Compiled as part of this thread on Big Footy.
Round 13, 1998 vs St. Kilda
Saved in retrospect by the win over WCE the next week, but standing there in the rain like an idiot for four quarters while we got flogged was painful.
R17 2000 vs North
Lost by a point and I wrecked my hand punching a seat in Colonial
Round 19, 2003 vs Geelong
A cold Friday night where we put in a pitiful performance. Memorable for footage of that guy yelling at Daniher over the fence.
Round 18, 2005 vs St Kilda
As our losing streak got some momentum we tried to rough up the Saints at the start and were completely embarassed. Lucky to lose by less than 100
Round 9 2007 vs North
Another one point loss sent us 0-9
Round 2 2008 vs Bulldogs
Almost as bad as Round 1... more on that later.
10 - Round 1999 vs Freo
Modra kicks ten despite me meeting him before the bounce and politely requesting that he didn't. Failed to give me any kind of mention in his post match interviews.
9 - 1998 Prelim Final vs North
I had convinced myself that we were about to involve ourselves in the miracle of the millenium and make the GF. We did bloody well to hang with them and be within miracle distance at 3qt but didn't get the job done.
8 - Semi Final 2002 vs Adelaide
The biggest rollercoaster I've ever seen. Painful.
7 - Round 6 2007 vs Port
0-6 and with 30 seconds to go McDonald pinged for deliberate. Went wild.
6 - Round 1 2007 vs St Kilda
Went in as premiership contenders, came out ready to fall to pieces.
5 - Round 2, 1999 vs St Kilda
On the day that Scott Chisholm got sledged by Spider I almost got murdered by the St Kilda cheer squad. Oops.
4 - Round 14, 1990 vs North
John Longmire kicks 14 in a 127 point victory
3 - Round 1, 2008 vs Hawthorn
I'd tried to convince myself all summer that '07 was an abberation and that we'd be back to '06 form, and then we got pulverised.
2 - Grand Final 2000
Blah
1 - Round 6, 1992 vs Essendon
41 points in front at 3QT, kick the first goal of the last quarter.... and lose by a point. I can never trust a lead until it's at least about 47 points these days.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Saturday, 3 April 2010
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
The usual disclaimers apply. If you'd offered me a one point loss this week at 5.10pm last Saturday I'd have leapt on you like a 15-year-old at a Miley Cyrus concert. Even before the first bounce today you'd probably have accepted it grudgingly. Now it feels like the end of the earth. Absolutely gutted. I've not been so flat at the end of a match since that day Andrew Swallow dropped us against North and I disgraced myself openly in the middle deck of the Ponsford Stand. More on the topic of disgrace later..
The first piece of good news came forty minutes before the first bounce when The Spencil was given the arse for Clint Bartram. Justice served after his rotten performance last week. You have to think they were keen as mustard to drop him but wanted to keep it interesting for the opposition by leaving it until the last minute. I'm sure the entire Pies coaching staff heard the news, said "who?" and went back to their planning meeting.
Disgraceful scenes pre-bounce when first James "announcer for hire" Sherry attempted unconvincingly to pretend he was a massive Pies fan on the big screen (bring back Voice Of The G), and then the Collingwood cheersquad - never known for their intellectual capabilities - unfurled a banner for the players to run through that had words to the effect of "SIDE BY SIDE - Call 1300 MAGPIES to become a member". Were they so overconfident of victory that when they got together to come up with a message the consensus was that the usual 'inspirational' poor rhymes and puns weren't required and the space could be better used trying to rack up a few more members? Why not just send them through the famous Cheer Squad Disco banner? Bizarre. I've always been in favour of taking all 16 cheersquads into a room and gassing them like badgers but at least ours always make an effort no matter how dire the situation is.
So we came in expecting nothing and almost got away with the biggest upset in god knows how long. Commentators on radio and TV have already referred to it as "nearly the upset of the decade", which isn't much considering that the decade is one round and two days old - but I see their point. Can anyone think of the last boilover of that magnitude? Closest I can think of is the day Richmond played basketball against Adelaide at Telstra Dome in 2006. Even then notwithstanding the fact that the Crows were top at least Richmond had won three games by the time they played in round 8. In the end we didn't get the job done and missed the opportunity to be part of trivia questions for the next ten years but maigod we gave it a violent shake though.
The first goal represented something a personal tragedy for me. For some reason the TAB were offering $21 on Petterd kicking the first goal despite the fact that he (along with Green) is basically our only forward worth a damn. Good on Rohan Bail for kicking his first career goal, and for lasting longer than 30 seconds without injuring himself this time, but bloody hell there's no need to stooge me out of $210 in the process. It's hardly tragic in comparison to the knob who had $150 straight out on Campbell Brown last week but I'm very poor so every dollar counts. Considering our performance last week I should have been overjoyed just to get a goal in the first half, but the almighty dollar wins out especially considering I expected the Pies to go down the other end and kick 25 without response.
It was amazing how different we were in the first term from the toxic slop that was served up last week. God help us all we played the last 27 minutes like we played the first two and good god did it show. The difference between today and last Saturday was like a genuine Rolex vs something you bought for $3.20 in Phuket while off your face on cocktails and ladyboys (P.S - No, I've never been thanks for asking). My man crush Jamar demolished Jolly in the ruck all day, and at various times we actually managed to capitalise on his domination. After Bail got the first Collingwood equalised, but in a game with very little intensity the Pies were letting our guys get confidence early. Good, because the last thing we needed was for a side to come out and force us to chase them - just look at what happened to North tonight when they copped a few goals early and sank without a trace.
When even Juice was drilling them from 40m out on an angle you knew we were in for a big one. The man himself wasn't, in fact he hardly went near the thing again all day, but I enjoyed his cameo appearances as a ruckman significantly more than when we tried the same thing with Al Nicholson a few years ago. I don't mind the idea of using him as a mobile ruck to be honest, he at least creates contests and - whisper it quietly - hit a corker of a pass with his 3rd and last kick. The Spencil did the same with his one and only kick last week but for mine he'd do better to play at least the first half of the season at Casey while we use Juice/the SME and Johnson (when fit) to back-up the (not actually a) Russian.
Delighted to be 15 points in front at quarter time, but the spectacular lack of interest that the Pies had in the first term was never going to last. How about Harry O'Brien and his wacky shepharding of the man on the mark? Apparently it's legal so good luck to him, but hopefully if he keeps doing it somebody will just punch him in the face a'la Hall/Staker. Would be slightly less legal but no court in the land (except the AFL Tribunal sadly) would convict.
As is so often the case in a match where a 'good' team goes into quarter time behind a rubbish opponent they came out breathing fire in the second and it looked like normal service was going to resume pretty quickly. Travis Cloke, the most overrated shit player in recent history, goalled first and Swan could have had another from a bollocks free but did the right thing and shanked it. Thanks to two more from Ricky P we were still in it at quarter time, and having already ruined all the bets that had Collingwood leading at every quarter we almost destroyed every half-time/full-time double in the country by tying it up at the break. Jamar walked through half the Pies defence before missing the lot from 30m out on the run, and Scully had a set shot which he squeezed in for a point and we went in five points behind.
Respectable? Good god yes. At least we fought back when they looked as if they were going to run away with it halfway through the quarter. I'd gone in with such low expectations for the day that we'd already exceeded my expectations just by being... (DB mode activate) competitive. That's what competitive looks like kids.
