The Terrace

Today is Tuesday, so it’s time for another red-headed tribute. This time we salute the Geelong boy who done good and ended up residing in the prestigious City of Stonnington. Barry is now referred to as ‘Stonners’ by close friends and associates owing to his ubiquitous presence on the high streets of Prahran.

The rhubarb-bouffant

Seriously, apparently Barry’s real nickname is ‘Rhubarb’. At least that’s what his playing card suggests. Rhubarb – who played in an era of unprecedented red-headedness at the cats (think Bourke, McGrath, Hickmott and Bruns) – was a Geelong boy who was recruited from St Joseph’s college. He enjoyed a very successful career – albeit cut short by a chronic leg injury – at the Cats by playing 241 V/AFL games and kicking 223 goals. He won the 1990 ‘Carji’ Greeves medal and was an all-Australian player two years later. Amongst other, things Baz will be remembered for the day of the ’95 Grand Final where, as injured captain, he got into a brawl with a group of Carlton players at half time. It made no difference and we eventually got flogged (again), but it gave us all some dignity on an otherwise undignified day.

We think the portrait above is a fine one by which we can remember him fondly. His full-bodied hair has been trimmed, in a very 1990’s sort of way, at the sides and back to reveal a unique rhubarb-bouffant effect. Nice, Rhubarb. We salute you.

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

This week in the Rangtheon we salute Neville ‘Brunsy’ Bruns, one of the great red heads of the GFC, let alone the game. Recruited from Leitchville (if you’re wondering it’s 263kms north west of Melbourne), nifty Neville (77kg 176cm) wore the number 19 with pride whilst playing on the wing and as rover between 1978-92. In total, Brunsy played 223 games (including the 1989 and 1992 Grand Finals) and kicked 174 goals.

Something obviously went wrong in the Leitchville hair salon...

Apart from managing a great Sports Co. sports store in Geelong, Brunsy will largely be remembered by many as the man that received the infamous ‘lethal jab’. As is well documented, Brunsy had his jaw broken in two places and Steve Hocking duly broke Lethal’s nose moments after.

Here’s what Lethal had to say about the moment… “I can visualise the five seconds because this particular opponent had been sniping a few of our blokes early in the game. It was an ugly game and when the game turned ugly, I turned the ugliest. He kind of walked past and I walked up belted him one and I thought ‘Oh s—, what did I do that for?’. And then I thought ‘they’ll be coming’ and they were coming. Because then I lost consciousness because my nose got smashed across my face and so then I was out of the game, too.”

Stop blushing, Neville...

Nice goatee, Neville. Always a step ahead of the pack...

What sort of manoeuvre is that, Neville?

Anyway, despite the jab, here at The Terrace we’ll always picture Brunsy with a well-groomed fiery mullet, ball in hand, heading toward goal at great pace.

Thank you, Neville. The Terrace salutes you!