
Issue No 66		11 August 2000

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Sport

Swans 2000. A 3-Act Play

By Peter Moss

The best stories still do have a beginning, a middle and an end. And so it was with the 2000 AFL season and the Sydney Swans.

A season in three acts. A team struggling to recapture its identity after the retirement of its most prominent face. And a hero.

Act 1: Hope

For AFL in general, 2000 saw the worst start to a season ever, thanks to silly programming and major teething problems at the new Colonial Stadium. But Swans fans sailed around with shit-eating grins as the team, tipped to struggle sans Plugger, won well in Rounds 1-3 of the 22-game home and away season, beating St Kilda, West Coast and Melbourne.

Act 2: Despair

Could anything be more sickening than ex-Swan and prize dork Anthony Rocca kicking the winning goal for Collingwood in the last minute of play at the SCG in Round 4? We thought not - until the men in the red-and-white subjected us to a fiendishly clever twist on the Chinese water torture over the few weeks. A single drop of water hits the skull of the sensorially-deprived captive at precise 30 minute intervals. It is the inevitability, the absolute lack of variation, which produces insanity within hours or days. The Swans version saw the same inevitable result - a narrow defeat - reached by a different route each week, as Richmond, North and Brisbane each won nail-biters at the SCG. Then an old-fashioned thumping from the Carlton Bluebloods and a disgraceful whipping from the Junkyard Bulldogs pounded home the truth: the Swans were just not good enough, not this year.

Act 3: Redemption

Cometh the hour, cometh Paul Kelly. Built and tempered like a bi-pedal kelpie with a heart bigger than Uluru, the Swans' Captain Courage was expected to miss the entire season with a broken kneecap - his second horrific knee injury. But, come the last-gasp game against Fremantle in the West, who was that wiry cattledog dragging one withered leg warming up in the Swans warmup? Kelly's unannounced return jolted the club into self-respect and victories against Hawthorn, West Coast, St Kilda, Collingwood, North and Richmond. Not quite enough to fall into a finals spot, but enough to sustain the faithful through the extended off-season.

The Workers Online Swans Awards 2000

Best Player
Michael O'Loughlin

Best Goal
Robbie Ah Mat

Best Rookie
Jude Bolton

Best Recruit
Andrew Schauble

Best Win
North by 54

Best Performance
Losing to Essendon by 13

Worst Performance
Loss to Bulldogs

Funniest Moment
Coach Rocket Eade smashes another phone after an errant Schwass handpass v. North.

Peter Moss is a Director of Lodestar Communications.

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Issue 66 contents

Interview: Shifting Sands
Michael Crosby Joint Director of the ACTU Organising Centre talks to Workers Online about the changing nature of union power, 'use it or lose it' coverage and how the ALP will have to deal with a transformed union movement.

Unions: Mission Possible
From Cambodia to Kyrghyzstan, from Malawi to Mozambique, this is one nurse who accepts certain missions where life is on the edge, and she loves it.

Economics: A Progressive Alternative
Andrew Scott outlines a policy approach for an ALP Government that aims to deliver social as well as economic progress.

International: Unions Back International Seafarer Deal
Shipping union representatives from 56 countries have decided to back a pioneering international collective bargaining agreement with ship employers.

Politics: Apolitical Myth
Over the last ten years one story about public interest in politics has found resonance, especially in the US. It suggests that people are no longer interested in political issues. Researchers from the Demos Foundation put this claim under the microscope.

Satire: Elaine Nile retires citing victory in "War on Masturbation"
There were emotional displays and many tributes paid today as Elaine Nile, Christian Democrat MP of 12 years standing, announced her retirement from the Parliament.

Review: Pure Shit
The 1970s Aussie drug classic, Pure Shit - a 70s Australian style Trainspotting - is being dusted off for a one-off showing at the Chauvel.

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