Our forward setup looked a lot better but Bate was still playing a shocker. He picked up as the day went on but he's still either underdone or suffering from psychological distress. Ricky P is a revelation, Dunn was finally put back to where he should be and Brad Green is the same solid as a rock option as he always is. I'm still a bit worried about the way we attack though. I know the big trend in footy now is to flood and then have your forwards run back with the ball, but it seems odd to me that you wouldn't just pick one player and park him inside 50. Even if all 17 others are inside the opposition fifty what would be the harm of leaving your most spud-like forward at home? I'd rather Newton providing some sort of option for the fast break than wandering around the backline, and if it drags another opposition player away from their goal then so much the better. But what do I know?
Having done absolutely nothing in the first half other than cement his position in the VFL, Bennell was thrown forward and took a nice diving mark to get our first goal of the term. He had another shot a few minutes later and missed, but just when you thought that we'd discovered a wildcard forward option he went on to spend the rest of the game dropping marks and pulling out of contests. Still, I wouldn't mind trying it again to see how it comes off - maybe worth a shot in the VFL? Apparently I think everything's worth a shot in the VFL. See you at Casey Fields next Saturday to watch the results of my experimental tinkering fail amazingly.
Backline was interesting. We kept the Pies to ten goals by three quarter time but I didn't think that they were too solid. Warnock looks a bit wonky, MacDonald played a shit first half but redeemed himself with a couple of great contested marks in the second. Frawley still ruins all his good work elsewhere by torching kicks all over the place. Grimes, though, is a gun - no doubt about it. Considering some of the duds and underachivers we've picked up in the 10-20 bracket over the last ten years (and would Addam Maric be charging headfirst towards the latter or what if he hadn't been pick 21?) it's ludicrous that we got him at pick 14. And we wouldn't even have had that pick if we hadn't tossed Johnstone out. Great piece of business there, and as an additional bonus Travis gets to stick two fingers up at us by going deep into September this year with the Lions. Everyone's a winner.
We broke even on the quarter and went into the last term five points behind but hit the lead early on when, in a sight more remarkable than seeing the Yeti climbing through your bedroom window, we went from one end to the other unimpeded for Petterd to mark and kick his fourth. Cue 50,000 people at the ground (including me) and countless radio/TV callers trotting out a line about us having forgotten how to win. When Green goalled at the ten minute mark I started to think we could do it, and the prospect of being happy with an honourable loss went out the window. Dunn got his second to make it 10 points and it was hard to believe we'd managed to get ourselves into that position. We scored again not long after but hands up who didn't think that we were going to lose by a point there and then. The Pies really turned it on from there and you could tell bad things were going to happen. Grimes and MacDonald both hauled down big contested marks inside 50 to save our bacon. Scully then botched an absolute sitter of a mark in the middle of the ground that would have sent us into attack again - it got turned around on us for a goal and the margin was under a goal. Welcome to Tension City, USA.
Then Leon Davis, having done nothing all day, bobbed up to put them in front with three minutes left. Had things gone differently it might have ended up being better result for us. Instead of trying to chip the thing around and hold onto our lead - which would have inevitably fallen to pieces and led to a goal anyway - we were forced to attack.
All I remember from the last minute is Grimes, to Green and then the next thing Bail was running inside 50. Having seen the minute in its entirety on TV since I don't know what I was thinking when Bate went inside 50. In retrospect it was a mighty effort by Moloney to get the win the ball and get it to Bate with two Pies players all over him. Plot had clearly been well and truly lost before then. I'm not sure what Bail was trying to do, whether he was having a shot or not but from a million miles away in the Ponsford Stand all I saw was the ball hit the deck. Then the siren went and I punched the living bejesus out of my seat. I probably should have apologised to the kids sitting in front of me because they were moderately terrified but bad luck, serves them right for having scum Pies fan parents. Bad news for my right hand though (insert comedy comments in the space provided). Hurts like buggery now. Reminds me of the night we lost to North by a point in 2000 and I did the same. At least then there was the excuse of being a horrible teenager. No excuse now, it was pretty shameful but christ almighty it was justified at the time.
Didn't realise exactly what had happened until I saw it on TV later. It was cruel that Petterd dropped the mark and the poor bastard is probably beating himself to a pulp about it now, but at least he can say that he'd done everything in his power to get us the position to win it in the first place. Imagine if it had been Miller or Newton who'd done that? Would have been incredible wild scenes.
I must admit I didn't think the umpiring was spectacuarly bad. Everyone else in the world, including neutral fans, talkback callers and commentators are convinced we were slaughtered but I clearly missed it. Especially in the last few frantic minutes where I was suffering ectasy to agony effects equal to that of a bad acid trip. No dragons but. If I could bring myself to watch the replay it might all become clear but for now I'll leave it to you to throw red paint over AFL House a'la the bitter Fitzroy fans in the early 90's.
Last year I spruiked Moloney as the next captain but after the last two weeks there's no doubt than I'm a 100% Brad Green supporter for the job. The way he dragged the players in to talk straight after the siren said it all. In a manly and butch way I love that guy.
Meanwhile does anyone still think we should have kidnapped Luke Ball and forced him to play for us against his will? The guy is shot, and the only hope he has for making an impact this season is that he's got good players around him. In no way was he ever going to be the guy to walk into our side and single handedly drag us up. If Judd wakes up in October this year, decides to stop being a turncoat Visy employee and comes back to his childhood club that's the sort of guy who can drag a team to their feet on his own. See also J. Brown. Maybe Paul McNamee was onto something with that plan afterall? I'm pretty glad we didn't have to wait for him to try and put it into effect.
Changes for next week? Well Sylvia is a cert to come back in, Rivers should be right and I'll stick with Juice for another week so I'll just make the two changes. Col in for Strauss who was ok today but wouldn't be hurt by a couple of weeks at Casey. Don't forget he barely even played there last year due to injury. Rivers for Bennell. Scully was pretty bad today but I'm not giving him the arse yet. His kicking was very ordinary (60% disposal efficiency, but I'll bet that was from his handballs) and he dropped a couple of marks but I'd rather work through it in the 1's. Besides, if you were Bailey would you want footage of two #1 draft picks turning out in the reserves? Trengove not great either but anyone who expects perfection in second gamers is on crack. One thing you can say for both of them today is that they were 100% committed to everything they did. Fast forward two or three years and they might be the best duo since Hall & Oates. And no matter what you've been taught that is a good thing.
Did You Know?
I'm not sure it's much to get excited about. In fact it's clearly not, but today snaps a three match run of our 1pt losses being to North Melbourne. First time we've lost to the Pies by a point since Round 22, 1975 and just the 23rd we've ever had. Fifth I've been to. The only one that hurt more than this was the Round 6, 1992 fiasco when we blew the 47 point lead in the last quarter and got done by a point. Now that's a game I've never gotten over - even as a 10-year-old I recognised true tragedy.
Koaching Korner
I've not watched the press conference yet because in my current state trying to use the AFL website would lead to MURDER, but presumably Bails was his normal calm self. He's got a lot to be happy with this week, but I'd love for a coach to walk in and just go off his chop. Something like this (#3 is my favourite);
Still, if that's what we get every week - especially against teams in our bracket - he'll be a happy man. Notwithstanding the fact that we were truly putrid last week, and for much of the pre-season, and that there's no way he should have gotten an extension before at least mid-season I hope people get off his back a bit this week. It's not like players and coaches could give a monkeys what us internet freaks think anyway but some of the shit written about him this week has been ridiculous. The worst conspiracy theory I heard was how Leigh Matthews was about to walk in the front door and take over. Balls. He's got a lot of boxes to tick yet but fark me let's all (and I include myself in this..) take a step back and wait a few weeks before giving the panic button anything more than a light nudge. Wait until the Richmond game being smashing the bejesus out of it. If it gets bad enough the newspapers will jump on in force (a'la Terry Wallace) just so they can use the BAIL OUT headline.
