Days 1 and 2 of the Third Ashes Test at Old Trafford

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The monstrous outsourcing conglomerate g4s might be a villain in the English press mainly due to its incompetence supplying security at last years London Olympics, but the light touch approach applied by groundstaff at Old Trafford would be a great model to follow for the aggressive and needlessly imposing security guards who intimidate spectators at some Australian sports events. The smiling reaction to harmless beer cup snakes here at Old trafford was an example that Aussie train and ground cops will unfortunately never follow.  Further props for the short beer and toilet lines at the ground.

Old Trafford cricket ground would remind many Australian sports fans of the charm of approaching a sports ground through the streets of suburbia. Ordinary people in their houses pay no bother to the thousands approaching the oval just metres from their home. The standardization and gentrification of sports grounds in Australia is something to be regretted. So the preservation of local grounds hidden away in an otherwise anonymous suburb is to be cherished by those who don’t often get to see it.

Peter Siddle might be the anti-Shane Watson. In the Australian consciousness Watson is quickly becoming enemy number one. Aussies hate unfulfilled potential more like they hate Marmite, or Stephen Milne, or Mark Neeld. Conceived as arrogant, complacent and under-achieving, Watson is very close to being labelled un-Australian. Only a five-for or a cracking ton can save him now. A smile on field may also help. 

Siddle is a workhorse that does much more than a workhorse. On the pitch in Manchester he is Australia's highest wicket taker and the only quick that can consistently avoid long term injury. Yet here he was bowled fifth. In fact both Starc and Harris got a second spell before Siddle was given the ball. No complaints. No dropped head. If Clarke had waited 100 overs one gets the feeling Siddles reaction would have been the same. Steam in. Put it on a length. Rinse. Repeat. Get an edge. Quality player. Quality attitude.  Quality Victorian. 

The English media had pretty much knighted Joe Root for his big hundred in the last test. Only the royal baby is more important. Just.  This golden boy was Ashton Agar on steroids. Dave Warner's sin wasn't trying to hit a Pom in a pub. It was trying to hit the wrong Pom in a pub. If he had had a crack at wannabe Englishman Trott (nice accent) he might have become a guilty pleasure for the English crowd. Now they hate him. Like all cricketers, Warner is one angry ton away from being popular again.  Or he may need two.  Root can now experience reality.  After the string of shameless, fawning puff pieces of the last two weeks, one spectator has already suggested dropping him back down the order.  The English cricket media can also be embarrassed about how quickly they dismissed Australia’s chances before this test. 

The low down on Australian players: Mitchell Starc is the hardest hitter around. One big step. Back lift. Bang. Could have flailed the poms for another hour.  Rogers is the least likely looking ‘international athlete’ you are likely to see. No back lift. No real follow through. Bang.  Could be/Should be/Maybe is a polite well-spoken librarian in a primary school of a small country town.  Nice 20,000 first class runs though.  Steve Smith is no gun.  In fact his career would be on the precipice if not for the umpires and their incompetence.  Such is the life of a middle order Australian batsman.  Ashton Agar worked nearly as hard as anyone, managing the Michael Clarke glove conveyor belt with diligence.  Clarke must have changed gloves every 6-8 overs for his whole innings.  Clarke is a legend, and as he and Ponting can attest, sometimes the Australian people have to hate you before they love you.  Watson, on the other hand, is not a legend.  Great tight bowling though at the end of the day, but he needs a redemption story that Aussies love, like Davie Warner might write in the next few years.  Haddin top effort. 

Note to Jonanthan Trott: engaging drunk supporters in banter is a no-win situation.  Don’t bring yourself down to our level. Note to all fans at the ground: great days.

Christmas gifts for all: Get tanking issue solved before New Year

It would be a good time for the AFL to finish their investigation and to release their punishment of Melbourne for tanking.  If sanctions are inevitable, December would be the ideal month to make the dees pay.  Neither Melbourne nor the AFL want the tanking issue still in people's minds when the season is about to begin.  And with Melbourne's constant onfield pain, only the most sadistic football supporters want to see them humiliated in public once again.  If they can get it out there now, it might well be all over by Christmas, and other scandals will wash it from the publics mind before the season starts.  And there will be scandals.  

Mark Neeld is right in that the tanking issue will probably not have much affect on the demons playing group as they train through summer.  With the discipline that they commit themselves to football, what player really has time to contemplate what is happening in the boardrooms of the club?  Whether the players suffer from the clubs further loss of credibility or not, they are out of excuses.  Melbourne's 2012 season was dismal.  Some people might remember Neeld's first few months as dees coach last summer, where every second day he was making brave statements about the dees being a tough team to play during his first year.  He even joked about ignoring the advice of media advisors when he honestly answered media questions.  His transparency and availability might have been refreshing then, but as the team sunk from loss to loss, his tough statements looked sad.  This scribe privately wondered if Neeld might have been better to wait for the dees to have some wins before befriending the media sharks.  He certainly learnt the hard way.

Neeld will hopefully be much more quiet this preseason.  Far from talking tough, he will definitely keep expectations low.  Read: when you’re playing in premierships, most sides (have players which) are around about the 100-game mark, and we’re far away from that, so we’ve just got to make sure it’s time spent really well."  Emphasising lack of experience and long term vision is an easy option for a coach, but some supporters have had just about enough of it.  If Neeld continues that train of thought, Melbourne supporters will remember the Bailey years, and the sense of dejavu would be unbearable.  

The tanking issue cannot and will not be used as an excuse.  The AFL hopefully will not take draft picks from the Melbourne.  If it did, the cycle of demon poverty would be amusing, if it wasn't so sad.  After a period of sustained success, call it the Daniher years, the team lost some champions, got a new coach, and went downhill very quickly.  At that time, it was the done thing, and many a famous club accepted the harsh reality of failure as a the first step to success.  Supporters did too.  High draft picks were seen as the best, if not only, way of getting back to the top.  The priority draft pick was an incentive to lose.  Melbourne did just that, contriving to win less than five games and getting said draft pick.  It was, cynically put, exploitation of a flawed system. And if players still tried their best at every contest, then surely it was legal.  But in a cruel twist, the player Melbourne lost so hard to win was taken from them by another 'playing god' flaw in the system, namely salary cap exceptions allowed GWS.  The draft picks have not brought success to Melbourne, quite the opposite, but still the demons will have to answer for tanking during that fateful year.  If Melbourne were successful, resentment would be rife, and the punishment for the tanking years would be harsh.  Because they are not, let's hope the punishment is reasonable.    

Because Melbourne, in contriving to lose games, have punished themselves to a far greater degree than any administrator could do.  They have disappointed supporters much more than simple on-field incompetence could ever do.  They have almost destroyed the faith of long term fans who wonder now if the club has any heart at all.  In an age of obsession with club culture, the tanking administrators have done more damage than a busload of drug addled players could do.  Forget the long suffering supporters.  Think about the players who were part of that dismal season. 

