The catchcry “unleash the beast” has spread about Nick’s like tinea at the public baths. What started as a frisson of excitement in swoop42’s lower reaches has culminated in the selection committee wheeling out the bearded rancor for the biggest game of the home and away season.

Prior to this week, the only time I’d uttered the exhortation “unleash the beast” was in a doctor’s surgery a fortnight after over-the-counter laxatives had failed their mission. Understandably, it was with a grimace that I again squeezed out the plea and accepted that Dawesy just might be the relief we’re looking for at the business end of the ground.

But one Nickster’s gain is another Nickster’s loss.

Down at the Seaholme foreshore, 3rd degree paces the sand with intent wondering if he’ll ever get to sing the “The Corrie Song” in front of 100,000 fans at the MCG. The cries of beach fauna console him momentarily as he is reminded of the fate of the “sooky peroxided seagull” two weeks earlier. He does the Corrie “moon boot shuffle” over the last heap of decaying seaweed, climbs into his orange Leyland P76 Executive, and primes himself for another day at the twos by the fence deep in the forward pocket.

“At least this time it’s at Vic Park”, he mutters.