YOU MAY have noticed I was missing in action last week. Then again, perhaps you had more important things to do like clip your toe nails. For the three of you concerned about my whereabouts I was mingling with the country’s literary elite at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. Tough gig I know in the middle of the Melbourne winter. Needless to say it took all of a millisecond to reply to the invitation in the affirmative. As much as I love sitting around discussing second novel syndrome (a condition I’m very familiar with) I was also in desperate need of a vitamin D fix. After all, a woman can’t survive on fish and milk products alone. A bit of sunshine helps.

With my much-loved copy of The Goddess Advantage – One Year in the Life of a Football Worshipper tucked under my arm I embarked upon my northern journey. My brief – eloquently define the spirit in sport. Why are we as a nation obsessed by it? Where does the passion come from? What is it in particular that captivates us about sport? Why do I spend every waking moment (and a few sleeping ones too) thinking about the Adelaide Crows’ forward line and ways to make it more versatile?

Sport wasn’t the only item on the menu. There was lots of debate about how to find your voice (something I’ve never had much trouble doing); how to find your genre and how to find your award-winning idea. Finding the bar was another one that emerged later in the day that was much easier to find that the others.

Books, words, tenses, voice, biography, memoir, fiction, non-fiction, love, hate, hope, despair, grief, joy, loyalty, disloyalty; my head was full of it. Little wonder I awoke in the middle of a rainforest (not literally) two Sunday mornings ago paralysed by a sense of betrayal. Upon reflection it had nothing to do with literature. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t tip the Crows against Sydney. Is there any greater act of treachery?

Life resumed as normal for round 18. I was back in Melbourne wearing 35 layers of clothing, reading about AFL and not Sonny Bill Williams’ defection to French rugby on every sports page and I tipped the Crows. I circled them with conviction hoping it might go some way towards wiping the stain from the week before.

Anthony Hudson posed the following question at the start of the game against Carlton on Saturday afternoon: “How are the Crows going to kick goals?”

Well Huddo we have options. We’ve just been hiding them (rather well). It’s a ploy of ours. You can never underestimate the element of surprise. It’s been winning games for years, not to mention grand finals. (Remember Shane Ellen in 1997). And our element of surprise on Saturday came in the hulking form of a bottle blonde – all 199 centimetres of him. (Forgive me, I need some time out. I’m having a Rhett Biglands moment.)  I’m actually talking about Brad Moran who finished with four goals, alternating with Ivan Maric in the ruck and full forward. Let’s just call that a masterstroke.

If Saturday’s match was a novel Neil Craig would be a literary genius.