Players like Brad Green, Cameron Bruce and James McDonald had played in a Grand Final in 2000.  They were there when the dees went all the way to the last Saturday in September.  And then, as their careers were coming to an end, they were there to witness orchestrated losses.  Bruce left as soon as he could.  McDonald was mercilessly forced to retire, even though he was the captain and still a top 5 player and the heart and soul of the team.  Green hung around for a few more years of disaster, shafted out of the captaincy for two kids.  Now the connection with the most recent period of success is lost, and current players have no one to look to for leadership.    

Thankfully, Sydney has won the flag.  The idea that you MUST have top 5 draft picks to get to the top 5 a few years later has now been debunked.  There are many ways to win a flag, and hopefully no team will be given reason to lose a game again.  When Jimmy Stynes died last year, most demons fans thought the team would come alive out of pure passion.  They didn't.  The time for talk of the future is well over.  Neeld must put up or shut up and leave.  If he can't find ways to win games and be competitive in losing games this season then he can tell his story walking.  Melbourne have 11 players who have played over 80 games. Add to this Chris Dawes, captains Trengove and Grimes, and previous first pick Watts, and the whole looking to the future card looks a little bit weak. 

Summer in Suburbia can be a lonesome time: Young Men in Australia

“It is a cliche to say this, but one of Australia's greatest problems is that young men drink too much, take too many drugs, drive recklessly, break the law, disrespect women, act violently and harbour depressive tendencies.” Caroline Wilson, Nov 24, 2012 

The definition of Cliché: a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse, as sadder but wiser, or strong as an ox. 

Stories about football in a summer newspaper most likely drift through to the keeper with minimum interest from the batsman. Tired fans, instinctually drawn to a football headline, might find themselves at first interested but then disheartened, particularly in November and December. Perhaps this lethargy comes from the heat and the slow silence of suburbia; or the gentle hum of cricket commentary in the background. Or more likely it comes from the sad fact that round one is so far away, distant enough to be almost unreal. And so it seems that attempts to keep AFL in the public consciousness throughout the warmer months are doomed to fail. 

 Is there is a clear strategy from AFL headquarters to maintain media coverage of football during summer? There seems to be considerably more articles appearing during cricket season than usual. This relentless self-promotion and needless attack on ‘rival codes’ might even backfire, as many AFL fans, like James Pattinson, need an enforced rest from the game, whether they admit it or not. Journalists, just like the players, need a break, and a chance to realise the true triviality of a sport and industry that dominates their life and is their livelihood.

The New Football Lexicon - April 1 2011

Snide comments from my fan base aside, I always said Round 1 would provide the inspiration to get leather poisoning back on track. Now the real stuff has started and the yawn-fest NAB cup can be consigned to the blurry drunken memory that was another unsatisfying February. Pre-season form means squat and I could find stats to back me up if I need but I won't.

Histories great philosophers always preferred thoughts over numbers. Sadly, footballs respected thinkers (with some notable exceptions) prefer the safety and certainty of statistics over the lucid and infinitely variable sea that is football thought. Such commentators tirelessly grab at the stats sheet in a useless attempt to make sense of the chaos that they view. Their conclusions are, invariably, baseless, but still they insist on feeding us. For this lamentable stats-based football analysis we have Dream Team and it's followers to blame. As a non Dream Team/Supercoach player and a football thinker of high intelligence, I am constantly offended and not a little bit shitted by networks constant stream of Dream Team scores. That Mitch Robinson was rated amongst the Blues' best for his numbers on Friday night is proof that commentators mainly rate players on statistics. Cotchin overlooked as Richmond's best is further evidence. All commentators bring some bias into their views of games (my bias and dislike of Robinson is hereby disclosed) but using statistics as a way to objectively assess a game is even more wrong.

The bias of commentators and umpires towards Carlton legend/messiah captain Judd is becoming more obvious and irritating season by season His game was alright on Friday night but not nearly worth the praise he received from commentators. One broadcaster gushed at Judd's massive impact despite the fact Juddy had just come on after four minutes on the bench, which his co-commentator had mentioned. Let's not speak of the first name basis Chris and the umpires are on, safe to say that he will definitely poll Brownlow votes in Round 1. Australian football is a riveting game, albeit quite hard to understand at times. If a new viewer is not completely confused by the rules and strategies of the game we should be thankful that some football wordsmiths are doing their utmost to destroy said viewers braincells with a new football lexicon. It is great that every season coaches players and commentators come up with new words to describe the new aspects of the sport. Awesome football commentator but fast becoming over exposed all round good bloke Tom Harley has time and again proven he is not just a pretty face with his cutting analysis and advanced use of the English language. Harley introduced a blitz goal, which I gather means a goal scored very fast, like a blitzkrieg, but with a footy and on the g. He also mentioned ballistic football, which I gather means players are going ballistic on the ground and things are getting messy, like when you mix coke, pills, jager and Viagra. You know it.

Blight on the game, tampering to blame

The following article was published on thebigtip.com.au on 27 May 2010

When I was 14 a friend of mine asked if I wanted to become an umpire. We could play football on Saturday and umpire junior games on Sundays. And earn some extra pocket money. The next Friday night I was down at ‘umpire training’, a collection of outcast nerds seriously practicing positioning, bouncing and backwards running. The following Sunday I was umpiring an under 11’s practice match, more nervous than I’d ever been before a football game. It didn’t occur to me then, but now it is obvious that the league needed umpires. Quickly.

My father drove me to the ground bemused. Having watched over 100 games of me playing, he was not particularly keen on spending a few hours at a suburban ground watching his son umpire. ‘Good holding the ball decision in the last quarter’ was not a comment he really wanted to make. And how would he respond if he ran into someone he knew? ‘Yes, I’m watching my son umpire’. ‘Oh but yes he still plays’. Originally, umpiring junior games was quite a rewarding experience. It was enlightening to see a game from a different viewpoint, to restrain myself from going for the ball and from turning my head to the umpire when I saw an infringement. And after I realised that I was that umpire, I found the job quite easy. Most players with significant football experience have a natural reaction to an obvious infringement. As an umpire, you simply have to blow the whistle and pay the free kick. There is no reason to think. The free kick is very obvious.

The Curse of the instant society

The following article was published on thebigtip.com.au on 20 May 2010

Round 20, 2008. Hawthorn sits second on the ladder and has a full strength team, one remarkably similar to the group that received premiership medals over a month later. In fact their starting 18 consisted of 18 soon to be premiership players. As a tune up for the finals, the Hawks took on 10 th placed Richmond. The Tigers were surging, again, towards an inevitable 9th place, giving their hungry fans a short look at the finals and another number 8 draft pick. Incredibly, then coach Terry Wallace was even fending off questions about a possible contract extension, such was the momentum the tiges were building. At such an important part of the season, the Hawks should have comfortably beaten Richmond, stamping their authority on the competition. Instead, the Tigers led at every change, and ran out comfortable 29 point winners. Exactly 41 days later Hawthorn fans were celebrating an unlikely flag. Richmond supporters were speculating (foolishly) on how their team’s late season form would lead into glory in 2009.

The concept that a team’s round 22 form can lead into good round one form 6 months later is complete folly, as proven by Richmond. In the same way, the idea that Collingwood’s sparkling round 8 form improves their chances of a premiership later in the year is naive. The best thing about Collingwood’s form right now is that the team can maybe afford to lose games later in the year and still finish top four. A football season is much like a football game. Momentum swings are inevitable, and the pies will no doubt lose some of their current form before the finals, be it due to injuries or top players simply losing from. Whether they can regain it is the most important thing. As Geelong found out in 2008, and StKilda in 2009, maintaining brilliant form for the whole year, culminating in a flag, is practically impossible.