2010 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
Had a hard time dishing these out. If Ricky had held the mark at the end he would probably have gotten five votes and everlasting love. Can't be too harsh, knowing our luck he'd have probably turned around to play on and get stooged by the siren.
I changed these votes about ten times. Any of the top four could have got the maximum. That's a nice problem to have.
5 - Ricky Petterd
4 - Mark Jamar
3 - Brad Green
2 - Aaron Davey
1 - Jack Grimes
Apologies to McKenzie (EXTREMELY STIFF..), Bail, Bruce, Dunn, McDonald, MacDonald (second half), Frawley and Warnock
Leaderboard
The best Russian since Ivan Drago has spoken. Darren Jolly made to look like a stiff. Maybe Joll suddenly felt guilty about walking out on us after we plucked him from VFL obscurity and decided to give something back? Maybe not.
8 - Mark Jamar (Leader: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
5 - James McDonald, Brad Green, Ricky Petterd
3 - Jordie McKenzie
1 - Jared Rivers (Leader: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Jack Grimes
Post Match Shenanigans
There was nearly violence in an Aspendale (or was it Edithvale? I'm lost everywhere south of Mentone) fish and chip shop after the game. In there with a Collingwood friend wearing the jumper the idiot from the store comes out and goes "Pies eh!?... Did we win?" He's lucky I'd already handed over my money or I'd have walked out. It's the 21st century you arsehole, used 20th century technology and turn a radio on. Hope he catches his plums in the deep fryer.
Next Week
Two Saturday games in a row and the real title of this blog was starting to become out of date. Well, that's all the 'traditional' footy we get because next Sunday it's 1.10 on Sunday against the Crows. Goes without saying that if we play like today then it will be very exciting - especially with Sylvia back - but being Melbourne they're just as likely to serve up a slopfest like last year when we don't kick a goal until halfway through the third quarter.
Should be especially interesting if they lose to Sydney tomorrow. They'll either be ripe to be thrown into crisis or will come out and pork us. It's good to actually have some doubt about what will happen though.
Final Thoughts
That was one second from all-time classic status. Shattered. At least thanks to North we're off the bottom.
The first piece of good news came forty minutes before the first bounce when The Spencil was given the arse for Clint Bartram. Justice served after his rotten performance last week. You have to think they were keen as mustard to drop him but wanted to keep it interesting for the opposition by leaving it until the last minute. I'm sure the entire Pies coaching staff heard the news, said "who?" and went back to their planning meeting.
Disgraceful scenes pre-bounce when first James "announcer for hire" Sherry attempted unconvincingly to pretend he was a massive Pies fan on the big screen (bring back Voice Of The G), and then the Collingwood cheersquad - never known for their intellectual capabilities - unfurled a banner for the players to run through that had words to the effect of "SIDE BY SIDE - Call 1300 MAGPIES to become a member". Were they so overconfident of victory that when they got together to come up with a message the consensus was that the usual 'inspirational' poor rhymes and puns weren't required and the space could be better used trying to rack up a few more members? Why not just send them through the famous Cheer Squad Disco banner? Bizarre. I've always been in favour of taking all 16 cheersquads into a room and gassing them like badgers but at least ours always make an effort no matter how dire the situation is.
So we came in expecting nothing and almost got away with the biggest upset in god knows how long. Commentators on radio and TV have already referred to it as "nearly the upset of the decade", which isn't much considering that the decade is one round and two days old - but I see their point. Can anyone think of the last boilover of that magnitude? Closest I can think of is the day Richmond played basketball against Adelaide at Telstra Dome in 2006. Even then notwithstanding the fact that the Crows were top at least Richmond had won three games by the time they played in round 8. In the end we didn't get the job done and missed the opportunity to be part of trivia questions for the next ten years but maigod we gave it a violent shake though.
The first goal represented something a personal tragedy for me. For some reason the TAB were offering $21 on Petterd kicking the first goal despite the fact that he (along with Green) is basically our only forward worth a damn. Good on Rohan Bail for kicking his first career goal, and for lasting longer than 30 seconds without injuring himself this time, but bloody hell there's no need to stooge me out of $210 in the process. It's hardly tragic in comparison to the knob who had $150 straight out on Campbell Brown last week but I'm very poor so every dollar counts. Considering our performance last week I should have been overjoyed just to get a goal in the first half, but the almighty dollar wins out especially considering I expected the Pies to go down the other end and kick 25 without response.
It was amazing how different we were in the first term from the toxic slop that was served up last week. God help us all we played the last 27 minutes like we played the first two and good god did it show. The difference between today and last Saturday was like a genuine Rolex vs something you bought for $3.20 in Phuket while off your face on cocktails and ladyboys (P.S - No, I've never been thanks for asking). My man crush Jamar demolished Jolly in the ruck all day, and at various times we actually managed to capitalise on his domination. After Bail got the first Collingwood equalised, but in a game with very little intensity the Pies were letting our guys get confidence early. Good, because the last thing we needed was for a side to come out and force us to chase them - just look at what happened to North tonight when they copped a few goals early and sank without a trace.
When even Juice was drilling them from 40m out on an angle you knew we were in for a big one. The man himself wasn't, in fact he hardly went near the thing again all day, but I enjoyed his cameo appearances as a ruckman significantly more than when we tried the same thing with Al Nicholson a few years ago. I don't mind the idea of using him as a mobile ruck to be honest, he at least creates contests and - whisper it quietly - hit a corker of a pass with his 3rd and last kick. The Spencil did the same with his one and only kick last week but for mine he'd do better to play at least the first half of the season at Casey while we use Juice/the SME and Johnson (when fit) to back-up the (not actually a) Russian.
Delighted to be 15 points in front at quarter time, but the spectacular lack of interest that the Pies had in the first term was never going to last. How about Harry O'Brien and his wacky shepharding of the man on the mark? Apparently it's legal so good luck to him, but hopefully if he keeps doing it somebody will just punch him in the face a'la Hall/Staker. Would be slightly less legal but no court in the land (except the AFL Tribunal sadly) would convict.
As is so often the case in a match where a 'good' team goes into quarter time behind a rubbish opponent they came out breathing fire in the second and it looked like normal service was going to resume pretty quickly. Travis Cloke, the most overrated shit player in recent history, goalled first and Swan could have had another from a bollocks free but did the right thing and shanked it. Thanks to two more from Ricky P we were still in it at quarter time, and having already ruined all the bets that had Collingwood leading at every quarter we almost destroyed every half-time/full-time double in the country by tying it up at the break. Jamar walked through half the Pies defence before missing the lot from 30m out on the run, and Scully had a set shot which he squeezed in for a point and we went in five points behind.
Respectable? Good god yes. At least we fought back when they looked as if they were going to run away with it halfway through the quarter. I'd gone in with such low expectations for the day that we'd already exceeded my expectations just by being... (DB mode activate) competitive. That's what competitive looks like kids.
