Come 5.10 on Saturday afternoon the telly had the look of a Superser, the glow of the sunshine that was bathing Perth’s Mineral Resources Park filling the room with a cosy orangeness, if not with any actual heat.
Kelli Underwood, one of the four people squeezed in to the commentary box, told us that the temperatures were approaching the mid 90s, a boast that might have irked those Irish viewers who hadn't felt their toes since the previous Tuesday.
TG4 should, of course, have issued a warning along the lines of ‘Irish viewers may find the following scenes of heat upsetting’ before kick-starting their coverage of the Australian women’s footy season, but instead they just plunged us right in to it.
But we’ll forgive them because they deserve a hug for bringing to our telly screens coverage of this new campaign which will feature - not to be parochial - a dozen Irish players. It would have been 14, but the Sporting God of Cruelty decided to pay a pre-season visit to Brid Stack and Aine Tighe.
Our commentary team saluted the ever-growing influx of Gaelic footballers to the Australian game, but suggested that their ‘Cross-Coder’ transition was decidedly easier than, say, the players who came from ultimate frisbee, competitive skipping, speed skating, trampolining and surf life-saving.
True, probably, but for all Gaelic football’s faults, at least there are rules. Those of us who are Aussie Rules fly-by-nights often forget that Aussie Rules appears not to have any rules at all.
Take that moment when the West Coast Eagles' Niamh Kelly, of the parish of Mayo, one of four Irelanders to feature in the game against the Adelaide Crows, was set upon by three Crows like a leopard pouncing on a gazelle in a scene more commonly witnessed on Animal Planet. Unlike most gazelles in these kind of situations, though, Niamh emerged intact, if wondering had the ref swallowed her whistle.
Aussie Rules does, though, have an abundance of stats. Half-time and the ticker thingie at the bottom of the screen appeared to be on speed:
“Time in forward half, disposals, disposal efficiency, contested possessions, uncontested possessions, kicks, short kicks, long kicks, free kicks, inside 50s, handballs, kicks backwards [none - so Nemanja Matic obviously wasn’t playing], clangers [you gotta love the Aussies, we call them ‘unforced errors’], kicking efficiency, clearances, centre clearances, ground ball gets, hard ball gets, marks, contested marks, uncontested marks, marks inside 50, marks on lead, intercept marks, intercept possessions, tackles, tackles inside 50, spoils, smothers, shepherds, turnovers, pressure factor, interchanges, hitouts, hitouts to advantage, scores from stoppages, scores from turnovers.”
Clanger
Was there a clanger at the Farmers Insurance Open? Trying to understand what happened in that Patrick Reed moment was a little like trying to get to grips with the GameStop saga, but the gist appeared to be that he picked up his ball because he reckoned it was embedded and therefore was entitled to some relief, having been told by a witness that it hadn't bounced, but it had bounced so he probably shouldn't have picked it up, instead being better advised to wait for an official to arrive and tell him whether he was entitled to relief or not.
Nope, no clue either. But what we learnt here is that golf has 110 per cent more rules than Aussie Rules.
Sky tried to be diplomatic about Patrick’s brushes through the years with the rules of golf. “It’s a speckled past,” said Rob Lee, biting his gum. “Yes,” said Rich Beem, “Patrick has a past, a .... um ...... history with rules.”
When he spoke with CBS Sports’ Amanda Balionis, though, Patrick was unrepentant about relief-gate, although his cheesy grin while telling his side of the story brought to mind those times you insisted that your dog totally DID eat your homework.
Meanwhile, in east London, Mo Salah was totally insisting that rumours of Liverpool's demise were, you know, when he found his inner Dennis Bergkamp. "A work of art," said Martin Tyler of his second goal against West Ham, which was kinda Sistine Chapel meets Jackson Pollock. Kicking efficiency: 120 per cent. The room filled with a cosy orangeness. Superser Salah.
