Enter Spaanderman

Llane Spaanderman that is. One of the crack Brisbane Lions 3rd's troops that came, saw and were flogged by Melbourne in Cairns last night. We looked pretty impressive at times but you had to take into account the fact that we had an almost full-strength squad and Brisbane were missing half their Premiership players and were probably no better than last year's Richmond second best side.

Like the town-oaf of football reporting that I am I missed the entire first quarter travelling back from a soccer road-trip to Frankston. Didn't appear that I'd missed much, and in a happy coincidence just as I walked in the door and turned the television on we started to run riot and put the Brisbane Under 12's to the sword. To be honest I couldn't take the footballing equivalent of 20/20 cricket seriously enough to fully concentrate on it for the full four three quarters. It was only when I turned around and saw Tiffany Cherry on my television that I really started to thank Fox Footy for the bounty they had provided for us.

By three-quarter time the margin had extended to 52 points and, despite the best efforts of the commentary team to keep interest in the game by going ballistic when the Lions kicked a couple of early goals, there was to be no heroic comeback by the Children of the Gabba. And thank god for that - the last thing I need is some indication that we're going to spend the whole season throwing away leads in the last quarter a'la 2003.

And thus the televised training drill ended. There were certainly encouraging signs but given the opposition I'd prefer to wait until next week and start to gauge performance against a real side - or Carlton.

Final score:
Brisbane: 0.7.11 (53)
Melbourne: 3.10.11 (98)
9pt Goals: Wheatley 2, Bruce
6pt Goals: Robertson 4, McLean 2, Yze 2, Bruce, Neitz

Sunday will be at Telstra Dome next Sunday for a full report on our match against the toothless bogans or the toothless bogans. I'll be high up in the top deck casting a critical eye on the fans, the stadium and maybe even the game if you're lucky.