Our forward setup looked a lot better but Bate was still playing a shocker. He picked up as the day went on but he's still either underdone or suffering from psychological distress. Ricky P is a revelation, Dunn was finally put back to where he should be and Brad Green is the same solid as a rock option as he always is. I'm still a bit worried about the way we attack though. I know the big trend in footy now is to flood and then have your forwards run back with the ball, but it seems odd to me that you wouldn't just pick one player and park him inside 50. Even if all 17 others are inside the opposition fifty what would be the harm of leaving your most spud-like forward at home? I'd rather Newton providing some sort of option for the fast break than wandering around the backline, and if it drags another opposition player away from their goal then so much the better. But what do I know?
Having done absolutely nothing in the first half other than cement his position in the VFL, Bennell was thrown forward and took a nice diving mark to get our first goal of the term. He had another shot a few minutes later and missed, but just when you thought that we'd discovered a wildcard forward option he went on to spend the rest of the game dropping marks and pulling out of contests. Still, I wouldn't mind trying it again to see how it comes off - maybe worth a shot in the VFL? Apparently I think everything's worth a shot in the VFL. See you at Casey Fields next Saturday to watch the results of my experimental tinkering fail amazingly.
Backline was interesting. We kept the Pies to ten goals by three quarter time but I didn't think that they were too solid. Warnock looks a bit wonky, MacDonald played a shit first half but redeemed himself with a couple of great contested marks in the second. Frawley still ruins all his good work elsewhere by torching kicks all over the place. Grimes, though, is a gun - no doubt about it. Considering some of the duds and underachivers we've picked up in the 10-20 bracket over the last ten years (and would Addam Maric be charging headfirst towards the latter or what if he hadn't been pick 21?) it's ludicrous that we got him at pick 14. And we wouldn't even have had that pick if we hadn't tossed Johnstone out. Great piece of business there, and as an additional bonus Travis gets to stick two fingers up at us by going deep into September this year with the Lions. Everyone's a winner.
We broke even on the quarter and went into the last term five points behind but hit the lead early on when, in a sight more remarkable than seeing the Yeti climbing through your bedroom window, we went from one end to the other unimpeded for Petterd to mark and kick his fourth. Cue 50,000 people at the ground (including me) and countless radio/TV callers trotting out a line about us having forgotten how to win. When Green goalled at the ten minute mark I started to think we could do it, and the prospect of being happy with an honourable loss went out the window. Dunn got his second to make it 10 points and it was hard to believe we'd managed to get ourselves into that position. We scored again not long after but hands up who didn't think that we were going to lose by a point there and then. The Pies really turned it on from there and you could tell bad things were going to happen. Grimes and MacDonald both hauled down big contested marks inside 50 to save our bacon. Scully then botched an absolute sitter of a mark in the middle of the ground that would have sent us into attack again - it got turned around on us for a goal and the margin was under a goal. Welcome to Tension City, USA.
Then Leon Davis, having done nothing all day, bobbed up to put them in front with three minutes left. Had things gone differently it might have ended up being better result for us. Instead of trying to chip the thing around and hold onto our lead - which would have inevitably fallen to pieces and led to a goal anyway - we were forced to attack.
All I remember from the last minute is Grimes, to Green and then the next thing Bail was running inside 50. Having seen the minute in its entirety on TV since I don't know what I was thinking when Bate went inside 50. In retrospect it was a mighty effort by Moloney to get the win the ball and get it to Bate with two Pies players all over him. Plot had clearly been well and truly lost before then. I'm not sure what Bail was trying to do, whether he was having a shot or not but from a million miles away in the Ponsford Stand all I saw was the ball hit the deck. Then the siren went and I punched the living bejesus out of my seat. I probably should have apologised to the kids sitting in front of me because they were moderately terrified but bad luck, serves them right for having scum Pies fan parents. Bad news for my right hand though (insert comedy comments in the space provided). Hurts like buggery now. Reminds me of the night we lost to North by a point in 2000 and I did the same. At least then there was the excuse of being a horrible teenager. No excuse now, it was pretty shameful but christ almighty it was justified at the time.
Didn't realise exactly what had happened until I saw it on TV later. It was cruel that Petterd dropped the mark and the poor bastard is probably beating himself to a pulp about it now, but at least he can say that he'd done everything in his power to get us the position to win it in the first place. Imagine if it had been Miller or Newton who'd done that? Would have been incredible wild scenes.
I must admit I didn't think the umpiring was spectacuarly bad. Everyone else in the world, including neutral fans, talkback callers and commentators are convinced we were slaughtered but I clearly missed it. Especially in the last few frantic minutes where I was suffering ectasy to agony effects equal to that of a bad acid trip. No dragons but. If I could bring myself to watch the replay it might all become clear but for now I'll leave it to you to throw red paint over AFL House a'la the bitter Fitzroy fans in the early 90's.
Last year I spruiked Moloney as the next captain but after the last two weeks there's no doubt than I'm a 100% Brad Green supporter for the job. The way he dragged the players in to talk straight after the siren said it all. In a manly and butch way I love that guy.
Meanwhile does anyone still think we should have kidnapped Luke Ball and forced him to play for us against his will? The guy is shot, and the only hope he has for making an impact this season is that he's got good players around him. In no way was he ever going to be the guy to walk into our side and single handedly drag us up. If Judd wakes up in October this year, decides to stop being a turncoat Visy employee and comes back to his childhood club that's the sort of guy who can drag a team to their feet on his own. See also J. Brown. Maybe Paul McNamee was onto something with that plan afterall? I'm pretty glad we didn't have to wait for him to try and put it into effect.
Changes for next week? Well Sylvia is a cert to come back in, Rivers should be right and I'll stick with Juice for another week so I'll just make the two changes. Col in for Strauss who was ok today but wouldn't be hurt by a couple of weeks at Casey. Don't forget he barely even played there last year due to injury. Rivers for Bennell. Scully was pretty bad today but I'm not giving him the arse yet. His kicking was very ordinary (60% disposal efficiency, but I'll bet that was from his handballs) and he dropped a couple of marks but I'd rather work through it in the 1's. Besides, if you were Bailey would you want footage of two #1 draft picks turning out in the reserves? Trengove not great either but anyone who expects perfection in second gamers is on crack. One thing you can say for both of them today is that they were 100% committed to everything they did. Fast forward two or three years and they might be the best duo since Hall & Oates. And no matter what you've been taught that is a good thing.
Did You Know?
I'm not sure it's much to get excited about. In fact it's clearly not, but today snaps a three match run of our 1pt losses being to North Melbourne. First time we've lost to the Pies by a point since Round 22, 1975 and just the 23rd we've ever had. Fifth I've been to. The only one that hurt more than this was the Round 6, 1992 fiasco when we blew the 47 point lead in the last quarter and got done by a point. Now that's a game I've never gotten over - even as a 10-year-old I recognised true tragedy.
Koaching Korner
I've not watched the press conference yet because in my current state trying to use the AFL website would lead to MURDER, but presumably Bails was his normal calm self. He's got a lot to be happy with this week, but I'd love for a coach to walk in and just go off his chop. Something like this (#3 is my favourite);
Still, if that's what we get every week - especially against teams in our bracket - he'll be a happy man. Notwithstanding the fact that we were truly putrid last week, and for much of the pre-season, and that there's no way he should have gotten an extension before at least mid-season I hope people get off his back a bit this week. It's not like players and coaches could give a monkeys what us internet freaks think anyway but some of the shit written about him this week has been ridiculous. The worst conspiracy theory I heard was how Leigh Matthews was about to walk in the front door and take over. Balls. He's got a lot of boxes to tick yet but fark me let's all (and I include myself in this..) take a step back and wait a few weeks before giving the panic button anything more than a light nudge. Wait until the Richmond game being smashing the bejesus out of it. If it gets bad enough the newspapers will jump on in force (a'la Terry Wallace) just so they can use the BAIL OUT headline.
