THE SPEW Round 14: Defcon 2, Crowbots, and the Battle of the Bastards

Previously:
Round 13
Round 12

At Adelaide Oval the weather is icy for the North/Crows game but I don't realise how bad it is until we cross to Jude Bolton pre-game. He's lost control of his head and is nodding it incessantly like a kewpie doll to keep warm. That or the broadcaster has asked him to liven up his performances, but he goes too far in his exertions and begins to look like someone in a kidnap/hostage video.

As the game begins North are being buffeted by the Crows in some kind of birdly act of solidarity with the Hawks who North beat up on last week. Atkins bends a kick like a ring of Saturn through the goals but after a glacial score review it's overturned and its fate goes the way of Neptune. Speaking of intergalactic space conspiracies, a Crows runner signals to the mothership with a Michael Jackson white glove that it's not quite time for the Hale Bop people to return to earth but the moment's close at hand and they should stay on full alert—this is DEFCON 2.

But the overzealousness of this hawkish Crow runner is soon at an end as the Crows open North up like a fillet and the assessment is recalibrated to 'extremely sexual' and so the quarter ends, albeit with 3 goals 8 wasteful behinds.

In the second quarter Cameron is tackled and partially dacked, revealing what I would describe not as briefs but almost panties—that kind of quality. As a penance our alien overlords—who we all know are capricious but fair –make Adelaide pay and North pile on five goals to Adelaide's one. The Crowbots are in trouble all of a sudden and a cameramen, perhaps from Tyrell Corporation, shoves his camera right in Douglass' face to register if this is indeed a man or a replicant. Nearby on the Kangaroos bench Farren Ray is completing either an IQ or concussion test which consists of zipping and unzipping his jacket, a test he fails radically.

Despite the back and forth nature of the goal scoring it is extremely tedious. The football equivalent of Canberra, the place where anything could happen but never does. Even Betts goal snaps are from boring 45 degree angles. Again, all very robot. When Tex goals I wonder if a) he's ever lived in a city, and b) if he dreams of electric sheep.

Then I notice a rocket woman in the crowd, presumably ready to evacuate the team to John Travolta's hotted up Thetan spacecraft before the Hale Bop landing should things go awry but they don't, not yet.

As the final quarter starts the edgy, cinema verite cameraman from the boundary line gets a 16:9 wide shot of Goldstein which chops off his head. Waiting for a goal is painful but Jenkins obliges and the play is aptly sound-tracked by Bolton's soporific observations. Atkins effectively kills off the game by goaling and everyone is spared the wrath of Tom Cruise and his army of space crazies.

It's a freezing Friday night and the Dockers want to make a funeral pyre of the Woodsmen at the MCG. Fearing this is a distinct possibility, the crowd is tiny, with those in the know saying there were more people attending Warwick Capper's weekly orgy than bearing witness to this game.

It looks a little ominous early with Freo racking up around 80 possessions to the Pies 3 but they're moderately efficient touches and soon 'Cox: the boy from Oklahoma' (the artist formerly known by channel 7 commentators as 'Cox: the boy from Texas') is on the scoreboard. And we know he's not from Texas because very soon he's sent from the ground to touch up his emo lips—a move punishable by death in all Texas counties. Freo won't be one-upped in the fashion stakes however. Up in the coaches box Nat Fyfe is rolling with the intense librarian GQ aesthetic.

Dennis Cometti knows you're a long time retired so is casting lines out everywhere, the highlight of this game, 'there's Sidebottom, the steel of the 08 draft'. The Pies are dominating the opening quarter but the goal sticks prove harder to penetrate than the mind of Barnaby Joyce. Umpire Troy Pernell, aka Tim Burton extra, is in everything tonight like Clive Palmer in your pantry. The Pies don't put their collective foot down but win the quarter.

In quarter two Pav falls into a Marsh tackle like a man in his death throes, but no cigar Pavlova! As Walter attempts a speedy escape by foot, Cox collars him with Mr Tickle arms. It's all going Collingwood's way, a fact punctuated not only by Tom Phillips (to be known from now on as stigmata mouth) who goals, but by Grundy getting a free kick—a spectacle as rare as rocking horse shit.

Cox takes an unusual mark running back, a mark so peculiar it should have been a museum piece, and goals. Then so does De Goey and White—bada bing bada boom.

In the 3rd quarter I don't know if Cloke is going through the motions or emotions. Pav breaks a tormenting 5 minutes of scoreless play with a goal before Cloke emulates Pav's earlier hostage pose by pulling a Docker across his body in a marking contest.

In the commentary box Bruce has an uncanny knack of being impressed by a 3rd up defender in a 3 on 1 contest. This is also the first time I notice Richo in special comments who is called upon to give specialist weather content. I also notice that Blakely is very much modelling his aesthetic on Fabio, pre the Great Rollercoaster-Duck Disaster.

In the final quarter Pav has a Groundhog moment by blowing a goal from point blank. Pendlebury has had an ordinary day, the last time that happened Hotdogs was a household name. When there are goals to Treloar and White you know it's violins for Freo tonight and soon Cox pulls out a Matthew Lloydesque tricky backward donkey pass which counts as a goal assist. Despite the game being over the final five minutes resembles The Battle of the Bastards as players clime over prone bodies but it's Collingwood who flay Freo and plant their flag in the dirt.

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