Someone with sharp reflexes who can field a reasonable excuse in case, come March next year, they're asked to explain how they've managed to lose two Sheffield Shield finals running.
A skipper who can thrust his best foot forward to a stinging media attack and deflect criticism of his players' efforts with the straightest of bats. Someone with a solid enough defence to make you think, yeah, fair enough .....youse guys gave it your best shot. The breaks didn't come your way. You got the worst of the weather. Lady luck frowned on you. Cricket was the winner on the day. Better luck next time. We're proud of youse even if you didn't win. We're not going to burn down your houses after all.
What lameduck excuse did Stewie Law offer? He reckoned the team went into the game in two minds about how to play it!
Yes, my fellow flannelled fools, it seems the best Stewie can offer is that he is the proud skipper of a team that has made the Shield final three times in five years and won it twice, yet went into the five-day Gabba final with not one game plan, it seems, but two. And in two minds about which one to adopt.
Well Stewie, old cock, how's this for a game plan?
Queensland, two for 103 after the first day's play. That's with no rain or light interruptions, mind. Just 103 runs in a tediously slow day's play where, hopefully, all the patrons went home after lunch.
How's this for a game plan, Stewie. Four for 223 on stumps on the second day. And so on and so on until Messrs Julian, Angel, Moody and co are so dispirited they want to take their ball and go home early.
We at The Bug polled 123 people at random and all said that was the game plan they had mapped out well before the final. This included 46 people who had never played the game and a further 32 who thought cricket was a small grasshopper.
Not a bad game plan, eh Stewie? Especially for a five-day game the Sandgropers had to win outright to take the Shield out. And especially when half your own attack is in the Windies sitting on their arses!
So what did the Bulls do on a track where it wobbles about a bit on the opening day? Went for a bit of a slog-ho and managed an average score they found impossible to defend with their restricted attack.
Jimmy Maher's dismissal for a well-compiled one typified the Queensland approach.
To be fair, the ball he edged behind at the start of the day was fairly close to the off-stump - the offstump of an under 12 boys game being played at nearby Pineapple Park.
Some people thought Jimmy didn't nick it anyway. I hope he didn't. It would be fitting if the umpire gave him out for poor shot selection.
Then there was Stewie's dismissal. He played a straight defensive bat, the ball curled behind him, bounced up onto his backside and then onto the wicket. If the same thing had happened when Michael Kasprowicz was batting, the ball could easily have gone for six. That's cricket.
If you apply The Bug's unanimously endorsed game plan (copyright pending), Stewie got out trying to play the right shot under the circumstances while Jimmy got out playing the worst shot possible.
My guess is that you can safely dismiss Law's post-match comments. My hunch is that the Bulls went into day one with a set game plan: to try to take control from the start and dictate terms throughout. It just didn't work out that way.
To back up my theory, I rang an old mate in New York who runs a big payTV sports channel.
After the formalities and the usual inquiries about our respective families, Rupert had this to say: "When two tribes go to war, only one survives."
It's a very good point. I believe that this was the great media mogul's manner of saying that at the elite level, sporting teams always go into big games with a set game plan. Only one can win and there's no shame in that.
The shame would be in not knowing what your game plan was in the first place.