Lies, Damn Lies, AFL commentary

The following article was published on thebigtip.com.au on 13 May 2010

It was about 30 years ago that a visionary dad approached the quarter time huddle at his kid’s country under 15 game. To the slightly bemused crowd he said: “I’ve taken two types of statistics. Kicks… And shit kicks”. He was way ahead of his time.

It’s a tough business recruiting, and it’s only going to get tougher. With two new teams coming, all the talk is of recruiters searching far and wide for decent players. Country leagues. Amateur leagues. New Zealand. China. And of course in other codes. Kevin Sheedy’s comments that code swapping will become common place in the next decade are ill-conceived. His comparison to ordinary people changing industries and jobs over their career is also rather naive. He overlooks the fact that professional footballers are trained in very specific skills, have relatively short careers, and do not generally have a long time to acqure the new skills. Players who have played football for long periods during their childhood have inherent decision making skills that are not easy for a mature age player to attain. As clubs and their coaches emphasise relentless pressure on opposition as the first step to winning games, decision making skills are all-important. Turnovers, the result of such pressure, often result in goals, so ball handling and even more importantly kicking skills, are of extreme importance. To suggest that a rugby player, who has barely spent any of his adult life kicking an Australian football, can pick up these kicking skills to reach AFL standard is something of an insult to those who have spent their lives perfecting (or trying to perfect) the art. Other skills such as judging a high ball in flight and bending at full speed to pick up an oval ball are also very hard to learn, even for an elite athlete.

Paying a rugby player huge money to change to AFL is a similar insult and also quite short-sighted. I challenge the idea that paying this money is worth it in sheer marketing terms. Saturation news coverage may be beneficial at the beginning. But if this player turns out not to reach the standard required to successfully play AFL and moves back to rugby after two years, the supporters of the club will be justifiably annoyed that the cash was not spent on a player with an AFL background. The negative coverage that this will generate could be quite damaging to the club and it’s ‘brand’. If any publicity is good publicity clubs can easily contrive a booze cruise scandal and let the media go on a typical feeding frenzy. If this marketing coup is supposed to attract rugby fans to Aussie Rules, simply imagine if an AFL player switched to rugby. Would real AFL supporters follow a player and begin watching another code? Emphatically no. Finally, the recruitment of a player from another code on an inflated salary may also anger players who feel that the recruit has not yet earnt his large pay packet. This disgruntlement could influence player performance and morale.

Slap on the right wrist, palm grease on the left

The following article was published on thebigtip.com.au on 7 May 2010

“Gambling is an issue for sport worldwide, and that is why we take it so seriously.” Adrian Anderson

We bloody well should. Where government, church and community fails, there is our great social leader, the AFL. The moral compass of good and bad. Brutal judge of anti-social behaviour and shameless self promoter of goodness all around. The AFL has done some great things for social progress over the years and should be commended. This Friday’s field of women is a good example. The leagues extremely harsh reaction to AFL or club staff betting on games is also reasonable, considering what betting has done to other sports. Gambling is poisonous when done by players and people who can influence games. But gambling done by fans for their own enjoyment is totally legal, despite how it affects the lives of the gamblers. The AFL stands on a pedastal on a number of issues and does its best to promote what is best for society. One example is the leagues condmenation of the binge drinking culture that prevails in many of Australia’s football clubs. Getting extremely drunk is not a crime, but doing it sometimes leads to a negative impact on ones life. The AFL felt the need to address this issue, though it has no parliamentary obligation to do so. So if the AFL is determined to improve the lives of people involved in football by reducing extreme drunkeness, where does it stand on another of society’s acknowledged ills, gambling?

Setanta O'hAilpin, Carlton Blues, vs Collingwood, Sportsbetting advertisingThe promotion of gambling in AFL related television, radio, and other media outlets has grown markedly this season, so that even non-gamblers must be aware of the pervasive influence sports betting now has on AFL. The worst website in the world, afl.com.au has a sporadically openable feature called gameday, which displays live betting odds for viewers, encouraging betting. Radio stations often throw to betting agency people for live reports on odds fluctuations before and during games. Even so-called journalists investigating Jonothan Brown’s mysterious stomach ailment got their quotes from a betting agency spokesman who questioned Brown’s integrity should his comments prove to be wrong. Betting agency logos are even presented on the most sacred AFL symbol, the mighty Sherrin football.

Those sweet nights, those perfect games

The following article was published on thebigtip.com.au on April 30, 2010

He sat deep in the stands on a late winter night as waves of emotion overcame him. The field below, the scene of something scarcely believable just a few minutes earlier, was now devoid of life. Lights shining on emptiness. As families around him shuffled towards the exits, he finally sat down. The last few bars of the club song had drained his every last drop of energy. For a moment, suddenly, he needed to be alone, to block it all out. So he buried his head in his hands and cried. A few seconds later he lifted his head up, eyes red and tired. This was the line between pleasure and pain and it was all blurry. Around him people were confused. What happened? Isn’t this what you wanted? Was this not a scene of famous victory? The sort of victory you will remember for a lifetime but others will forget within weeks. Wasn’t being at games like this the reason you bought your membership? These weren’t tears of joy or pain but something unexplainable. Tears of pure emotion, pure exhaustion. They’d played their final series a month too early. Taken their supporters high then low then through sheer will dragged them back to the top again for a final glimpse. And that was it. Even heading into the finals everyone was exhausted. And they were gone the next week, and no one really remembers it.

HE sat in an internet cafe deep in a southern Chinese province and ate KFC and inhaled the smoke of cheap Chinese cigarettes. For 25 minutes he watched a slow line sneak across a screen symbolising events taking place half a world away. Finally the radio kicked in and a voice could give human life to something that didn’t feel quite real. They stayed with them for the first half, selling false hope to people who would never buy it again. Well maybe just a little bit. Half time was a reality check. This wasn’t gonna happen. Why would it? But he went back inside anyway and a kid nearly spat on his foot and it was on. They stayed with them in the third and the crowd lifted a little. Only the real supporters were still there during those dark times. The rest had their excuses. And the commentators sensed something. He could feel it too. Things were happening that didn’t usually happen. But someone so versed in disappointment didn’t fall in that easy. When they were still up with less than 10 minutes to go he reassessed, and hoped silently, treachorously, for some equilibrium. This didn’t need to happen. It wasn’t going to happen. The enemy kicked two in a minute and it was over. He threw the headphones at the screen. It was lacklustre rage at best like a poor actor in a poor movie. He just couldn’t summon it anymore. Not after this long. It even felt like relief. Then he picked up the headphones and listened again because he never left early, home or away. They had one last crack. Went forward. Marked. Goaled. The other team burst from the centre to snatch it back, but the backline was a flood. They held their nerve. Won it. He roared. Turned every head. Got up and walked back into those strange streets and it felt like it never happened because nobody else understood. And no one really remembers it.

