level he puts himself forward as a hard man and yet, on the other manicured hand, spends a major % of his wage on hair and beauty products. To be fair he’s not the only modern-day player to share this regrettable metrosexual trait, but he also owns and runs a fashion boutique called Sekushi (sexy in Japanese) with wife Bree. I suspect he was worrying more about his winter range rather than his man on Sunday afternoon. Here at the The Terrace our nickname for Adam is “Skeletor” (of He Man fame). We think you’ll agree there’s a fair resemblance.

Lucky for us the boys at KP play hard and don’t wax their backs!

Yours faithfully,

The Terrace

There is nothing quite like the all-consuming frustration of hearing roars outside a ground as the siren sounds when you are late for a game. It’s up there with bad umpiring, spilling sauce down your front, Michael Christian’s commentary and Geelong not getting the Guggenheim. The roar at the start was nothing, however, compared with the sigh of relief as the final siren sounded and Brad Johnson made a pickle of his banana.

In the closing stages of Friday night here at The Terrace we had mentally accepted the loss as “something we needed” to exorcise the possibility of a complete tragedy in September (something very real that continues to lurk in the darkest corners of our minds). In our eyes it was the “loss” we had to have and we’re sticking with that. We’ll take “the win, yet lose” approach, as it serves a higher purpose for now…

Each quarter in four words or less:

1st: We doubled their score
2nd: Gary hasn’t lost it
3rd: The result seems assured
4th: Where’s the smile now, Johnno?

Postscript
Interestingly, as a matter of a useless fact, The Terrace can reveal the following exclusive insight: Geelong and the Doggies kicked quarter-by-quarter goals in the reverse order. Geelong: 6-3-5-3 vs Bulldogs: 3-5-3-6.  How intriguing!

Further, The Terrace believes the last time anyone had a final-moment chance in a Geelong vs Doggies game was way back in the 1994 quarter final when Billy Brownless slammed one home to put the Cats in front by 5 points and through to the semi final. Big Billy went troppo until John Barnes kissed him and Blighty ran onto the ground to take a speccy over the players huddle. All to the sound of Sandy Roberts calling “Billy, you are king of Geelong! Oh, the monkey’s off the back now, Billy!” Gazza famously did the same against North Melbourne two weeks later in the preliminary final before Geelong…you guessed it…went on to lose the flag.

Billy, the monkey's off the back!

For those interested in useless stats (yes that includes you), check out this page to learn about after the siren kicks that have decided games in Australian rules football. It even, God help us, refers to missed opportunities, including Robert Scott’s missed shot again the Swans way back in 1988 (i think i cried that day). It’s nice to see they’ve already droped Bradley’s miss in as well, just for posterity’s sake…

Your friends,

The Terrace