The Late Report - Richmond 1 South Melbourne 0

You can make up your own mind about this image. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.

The lack of angry emails suggests that no one's been slashing their wrists at the lateness of this match summary.

Which is fine by me, because really, what could I write about this game anyway? That we took 60 minutes to get started. That we overpossessed the ball? That we had, on several occasions, two of our own players bumping into each other because they didn't know where to go? That we went round and round and round and round in ever dizzying circles? That despite all of this, we could have stolen a point late if Carl Recchia had managed to keep his shot low from barely six yards out?

We went behind five minutes into the game. A free kick that I didn't think was there, because I thought the ball hit the player's face rather than the South player's foot, but regardless, Richmond had two goes at it and scored from the second after we didn't seem to want to clear it out of our box with much urgency and paid the price for it.

Zeneli could have given away a penalty, but I'm not sure if he got a hand onto the ball after his fumble - in any case, the referee booked the Richmond player for diving. Likewise, I was on a crappy angle to see how far offside Recchia was when he headed the ball over Richmond's goalkeeper Stephen Gal and into the back of the net. The crossbar also saved Richmond in the second half when a deflection from a free kick landed on it. I wish Stephen Weir would just let Vasilevski take the free kicks.

Anyway, all the kranskies and slices of cherry cake with whipped cream on top couldn't make up for the slop which was dished out by our side, again. And instead of going close to cementing a top three spot and the double chance, we'll instead have to fight and scrape our way into the finals, if we're lucky.

I suppose the one measly positive you could bring to the table is that despite our rancid run of form, we're not getting belted. It's all 1-0 wins, or 1-0 losses or the odd draw. Oh, and Jessie Krncevic is due back this week against Hume. And our under 21s, if they can beat Hume this week, will be top of the table with two games to play. It looks like it'll go right down to the wire against Northcote in the last round. Just our luck - the only that's beaten us in our two year stint at John Cain Memorial Park, that is of course, provided Hume doesn't give us another spanking this week.

This banner, which lasted three minutes at Knights Stadiumm lasted a fairbit longer on the Heyington rail bridge. Photo: Mark Boric.

Polish, the language
Southpole, your attempts to convince me that Polish is an easy language to learn were not helped by being unable to convince me that the letters 'szcz' found consecutively was a logical way of writing; nor were your mate's crazy Polish tongue twisters; but especially not when you and said mate were disagreeing on the pronunciation of certain words and the meanings of basic phrases.

Stickers
Some new, specially imported South Melbourne Hellas stickers have hit the streets. Look out for them in unusual public spaces.

Irony, or the lack thereof
'The bitches go off' - didn't think I'd ever hear that comment made without at least a knowing wink.

Czech Beer and Soft Drinks
Beer, good; soft drink, meh.