Moving on - South Melbourne 5 Eastern Lions 0

Though long since mentally broken by this club, I was still surprisingly in no mood to watch this game. I even contemplated going to the footy instead, but seeing all my friends swayed me to Lakeside. Besides, South still needs it more than Collingwood ever will.

One of the handful of people who still reads this guff wanted it made clear that not everyone agrees with my take on the Avondale/Australia Cup calamity. Fair enough, his objection is noted. Another reader suggested that my report was written as if I'd actually been there. A mighty compliment, but I defer to the South forum, from which I pieced together several items into a seemingly coherent and tangible whole. 

Quite a few of the few who were there, seemed already to have moved on from the shambles of our cup exit. Maybe they are genuinely that open minded and forgiving of those things that they cannot control. Maybe they are even more screwed up than people like me who are going to hold on to this and several other grudges until the end of time.

But as much as "get over it" seemed to be the catch cry of the night, I could not get over it. You can't make me feel things that I don't want to feel, or some such assertive psychobabble. So I watched this match in a state of emotional distance, which is quite something for someone who gets animated while watching pre-season matches of little consequence.

I've joked over the past few Esteban Quintas led seasons that we try to win 0-0. Well, I might not have liked the style, and it might not have been very effective, but despite the aesthetic atrocity that was the lowest scoring South team since about 1986, I never thought that we were trying to lose games. This year seemed different, too, because we were doing well enough to keep picking up wins, often doing so by scoring multiple goals.

And then last Wednesday happened and... it's going to take time for me to trust the collective brains trust managing the senior men's wing again. I spent most of the time chatting with a fellow ex-academic about my exit from the academic world in early 2019, and to be honest, it was just nice to chat. I mean, I've told that story too many times, and it's three years and a still ongoing pandemic ago, but we were 3-0 up after half an hour or some such, and it just didn't seem to matter. 

The performance didn't validate the decision, by whoever was responsible, to effectively tank against Avondale. Maybe if we lost to Eastern Lions, or had only a narrow victory it might have been able to read something different into the week, but Lions were so, so poor. Not allowed the freedom of previous recent encounters to start attacks from well up the field, they didn't fire a shot. Their man getting sent off at 3-0 for no good reason would have summed things up perfectly, except for former South goalkeeper Keegan Coulter getting benched at 4-0 down and five minutes to play summing things up even more perfectlier. 

Meanwhile we could have probably scored twice as many as we did, but that would have perhaps been greedy. Post-match most people seemed to be in a good mood, especially those celebrating Thunder's upset win over Avondale which saw us go six points clear at the top. I'm sure I'll join everyone else in that good mood place eventually.

Record matching

Sawyer's four goal haul saw him become the tenth (known) senior men's South Melbourne Hellas player to score four goals in a league match. He joins the following players in achieving that feat:

• Ernie Ackerley, vs Melbourne Hungaria, VSL Round 8, 1966
• Tom Clarke, vs Box Hill, VSL Round 16, 1971
• Charlie Egan, vs Newcastle Rosebud United, NSL Round 17, 1984
• Kimon Taliadoros, vs West Adelaide, NSL Round 7, 1991-1992
• Ivan Kelic, vs Wollongong Wolves, NSL Round 16, 1995-1996
• Con Boutsianis, vs Northern Spirit, NSL Round 30, 2000-2001
• Michael Curcija, vs Kingz FC, NSL Round 11, 2003-2004
• Goran Zoric, vs Preston Lions, VPL Round 3, 2009
• Gianni De Nittis, vs Hume City, VPL Round 8, 2010

Now there's probably a good chance that one more South players achieved (or surpassed) this feat during the 1960 season, but good luck scrounging up the specifics on that.

Next game

Away to Dandenong Thunder on Saturday night. Please be aware that kickoff for the senior match has been pushed back from 7:00PM to 7:45PM, one assumes to better accommodate the Ramadan/iftar observances of many of Thunder's supporters and volunteers.

Fixture change

Our upcoming round 9 fixture has also had a change. We were supposed to host Oakleigh on Saturday April 16th, but the fixture has been reversed, and the game will be played at Jack Edwards Reserve on April 18th, Easter Monday. This is apparently because relevant grand prix infrastructure will not have been packed away quickly enough.

The NPLW match scheduled for April 16th, against Alamein - and which was meant to be the curtain raiser to the NPL match - at this stage still looks like it will proceed as scheduled. 

Women's team

Speaking of the senior women, I caught a chunk of the second half of their season opener against Bulleen on the screens in the social club, and it seemed like an improvement on whatever happened in the first half to see them 3-0 down at the break. Now it's always a bit of a wonky affair across the board while waiting for A-League Women players to have a rest from the close of that season before they jump into state league duties, but... what's this I hear about perhaps not so many W-League players coming back to Lakeside?

Some chat going around last Saturday that Gabrielle Giuliano, the board's driving force behind the club's women's component, will be scaling back her involvement with the club. Likely related to that, there was also vague mention made of a change in direction for the women's program, whatever that means.

Someone made a tweet - since deleted - making an interesting assertion about what that change in direction might mean. But that could have also been a huge fever dream on my part. 

Final thought

The club really has to sort out its multiple booze problems. No booze outside last week, and no one able to find the gin inside.