It’s AFL finals time, and yet again I face the difficulty of writing a sports column in a monthly paper. By the time you read this, or let’s face it, by the time we go to print, any predictions I make will be old news, and no doubt wrong. So I’ll leave you with my fantasy Grand Final, which is extremely unlikely given form over the past eight weeks, and perhaps even impossible given the way the finals are structured.

I would love to see a Saints Dogs GF. Each has only one flag to their name, and long, proud histories of under-achievement and impecuniousness, and lots and lots of hard-core fans with no teeth. Footscray are the only team I could lose to and not feel gutted.

Akermanis may disagree.

Of course, that’s all academic, because Collingwood are just fucking frightening at the moment, and the Pussies’ years of dominance don’t look like winding up this year or even next.

Speaking of, I schlepped on down to a local bar to watch the Geelong St Kilda game the other week, and a few things stood out. For instance Michael Christian, who assists in something called the Half-Time Show, speaks quite well, as long as you don’t understand “quite well” to mean anything resembling sentences. It’s like listening to Joyce’s Ulysses being read out by Stephen Hawking; the words are definitely all English words, and precisely pronounced, but they appear to be have been assembled at random.

Another thing that stood out for me is that I do not like Gary Ablett. Before you all get up in arms about what a nice bloke, what a prodigious talent yaddah yaddah, yeah I know, he’s brilliant, okay? Trouble is, there’s a “W” in his acronym. Sorry what? I’ve always loved players who are BAs – Brilliant Arseholes. Wayne Carey, the greatest player of all time, ever, in this universe or any other, got about three free kicks in his entire career, because he was a BA; the umpires hated him, and with pretty good reason. He was, and quite possibly still is, an Arsehole. Gary Ablett Senior was less of an arsehole, (not by much) but he wasn’t exactly a free-magnet either, nor was Glenn Archer, or Tony Lockett, or several other Greats.

So that’s the Brilliant Arseholes. Then you have the Brilliant Whinging Arseholes, like young Gary. He’s scarily good, and he gets his fair share of frees simply for being there at the ball so often, and being the subject of so much close attention. It pains me then, to see such a talent so often waving his arms around and looking at the umpire demanding a free. Why do that? Why, Gary? You’re more likely than most to win the ball through sheer brilliance as it is, why go pissing and moaning for more? It’s not pretty, and it detracts from what should be one of the great AFL careers of all time. Until you go to the Gold Coast.

All that being said, it was a cracking game, the best I’ve seen from the Saints in a good long while, which isn’t saying much, to be honest. Adrian the Saints tragic texted the next morning “This is the year”, which confirmed that, yes, we played well, and also that Adrian is a fuckhead for saying things like that in September, and I will punch him in the eye next time I see him, unless we actually do take the flag home to Moorabbin, in which case we will get drunk and hug a lot and probably accidentally kiss.

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We should all take a moment to give hearty thanks and tip our hats to Brendan Fevola, for all that he has given us. Before continuing, let’s just reflect for a while on some of his efforts. The drunken night at the Brownlow, the drunken night in Chapel Street, the shot of Lara Bingle (where the hell is she now, by the way? No, don’t answer, I actually don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut) in the shower. The gambling problem, the on-field tantrums and laziness, the general fuckwitted-ness of the man.

Brisbane were about as good a bet as any other team to keep him under something resembling control, at least more likely than Carlton were, but it was never going to last. So here we are, again. Brendan got his cock out. That is all.

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Remember Stephanie Rice? She’s that swimmer who may or may not have shagged that American swimmer in Beijing, or something. That was quite a hoo-hah, at the time, and a lot of people who professed to be passionate about sport were grossly offended that the shagging story was detracting from the Olympics. As far as I was concerned, and still am, two people fucking is going to win out over Olympic sport every day of the week and I couldn’t give a cum-soaked sock how many medals she won, but there you go. [This sentence was the subject of heated editorial debate. It stayed in only because Justin cried like a tiny tiny girl and threatened to chain himself to the printer if I took it out. I encourage everyone to write in and express your disgust - Ed] Where was I?

Stephanie Rice, good-looking swimmer. Rode the tide of Olympic success and being good-looking and having shagged that bloke all the way to a whole lot of sponsorship and lame-arse commentating or hosting gigs on stinking reality shows or some shit. One of her sponsorship deals was with Jaguar Australia, who gave her a car, which was nice, and a very clever marketing ploy, because I’m sure your average dentist looking to trade in his SAAB is sitting there thinking “well, the BMW got a great write-up from Clarkson, but the Mercedes has more capaci… WAIT!!! What’s this? A teenage swimmer has a Jaguar? That seals it for me!”

So, anyway, Steph, being a somehow sort of famous sportsperson, is on twitter, and she puts up lots of lols and hoorays for other sportspeople, and barracks a bit, always careful to name teams properly (ie Insert Name Of Sponsor Here). So she was rooting for our QANTAS Wallabies the other night, and the boys did us proud, snatching a win in the dying minutes, our first at altitude in South Africa for many many years. The ‘Boks weren’t happy about losing to us, and Our Steph decided to celebrate by tweeting “suck on that, faggots!!!”

Oops. Steph gets called a homophobe. Jaguar gone. Steph cries. Not sure if she’s crying for lost Jag or because she’s sorry, but who cares. I want to make something clear here. She was insensitive, and stupid, and very very rude. If the entire South African rugby team were gay, it would’ve been homophobic, yes, but I’m pretty sure they’re not, she was just being rude. That diver bloke, Mitcham, has come out in support of Dear Steph, whereas that Rugby League bloke Roberts came out against her. This demonstrates that not all gay men are alike, and also that things need to be examined and discussed in all their context, not just with a knee-jerk cry of “Racist!!” or “Sexist!” or “Homophobe!”

And then there’s Sam Newman. Twelve months ago (remember that, it’s important) he held up a picture of a Malaysian man and referred to him as a “monkey” and “not long out of the trees”. Then, a bit later on, he held up a picture of Serena Williams, and opined that there was little difference. He was calling dark-skinned people monkeys. Now that’s fucking racist. It took the Australian Communications and Media Authority all this time to finally decide that it was, however, and they hit Channel 9 with the usual “this is a breach of The Code, and you mustn’t do it again, or next time we may fine you up to $200,000.”

Nine pays this jerk-off a million bucks a year, which tells you how much ad revenue The Footy Show pulls in. Is two hundred grand any kind of a worry to them, or him? Speaking of worry, many people think he’s funny. Which is kind of a sad way to end this column.

So here’s a dilemma for you: you’re in a room with Brendan Fevola and Sam Newman, you have a gun with only one bullet. What do you do? a) shoot yourself b) shoot Fevola then pistol-whip Newman to death c) shoot Fevola then frame Newman for it.

If you went for (c), you are twisted and evil enough to be my friend.

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