Brad Green, Joel MacDonald, Melbourne Demons, celebrate, win, victoryIT was still warm in April and they took the train to the ‘g thinking, unbelievably, about 3 in a row. And it’s what they got. It was just one of those nights when every tackle sticks, when players are constanly bombing goals from 50 and umpires are paying easy frees. You lead at every change but the other team still has a sniff at three quarter time. Rather than shattering every nerve in every supporters body like before, this time you put the visitors to the torch and win by 8 goals. You don’t have a bad player on the field and the next day you can finally read the newspaper without avoiding your teams match report. Flags or finals or years of nothing these are the games you have to hold onto. You have to enjoy it. Or you’ll get nothing at all. Those sweet nights. Those perfect games.

In the bad times, those memories are what you have. What you have to remember, and what you have to look forward to. Essendon fans calling for Matthew Knights’ head might look back to last year and think about giving the guy a break. They did win a number of big games as underdogs against despised local rivals. Same gameplan, similar players. For clubs that are somehow living the opposite of Knights’ horror run (you know who I mean!), it’s time to enjoy the good times. Viewing a game and actually expecting, no demanding, to win is a wholly foreign concept and getting used to it should be one of life’s great pleasures. Ask Geelong supporters. Oh well not anymore.

Leather Poisoning - Syndicated on ww.thebigtip.com.au

Articles from this blog are now also published each week on thebigtip.com.au

I don't sit on no fence

This article was published on www.thebigtip.com.au on April 22, 2010

Mate. Think what’s expected of you, of your friends. What’s expected of you by your boss. Challenge those expectations. Man, you should challenge your own ideas about the world every day. Every day…

And so watchers of football do. We have no choice but to. The once solid foundations of our core belief system have been shattered by such random occurrences as Fremantle beating Geelong and Melbourne beating Adelaide. The majority of us can rest assured that our analyses and predictions, though seeming infallible and unbreakable when spoken, are lost in a cacophony of meaningless barroom chatter. Most of us are not accountable for our folly. Those that do publish their inner beliefs, that selflessly commit their thoughts to paper, stand as a target for ridicule, their brittle crediblity intact only until their next hypothesis is proven pathetically wrong.

But I don’t sit on no fence.

It’s how one reacts to the shattering of said belief systems that counts. How does a Fremantle supporter react to weekly match-of-the-round status and hard fought wins over last year’s premiers? Usually with a pompous strut around the office (or dock), much too much early talk of finals, and thoughts of new contract negotiations. Fremantle’s history of incredible underachievement and capitulation under pressure should have left it’s supporters with a morbid streak, but for some reason hasn’t. New messiah Mark Harvey would do well to put contract talks, and the Freo hype machine, on permanent hold until his team does something of substance, like play in a final. The response of Melbourne supporters is indicative of a group of people who know too well sustained periods of failure (46 years). The first response was to dust off the MCC card and jacket and tie, make an appearance at the ‘G, and live up to the stereotype. One commentator mentioned Melbourne fans turning up to Sunday’s game fashionably late. It wasn't fashion, just that the last time they went to the footy games started at 2 pm, not 1. (why do games start at 1?) For the hardcore Melbourne fans who have emotionally invested in the last three seasons of agony, there is a strange feeling of panic as the team seemingly stands on the brink of success. The solidarity felt by those supporters who went through the hard times together is suddenly fractured by returning (fairweather) supporters keen to bask in the sun. How does a person suddenly swap failure for success when said failure shaped his very self?

Fear of success is probably not that healthy. A good psychiatrist might suggest just packing it in and moving to Sydney. You can go to the movies and go shopping in Bondi on Saturday afternoons instead of going to the Royal Hotel and the MCG. According to Colonial/Telstra/Etihad stadium cheif Ian Collins “on Saturday afternoon people want to go shopping or the movies or watch their children play sport.” That’s why the MCG hardly has any games there at that time (9 out of a possible 22). The fact that the AFL makes more money from TV rights and people spend more money at night games has nothing to do with it. We’d all rather be down at Chaddy watching a flick with all the bogans. It’s the chicken and the egg. The AFL’s gross assumptions about its customer base are wearing thin, and claims that match attendances take priority over all other things are laughable and a little bit condescending.

So too are claims that Mum’s all over the nation dictate the future success of and participation in our sport (huge shout out to Mum!). A fact of human nature is that a great percentage of boys and young men enjoy aggressive and physical sports. It was not that long ago that generations of young men were involved in much more dangerous combative pursuits. With this in mind it would be good to see the constant god-playing and rule tinkering by administrators put on hold for a season, at least until their assumptions are backed up by solid market research.

As my year 8 school master once said in a moment of rare clarity: Never Assume. It makes an ass of u and me.

The writer of this article does go for Melbourne, did go to a private school, and is an MCC member. Does not, however, have a range rover, or work for a bank or as a lawyer. Cannot ski.

The Result... Only the Result

Ths article was published on www.thebigtip.com.au on 7 April 2010

There was to be no Easter miracle
Just reality’s harshest truth
They climbed towards the pinnacle
But were stopped by a black and white proof:
There are no miracles. No reasons. Things just happen…


There is nothing like a red wine hangover and a Monday morning to make a man reflect on life. Alcohol: that cliched and somewhat pathetic response to tragedy. Time worn and well proven. And in the cold harsh dirty light of a Monday, perspective brings no relief and the incidents of the weekend remain, without exaggeration, tragic.

How is it to approach a game with only apathy and absolutely no reasonable hope of victory? How is it to have those hopes raised moment by disbelieving moment, to have them build relentlessly to a violent crescendo and then have them mercilessly obliterated? It’s not very good. That’s how it is. The objective and impartial reviews of the Melbourne Collingwood game note Melbourne’s gallantness, improved ball use and general playing skills, and lack of luck. Luck having the habit of betraying those that need it most. But such reviews, though useful, do not fully capture or describe the emotional pain that such a game caused, and is still causing, real Melbourne supporters. For this game, destined to be soon forgotten by history, is what true supporters will point to when the team finally realises success in the years to come.

Did AFL clubs carry out cloning experiments two decades ago that resulted in the birth of large groups of identical twins with excellent hand-eye coordination and motor skills? Was this incident withheld from the public and did these twins secretly end up at various AFL clubs? Did Mark Jamar’s incompetent twin play in round one only to be replaced by his older-by-5 minutes but way better player brother? Did the same thing happen with Lynden Dunn, Joel MacDonald, Michael Newton, James Frawley and Cameron Bruce? Did Mick Malthouse rest the original Heath Shaw, Leon Davis, Nick Maxwell, Travis Cloke and play the crap twin?

Jokes aside, the form reversal of players in both teams was truly remarkable. MacDonald’s first game for Melbourne was utterly poor. He was a completely different player this week and his recruitment may pay dividends. Newton and Jamar have displayed about 5 seasons each of startling mediocrity, but remain on the list because there is simply no one better to replace them. Jamar’s performance was definitely the most astonishing of the game. The most used but most useless statistic in football is the ruck hitouts. So often one team wins the hit outs but can’t win a clearance. So how did Mark Jamar, Demon whipping boy of dubious Eastern European heritage, contrive to destroy Darren Jolly and Josh Fraser, winning numerous taps and directing the ball straight on to the lap of a moving teammate? There is no reason. It just happened.

