Here's another week where they are going to have to judge 'impact' by how long the receiver of the elbow/bump spent off the field. I was at the Sydney game and thought Franklin's (notice how I didn't use his nickname?) looked ok live. On replay it looks worse though. The talk on SEN is that it'll be 2 down to 1 because Edwards came back on to the ground (in farcical fashion too). I just can't fathom this. Why does it matter whether he eventually made it back on to the ground? So if the doctor decided to play it safe and keep him off, there is the potential for Franklin to cop another week? That seems completely bizarre to me.
The Tippett one seemed worse to me live. Looked like an absolute snipe with his elbow resulting from frustration at having an ineffectual game. At least that's what it looked like at the ground. Seems like he made contact to the head, which we all know means bad news. You can rupture someone's kidney with a stomach punch for a $1k fine (which to Tippett/Franklin would just be devastating wouldn't it?), but elbow someone in the head and you're gone so i'd suggest he's gone for 3 at least.
In other news, at first glance, the SCG seems to be a fantastic stadium to watch footy. On closer inspection though I actually ended up hating it. Was easy enough to get in and out so that's a tick. Lovely looking stadium, so that's good. Good view of the ground (we were under the scoreboard about 50m out) - another tick. However, two massive crosses. One, there was one bar for that section of the crowd. All the way from the SCG Trust (MCC equivalent) all the way round to the scoreboard. SO of course there was a 20 minute line to get a drink which is completely shit. What made it worse though, was that there was a woman in an 'RSA Attendent' lab coat walking up and down this HUGE queue telling people that they can't drink their beer while standing in line. I asked her what she was on about when she got to me and her exact response was "Because you might get drunk while standing in the line."
Um, ok then. So i took literally one step to the side (had a mate still in the line) and continued to drink my beer with the stamp of approval from the RSA attendant. I had a chat to other people around me asking if this sort of thing was normal in Sydney and they seemed to say it was to my amazement.
So i kept watching this person walking up and down the lines and sorta reading the subsequent conversations with much mirth from the people around me. There were 3 people who clearly asked her wtf she was on about and then said 'ok, then I'll neck the rest of the beer so i don't lose my spot.' Then sckulled their beer, which the RSA person didn't seem to a have a problem with. As Robbo would say, 'I was flabberbasted.'
The other cross is Sydney supporters. Seemed to be a fair few of them there, which was good, but they just don't seem to watch the game. I'm pretty sure the average sydney fan doesn't know any of their own players apart from Franklin and Goodes. Seemed to be the only time they would cheer was when either of those two players got the ball. I reckon I knew more about Syndey's players than they did. Just nothing supporters.
Anyway, there's my SCG review.
PS. Went to the races at Kembla Grange the next day. Nice little track.