Despite the way I’m feeling, I think I’ll start on a happy note: by the time you read this, Le Tour will be underway, and I’ll be wandering around during the day with my eyes hanging out of my head, having sat up til 3 every morning. Hopefully my headache cluster will have finished by then, and I’ll be able to hear Phil Liggett over my whimpering.

I’ve got my Official Tour Guide from the newsagent, and can only dream of what it’s like to ride a $12,000 road bike. Amusing me somewhat is the fact that the truly deluded can buy exact replicas of each team’s bike, for anywhere between seven and twelve thousand dollars. Alarming me somewhat more is that the second-last stage of this year’s Tour is a climb up the dreaded Mont Ventoux, a 1980-metre slagheap that offers blistering heat and/or howling gales, and cost the life of a British rider in 1967. The only way they’re going to make it up this monster is to keep their eyes fixed on the asphalt ten metres in front of them, never look up, and keep drinking water and snarfing down the energy bars.

Of course the biggest news this year is the return of The Boss, Mister One-Knacker, Lance Armstrong. Yes, he’s a legend, but no, he can’t win. Why not? Well his team, despite all its dramas with sponsorship in recent weeks, contains two other genuine contenders, in the Spaniard Alberto Contador, simply the best climber of the modern era, and countryman Levi Leipheimer, bronze medal-winner in the Time Trial at Beijing. These two, coupled with all the other genuine contenders in the other teams, will be too much for The Boss to overcome. Which is fine – Our Cadel seems to have better support than he did last year, and if he doesn’t get injured this really could be his year.

Of course the LanceMeister will be a big factor in both the race and its coverage this year, however one of the many beautiful things about the Tour is that the broadcasters fully recognise and appreciate that there a couple of hundred riders from all over the world, not just one, and committed viewers would go insane if we had to sit through three weeks of Lance and a nightly Lance highlights package, with slo-mo Lance at every ad-break. If we could get Australian networks to latch on to this alarmingly simple concept, perhaps the Olympics and everything else would become passably watchable.

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Speaking of passably watchable, one would think that after 25 years in Sin City the Swans would be at least that, and more than 40,000 would show up for what’s supposed to be a Marquee game last weekend (Ian Colless is calling it ‘AFL fatigue’, but perhaps it could be a case of ‘fucking Collingwood and their fucking monopoly on so-called Marquee games’ fatigue). But the Swan’s membership is down, their attendances are down, and most importantly their TV ratings are down.

Colless and Roos are talking down their finals chances, at the same time saying they can’t afford to go into a rebuilding phase because missing the finals while blooding kids would cost them even more of their fickle supporter base. Now there’s an argument to be made that they’re doing this deliberately, that at 5 and 7 they’re not travelling all that badly, and that a team out of Western Sydney would be direct competition to the Swans, like they don’t already have enough in the form of League, Union, Soccer and drive-by shootings.

It’s in the Swans’ interests to try and convince the Emperor (although nobody’s succeeded yet) that NSW shouldn’t have another team, but Colless and Roos are actually speaking the truth (a nasty habit that could see them in trouble at AFL HQ if it goes on much longer). I know plenty of Sydney people, and they’re just not that interested in the Swans – AFL is still seen as a novelty there, and if there aren’t finals in the offing they’re not going to bother. Sydney people truly are the fabled “theatre-goers” around whom SponsorDome was once conceived.

Do we need to scream at Demetriou any louder and longer that there’s a fucking great elephant in the room and it’s squashed the TV and dropped a giant shit on Aunt Edna? NSW cannot support another AFL club, not now and not in the foreseeable future. Tasmania has a supporter base, and AFL culture, and real government interest, and perhaps the AFL should look at fixing what it’s got rather than fucking it over for this bizarre pipe-dream.

There is no point, however. It emerged today that AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick has just bought a controlling interest in the Sydney Olympic stadium, otherwise known as Homebush, or ANZ Stadium or something. Join the dots.

