Welcome to (Western) Australia 2021, where we’ve still got lockdowns and out of control bushfires destroying towns:

Fair dinkum, with that foul smell of smoke and the ash falling in the suburbs, we may as well keep our masks on even if/after lockdown finishes on Friday:

Well, that’s until that ex-tropical cyclone from up north pays us a visit on the weekend.

An excerpt from JT’s Lockdown Diary – Day One

“Monday was a hard readjustment after 10 months of freedom – I went from watching 8 hours of tennis on Sunday, to watching 12 consecutive hours of tennis on Monday.”

“When you think about it, have I really had to adjust at all?”

The events of Sunday afternoon in Perth, as described by The Simpsons

Obviously because of the lockdown, Manning Jack Attack can’t go ahead tomorrow, so there’s no report on Thursday

Further to it, we’re still not 100% certain if there’s going to be a full 6-week tournament this time around, or if it’ll be cut to 5 weeks due to scheduling conflicts with other events down at Manning Memorial.

Naturally, I’m hoping for the former, assuming Perth doesn’t get taken down before next Wednesday by either the raging inferno just outside of the metro area, or Britain’s answer to the Black Death.

So Collingwood are more like KKKollingwood

More news at 11.

Anyway, the independent Do Better report confirmed what billions of Collingwood haters have believed since at least the Nicky Winmar incident in 1993 – The Magpies are well-meaning racists, Heritier Lumumba was entirely justified after getting smeared by the Fourth Estate, and their Grand Wizard of a President stepped down as President a mere 48 hours after the report was handed to the Collingwood board on December 17, which they mysteriously chose to sit on until it was leaked on Monday morning.

Now, I’m not one to judge the Magpies, considering Hawthorn didn’t exactly have the greatest track record with recruiting and dealing with Indigenous players during the 20th Century (E.G Dermott Brereton to Chris Lewis and Winmar), which was the same as pretty much every other former VFL club in the 20th Century, but dear lord, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an AFL club get as thoroughly eviscerated about systemic racism as Collingwood did in that report.

It’s like The Moonlight State of independent reports.

Have a look at Page 13 for one:

There is a strong view external to the Club that, whenever there is a racist incident in the AFL, Collingwood is somehow involved with it. This perception has led some to conclude that Collingwood has become synonymous with off-field and on-field racism in Australian sport and others to observe that there is something distinctive about racism at the Collingwood Football Club.

As one person we spoke to said – ‘if you look at every high-profile incident of racism in the game, Collingwood is there somewhere.

Down to Page 15, because there’s a line there that was very pertinent to yesterday:

Key criticisms about the Club’s failure to address incidents of racism and its structural racism were
focused on the absence of clear and trusted avenues through which complaints could be made.

It was also observed by many that the Club was more likely to react to media coverage about a racist incident than complaints made within the Club and that such a reaction was defensive rather than proactive.

The Club takes a ‘guns pointing out’ or ‘double down’ approach rather than taking the lead
in investigating and addressing complaints or issues raised. This failure to respond adequately to
complaints of racism internally has also meant that the Club’s response has been seen as
aggravating, rather than mitigating, the impact of that racism on the people who have experienced it.

And what did the board do after the report was leaked to the media, after sitting on it for 6 weeks?

THEY REACTED AND HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE!

It seems plain to see that until that certain President departs Victoria Park, then the toxic smog of a club culture that’s enveloped the entire club might finally start to change.

What I found most impressive watching a few AFLW games this past weekend

The kicking skills of teams looks a space age better than it did last year, which is a sign of the natural evolution of skills in the national women’s game, as players gain more experience and became more accustomed to Australian Rules, and we eventually begin drafting girls/women who have been playing the game from a junior level.

No surprises that the improved skills translated onto the scoreboard, with 29 more goals kicked on the weekend compared to the opening round of 2020 (Obviously the good weather nationwide helped)….

Unless you’re a fan of the Geelong ladies.

I fear the lockdown, which has left West Coast and Freo unable to train, and the postponement of 2 games this weekend (GWS-West Coast and Adelaide-Fremantle) may not help the cause.

I’ve got a great way to improve Holey Moley

Instead of just having Greg Norman design the course, why don’t Channel 7 go the whole way and fly The Shark in to Brisbane to play the final hole of every episode, and when he gets within 3 feet of the hole, he can inexplicably miss the putt and sink to his knees, giving everyone bad flashbacks to most of The Shark’s major career.

Meanwhile, down at St George-Illawarra

As we all know, they hired Anthony ‘Hook’ Griffin as coach, who may or may not have a pining for White Australia, Cameron McInnes goes from being pissed off with Hook to pulling the unthinkable and signing with Cronulla for 2021, destroying any form of Dragons fanbase trust Hook hoped to build straight off the bat, and to cap off this hilarity, the Red V could do the unthinkable and ALLEGEDLY sign + register Australia’s greatest social pariah, Israel Folau.

Hang on, between signing Hook and signing Margaret Court’s favourite player, is this all a ploy to get The Skull and his very friendly mates back to Kogarah?

If Boyd Cordner is going to be on the sidelines until mid-June because of repeat concussions after an entire off-season to recover…

Why on earth are Easts not thinking of his long term health and making him sit out the entire season, let alone retire him on medical grounds?

There’s absolutely no shame in retiring at 28 years of age after 200+ games, 3 premierships, the only back-to-back premiership captain of the NRL era, multiple Origin victories as captain, captaining your country and winning a World Cup for your country.

Another hilariously stupid incident in international racing that occurred before the turkey got on the track at Trentham

This incident occurred at Vaal on Thursday afternoon, which helped provide another potential solution to the whip debate – Just use it on another rider to get them to straighten up their mount:

Should’ve just done a Mel Schumacher and pulled his leg in revenge.

The No.1 returns to the MotoGP grid with Joan Mir

So if that is genuine from Ox, then it’ll be the first time the No.1 has been used in MotoGP since our own Casey Stoner in 2012 (The year Casey retired), as Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez chose to stick with their personal numbers (99 and 93) after winning every title between 2013-19, similar to what Valentino Rossi (Who has always used 46) and Barry Sheene did for many years before them.

I would imagine the fact they won the title with that number (In short, superstition), and the personal association with the number has something to do with it.

Actually, going further back than Stoner, would you like to know the last time a rider won the Premier Class title wearing No.1?

Mick Doohan in 1998.

Oh, and did you know the Big Bash Final is on this Saturday?

More importantly, do you still give a crap about this edition of the Big Bash?