At somewhere near the mid-point of the season I feel it an opportune time to look at the weekly winners of the Canteen Award so far, and see who is so far leading the contender for the prestigious ‘Canteen Award of the Year’.

Here are the winners so far;

- Nathan “Nippa” Gordon who lined up in the forward line against the Roos in the NAB Cup round 2.  He took a great mark, but then forgot he was playing forward, not back, and started running the wrong way.

- Tommy Walsh who on seeing Cyggy (our club mascot) walking around at a function asked a team-mate “Who’s the duck?” (Tommy, it’s a Swan… he’s our mascot!)

- Gary “Mr Zumba” Rohan who was so incredible at a compulsory Zumba session it raised eyebrows as to what he does in the off-season to keep fit.

- Adam Goodes: In round 1 the Brett Kirk Medal (best on ground award in the Sydney Derby) was deservedly awarded to Josh Kennedy … but Goodesy was already well on his way up to the lectern and over to Kirky to collect it.

- Eugene “Sonya” Kruger for not only hitting a witches hat on the Volkswagen Drive Day at Eastern Creek Raceway, but for also continuing through the slalom driving challenge with the witches hat stuck underneath his car for the whole way.

- Nominating myself: The ball landed smack on my face in the game against Fremantle at the SCG. I thought that was bad enough until I realised that it had caused my nose to bleed too, and was then paranoid I was going to get sent off with the blood rule for a self-inflicted falcon.

- Campbell Heath: Lost the pre-game toss in the reserves, then directed the boys that they were kicking to the wrong end. Resulted in the forwards unknowingly playing as defenders, the defenders playing as forwards, and a whole lot of pandemonium!

Not mentioned throughout the course of the year but I feel their actions warrant a nomination for the Canteen Award of the Year.

- Mike Pyke, the author of Open Pyke: Not that long ago he got on his high horse and questioned the creditability and journalistic integrity of The Richards Report. How dare he! This warrants a nomination in itself… but I’ve got more.

Whilst writing Open Pyke he has apparently pressed Shift-F7 on his keyboard so many times the last few weeks trying to look up long adjectives for his article that he’s broken these two keys on his keyboard. Unlike his stories, there’s no mayo on mine. Laurie Oakes and I don’t make stuff up.

- Dan Hannebery: Dan, myself and a few others did an extra recovery session in a sauna. Dan went to put some water on the rocks to heat the sauna up, but poured red Powerade on them instead. The sauna stunk and Dan can consider himself lucky he wasn’t given a life ban.

- Jude Bolton: Despite being a club legend Jude gets a nomination for his weekly starring roles on Wag Nation.

So there we go. Let me know on Twitter who you think is currently the ‘Canteen Award of the Year’ leader so far. Be sure to use the hashtag #CanteenAward.

Song of the Week
‘Someone Purer’ by Mystery Jets.

I’m a big fan of the song, not so much the video which I find both sad and confusing. Click on the link and turn the volume up to maximum.

Looking forward we’ve got the Sydney Derby against GWS this Saturday night at ANZ. We had a fantastic atmosphere last week against Geelong and hoping for the same this weekend. Hope to see you there.

Ted Richards
@richards_report