For all their cockiness and legitimate premiership hopes, the Pies have some weaknesses. Jolly is not the next coming of Christ, just a good hardworking ruckman. Ask Jamar. Luke Ball is too slow to tag a genuinely fast midfielder. Ask Davey. Heath Shaw plays loose and isn’t that quick. Ask Petterd (new favourite player anyone?). Leon Davis is a frontrunner and couldn't handle the Demon pressure. Cloke is erratic and out of form. Offended Collingwood supporters can point to the match result in rebuttal, with good reason. Some analysts may say that for Melbourne and its players, the result is really not that important. The courage and aptitude shown is reward enough, despite the loss. That is rubbish.

Melbourne fans who rode all the way, who saw obscure teenagers perform feats of heroism, and who saw victory disappear in the most brutal way can only concur: It’s about the result. Only the result. God we need a win.

*The author would like to formally apologise to Mark Jamar for bagging him for years.

Ode to the Natural Footballer

This article was published on www.thebigtip.com.au on 31 March, 2010

Detective Jimmy McNulty lies on the felt at his own wake and listens to a stream of derision delivered by his wise cracking and massively obese Sergeant Jay Landsman. Insubordinate, underhanded, over-confident and a gaping asshole that he is, Jimmy’s finished life as a cop is redeemed by one beautiful and undeniable truth. He was, agree his many enemies and few friends in the department, a ‘natural po-lice’, and if you were shot down in a Baltimore street you could do worse than have Jimmy on the case.

Just like, when a game gets close, you want the ball in the hands of the natural footballer. The best teams have a few, the worst teams may have none. They are the players that win games and flags and they play football in all parts of Australia, not just the AFL. Some of them are overweight and injured and apathetic, some are young and arrogant and drink too much and most of them don’t find there way into the ‘system’ and never reach their potential. Some of them don’t give a shit about footy but when they are on the field they have an instinct that no one else does.

The natural footballer rises when the game is at its most important and vital stage. James Hird did it many times, most memorably when he stole the ball from the ruck and kicked the winning goal after a week in media hell. In Gary Ablett and Joel Selwood, Geelong have got the two ultimate natural footballers. Ablett reserves his most menacing efforts for when his team needs him most. When the game is to be won, he always imposes himself. Selwood thrives on the hard ball, bows to no one, yearns for constant physical contact, makes the instinctual decisions one million training sessions cannot teach. When Geelong picked him no one in their wildest dreams could imagine he would become this good.

And by all accounts Fremantle has got a natural footballer in 33 possession first gamer Michael Barlow. How refreshing that a ‘mature age’ player (he is 22) gets drafted and slips straight into the AFL with instant impact. Obsessions with drafting teenagers and ‘developing’ them to fit the AFL mould means overlooking significant amounts of natural footballers. For every 17 year old boring super fit footy jock making the most of his limited ability to strive through the AFL system, there is a natural footballer kicking bananas from the boundary line before training, underrated and overlooked because he is a late developer or hasn't yet the required attitude or maturity to play AFL at 19. Many players develop late, both mentally and physically, and to assess the whole football population and their potential at 18 years of age is folly. The human interest stories of mature age players given a chance by gracious clubs are much too rare.

God knows that some teams need natural footballers, even if they debut at 22. Like Melbourne. These pages called into question the wisdom (or lack thereof) of re-signing coach Dean Bailey just a fortnight ago. (Note that the Melbourne football media has followed my lead) Melbourne’s performance on the weekend, comprehensive in its patheticness, has vindicated those doubts. There is simply no positivity to be found in such an astoundingly poor showing. After watching the Collingwood-Bulldogs game one could justifiably wonder if Melbourne belongs in the same league as the other 14 teams (sorry Richmond). As one journalist so skillfully summed up, there is a ‘ danger of creating a climate so completely geared towards a still-distant future that it forgives too easily the insipid dross’ of the present. The insipid dross is served up by a small group of high draft pick pimply teenagers, a significant portion of wanna be 22-25 year olds (Bate, Dunn, McDonald, Frawley, Jones, Petterd, Rivers, Warnock, Sylvia, Bartram, Bell) and senior players who have played finals under Daniher. Nearly all of the above mentioned have served under Bailey for more than 2 years, and have shown almost no improvement. (Note the age of a large amount of the Bulldogs best players are 22-25: eg. Cooney, Griffen, Higgins, Hill, Harbrow, Minson, Williams). Bailey will do well to talk himself out of the scrutiny he is about to face over the next few weeks. The only thing that will save him is a few decent performances over 4 quarters or a monstrous Richmond capitulation on the weekend. Note that winning the final quarter when the team is already 12 goals down does not count as a decent performance.

About the only performance as bad as that of the mighty Dees was that of the umpires. Accuse me of being an umpire hater if you wish but some of the decisions on the weekend were quite ridiculous. Most notable was the new sheperding rule. A player is not allowed to block another players run at the ball when the two are going for a mark. Imagine that a player makes a lead and his teammate kicks it too far and over his head. The leading player then backs backwards and his opponent crudely jumps on his shoulders. According to this new rule, the leading player has given away a free kick, as he obstructed his opponents run at the ball. There was a number of examples of this rule where every person watching and playing the game thought that the free had gone to one player but the umpire gave it to his opponent. Actually this happened a number of times in round one and will surely happen throughout the year. The insistence on paying free kicks at ruck duels is just as frustrating, as usually neither ruckman knows who will get the free kick as both of them have infringed equally. The enforcement of certain rules is much too pedantic and gives the players no leeway whatsoever. Paying a 50 metre penalty because one player is simply in the vicinity of the player who received the free kick is much too harsh (see the Gary Ablett Jr example). Umpires are winning no friends by acting like school teachers and yelling at players to constantly do what they are told (turn the microphones off!). Shaking hands with coaches pre-game (and having commentators make mention of it, obviously under AFL instructions) will not make much impact either.

Reflections: Goalkicking

This article was published on www.thebigtip.com.au on March 26, 2010

Now that’s out of the way, we can settle in for the real stuff.

Were Carlton good, or were Richmond just terrible?

Making big sweeping predictions about the season before round one is silly enough, making more predictions about the season based on the result of the round one game is almost as silly. For those who said Carlton will struggle to kick goals without Fevola, Carlton supporters can rightly point to the spread of goalkickers in response. This was just one game though. For a while there Carlton was directing every kick into the fifty to the leading Eddie Betts. The tall forwards were either making poor leads or being ignored, or both. Against good teams with decent defences, using Betts as the long option will be very dangerous. Think West Coast using Phillip Matera as their only leading forward a few years back. The most dominant forward apart from Betts was probably Setanta O’Hailpin. He was surprisingly useful, mainly because he doesn’t often lose his feet in marking contests and his opponent does. The fact that he was better than McGuane is a big problem for Richmond, as McGuane will have to pick up much better players than O’Hailpin throughout the year, and will probably not cope. The most unthreatening thing about O’Halpin is that he is a very ordinary kick for goal and so if he does take a surprising mark, he will usually kick a point. Which Fev rarely did.

