Thanks, Gunsmoke.
Well, I've just saved each individual post in this thread into Notepad. I think I'll burn a copy of it onto a CD, aswell.
What I'm going to do is read through the thread from the beginning, just so I can get a better feel of where to go with it from here. I've read different individual posts in it many times, but never really from the beginning to the end. Of course, I have a vision planned out in my head of where I want to take it, but seeing as all the "Florida Alliance / James Reynolds-Ray Mercer interview" posts are gone for good, it gives me a chance to immediately introduce a different storyline. Like I said in a previous post, "The Florida Alliance" will happen eventually, just not right away. I want to establish the key Florida fighters more before hand, maybe give Mercer more of a "reason" to harbor animosity towards Elmer Ray.
So, it might take a few days before I post any of the re-written posts. There are only write-ups of six fight cards that I lost in the crash, so it shouldn't take too long to get through them.
Just on another matter, OT...
Last night (Australian time), the team that I have supported in our National Rugby League for 26 years became Champions for the first time since 1969.
The Wests Tigers defeated the North Queensland Cowboys 30-16 in the Grand Final.
Just a little background ... the Wests Tigers are a "joint venture" of two clubs that merged into one club for financial reasons back in 2000, the Balmain Tigers and the Wests Magpies. The Tigers and Magpies were two of the league's "foundation" clubs from 1905. I was a Balmain Tigers fan before the merger.
Before they merged, the Tigers had not been in the playoffs since 1990 (losing successive Grand Finals in '88 and '89) and the Magpies not since '95. They were just about the two worst teams in the league.
The first three years of the merger were a disaster, as the club wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on formerly elite players who succumbed to injury or played below expectations. Then in 2003, the Tigers hired Tim Sheens to coach them. Sheens had been a Premiership winning coach with the Canberra Raiders in the early 90's, winning three Grand Finals. He had then gone to North Queensland and struggled through five terrible seasons, during which the Cowboys won 27 of 120 games. He was sacked, returned to Sydney and was unemployed before the Tigers called him up.
In 2003 the Tigers went 7-17, in 2004 they went 10-14, missing the playoffs by a single win (they lost their last three games, where a win in any of them would have seen them in the playoffs). But things looked good, because they knew that they had lost half of those 14 games by ten points or less and that it wouldn't take a huge improvement to see them in the playoffs in 2005.
This year, they caused a stir early, defeating last year's two Grand Finalists in successive weeks in the third and fourth weeks of the season. But soon after, they were struggling, and after 15 weeks of the season, they had a 6-8 record and were sitting in tenth place. That's when things turned around. They went on a devastating 8 game winning streak, including a 54-2 victory over the defending champions the Canterbury Bulldogs and another victory over the runners-up the Sydney Roosters (meaning they went 4-0 over last year's Grand Finalists). This win streak propelled them into 4th place. They lost their last two regular season games but maintained 4th place to qualify for the playoffs for the first time as a joint venture.
The first week of the playoffs, they stunned everyone, defeating the Cowboys 50-6 in an absolutely barnstorming performance. The following week, they defeated another Queensland team, the Brisbane Broncos, 34-6. They were now one win from the Grand Final but would have to beat the competition favourites, the St George Illawarra Dragons, to get there. Half of the Dragons squad have represented Australia or our state New South Wales, but the Tigers defeated them 20-12 to qualify for the Grand Final, where they would clash with the Cowboys once more (the Cowboys had recovered from the whipping the Tigers gave them to defeat the Melbourne Storm and then the team that finished the regular season in 1st place, the Parramatta Eels 29-0 to qualify for the Grand Final).
Well, last night was the Grand Final and the Tigers won!!! I still can't quite believe that it happened. Yesterday morning, my wife and I drove out to the fish markets at Pyrmont (which is Balmain Tigers territory). You would not believe the amount of people we saw driving around with Tigers flags, with orangle, black and white streamers and balloons attached to their cars and houses, wearing Tigers jerseys. We drove past the Leagues club and the footpath out the front was just jam-packed with people, and we honked our car horns as we drove by. Seriously, Grand Final day, hell, Grand Final week is the best time of the year here, without a doubt (especially when your team is playing in the match). I spent the entire match sitting one metre from the TV screen clutching my Tigers jersey, and this morning, I still can't quite believe it happened. I feel like I'm in shock, I guess.
With the Bengals 4-0, things can't really get any better for me at the moment in regards to the teams I support. I guess a Braves World Series win would be nice, also.
Visit
www.nrl.com to read more about the Tigers triumph.