.

Another "c" word
Crusaders. It has taken a week for the trauma to subside, to get over such abject failure, but over it we are. This was the ME Bank stadium in East Perth, Friday a week ago and there were six of us, prepared to taunt supporters of the Western Force rugby team, habitual losers, as they prepared to take on the mighty champion Canterbury Crusaders. We were decked out in black and red among a sea of blue; the temptation was to ask these people, 20,000 of them in all in their team’s colours, what it feels like to live in expectant hope every week and be perpetually disappointed as your team faces defeat. Again and again.
Uncharacteristically my tongue remained still, even as the Crusaders strolled over for a soft try after only two minutes. Fortunately so, that was the only good moment. The first half was lacklustre at best and even though “our” team was ahead 13 nil at halftime, it was less than convincing. And then we watched as that lead ebbed away in the second half, the Force outplaying the Crusaders at every step to win by about ten points. A Crusaders team littered with All Blacks a cause for concern a year out from the Rugby World Cup.
In hindsight, there were some dead giveaways for the loss; insipid grey and red jerseys have replaced the red and patriotic black of the past, but worse, there were players with iridescent yellow boots and even white ones. These lads may be just too big for their fancy coloured boots and the only salvation for us was that rugby union is such a minority sport in Western Australia that even a rare Force victory failed to get much media attention.
If media attention counts, then the funeral in Melbourne of gangland killer Carl "family man" Williams last Friday was a real attention grabber. Carl could have been a Crusaders’ player such was the glitz; his $30,000 oversized coffin was gold and bronze plated, and his grieving widow turned up in a menacing-looking black, stretched Hummer, about forty feet long. Television cameras and news teams weren’t permitted into St Theresa’s Catholic Church in Essenden for the service, not because there was no room (even given the size of the police contingent present), but because all indoor filming rights were reserved for a documentary crew; it seems that even the rights to the funeral had been auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The funeral goers were an interesting looking lot, big burly men mainly, shaved and tattooed heads being the order of the day, and the women, either very elegant or as rough as guts. The exception was the slightly bizarre figure of a woman outside the church dressed to look like Judy Moran whose family and associates, about fourteen in all, were decimated in a series of reprisal killings by Williams and colleagues. Judy Moran’s husband and one of her sons were direct victims of Williams. It isn’t quite clear who she was or exactly the point she was making as she prowled up and down the footpath but there she was.
But if life continues to imitate art, Matthew Newton who starred as New Zealander Terry “Mr Asia” Clark in the second series of Underbelly entered rehab this week at a private hospital dealing in drug and alcohol addiction. It seems that, since playing the infamous drug baron on the television series, he has become a regular at Kings Cross, developing friendships with nightclub bosses. Newton was seduced by Sin City, according the Sunday Times.
Not the be outdone, Firass Dirani who plays Kings Cross lynchpin John Ibrahim in the Underbelly’s third series, The Golden Mile, currently playing on Australian television, was named as Cleo magazine bachelor of the year.
Fremantle is a quieter spot than Kings Cross, it played host to Mayday celebrations on Sunday and, as the weekend paper advertised, gave the public a chance to see “big burly unionists” marching through the streets. With advertising like that, next they’ll have these unionists on display at the local wildlife park, although hopefully not as an endangered species.