Astounding it is that teams train for hours and hours throughout the pre-season but many players kick for goal with absolutely no system or routine. Daniel Jackson, one of Richmonds best players, had a set shot that he put no where near the goals. His lead up, kicking action and follow through were all pitiful. First gamer Nason put his into the man on the mark, inexcusable even for a nervous debutant. The excuse for these pitiful efforts is usually that the player is tired, or is a backman. Mitch Morton, Richmond’s best forward, put through a few nice set shots last night, but he spent all last year trying to find ways to play on so he could kick on the run. How does a midfielder feel putting it on Mitch’s chest knowing he doesn’t have the confidence or set routine to guarantee a goal from 30 out? Coaches, especially losing ones, often bemoan how their team was only a few missed opprtunities away from a win. How in reality they are only a few goals away from the competition leaders, even though they sit on the bottom of the ladder. But these same coaches oversee large numbers of professional players who can’t kick for goal and even worse have no set routine when taking a set shot. With players spending countless hours in weight rooms, steam rooms, ice baths, video analysis meetings, leadership meetings, respect and responsibility classes etc, all with the aim of winning games, how can players constantly kick points from easy set shots?

It’s a craft that really has not improved in the same way that all other skills in the AFL have, and coaches and players need to take responsibility. Richo, legend of the game and all round loveable nice guy, spent years desperately searching for a way to kick straight from 30 in front. He never found it. Fevola was born with it. And every time the Blues go down by a few goals this year they will probably try not to think of what difference an accurate goal kicker would have made.

First Give them some Rice

Oh times of humble optimism. You are the gentle calm before the storm that wipes away my home and livelihood. Oh times of boundless positivity. You are the spring in the step of a wide eyed graduate carrying his briefcase to his first day at the firm. You, receiver of goodwill and deliverer of ill winds, are the glorious fortnight before round one where each club soaks in the rays of late March sun and dreams of unbridled success. What giddy times.

Delusions of competency abound, none more so than in the recesses of sustained failure. The CEO of the most unsuccessful on-field club in modern day football (what a train wreck) Brendan Gale, QC, has devised a cunning plan to take the Tiges to the top. 100,000 members (start reproducing Tiger fans, now!), money oozing from multiple orifices, on-field success of dynastic proportions and worst case scenario: the monotony of annual finals appearances. (Seriously most Richmond members would instantly drop dead of shock if the boys did make the finals) Apparently Benny G found out through his connections at the AFL that when the two extra teams come in the final 8 will become the final 16, leaving only 2 teams to miss the finals. Richmond supporters don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Still, premierships are serious talk, best kept for confidential places like board meetings, wet dreams and the office of your psychiatrist. Just ask Peter Schwab. Didn’t he dream out loud during the 2004 preseason that the Hawks were aiming for a flag? They didn’t get close and old Pete was reamed, steamed and dry cleaned out of a job mid season. He ended up on the match review panel, the second most despised AFL department, running close second to the umpiring department. That’s where Jeff Gieschen reigns supreme. The Geesh, rules honcho and sender of tersely worded ‘please explain’ letters and former coach of which champion key position player turned ruckman? Benny Gale. Scwabby, by the way, cut his teeth as an assistant down at Tigerland back in the day.

Mr Gale should probably be more realistic with his ambitions, as those with decent memories and vindictive personalities will be keen to take Benny down when the Tigers don’t win a flag for the next eternity. It’s in my notes, Gus! Grand business plans are fine, but savior Damien Hardman, I mean, Hardwick, probably didn't know he would have to deliver so much success in his new job. Especially with Troy Simmonds in the leadership group. That same group of media commentators and opinion drivers who will chuckle at Brendan Gale in years to come have no such problems making grand predictions of their own. All aboard the Barry Hall train. You may recall reading in these very pages last year a passionate but coldly rational defence of Mr Barrence Hall, his playing style, and his general ability as a player. That was when Hall was on the scrapheap, considering a boxing career and getting no love from the AFL community. Now he is flavour of the week, a hot tip for the Coleman (which he has never won) and widely expected to lead the dogs to premiership glory. Before round one has even begun!

The fortnight before round one is a time for optimism of a completely general and ambiguous form. Players coming off great pre seasons, youngsters with bulkier frames taking the next step, better game plans and structures and club facilites. Any mention of specific results and expectations should be censored by club officials. Which makes Richmond’s grandiose plans for world domination all the more unreasonable. The season hasn’t even begun, supporters haven’t even tasted a win yet, and club leaders are unleashing crazy plans of wild success. A man who hasn’t even received his bowl of rice for lunch yet is hardly going to be aroused by empty talk of steaks, wine, women and all night benders. Ask a Richmond supporter. Give them some rice.

If patience is a virtue, too much patience is...

I write from afar. From very afar. Despite distance, the fortunes of my club resonate deep inside me, huge waves of pain maintaining momentum flowing recklessly across oceans. I know nothing of inner sanctums, post match reviews, warm downs, leadership groups or premiership windows. I don’t really want to. I watch from afar, disconnected, reveling in the purity of our relationship. I give faith, you give me hope. And occasional victory. On these terms we proceed, asking no more. I judge in simplistic terms. In the most simplistic terms. In concrete terms. I am patient because the alternative is burning fury and self loathing. I tolerated and came to terms with deliberate match losing and I am somehow comfortable, if not content, pinning my future happiness in the performance of a group of facial hair-less boys 10 years my junior. In most ways I am a reasonable, idiotically faithful supporter.

So, with credentials of reason and rationality in hand, with membership paid pre March and with no other expectations of my club, I ask a question: Why?

Coming from oblivion, answering a newspaper ad, beating a field of excellent candidates to get the job, there was a sense of the refreshing when Dean (who!?!?) Bailey was appointed to the Melbourne coaching position. He inherited an on and off field mess (no offence Rev, I yearn for your even years finals appearances), rolled up his sleeves, drafted a group of kids and by all reports is in the midst of a beautiful re generation of our sad old club which will one day achieve ludicrous, unimaginable success. Midst being the operative word. Because Bailey is in the midst, far from his objective. For his 22 brave faces, his reasoning of all wrongs, for the method behind each barely honourable loss, for his thousand bright sides and hundred new days, Dean Bailey has achieved, in my simple judgment, absolutely no success. Unless failure is success like last years game against Richmond. He may have a long term plan, and that long term plan may involve on field success, but until that plan is reality, he is still the obscure and crap coach of the worst team in the league. Might be the best bloke in the country but still...The team has finished last twice, has been destroyed regularly by many teams, has rarely shown the skill or aptitude to compete in the AFL and for that Mr Bailey has been given a contract extension.

So why should this coach be given an extension on his contract before the team has even played a real game? (they played a fake game and got duly flogged by powerhouse fremantle) Is he in demand in the marketplace? He was given three years as a show of patience at the very beginning. Is that not faith enough? It is highly possible that Melbourne will finish last again this year. If that happens, how can a club justify allowing the same coach to coach 3 wooden spoons and let him, no ask him, to coach a fourth season? How can they justify it to supporters whose expectations are so pathetically low that many of them would be happy to finish 14th? The simple answer is they can’t. I will stick by Dean Bailey for 11 rounds of this season, but until the team starts winning regular games his ‘achievements’ of player development are rubbish and a poor excuse for these poor times. Give me victory or tell your story walking... In no other way shall you be assessed.