2010 Allen Jakovich Medal Votes
Had a hard time dishing these out. If Ricky had held the mark at the end he would probably have gotten five votes and everlasting love. Can't be too harsh, knowing our luck he'd have probably turned around to play on and get stooged by the siren.
I changed these votes about ten times. Any of the top four could have got the maximum. That's a nice problem to have.
5 - Ricky Petterd
4 - Mark Jamar
3 - Brad Green
2 - Aaron Davey
1 - Jack Grimes
Apologies to McKenzie (EXTREMELY STIFF..), Bail, Bruce, Dunn, McDonald, MacDonald (second half), Frawley and Warnock
Leaderboard
The best Russian since Ivan Drago has spoken. Darren Jolly made to look like a stiff. Maybe Joll suddenly felt guilty about walking out on us after we plucked him from VFL obscurity and decided to give something back? Maybe not.
8 - Mark Jamar (Leader: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
5 - James McDonald, Brad Green, Ricky Petterd
3 - Jordie McKenzie
1 - Jared Rivers (Leader: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Jack Grimes
Post Match Shenanigans
There was nearly violence in an Aspendale (or was it Edithvale? I'm lost everywhere south of Mentone) fish and chip shop after the game. In there with a Collingwood friend wearing the jumper the idiot from the store comes out and goes "Pies eh!?... Did we win?" He's lucky I'd already handed over my money or I'd have walked out. It's the 21st century you arsehole, used 20th century technology and turn a radio on. Hope he catches his plums in the deep fryer.
Next Week
Two Saturday games in a row and the real title of this blog was starting to become out of date. Well, that's all the 'traditional' footy we get because next Sunday it's 1.10 on Sunday against the Crows. Goes without saying that if we play like today then it will be very exciting - especially with Sylvia back - but being Melbourne they're just as likely to serve up a slopfest like last year when we don't kick a goal until halfway through the third quarter.
Should be especially interesting if they lose to Sydney tomorrow. They'll either be ripe to be thrown into crisis or will come out and pork us. It's good to actually have some doubt about what will happen though.
Final Thoughts
That was one second from all-time classic status. Shattered. At least thanks to North we're off the bottom.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
No mas, No mas...
... That's what Roberto Duran said halfway through the eighth round of his fight with Sugar Ray Leonard when he lost interest in life and quit the fight.
About ten minutes into the third quarter today I was thinking the same thing about season 2010.
Every year you like to think that things are going to get better, that you're a flag/finals/not-spoon contender (delete as applicable) and that no matter how the dubious pre-season form looked that come the first bounce of round one everything will be ok. "Sydney never win pre-season games!" we cry as if that has any bearing on our performance. We went into the MCG this afternoon saying "I'll take a six goal loss" but somewhere deep down wondered what would happen if we pulled off a R1 1997 style miracle upset. By 2.10pm the butterflies were in the stomach and you almost convinced yourself that we could win. Then we got thrashed.
Last year I came on after round one, told it like it was and got slaughtered by everybody for being too negative. Well kids, hold on because it's going to be a bumpy ride from here. There were positives, and we'll get to them somewhere in the middle of the discussion about fork-toaster interfaces, but BY JOVE there are some worrying signs as well.
Best on ground in the first half was clearly the guy who did the motorcycle jumping before the match. Didn't think it looked particuarly impressive when they were setting it up, but bloody hell what a nutcase when he got up there. Especially for a guy doing his first public trick since stacking it and busting half the bones in his body last year. Makes our injuries look pissweak in comparison. Thought I heard them say he was a Melbourne member too - which would probably explain why he was there in the first place - and that fact alone almost snuck him into the votes the way we were going.
You knew today wasn't going to be one to trouble the highlight reel when Spencer went to FF at the first bounce. Sure he booted a couple in that intra-club match a few weeks ago but let's be serious for a minute here. Did we really need another tall forward? Do they have that little confidence in Miller and Bate? (well, as it turns out..) I'd much rather have seen Maric down there, and in hindsight two of the moves I've called for over the last couple of years - Davey and Dunn into the forward line - were failures. But what did I ever know?
As it was Flash almost had the first goal, and just like that pre-season match against Essendon a few weeks ago we dominated the first couple of minutes without capitalising on it. Green also could have had one but his allegedly perfect set shot skills deserted him as they have pretty much every time since he got the reputation as a deadly set shot.
And then just like in the Essendon match when the opposition realised that they were playing against a pox side they fired up and put us to the sword. The problem this time was that we were getting it forward, but every time it went anywhere near our forward line the play would break down and Hawthorn would go forward and score. So far, so 2007-2009. Other first quarter bombs included Grimes in the middle, Miller killing Bate in a marking contest and the over-reliance on Strauss as a defensive playmaker.
We were ridiculously bad going inside fifty. I'd love to see stats on what the average quarter time score is for an AFL team in the last couple of years, because by my count that's the fifth time since Bailey took over that we haven't kicked a goal in the first quarter. Add to that TEN more games where we've only had one in the opening term. That is a damning, purely ridiculous stat. By way of comparison, and I'm not even sure it means anything, Daniher only had 7 scoreless first terms in 9.5 years.
The longer the quarter went on the worse we got. Eventually we weren't even getting inside 50 before they got it back out again. And after we'd struggled for what seemed like hours to get the ball out of the Hawks backline they'd get the thing and just score at will even with kids and first gamers. Thank christ they didn't have Franklin, Rioli, Batemen or any decent ruckmen or we'd have been slaughtered. After the first three minutes which we had dominated Hawthorn just smashed us from pillar to post for the next ten minutes. The only respite we had from them bitch slapping us was when Green was carried off after getting crunched. Thank christ he was alright because when he went down I was all ready for hari-kari if we had another top ten player go down with a serious injury.
The break enabled us to regroup and.. serve up pretty much the same slop as the last three years. We tried to flood them out of the game but in a classic piece of AFL coaching it was done without a goal on the board. No surprises that eventually our clueless gameplan ended in shambles. It's a fair mark of confidence to give a first gamer the kick-in duties against the best kick-in defenders in the competition, and to his credit Strauss got it right a couple of times but the worrying thing was when the person he kicked it to had no idea what to do next and went back to him. No surprises when it eventually went horribly wrong and ended in an Australia's Funniest Home Videos style goal. He's not ready yet, and could do with a couple of weeks back at Casey to hone his game. Then there was SCULLGOVE - more on them later.
Six goals down at quarter time and I presume had there been any Melbourne fans sitting anywhere near us we would have heard the deafening sound of deflating expectations. Nobody seriously expected to win, and only the most optimistic/deluded think we're anything other than a bottom four side, but if the coaching staff and club are going to keep bandying around the word "competitive" they'll want to make sure that the side actually is at some point. Preferably in the first term, not the last ten minutes when we're ten goals behind. In my wildest dreams I would never have expected us to be in front at the first change, but bloody hell within a couple of goals would have been nice. It's not to say they weren't trying hard, but.. Well who knows what they were doing. Enthusiasm can only take you so far.
