The Thorpedo – 38 today.

Also, it’s my birthday on Friday.

Yeah.

Go Me.

Exciting News: Manning Jack Attack returns TOMORROW NIGHT

Which means you’ll be getting a report on Thursday, most likely on action like this:

Just kidding, it’s social bowls, you’ll be lucky to get a toucher on the jack.

Considering the circumstances, this might be the least relevant Caulfield Cup/Everest day on record

“Hey, what are you doing this Saturday?”

“Ah, watching the footy.”

Honestly, you wouldn’t even know The Everest barrier draw is on tonight…. probably because there’s barely been any news about beaming crap onto the sails of the Opera House.

A damn shame, because I was looking forward to the torchlight invasion from those larrikin protesters when the silks and barriers went up.

They say it’s a star-studded field this year…. It’s nothing more than a glorified TJ Smith Stakes without the Group 1 tag.

A short summary of the men’s singles at the French Open

Vamos.

As many of my fellow West Aussies expected, West Coast are appearing in a Grand Final in October

Yep, you heard that right:

THE WEST COAST FEVER ARE BACK IN THE SUPER NETBALL GRAND FINAL.

Ah, as a boy of barely 6 years of age, I can still remember the days of the Perth Orioles getting the lights beaten out of them every week.

In fact, if you go through the history of the Orioles/Fever from when they were formed in 1997 (The Fever rebranding was in 2008), they didn’t win more than 5 games in a season, let alone make the finals, until 2015.

Now they’ve popped up in 2 Grand Finals in 3 years.

Losing heartbreaking Grand Finals instead of losing every week – It’s a step-up nonetheless.

Twitter hit me right in the feels

This was on my suggested follows on Sunday night while I was checking the MotoGP Twitter feed.

If you’re unsure why I’m so unhappy about being ‘hit in the feels’…

2006 Champion Nicky Hayden, the beloved Kentucky Kid, was killed bike riding in May 2017.

It makes me sad just thinking about it.

Just looking back at that 55-metre Reece Hodge kick to cruelly deny the ‘Wobblies’ a gargantuan Bledisloe win in Wellington

Call me crazy, but with how sweet he hit the ball, with how high up the ball hit the post, combined with the wild Welly wind at his back, that kick would’ve comfortably cleared the posts from 65m, assuming it had stayed on target.

In teeming rain.

Reece Hodge is the Glute Lord indeed.

Once again, I believe there’s a forgotten root cause for Premier Berejiklian’s unethical behaviour

She wasn’t led down the path of the dark side by that disgraced swine Daryl McGuire….

IT’S ALL THE FAULT OF DARREN ALBERT IN 1997.

LOOK WHO WAS AT THE SYDNEY FOOTBALL STADIUM THAT DAY, SUPPORTING MANLY.

ALBERT, IF YOU HADN’T SCORED ON THE LAST PLAY OF THE SEASON, NEW SOUTH WALES WOULDN’T BE SUFFERING TODAY.

The fickle mind of the Daily Telegraph sports section

Monday: “Flanagan under threat as Roosters survey damage”

Tuesday: “Kyle Flanagan unfairly blamed as Sydney Roosters’ three-peat dream fails”

Yeah, it’s almost like someone at the Telly realised a 22-year-old who hadn’t played in a full season of First Grade before 2020 wasn’t able to immediately fill the shoes of a borderline Immortal like Cooper Cronk.

Even Cooper had to point that out on Friday night.

Still, it looks like the Chooks are actually going to feed Kyle to the Kennel.

Something will happen at Bathurst this weekend that hasn’t happened for some two generations

And it has nothing to do with the Holden Commodore’s imminent departure from touring cars…

…

…

…

The Richards name won’t be on the grid for the Bathurst 1000 for the first time since 1973.

Steven Richards officially retired from racing after last year’s Great Race, having driven in every Bathurst since 1995 for 5 wins, while Jim Richards first appeared at Bathurst in 1974, appearing a record 36 times in the ATCC and Super Touring Cars for 7 wins, tied for second behind Peter Brock.

Imagine being Steven – Winning the Great Race 5 times, and still being the second-most successful driver in your family.

Of course, father and son have a long shared history with the race outside of their 12 wins.

Jim won the 2-litre Super Touring Car edition of the Bathurst 1000 in 1998 in a Volvo S40 alongside Rickard Rydell, leading home Steven in a Nissan Primera, and Jim and Steven drove together in the ATCC version of the race 3 times – A DNF in 1996, 2nd place in 1997 for Garry Rogers Motorsport, and 2004…

Well, that was the year Steven put the Castrol Perkins Holden on pole, only for things to go wrong when Jim met Skippy the Bush Kangaroo approaching The Cutting.

He was Skippy, and after that, he was called Qantas, because he was a flying kangaroo.

This weekend ‘s AFL Preliminary Finals will be the latest date for an AFL/VFL final since 1923

That was the year the VFL Grand Final between Essendon and Fitzroy was held on October 20, because of heavy rain flooding the MCG on October 13, causing the game to be delayed by a week.

Obviously it happened to be played at the same time they ran the Caulfield Cup, but a couple of other strange notes:

A) Essendon and Fitzroy both wore white shorts, which was fairly common across the league.

B) George Rawle made his VFL debut for Essendon at the age of 33 – Funnily enough, the oldest player to debut was Charlie Hardy at age 34 in 1921 (Having played 13 seasons for North Melbourne in the VFA previously), who also played for the Dons that day.

Last one this week: Here’s Jordan Mailata folding up All-Pro linebacker TJ Watt like square sandwich on an Eagles touchdown

Just look out for No.68 coming across to crumple the Steelers #90

Hot damn son, hot damn.