Give me some respect goddammit

The thing about respect is the more someone wants it the less other people want to give it. Ain't nobody just get respect. Respect gotta be earnt. But earning respect ain't easy. And you gotta show respect if you wanna earn it. word.

An umpire is a like a good politician in that when he is doing a good job no one notices that he exists. Note to umpires: the quality of your existence is reflected in how much people overlook said existence. Your intention, unlike a football player, is not to impact the game.

On club rooms around the country read posters of intent. There is no 'I' in team, Winners never quit, quitters never win etc. And a coach desperate for inspiration will often point to such signs imploring his players to go out and win. The banner hanging diagonally from the walls may be meaningless or misunderstood to many of the players but with arms around each others shoulders during a pre match rev up it holds many a meaning not inherent in its words.

An umpire change room is a place of no such camaraderie, rather a different kind of nerves characterised by isolation, fear, apprehension and simple loneliness. no banners on walls and no roaring coach, nor the backslaps of trainers or admiring parents. it's often cold and empty but for the kind visit of an opposition team manager. An elite umpire (is that an oxymoron?), therefore, is used to the condmenation and self loathing that his job entails and should know how to handle it. So an umpire
should do his job not for the admiration and worship of the public, because he will not get it. He should not do it for the chance to make his presence felt on a big stage, because that leads to the opposite of admiration: hostility. He should do it for something more pure and simple and satisfying than any good holding the ball decision: respect. it is the word the AFl uses so often when complaining about the public perception of umpires. Give them some respect goddammit, and kids will want to become umpires. But the media savvy AFl, with its PR department, has missed the point once again. So has mick malthouse. Having a coach shake an umpires hand before during or after the game means nothing. it will probably have nothing to do with umpire numbers in junior level and it is quite pointless, especially when the coach is being forced to do it.

If increasing umpire respect at the top level is the solution to the malaise in umpiring in junior ranks, there are better solutions, and the AFL rules department could have a good hard look at how they could help umpires get a bit of respect in the community.

Don't keep changing the rules. not pre season, not mid season. Don't announce re interpretations of rules from one week to the next. to umpires: do not over enforce rules to the despair of player and public. Maintain consistency, discretion and reason at all times and subscribe religiously to the golden rule of umpiring: Have no impact. this may lead to more respect. A handshake, im afraid, will not.

Tom Mattessi was a junior umpire from the years of 1996-1998.

The act is in the push…(Going into bat for big bad bustling Barrence)

Sandy Roberts may not have coined the moronic phrase ‘big bad bustling barry’ but he did use it every time Barry Hall went near the ball. Thankfully Sandy is gone.

Being a great marking forward isn’t just about speed or strength. It’s not how high you can jump or how much you can bench. It’s about judgement. Judging the trajectory and distance of a kick. It’s about timing. Timing a lead. If it’s too early your teammate may not be ready to kick it to you. If it’s too late he will go to someone else. Most of all it’s about balance. A great marking forward seizes the moment where his opponent is off balance and nudges him out of the way. Great forwards can work their opponent under the ball before it is kicked toward them. Then as the defender struggles to move backward and loses his balance, the forward can easily bump his opponent out of position and take an easy mark.

In the past, a forward would use his hands to balance himself. He would sometimes place his hands on his opponents back and use his own backside to nudge the opponent out of position. For some reason, the AFL rulemakers decided that this mere placement of the hands in the back was against the rules. It has since been outlawed. The rule name, to the common punter, is push in the back. To us, the people that watch endless games and line the pockets of administrators, if there is no push, the rule is not broken. To us, simply putting your hand on someone’s back is not a free kick. Pushing someone’s back is. As the AFL indulges in endless ‘back-patting’ sessions (pun) and parries statistics of its success, do they think about the common punter sitting in a bar trying to explain this pathetic rule interpretation to a curious foreigner (Sydneysider?). We the common punter will defend our game to the death but I cannot, and will not, defend this rule. I can’t. I won’t.

So it is strange that Lord Demetriou, in one of his all too regular comments on a current football topic, bemoans the nearly complete demise of Barry Hall. Says He:

I'd love to see him playing again because we need tough players playing our game,"

I assume he means we need tough players so we can suspend them and fine them and gradually weed them out and make ourselves look useful. Image being everything. Hall is (was) the ultimate body player. While his large, pasty biceps may attract much of the focus (of me at least), it is indeed the use of his bottom and hips that makes him such a great marking forward. He really has a great ability to work his opponent under the ball. But Demetriou’s stupid and obsessive rule-changing has had a visible affect on Hall’s game, and the more free kicks he gives away the more likely he is to have another ‘brain snap’ (another silly new word for the AFL lexicon. How can a brain snap??? It could explode, or implode, or fail, or even fade, but I don’t see how it could snap). Alas, Hall has left Sydney and his football career hangs by a thread. He may not be calling Andy and thanking him for the new rules, and the support. But he can always move over to boxing, so maybe he will. Which to me seems quite incredible. Hall, by all reports, was a fabulous and formidable junior boxer, and he definitely has vast reserves of easily accessible rage needed to be good at the sport. But is it true to state that he has not really practiced this sport seriously for the past 12 years? How then can he, at 32 (the age that makes him too old for AFL), begin his professional boxing career? Is this not the same as a promising young footballer who becomes a champion boxer and then, at 30, decides to join the AFL? Sure he has done a few pre-seasons over the years and had a kick in between boxing workouts, but would an AFL club take him? Call me a cynic, but are there dollar signs in promoters’ eyes.

Jeff Kennett could be a boxing promoter. He works on the idea that if you keep talking constantly between all the rubbish you say there will be some nuggets of wisdom (he is a real mentor of mine). It’s up to poor journalists to weed them out. In another not too subtle dig at league headquarters, he opined quite profoundly that

success is not always about how much money you make or how many viewers you have.

I think Andy and the boys would disagree. Success is only about how much money you make and how many viewers you have. We are selling a product, after all, Jeffrey. In the marketplace… The AFL’s concession that it made scheduling mistakes was conveniently shadowed with insinuations that other parties were at fault. Like all good politcians, no mention was made of having to play the StKilda Geelong game at Colonial Stadium, but we all know the claim that people going to the footy are more important than fatties on the couch is pure rubbish. Fat bums on couches baby.

Kennett is a great sage in these confusing, intellectually barren times. He is refreshingly frank and sometimes quite original. But he, like most of us, sometimes confuses originalty with straight-up stupidity. Like John Harms. John…. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. Be a Geelong supporter, by all means. But don’t write an article that claims Geelong supporters are smart when said article provides overwhelming evidence that Geelong supporters are, in FACT, idiots. Newspaper articles, as opposed to internet fluff composed by dumb and bored netizens, are printed and kept by old ladies in living room drawers. For eternity. Thus the printed word will follow you to your grave (mine can be deleted in a moment). John, an experienced journalist no doubt aware of this, included this line in his article:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/rfnews/we-are-geelong-the-greatest-team-and-example-to-all/2009/07/21/1247941916391.html

‘Were Shakespeare living now, he'd be writing plays about Geelong,’

and this:

‘The world has never seen, in any place, at any time in history, a finer people than Geelong people.’

