And then there were 6.  Last week St. Kilda and Collingwood were consigned to the 2006 scrap heap after they were beaten by Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs respectively.  St. Kilda was wracked with injuries and after leading for the majority of the game, run out of players and legs and were beaten by 3 goals.  Collingwood will reflect on a better than expected season.  They were never going to threaten the speedy Bulldogs and at one stage looked as though they would have their score doubled.  The Western Bulldogs were superb in their running and passing.

The upshot of St. Kilda's loss was that coach Grant Thomas was sacked for season 2007 and even though he thinks he is still the best man for the job and had a year to go on his contract, bad luck Thommo, your gone.  Maybe Thomas will be sounded out by Commandant Andrew for a place in the cadre given that one of the reasons for his departure was his autocratic style.

The speedy Bulldogs will be even speedier next year when boom recruit, former Brisbane player, Jason Akermanis lines up in the red, white and blue.

No AFL football in Melbourne for the next two weeks as this weeks semi finals will both be played in Perth and the following weeks preliminary finals will be in Perth, Sydney or Adelaide.  Should give suburban and country leagues a boost in attendance for their finals.

Geelong will complete their 2006 review today and it will be handed to the committee for action.  Bomba Thompson should be a worried man.  Geelong ruckman cum forward Brad Ottens blew 0.116 when pulled over by the booze bus last weekend.

Reminder that the Saigon Australian Rules Football Club will be holding their annual Grand Final Brunch at the Legend Hotel on Saturday the 30^th of September.  Tickets at 550,000 VND go on sale Monday.  Contact Digger's good mate Darren Cotter on 0913803517 for further details.

As mentioned earlier both this weeks games are to be played at Subiaco in Perth.  Tonight's game (Friday) sees Fremantle tackle Melbourne with both sides making to changes as a result of injuries.  To be honest and frank (Hi Frank) Fremantle will be horrified and deserving of the name the Mentals if they lose this match tonight.  Melbourne has not been in good form of late with a draw with Geelong, getting a pasting from Adelaide and scraping in last week against a severely depleted St. Kilda team.  Meanwhile, last weeks loss to Adelaide was Fremantle's first loss for two months.  They should be able to win this in front of their hugely partisan mongrel crowd.

Big Aaron Sandilands will give them first use of the ball against Melbourne's (and former Fremantle) ruckman Jeff White and with the mid fielders such as Black, Carr and Cook sending the ball forward to Matthew Pavlich and live wire Jeff "The Wiz" Farmer the Demons will have their work cut out for them.

In Diggers opinion there are four Melbourne players with injury clouds over them and I speak of Carroll, Bruce, Sylvia and Pickett.  Apart from Pickett it appears that is does not pay to have a first name for a surname.

The West Coast have swung the axe in reaction to their one point loss to Sydney in the qualifying final last weekend.  Out goes Banfield, Graham, Le Cras and Saigon's favourite player Brett Staker for this knockout clash against the Cinderella story, the Western Bulldogs.

Before last weeks elimination final, Bulldog veteran Rohan Smith announced that 2006 would be his final season.  If the Bulldogs had of lost he would have finished his career having played 299 AFL games.  With the win he and fellow veteran Scott West will play their 300^th match against the Weagles.  Can this be the motivation for the ‘Dogs to overcome the might of the Weagles?  The team from Melbourne's blue collar western suburbs thrive on emotion and will come out blazing.  Still the West Coast look too classy overall and the inclusion of Kerr only gives their excellent mid field more run and grunt.  But keep Kerr and Chris Judd quiet and who knows.

Digger is going for the Cinderella story to continue and the Western Bulldogs to come out on top in a close battle.

TAB Sportsbet has the Weagles at $1.34 and the Western Bulldogs at $3.30.  Trigger says that after Red Dazzler salutes at the Valley tomorrow afternoon, have a little bit on the upset in this game.

Finally this week Digger has seen the English squad for the upcoming Ashes series and is quietly confident that Australia will regain the tiny urn.  There are more crocks named in the squad than in a Super Rules (over 35) football team and if you need to pick an unfit Ashley Giles the off spin cupboard must be extremely empty.   Trescothick goes into meltdown every time he sees a Pakistani can driver and believe me there are a few of them in Australia.  Seems he is going by the nickname B.J. these days.

Go Bulldogs,

Digger