slayed in the third...giants feast on finals hopes

image: portadelaide.com

the theme for this round was giant slayers but i am afraid without our viking charlie the best we could offer was half a game. cold...not make that frigging freezing the lady army (all four of us) toughed it out in miserable conditions. i was wearing my poncho which was more like in between, you know that freezer plastic you use to separate your fillet mignons? seriously in between probably would have stood up to the weather conditions. remind me never to buy those ponchos again!

     after the roos decided to come out and play and bound over the top of collywobbles easily and the saints pull out an upset it was a must win game. a must win game to keep the thread of finals hopes from finally unravelling and breaking beyond repair. and boy did it seem like that thread was going to be reinforced. wet, slippery conditions, fumble, fumble, fumble, slip, slip, slip, port managed to come out ready to climb the beanstalk and gain a glimpse of that finals golden egg. pressure was what i witnessed. a  tough contested first quarter which left me feeling optimistic. by the time half time had sounded port had kicked out to a 20 point lead in miserable conditions while we sat freezing our bums off almost too cold to cheer. trengove did his best to nullify the muminator and what a beast he is, apart from sandilands he and natanui are the monsters of the ruck world and i can see how they could do some damage.

      unfortunately the heroics of ebert, the never give up attitude of boak, trengove, man bun and the magic of robbie gray could not protect the lead from slipping into a six point deficit by the end of the third. personally i think they should just drop holding the ball out of the rule book because it simply does not exist. but when it does viewers, make no mistake it ends up favouring one team over the other and leads to gifted goals. and adding to that i also think they should bring in a height requirement for the umpires because they obviously cannot see what is going on, they stand too far back to adjudicate the game. give them a pair of high heels i say and maybe they might get a better view of the game...pftt!

     and so six points in the end accumulated to 19, not a thrashing but the win was there for the taking and port should have been on high alert after half time, particularly after that third quarter blitz. what can i say? i was freezing. i did my bit but the team failed to do theirs. much soul searching and analysis must proceed to find practical solutions to stitch this team together into a four quarter side. at the moment we are just tacked together and when the going gets tough we just split at the seams and our fabric is weakened. some supporters are becoming disheartened. part of me understands that. a team one kick away from  a tilt at the flag has not lived up to the expectation and how quickly things change. darlings to paling into insignificance if this path continues...but seriously let us not forget our achievements nor our circumstances. things do change quickly, some teams are now entering the injury zone which will be a disadvantage and some like the hawks are moving along nicely after having seemed to have paced themselves and controlling their march into september finals. i think i did predict a fourth flag for the hawks and at the moment although my prediction is not set in concrete it is beginning to dry.

    what a frustrating season it has been so far. mathematically along with divine intervention we supposedly are not out of the race. suggestion seems unlikely which would leave port missing finals two years in a row. and to some that is simply unacceptable. for me the reality is too many things have not fallen into place. i am a realist and i will bide my time and at this stage reserve my judgement. i am not prepared to throw my membership or scarf in the bin because simply i will never give up...