Wow. Close one

So, as I sit here still recovering from the exhaustion caused by just watching Friday night's preliminary final, we attempt to explain just how Collingwood managed to get themselves into that mess in the first place.

As few theories:

• Daisy Thomas apparently misunderstood the concept of carry over points and thought that he wasn't allowed to play for the first three quarters of this game.
• Also recently returned from suspension, Heath Shaw decided to demonstrate his fitness by randomly sprinting around the back line. Well, that worked.
• It's hard to do well when your key ruckman and your All-Australian centre half back can't enter a three legged race because they do not have enough working limbs between them
• Dayne Beams selflessly declared that he, not Didak, should have been wearing the substitute's vest and went on to play like he was. Mick Malthouse eventually agreed.For his part, Alan Didak took the instruction to replace Dayne Beams literally and spent the last quarter carefully avoiding the ball.
• Nick Maxwell's awful smothered kick late in the game was the result of exhaustion, which was, in turn, the result of yelling at Heath Shaw all night. If they ever remake "Half Blood Prince", expect to see Nick Maxwell cast as Cormack McLaggen.

There were some more positive signs. Taz did a superb job on Buddy, Trav took an awesome pack mark and kicked a goal when it really mattered, Leon Davis fulfilled his contractual obligation to pop up out of nowhere and kick a crucial goal on the last Saturday in September, Swann and Ball created goals out of nothing, and, with 38 seconds to go, Daisy finally noticed that there was a football match going on and jumped in with the match saving tackle.

The real good news in all this is that there is surely no way that the Pies could possible play that badly too weeks in a row.

Also, well, it got me to write something on here, even if it was totally inconsequential.

In other news, since changing jobs 9 months ago, I seem to slowly be recovering from that bad case of being total screwed up and there is some chance that I may some day be happy again.

I had kind of hoped that it would not take this long, but I am getting there.