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Having listened to the Saints/Roos game in Round 11, and the talkback that followed it, I feel the need to make public the existence of another elephant in the room, one that our betters in the commercial media seem to be afraid to mention.

St Kilda were pushed hard early on in the game; they weren’t applying pressure, they weren’t burrowing into the contests, and they weren’t laying enough tackles. Their inside 50s were unproductive, and North were getting away with the game.

Then, as has happened several times this season, they found another gear and hit the nitrous button, and North were gone. Fresher legs and better skills were certainly a part of it, but what I keep seeing week in and week out is a determination to win that’s been missing for years. Suddenly the Saints have realised that Losing Is Bad.

Which brings me to my spray. The Thomas Years.

For the five years he was at the helm, St Kilda had arguably the best list in the league. And achieved virtually nothing, except regular heartache and exasperation for us, as amazing talent was pissed away. So often I watched the boys cave in when it got too hard. Yes, we made finals, but there was always, always always a capitulation at some point. It wasn’t due to talent, or injuries (although the injury management was pretty bloody appalling for a few seasons there) or, in most cases, a stronger opponent.

They just didn’t seem to care, and how could they, when their coach was endlessly bullshitting on about Process and Going Forward, and Systems and Stakeholders?

Time and time again I wanted to go into the rooms after yet another insipid loss and scream at them: “Do you feel like shit? You should! This is LOSING! It sucks! Do NOT pat yourselves on the back for completing a mission statement, have a look at yourselves, HATE THIS FEELING, and vow never to feel it again!”

I stand, as always, ready to be corrected, but it’s pretty clear from the way the Saints played during the Thomas Years that he never did this.

Now he’s gone, and suddenly they seem to hate the idea of losing. They don’t lie down, they don’t give up, they dig deeper and they try harder and they run faster and they lay tackles, none of which they used to do when it got difficult and Grant was on the sidelines handing out Employee Of The Month badges and taking them to the movies.

I hate him, I’m glad he’s gone, I hope he coaches Collingwood.

* * *

I love SBS. They’ve got the Tour on their digital channel, SBS2, and The Ashes, live from England, on their main frequency. So on the nights where the two overlap, I’ll be able to amuse myself switching from one to the other. This will guarantee that while I’m watching French farmers picking up discarded water bottles, there will be an amazing wicket. Conversely, while watching Ponting pick his nose, there will be an attack midway through a climb and one of the leaders will crash.

This will continue my unbeaten run with SBS, of flicking over only to see a French chick putting her clothes on after a full-frontal, or the end credits of The Punani Explored.

* * *

As I write this the Game Of The Year is three sleeps away, as you read this no doubt it's been run and won.

St Kilda host Geelong, at the loathsome, pointless, sterile, sold-out yet still only three-quarters full, somehow able to tell Demetriou-the-spineless-fuck where to go SPONSORDOME.

The Geelong half-forward line looks pretty fucking scary (Ablett, Mooney, Johnson) until you line it up against the Saints’ half-back line (Baker, Fisher, Goddard). Matty Scarlett all over Kossie or Lenny will be worth the admission price alone, and you’ve got to be licking your lips in anticipation as to who’ll get the job on Riewoldt.

Max Hudghton is going to be very sorely missed across the St Kilda backline, but the defence has been so miserly all season, and so able to rebound through the likes of Gilbert and Blake with the devastating midfield of Ball, Dal, and Montagna running through….

Ah, Jesus, that’s enough. I can’t write that seriously for that long! Sorry.

You can’t pick this one on form, both teams are fucking terrifying (though the Cats have looked a bit flaky from time to time lately), you have to go with your gut. My gut says St Kilda have fully recovered from the Thomas Years, and therefore have the drive and the balls to not only take it up to the Cats, they’ll take it up, they’ll deliver it on a plate, and they’ll insert it in a most unpleasant fashion.

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