I thought the backline, with the exception of Rivers, was pretty ordinary early on but as usual - broken record time - if the ball goes down there enough they will get scored heavily against. Joel Mac had a pox first half (but recovered late), and Frawley's kicking terrifies me. Would love to see Garland down there again at some point. Not sure about Bennell at the moment either - he veered wildly between promising and awful in the second half of last season and has provided much more of the latter so far this year.
Luckily Hawthorn lost the ability to kick straight early in the second quarter or we would have been completely smashed (more so..) Finally Petterd got the ball 30m out on a relatively good angle.. and botched the kick. We almost got the 7pt play, and goal of the year, when Hawthorn botched the kick-in and Davey smashed one out of the air but he missed and we stayed on zero. Every time this happens I sit there and say "you know what, one of these days we're not going to kick a goal at all", knowing full well that it's almost impossible not to get at least one eventually. We went close in that Adelaide game last season, and today it looked bloody likely for a while. ONE DAY IT WILL HAPPEN MARK MY WORDS, and that's the day when there will be ritual suicide on the ground after the second siren (please stay off the centre square).
The forward setup and delivery was so god damn awful today that I'm surprised we even got a mark inside 50. Bate and Miller were having a nightmare, Spencer isn't a forward's cornhole and Petterd couldn't get anywhere near it. Dunn was there but wasn't offering much. I'm hereby suspending the action faction I started to campaign for his future - it's mostly to do with the ridiculous porno mo he's sporting in his profile picture this year, I'm not sure I can see that on the big screen every week for a year. Besides, he's a tremendously entertaining figure at Casey where you can stand on the fence and hear him swear loudly.
What made it worse was that every single goal Hawthorn kicked caused the guy sitting in front of us to jump to his feet like a teenage girl at a Miley Cyrus concert. That's fine if you're young and impressionable but this guy was middle aged and balding. He was a pleasant enough guy, and eventually apologised profusely when he realised how fucking annoying he was but bloody hell how low is the bar when you're getting UAA for slamming home goals against the worst team in the world? Same goes for that Scottish clown who always calls SEN and was on at half time talking up how the Hawks were heading straight for the top four. Deserved to cop a boot fair up the kilt for that load of old bollocks. The Port fans at Football Park last year had the right idea, as they smashed us to pieces in the second quarter the people around me just clapped politely. They knew full well that they were getting charity goals against a naff side.
Eventually after what seemed like years, and probably actually was, Jamar went forward and instantly did what Spencer will never do in a thousand years - took a contested mark and converted the goal. Glorious. Have I told you recently how much I love the Russian? Feel free to go back and drag out old posts from 2003-2008 where I slaughter him for being terrible, there were a lot of them, but right now he's one of my favourite players. We looked better for a couple of minutes after the Jamar goal but surprise, surprise it all fell apart and Hawthorn got two goals to take a 56 point lead into half time. Shades of R1 2008 all over again. Like that day we kicked one goal in the first half but were 15 points closer. Today we'd at least kicked a point more, 1.5 then, 1.6 now. As that crackhead bloke from Matchbox 20 once said, "let's see how far we've come". The answer is obviously not very far.
Positives to half time? Not many. I was pretty happy with our intensity, but that's only going to get you so far. At some point you are going to need to actually kick something approaching a winning score, and we just - do - not - look - like - doing - that - at - any - time. And it's a pain in the arse because guys like Miller have been threatening to be dangerous for so long that we're just over it. How far away is Watts? Hopefully we can get him down there in a few weeks and start trying to build some sort of new forward line. I don't rate The SME as a magnificent forward, in fact at times he barely qualifies as an average one, but if Jamar is going to ruck 80/90% of the game I'd much rather have Martin in the forward line than Spencer. At least if the defence gets pounded you can switch Stef down there. Is it going to help? God I don't know, but we've got to have some options even if they're decidedly uninspiring.
Brad Green came back for the third term - because he's a gun - but it seems that he was the only person who bothered to show up because Hawthorn went absolutely coco bananas and by the ten minute mark we were 80 points behind. Bad things were about to happen. Open up any old Melbourne forum you like, your 'land, your 'ology, your Big Footy, and look at the threads on there. People are going off their nut. Imagine if Hawthorn had pressed on and beaten us by 120 points? The internet would have collapsed under the weight of distress. The thought is terrifying, especially for those of us who consider ourselves to be moderate in our internet spazzing out (says the guy writing about 20,000 words about the game). Would have been like the end of the world.
The thing was Hawthorn weren't actually that impressive. I certainly wouldn't be rushing to have money on them for the top four. Definately a finals side, especially with the players they have to return, but how many times did we give them the ball on a plate? They're not going to get that every week. And if there's any justice in the world we're not going to give it to teams every week either. Sadly as we all know there is no such thing as justice and we'll continue to be the most generous hosts in the competition for many weeks to come.
Late in the quarter fighter jets flew over the ground as part of the grand prix entertainment. Unfortunately just as it would have been welcomed they failed to open fire on the ground and bomb us all back into the stone age. My highlight of the quarter was McDonald getting away with the most obvious deliberate of all time. It was karmic payback for the criminally bad one he copped in the last 30 seconds of the match against Port in 2007. Lest we forget that being the decision that caused me to go spaz and kick a bin over - happy days. Unfortunately the difference was that day we were fighting for victory and today we were fighting to avoid being 250 points behinds. It's time for that song again - it might be close to the worst track ever recorded but it's apt for us.
We won the last quarter, but that was like starving for two weeks in the desert then being handed a tofu burger. Hawthorn not only put the cue in the rack, they put their feet up on the couch, lit a pipe and had a brandy. At least we took advantage of it, it could have been ugly otherwise. Finally the forward line started looking like something worthwhile of AFL football - Petterd showed that he has inherited Robbo's role of junk time specialist. Additionally Grimes and MacDonald were much better in the second half. Ridiculously had Ricky P kicked the goal on the final siren we'd have avoided being last on the ladder after round one. Providing nobody gets thrashed by ten goals or more in the next couple of days we lost by the same margin as Richmond and only kicked three points less. Cheers Clarko, you're a mate.
Miller got a couple of goals but he was generally awful. The two goals, and a dearth of other forward options, might be all that saves him. I can't remember if he's under contact next year or not but does anybody doubt that if Bailey randomly ends up in conversation with Guy McKenna at some point that he won't casually mention how young Brad is a native Queenslander. Hell, more matches like today and Deano will be trying to find Guy's number to call him and yell TAKE MY GOOD LOOKING BUT USELESS FORWARD PLEASE. Even my mother who has been running the "but he's so attractive" line since 2003 couldn't bring herself to defend him today, and had already walked out in disgust by the time he kicked his second goal.
Davey was pretty ordinary, but it's no surprise that he didn't go near it early on when he was up forward and we couldn't get the ball anywhere near the place. As much as I hate to say it, because it feels like a step backwards, I feel like he needs to go back and do what he did last year. We need some poise in that backline to go with the grunt - Rivers is a pretty good user but only by defender standards. If/when Bennell can do it then let him but sadly Davey is probably more use there than he is forward. Moloney was fairly anonymous (though I'm shocked to see he had 22 touches) and Jones didn't have a great game either.