They are just bogans…Leave the silly human interest articles to our favourite eccentric Bob Murphy (he’s a football player and he has a mind. Wow!!!). He has an excuse.

Dean Bailey does not. Previously praised in these pages, the dees coach is about to make a big mistake. Says he, in reference to talk of tanking and its affects on match day activities for the remainder of the season

“it's not going to change what we do, it's not going to change our focus,"

I’m sure it won’t. But as explained in these pages before, tanking can be done in many ways. Read Melbourne’s omissions:

Out: McLean (Knee), Jamar (Quad), Green (Scaphoid), Grimes (Back),
Robertson

Convenient injuries to : only half decent ruckman in career best form, last years b and f and best player. tough onballer and top five player... best young backman... and our experienced and decent key forward dropped....

This be some shameless sheet…

Short memory...Must have a...

9 July 2009

Short memory, must have a…short memory. He might have been referring to the electorate but Peter Garrett could easily have been referring to the football industry. Or Mark Harvey. The coach of the worst club in the AFL. Harvey was an undersized centre half back who took on bigger opponents and beat them by throwing his body recklessly into packs. When the non-smiling Harvey took on the Dockers many people thought he would instil some heart and discipline into an underperforming club. Instead, it seems he has created the next generation of Freo frontrunners. The most used word in the AFL, rebuild, refers to a period of poor performance that follows a period of success and that leads to another period of success. Fremantle, under Harvey’s guidance, are rebuilding. The only problems is that, like Richmond, they never had success in the first place. They are forever building. Not rebuilding.


Maybe the Dockers need to get back to the old school. The school that Harvey grew up in and won premierships in. Maybe the players need to forget about structures, diet and watching game tapes. Maybe they need a night on the piss in Melbourne. Some time to forget about the boredom, discipline and rigid conformity of AFL football. That’s probably what Dean Solomon was doing when he stayed out drinking until 3am with an old teammate. He didn’t miss training. But he won’t play this week. Said reformed bad boy and now excrutiatingly boring coach Harvey:


“In this instance, Dean hasn't demonstrated the level of professionalism that we expect and require of a senior member of our playing group.”


Instead of trying to instil unreasonable levels of professionalism off the field the Dockers should try to instil some heart in the players on the field. And that might mean getting a new coach. Fremantle’s performances under Harvey have been quite pathetic. They still curl up and die as soon as they get behind. They still refuse to win in Melbourne. They still celebrate wins over West Coast like they are Grand Finals, even thought they mean nothing.


For the Melbourne media, driving an interstate club to coach sacking is not that juicy. Melbourne newspapers want Melbourne coaches to fall. Is that why The Age launched a conscious and unsuccessful campaign to have Mick Malthouse gone this year? Before Malthouse led the pies to a string of wins (quite a few of them interstate) established reporter Richard Hinds opined that: “it remains only to be seen whether the veteran coach (Malthouse) will move out of the nest or whether he will be asked to leave.” A little bit presumptuous?


Journalists know well the gold fish like memory of their readers. And it gives them the confidence to make silly predictions like Richard Hinds did. Fellow Age writer Greg Baum jumped to Terry Wallace’s defence after the Tigers courageously came back to lose against Port Adelaide. The very next day his own sports desk falsely reported Wallace’s sacking. The reporters don't know whether they are creating news or reporting it. But unless they are held acocuntable, they don’t really need to care.

This post was originally published before Fremantles capitulation in Adelaide.

A Bird in the hand thanks

I’m a Melbourne supporter. I’m similar to a Richmond supporter. Victory is a cruel novelty, sandwiched between weekly heartbreak and humiliation. I don't expect to win and I feel a strange guilt when we do. I and my fellow demon fans watch the football expecting pain. And that’s what we usually get. For Melbourne supporters, victory, like a stay of execution, is about relief. So like all humans suffering from long term pain, periods of respite, no matter how short, should be celebrated and enjoyed.


And so I feel the cruelty of humanity penetrate my true-beating heart as idle brains pursue the topic of ‘tanking’. The argument, quite simply, is that Melbourne should win one more game for the season and no more. To win two or more games would cost us a very high draft pick and most likely negatively affect our long term future. It is a reasonable argument. But sick. Melbourne are experiencing their biggest hot streak in 30 months. They have responded to the illness of their president and club legend with defiance and emotion. And victory. Finally they have given tired, hopeless supporters a glimmer of optimism. They may well go down to Kardinia with a swagger in their step and smash the Cats. But inevitably, the relief of a Melbourne supporter must be blackened by the pathetic pragmatism of the ‘long term future’ obsessed common man. Where, I ask you, does reason stop and romance begin? And for every person who has said in a time of frustration and despair: ‘live for today’. I ask, who has actually done so???.


Of course, most of the injustice of today’s world can be traced back to governing bodies that were not democratically elected. Bodies that pursue equality and provide eternal hope. Like the AFL. The priority draft pick system is honourable in theory but flawed in practice. It’s purpose is to assist the clubs that perform extremely badly, even though the draft already does this. In practice it rewards extreme failure and pathetic underacheivement. Some people would argue that it is even wrong for the bottom placed team to get the number one draft pick. That even this may be an incentive to lose and may lead to game-throwing. Most people would agree that the priority system will lead to, and has already led to, a form of game-throwing. The term game-throwing, or tanking, may conjure up images of Hanse Cronje and Indian bookmakers, but in the ever growing AFL dictionary, game throwing has morphed into a newer, honourable term, used ad nauseum in football circles: rebuilding.


Coaches don’t need to tell players to play poorly. They don’t need to have team meetings and talk about how to lose games. They can sleep soundly at night. Club leaders can face the media and sell the future, while ignoring the past. Play young players way before they are ready, to give them some experience. Play players out of position to test their versality. Drop older players because they may not be part of the team next year, even though they are part of the best 22 now. Make players have operations early, so they can start their preseason on time. All these tactics are logical and honourable. Clubs must look to the future. But whilst the result of these tactics may be losing games, the main reason for these tactics should never be to deliberately lose. At the moment it sometimes is. To create a situation where a club, let alone several clubs, gets a reward for losing, is, for want of a better phrase, a blight on the game. The draft system as it is now not only rewards failure but punishes success. Clubs like North Melbourne, Collingwood and Adelaide strive for the finals every year and, admirably, try to regenerate and be consistently successful, rather than rebuild at the first sign of poor form.


The priority draft pick system has been criticised for a long time, and no real changes have been made. It should have been abolished years ago. Clubs are fielding poor teams and happily losing games every year. The draft system also needs to be changed. Perhaps the ladder needs to be split into 4 groups, so the bottom placed team doesn’t automatically get the first pick. It may well get the 4th pick, depending on a draw. At the moment we have the laughable situation where Melbourne might have to try to lose to Fremantle at the MCG just to appease members who want an extra draft pick. For real Melbourne fans, the promise of a brilliant future will never excuse tanking against the pitiful Dockers. The lure of football lies in the possiblilty of a weekend victory. A weekend where a fan would prefer a loss is just not in the spirit of the game.