meanwhile back in the AFL...

I am sorry to report that the Adelaide Crows have 'devoured' my new bezzies, the 'undermanned' Fremantle Dockers.

I KNOW. Try to contain your sorrow.

The only real way I have to keep up with all this pain and heartache is through WA Today's online reporting. It seems pretty comprehensive. It uses the words 'obliterate' and 'humiliated', which can't be good. I suspect Shoutah, having run through his entire extensive vocabulary of insults for his beloved team, is at the very least going to be unable to go in to work this week, and at worst has lost his everloving mind, lifting a ceremonial two-by-four of shame and murmuring a soft, sad, '...like a pack of galaaaahhhhs...' before beating himself square about the chin with it.

But look at this:

"Fremantle's final score was the lowest in their (sic) history, comfortably less than the 3.7 (25) compiled against Geelong in round 20 of 2004, and the 117-point deficit equalled a round six drubbing by West Coast as their worst loss.

Their halftime return of 0.1 (1) was the most meagre in a league fixture since Fitzroy went scoreless against Essendon in round one 1995."

I could not love these sentences more, nor be more curious. What in the name of all that is good can it all mean? What other team sport has scoring represented by dual numbers employing both decimal points and brackets? What mystical equation brings us from the one number to its enbracketed relative? It's like a freaking MENSA question: "If 3.7 is to 25 as 0.1 is to 1, then 4.5 is to ... as 2.2 is to ...?"

Just about the only word I understand in the whole of the above is "Essendon", which is only because an acquaintance's dad played for the team in the forties.

I remain undaunted. Through WA Today's report, I've picked up a few more bits of correct terminology - it seems each quarter is actually called a 'term' - and I can begin to fill in position names, replacing the English rugby/ Canadian football tangle of wingers and quarterbacks in my head with correct AFL nomenclature:

"Fremantle entered the game minus a host of big names, none more significant than that of their gargantuan ruckman Aaron Sandilands."

Aha! I shall diligently scribble 'gargantuan ruckman' in my notebook. Right alongside 'youthful hobbledehoy' (to be found in the forward line) and 'inscrutable filibuster' (on the flank).

The Dockers website is also a mine of useful information, quoting the coach:

"...an inability to move the ball forward efficiently and combat Adelaide's structures were the most frustrating aspects."

Really? Not 'moving the ball forward efficiently' was frustrating? Well, I imagine it would be, since that is more or less the entire point of the game.

I LOVE this sport.