Fun fact: Tomorrow, which will obviously be September 2nd, will officially mark 20 years since Essendon’s last Premiership win.

What a highlight, only a couple of days after they officially surpassed Richmond’s record for the longest-running Finals winless streak in the AFL era, at 5,838 days.

With the way they’re going, we’ll be cracking the champagne corks for the big 6,000 in a couple of months.

Let’s just remind ourselves that Jeff Kennett thought this was a sound idea

It’s especially relevant after watching Hawthorn confirm themselves as a minnow this evening by losing to a contender for the worst AFL team ever seen.

It’d be like Nick Politis suggesting relegating the NRL’s stragglers down to reserve grade, which the NSWRL technically did with North Sydney and Newtown.

But, more seriously, that dumbarse idea sums up the Hawks in 2020.

Paying for their own hubris at every frikkin’ level, and refusing to accept where the Hawks are actually at right now, which is being a Bottom Four club with a Bottom Four list.

Kennett keeps blurting out every idea that popped into his head to a reporter, doing absolutely nothing to help Clarkson’s contract situation, then reneging on his decision to run for the Hawthorn Presidency again.

You did plenty of good things for the club Jeff, but those days aren’t coming back with your good self steering the ship.

Next, Alastair Clarkson and Graham Wright for massively overestimating the playing list post-2016, trading away the farm of draft picks for mature players with histories of injury and a lack of performances, instead of actually getting access to decent young players, leaving the team riddled with players on the wrong side of 30 and slower than Ferrari’s current F1 car.

The loss to Port was tolerable because at least Clarko played the kids and they were right in it until the end, the Bombers defeat was just horrific because of HOW they lost, but at least they showed something for a half.

Tonight, against a team that had lost 16 consecutive games, and hadn’t won for some 395 days, was a new low in a season of lows.

I imagine this was part of Clarkson’s quarter time address, as the Crows thoroughly punched the Poos and Wees in the mouth.

It wasn’t just bringing in everyone over 30, it wasn’t just gaining the honour of being the team to end Adelaide’s winless season – THE HAWKS NEVER LED AT ANY MOMENT IN THE GAME, AND NEVER EVEN LOOKED LIKE IT IN THE 2ND HALF.

I couldn’t give a crap if we were playing the Crows off a 5 day break versus a 9 day break, and given the success the Hawks have had in the recent decade, I don’t expect an inch of sympathy.

Whoop dee doo, Pick 3 – I wonder which mature age player they’ll waste it on in a trade.

Who I’d like to see in the pre-game fesitivities for a Brisbane AFL Grand Final

Aside from Powderfinger making an appearance, I think as a nod to Brisbane’s sporting past, they should get 1982 Commonwealth Games mascot Matilda down from Kybong and give the roo her biggest moment in 38 years.

I wonder what Sir Joh would think about all this if he were still around, seeing the Mexican game grace his beloved state.

Danny Frawley’s CTE diagnosis

Interesting in that it wasn’t the Victorian coroner who made the announcement today – It was Spud’s widow Anita, who gave the information to the Herald Sun, in the hope that speaking out would help drive interest and potentially help diagnose future cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which has been prevalent in 21st century studies of the brains of deceased NFL players by Dr Bennett Omalu.

For reference, Aaron Hernandez, who died aged 27 in 2017, was diagnosed with Stage 3 CTE, which researchers had “Never seen in a brain younger than 46 years old.“

So we know more locally for us that Polly Farmer was diagnosed with having Stage 3 CTE this past Summer, the first player officially diagnosed with CTE post-death, and now we know Spud, the second player officially diagnosed, had Stage 2.

They’ll be far from the last players diagnosed with CTE, but we can learn from the suffering they went through.

Getting the Australian Grand Prix back to South Australia

While the Formula 1 roadshow is headed to glorious Monza, as announced by Premier Steven Marshall, the Croweaters are putting their hat in the ring to steal the Grand Prix back from the Mexicans, if by some highly unlikely chance that Melbourne isn’t able to host the Australian Grand Prix next March, although the obvious difference between now and 1995 is that they can’t host the event in the Adelaide Parklands, which I think is a shame, because even on 25-year-old replays, it’s a brilliant flowing circuit, even after it was shortened for the V8s.

