This time I managed to get tickets to the footy and headed down to Indooroopilly station where the train was packed as expected. I noticed, however, that lots of people seemed to have the wrong colours: green and gold instead of maroon, blue and gold. All was revealed when they got off at Milton. Apparently they were attending a Franco-Australian cultural event, which went well by all accounts
Continuing on to the football, we settled in and had a great night. It was a good match, combining an excitingly tight first half with a satisfyingly crushing victory in the second. There was nothing to match Aka’s miracle goals of last week, but he bagged five and Bradshaw got nine! We can start looking forward to the finals with confidence now.
John Quiggin 
It look good on TV as well tonight. And there was a lot of that old style (ie 2001-3) Lions but with all the new blood (Corrie, Drummond, Macdonald etc) playing well. But I’m still holding off until the game against the Eagles to say whether we are really back*.
*Back meaning we are a serious chance to win the flag of course. Anything else just doesn’t matter.
Test: having a problem posting a comment in the Weekend reflectiosn thread. Are comments down again or it just me?
Obviously it’s just me.
I wonder what word triggered the anti-spam defences?
The Franco-Australian event went somewhat better for the visitors than the British and Irish-Aotearoan cultural event elsewhere, where it seems the the teams called The Lions was mauled rather than roared, at least on the scoreboard.
I agree international rugby union test matches are culltural events.
Best of all, Rafe is a Melbourne supporter.
No doubt he thinks they would do better if they played football according to Austrian principled.
Ian Gould, your comment would suggest JQ has turned on the spell-checker rather then the spam filter.
´Cultural´ event? Perhaps ´religious´…
Well actually the Crows are back. With only lowly Hawthorn to play to finish the minor round, their percentage indicates they are now a serious threat to West Coast, barring injury of course. As well they play 5 of their last 7 games at home. They are now at Malthouse’s 11 oclock while my team Port have moved to 2 oclock, after being at their best from 11-1 oclock the past 3 years, winning a premiership at 1 oclock.
The Premier will most likely come from the top 2 teams and the true test of where your team is at, will be available after next weekend when everyone has played each other once. WC and Crows(8%over Geelong in 3rd and 16% over Melb in 4th) have the standout percentages to indicate their true form (percentage only places Port 12th who incidentally were beaten by the 13th side on the weekend) Percentage doesn’t lie as a true form guide and last year at the end of the season only two teams were out of sync on the points table with their percentages. Port was one position above, while the Crows were below their percentages. Also in 97-98, the Crows premierships were won by the team with the best season percentage. They had lost some close games, which belied their truer percentage form. See how your team is going on percentage after next week’s round.
Lethal did the smart thing and blooded his youngsters earlier in the season and that is paying dividends now, unlike Port. Unfortunately for Port they were hanging about the final 8 and had to persevere, given their injuries and suspensions. Lose to Melb next week and Chocko should follow Leigh’s example. Although Brisbane are on the march, only the second finisher will be able to avoid playing WC at Subiaco in the finals. Finish 2nd and win your 2 home finals and you will probably meet them in the GF. Brisbane might be on a roll, but they can’t finish 2nd now. Neither can Port. Presumably after next week’s round, Adelaide will be the clear challenger to WC on percentage. Adelaide will then become the hunted, with the added pressure that brings. WC are handling it admirably now.