Tropics Hint At Premiership Paradise For Cats

The Age

Friday March 10, 2006

JOHN HARMS

John Harms has suffered through supporting Geelong for so long, he wrote a book about it. This year, another season of hope, he will write a weekly column for Age Sport. He begins in the far north

WHEN I first went to Cairns in the mid-1980s, I wound up in the Lee Marvin Bar, where the American actor liked to drink after a day of big-game fishing.

In those days, a singer called Jono belted out blues tunes. He was top-class.

Unlikely to pass an International Olympic Committee doping test, Jono punctuated his numbers with philosophical monologues, profound allegories about the arse falling out of the carton of life.

Eventually, the whole pub was named after him. But when the arse fell out of his, Jono's Blues Bar turned to new forms of entertainment.

It takes a fair event to get the cane toad races postponed at Jono's.

A weather event won't do it: tropical downpours are good for toad racing.

A federal election won't do it: although a plebiscite on the secession of Far North Queensland might.

A visit from the RSPCA won't do it: until the invention of the perimeter-weighted, carbon-shafted one iron, it was impossible to inflict any pain on a cane toad.

Last Saturday night, there were no toad races at Jono's. Just up the road at Cazaly's Stadium, however, there was a game of footy.

Now I know it is very hard to establish cause and effect insofar as football is concerned, but it's reasonable to conclude that the chairman of racing stewards at Jono's thought there was just no point competing with the drawing power of Australian football.

I have had a tough summer. Logic tells me that the mighty Cats were 31/2 seconds off a premiership and it seems everywhere I turn there's a bloke who looks like Nick Davis.

But it's all on again and the interest is building.

Kent Kingsley kicks nine against Carlton and some scribes describe the bag as opportunist. All us Geelong people know it was portentous.

I decide to travel north. The prospect of an in-form Kingsley striking double figures is all too delicious.

Keen to see the sights of Cairns, I head to the TAB at the local RSL where, coincidentally, Kingsley and "Dasher" Milburn are also taking in the sights. They have settled in for the afternoon.

The day starts well: Joke Brother finally wins his maiden at Mildura.

It gathers momentum with a few quiet ales. An old bloke in thongs says "g'day" and asks me where I'm from. When I tell him, he says he is looking forward to the Empire Games.

At Cazaly Stadium, AFL Cairns' superb ground, the piercing sun of the day has given way to heavy, humid air and thick clouds. In the pre-match function, some of the blokes look like Big Daddy from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. The women sip gin squash in big cups. Geckos chirp from the window of the Allen Aylett Room.

Everything is so lush and wet in the north. In fact, between the under 18s and the main game, they mow the ground. The players run out.

Standing on the mounds, people wear the colours of the AFL teams: there are Pies jumpers, Richmond jumpers, even a bloke wrapped in his Kangaroos scarf. Kids kick footies and slide in puddles.

A group of well-lived women all wear Mount Isa Granites T-shirts. They tell me they are a cricket team that plays only against blokes. They have never even taken on the Rokzoff Sisters, an infamous Charters Towers team skippered by Getya Rokzoff.

Everyone drinks beer from cans. They bring their own stubby-holders, which are called Cyclone Survival Kits.

The game begins, and the crowd recognises the big names and assesses the new boys. Geelong fans note with interest a new redhead, Nick Batchelor.

Kingsley kicks a point and another one out on the full. He kicks another point and then marks 15 metres out but handballs over the top to Jimmy Bartel in the square.

Out of the blue, I bump into Jack Evans, originally from Geelong, who was at uni in Brisbane when I was there. Like so many, he can hardly believe what has happened to footy over the past 20 years.

Having grown up on Polly Farmer and Denis Marshall, Mark of the Day and the woodchop, he is thrilled that footy has come to him, and is happy to make the four-hour trek north from Townsville with his 10-year-old.

"I can't help myself," he says. "I've still got the blue and white in my veins." He still has a prophet's beard (or a bushranger's). He has the eyes of a man who has come to know there is close relationship between love and pain; the eyes of a Geelong supporter.

Kingsley limps off with a hamstring. I reckon he might have tweaked it making a last-second dash to the betting terminal when they were about to go in the fourth at Caulfield. I think of Jono.

The Cats win a game that would be uninspiring anywhere else but has delighted the locals. It's footy. It's theirs.