And who could forget David Coulthard slamming into the pit wall in that same farewell to Adelaide:

Instead, the Croweaters would host the weekend at The Bend.

TAILEM BEND.

The relatively new Motorsport Park is owned by the rather wealthy Shahin family, and among the many things positive, like having multiple circuit layouts, a big problem for a Grand Prix weekend is that it currently holds an FIA Grade Two license (F1 tracks need a Grade One), but the biger problem, besides lacking an atmosphere, is the exact same problem that Magny Cours faced when it hosted the French Grand Prix.

It’s in the middle of ****in’ nowhere.

So, not only will you not get a decent number of spectators, but the facilities themselves are, for a lack of a better word, shithouse.

In all, a nice thought that will probably not happen.

The US Open

I suspect Australian interest is down massively this year, and for fair reason, with Nick Kyrgios and Ash Barty opting out of the tournament, along with several dozen other top ATP and WTA players.

There are still a few Aussies going around – Jordan Thompson defeated Stefano Travaglia in 4 sets, Marc Polmans lost in 5 sets, while John Millman, James ‘Ducky’ Duckworth and Alex De Minaur are playing today, but in the Women’s draw, it was a complete opening day wipeout.

Ajla Tomljanovic lost in straight sets to 2016 Champion Angelique Kerber (Who hadn’t played since the Australian Open), Lizette Cabrera lost in 3 sets to Montenegrin Danka Kovinic, Maddison Inglis lost in 3 sets to Magda Linette, Arina Rodionova lost in straight sets to ‘local’ Madison Brengle, and Astra Sharma lost in a 3rd Set tiebreak to Dayana Yastresmska.

Not that any of our compatriots had a real shot of winning to begin with.

Benji Marshall leaving Wests Tigers for the second and last time

Now you know Madge has gone BONKERS at Concorde Oval – There’s no better way to shatter a playing group’s morale than getting rid of the most loved player at the club weeks before the season ends, even if he is a bit too old.

Obviously we’ll see quite a few replays of the Pat Richards flick pass from the ’05 Grand Final in a few weeks when he farewells the Orange and Black faithful, but I’ll once again show a repay of another 2005 moment.

Benji taking the absolute piss out of the Sharks defence at Shark Park.

For all I know, he’ll be making a comeback to the Western Suburbs at the ripe old age of 135, by which point in time Balmain will probably cease to be, and they’ll be running around as the Magpies again.

A Millionaire Hotseat question, perfectly tailored for Swervin’ Mervin Hughes

Huawei parting ways with the Canberra Raiders

Another casualty of Australia’s ongoing feud with the Chinese.

If you ask me and several other likeminded folks, this is the perfect chance to get Canberra Milk back onto the Green Machine’s jerseys.

That way they can get Mark Webber back for another ad campaign.

A thorough study of Bruce McAvaney’s rhetorical questions

GoldBrick’s study was so good that News.com.au decided to make absolutely no effort thinking of their own ideas and pretty much politely reposted it themselves straight from /r/afl, which their ‘journalists’ have a solid recent history of doing.

The definition of audacious

From Punters.com.au:

Yep – This ‘Mr M’, possibly going by the name of C.Palmer or A.Endresz, tried taking on Lottoland for a lazy 10 figures at the Northern Territory Racing Commission, because of a $5 bet on the US financial markets.

Yeah, why bother actually investing money on the Dow or NASDAQ, when you can BET ON IT.

The actual outcome of the claim has to be the funniest part of the story, because he ‘technically’ won some form of financial settlement.

“Given Lottoland did not comply with its terms and conditions in respect to moving the bet, it deemed it should be made void and the bookmaker should return the $5 to Mr M. “

“In determining that Lottoland’s non-compliance was due to inadvertent technical fault which has since been rectified, the Commission did not take any further action.”

VICTORY.