Spencer, Bate and Miller were abysmal. The other two have form but Bate was astonishgly bad. I choose to believe it's got something to do with Miller the goose crashing into him during the first term. Absolutely nothing he did came off. We've got to keep playing him because he's too good to be running around at Casey, but he'll want to watch the tape of today a couple of times for educational purposes and then throw it into a fire. Ridiculously Spencer managed to rack up a kicking efficiency of 100% when his one decent effort all day - intercepting a kick and delivering inside 50 - came off perfectly. Other than that he was exhibiting spud-like qualities in ways that would make an Irishman blush.
Anyway, if you're feeling poorly about today just think about the guy who had 100 grand on Hawthorn at -59.5 at quarter time. When they were 80 points in front he must have been dusting off the champers and deciding what he was going to do with his extra 87k in the phone betting account. Sucked in you clown. People with more money than brains like that deserve everything they get.
Finally I'd like to announce that due to his performance today I'm provisionally promoting Brad Green to my favourite player. I have manlove for The SME, but poor Brad must have woken up from his coma, looked at the scoreboard and wondered why the hell he didn't take the deal to join Collingwood. Then he came back, went 100%, never dropped his head and probably would have been our best player but for lack of time on ground. That's he's got my vote for our next captain. Legend.
Coaching Corner
I've got my concerns about the way we're going but I'm not going to go "spit at Spud Frawley over the fence" spaz yet. Having said that if we don't improve this year then the famous one year contract extension for Bailey is going to become a massive story. The stated reason for doing it was to avoid the "will they or won't they" media circus halfway through the season, but is it better or worse to have the media on your back than your own fans?
And make no mistake people are going to go off their chop this year if things don't at least seem to be coming good. You can argue all you like about rebuilding but people want to see some tangible improvement, it's not like 1979 where you can hide behind being poor and unable to recruit players. The system gifts you with one or more of the best 20 players in the country every year and you have to make something of that. We might have been unable to get big name players (mainly due to them being TURNCOAT BASTARDS), but we've got so many top twenty picks on our list now that people are going to want to see something soon. Guys like Jones aren't getting any better, and the likes of Dunn and Maric have gigantic question marks above them. Bailey and team can argue they didn't pick some of these guys, but bloody nora let's get serious and say that most of the players we had on the list when they took over haven't improved.
Now, here's a stat for you. Were we to finish last this season Dean Bailey would be the first coach in VFL/AFL history to ever coach three straight full wooden spoon seasons. University (and former Melbourne) coach Gerald Brosnan had three but a year off between the second and third, and Graham Gellie at St Kilda presided over three straight last place finishes in the 80's but only took control of the team in round 4 of the first one. That would make DB the first have a full pre-season with his players for three years and finish last in each of them. Wild. And this in the draft era? For now I'm choosing to drink the Stynes/Schwab KoolAid and believe that something big is going to happen, but I can see why people are starting to turn. Should be fun to see just how crazy the punters go throughout the year - and at what point I flip out and join them in burning effigies a'la Indian cricket fans.
Is anyone still reading this? You deserve a medal, how about a Player Of The Year that none of the players deserve?
2010 Allen Jakovich Medal VOTES OF SHAME
5 - James McDonald
4 - Mark Jamar (Leader: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
3 - Jordie McKenzie
2 - Brad Green
1 - Jared Rivers (Leader: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
Apologies to Grimes (second half), Petterd (last quarter), Trengove and Scully
I don't give a rats arse what the newspapers and/or AFL website say, I'm not giving anything to Bruce, Moloney or Davey.
McDonald had 21 touches, won five free tickets and laid ten tackles. His disposals weren't spectacular, but who's were? Mr 100% Spencer? Actually somebody else did deliver at 100%, and that was Jamar. For him to have 11 touches, get all over them right and take 3 contested marks says to me that he's continued his career best form of '09. Now the issue is for him to play more than a handful of games. I found it hard to split the two for the 5 votes but eventually went for seniority. Besides, if I gave my new love child maximum votes there might be a Tiger Woods-esque scandal.
I'm surprised to go on a couple of forums and see people listing them amongst their worst players. Makes no sense to me but that's democracy for you. Until I'm a celebrity and can order executions at will it'll have to be the way.
Jordie was encouraging despite his farcical name. Looked comfortable for a 4th gamer, laid 11 tackles, used the ball pretty well and even managed to kick his first goal. Sadly for him he misses out on being eligible for the Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year by one week (played in R17 last season).
As for Scullgove I can sense a future of being abused for not slotting them into the votes, but I just couldn't manage it. They were both super impressive but didn't use it well enough for mine to slip into the votes. It was a toss up for one between JR and JT and in the end my sick fascination with defenders won out. Suffice to say they will both be racking up votes by the MILLION in years/weeks to come.
Crowd Watch
There's two things I hate about Hawthorn. One is their fans who don't put a number on the jumper despite the fact that the farking things are MADE FOR IT. There's a big white square there, DO SOMETHING WITH IT. The next is putting the years of membership on the scarf - would make me even more unlikely to wear it if we did that. Now you can add another, on the back of their members hat it says "2010 LOYAL MEMBER". What the hell does that mean? Sure if we did one then half of the members would have be sent one that read 2010 Queen's Birthday Bandwagon Arsehole, but that's not the point. Shambles of a statement to put on a hat.
Speaking of merchandise there was a wild rumor, presented as fact, on the radio at half time that there were bins in the 'G full of our 2010 membership scarves. I can't believe it, especially given that surely nobody went to the effort of actually going to collect the scarf and expected that we would be any good. Still, I love a good conspiracy theory.
AM/FM Watch
Started listening to Triple M, but about five minutes in I realised why I could never take 3AW. Rex Hunt called the first five minutes like it was the last five minutes of a Grand Final. It was pretty painful. Surely the first few minutes of a call are a slow build and unless something truly interesting happens you keep a lid on it. Old Mr "The Girl's Happy" just went off like a porkchop from the first bounce and had absolutely zero chemistry with the rest of the team who conspicuously couldn't help talking about Brian Taylor.
At quarter time I pulled the pin and went to 3AW, but the reception in the ground was atrocious. It was like listening to the BBC World Service from the bottom of a tin mine in the Congo, the one highlight being the bizarre effect it put on Matthew Richardson's voice which made him sound like a boy who has just had his voice break. Remember when they said changing to 693 would make it easier to get reception?
Eventually settled on SEN. Anything that means not having to listen to the ABC. Whatever, it did the job. Except that they were convinced Bennell was Davey. Should have washed their mouths out.
Next Week
Collingwood at the MCG. They should smash us but for the love of Philthy please let us have learnt some lessons from today. Any danger Sylvia might be ready to go?
On a panic scale ranging from Robbie Flower (least worried) to Isaac Weetra (positively terrified) I'm ranking somewhere around Craig Ellis.
Final Thoughts
The Melbourne fan standing in front of me on the train had a hospital tag around his wrist. Fairly apt I would have thought.
About ten minutes into the third quarter today I was thinking the same thing about season 2010.
Every year you like to think that things are going to get better, that you're a flag/finals/not-spoon contender (delete as applicable) and that no matter how the dubious pre-season form looked that come the first bounce of round one everything will be ok. "Sydney never win pre-season games!" we cry as if that has any bearing on our performance. We went into the MCG this afternoon saying "I'll take a six goal loss" but somewhere deep down wondered what would happen if we pulled off a R1 1997 style miracle upset. By 2.10pm the butterflies were in the stomach and you almost convinced yourself that we could win. Then we got thrashed.
Last year I came on after round one, told it like it was and got slaughtered by everybody for being too negative. Well kids, hold on because it's going to be a bumpy ride from here. There were positives, and we'll get to them somewhere in the middle of the discussion about fork-toaster interfaces, but BY JOVE there are some worrying signs as well.
Best on ground in the first half was clearly the guy who did the motorcycle jumping before the match. Didn't think it looked particuarly impressive when they were setting it up, but bloody hell what a nutcase when he got up there. Especially for a guy doing his first public trick since stacking it and busting half the bones in his body last year. Makes our injuries look pissweak in comparison. Thought I heard them say he was a Melbourne member too - which would probably explain why he was there in the first place - and that fact alone almost snuck him into the votes the way we were going.
You knew today wasn't going to be one to trouble the highlight reel when Spencer went to FF at the first bounce. Sure he booted a couple in that intra-club match a few weeks ago but let's be serious for a minute here. Did we really need another tall forward? Do they have that little confidence in Miller and Bate? (well, as it turns out..) I'd much rather have seen Maric down there, and in hindsight two of the moves I've called for over the last couple of years - Davey and Dunn into the forward line - were failures. But what did I ever know?
As it was Flash almost had the first goal, and just like that pre-season match against Essendon a few weeks ago we dominated the first couple of minutes without capitalising on it. Green also could have had one but his allegedly perfect set shot skills deserted him as they have pretty much every time since he got the reputation as a deadly set shot.
And then just like in the Essendon match when the opposition realised that they were playing against a pox side they fired up and put us to the sword. The problem this time was that we were getting it forward, but every time it went anywhere near our forward line the play would break down and Hawthorn would go forward and score. So far, so 2007-2009. Other first quarter bombs included Grimes in the middle, Miller killing Bate in a marking contest and the over-reliance on Strauss as a defensive playmaker.
We were ridiculously bad going inside fifty. I'd love to see stats on what the average quarter time score is for an AFL team in the last couple of years, because by my count that's the fifth time since Bailey took over that we haven't kicked a goal in the first quarter. Add to that TEN more games where we've only had one in the opening term. That is a damning, purely ridiculous stat. By way of comparison, and I'm not even sure it means anything, Daniher only had 7 scoreless first terms in 9.5 years.
The longer the quarter went on the worse we got. Eventually we weren't even getting inside 50 before they got it back out again. And after we'd struggled for what seemed like hours to get the ball out of the Hawks backline they'd get the thing and just score at will even with kids and first gamers. Thank christ they didn't have Franklin, Rioli, Batemen or any decent ruckmen or we'd have been slaughtered. After the first three minutes which we had dominated Hawthorn just smashed us from pillar to post for the next ten minutes. The only respite we had from them bitch slapping us was when Green was carried off after getting crunched. Thank christ he was alright because when he went down I was all ready for hari-kari if we had another top ten player go down with a serious injury.
The break enabled us to regroup and.. serve up pretty much the same slop as the last three years. We tried to flood them out of the game but in a classic piece of AFL coaching it was done without a goal on the board. No surprises that eventually our clueless gameplan ended in shambles. It's a fair mark of confidence to give a first gamer the kick-in duties against the best kick-in defenders in the competition, and to his credit Strauss got it right a couple of times but the worrying thing was when the person he kicked it to had no idea what to do next and went back to him. No surprises when it eventually went horribly wrong and ended in an Australia's Funniest Home Videos style goal. He's not ready yet, and could do with a couple of weeks back at Casey to hone his game. Then there was SCULLGOVE - more on them later.
Six goals down at quarter time and I presume had there been any Melbourne fans sitting anywhere near us we would have heard the deafening sound of deflating expectations. Nobody seriously expected to win, and only the most optimistic/deluded think we're anything other than a bottom four side, but if the coaching staff and club are going to keep bandying around the word "competitive" they'll want to make sure that the side actually is at some point. Preferably in the first term, not the last ten minutes when we're ten goals behind. In my wildest dreams I would never have expected us to be in front at the first change, but bloody hell within a couple of goals would have been nice. It's not to say they weren't trying hard, but.. Well who knows what they were doing. Enthusiasm can only take you so far.
I thought the backline, with the exception of Rivers, was pretty ordinary early on but as usual - broken record time - if the ball goes down there enough they will get scored heavily against. Joel Mac had a pox first half (but recovered late), and Frawley's kicking terrifies me. Would love to see Garland down there again at some point. Not sure about Bennell at the moment either - he veered wildly between promising and awful in the second half of last season and has provided much more of the latter so far this year.
Luckily Hawthorn lost the ability to kick straight early in the second quarter or we would have been completely smashed (more so..) Finally Petterd got the ball 30m out on a relatively good angle.. and botched the kick. We almost got the 7pt play, and goal of the year, when Hawthorn botched the kick-in and Davey smashed one out of the air but he missed and we stayed on zero. Every time this happens I sit there and say "you know what, one of these days we're not going to kick a goal at all", knowing full well that it's almost impossible not to get at least one eventually. We went close in that Adelaide game last season, and today it looked bloody likely for a while. ONE DAY IT WILL HAPPEN MARK MY WORDS, and that's the day when there will be ritual suicide on the ground after the second siren (please stay off the centre square).
The forward setup and delivery was so god damn awful today that I'm surprised we even got a mark inside 50. Bate and Miller were having a nightmare, Spencer isn't a forward's cornhole and Petterd couldn't get anywhere near it. Dunn was there but wasn't offering much. I'm hereby suspending the action faction I started to campaign for his future - it's mostly to do with the ridiculous porno mo he's sporting in his profile picture this year, I'm not sure I can see that on the big screen every week for a year. Besides, he's a tremendously entertaining figure at Casey where you can stand on the fence and hear him swear loudly.
What made it worse was that every single goal Hawthorn kicked caused the guy sitting in front of us to jump to his feet like a teenage girl at a Miley Cyrus concert. That's fine if you're young and impressionable but this guy was middle aged and balding. He was a pleasant enough guy, and eventually apologised profusely when he realised how fucking annoying he was but bloody hell how low is the bar when you're getting UAA for slamming home goals against the worst team in the world? Same goes for that Scottish clown who always calls SEN and was on at half time talking up how the Hawks were heading straight for the top four. Deserved to cop a boot fair up the kilt for that load of old bollocks. The Port fans at Football Park last year had the right idea, as they smashed us to pieces in the second quarter the people around me just clapped politely. They knew full well that they were getting charity goals against a naff side.
Eventually after what seemed like years, and probably actually was, Jamar went forward and instantly did what Spencer will never do in a thousand years - took a contested mark and converted the goal. Glorious. Have I told you recently how much I love the Russian? Feel free to go back and drag out old posts from 2003-2008 where I slaughter him for being terrible, there were a lot of them, but right now he's one of my favourite players. We looked better for a couple of minutes after the Jamar goal but surprise, surprise it all fell apart and Hawthorn got two goals to take a 56 point lead into half time. Shades of R1 2008 all over again. Like that day we kicked one goal in the first half but were 15 points closer. Today we'd at least kicked a point more, 1.5 then, 1.6 now. As that crackhead bloke from Matchbox 20 once said, "let's see how far we've come". The answer is obviously not very far.
Positives to half time? Not many. I was pretty happy with our intensity, but that's only going to get you so far. At some point you are going to need to actually kick something approaching a winning score, and we just - do - not - look - like - doing - that - at - any - time. And it's a pain in the arse because guys like Miller have been threatening to be dangerous for so long that we're just over it. How far away is Watts? Hopefully we can get him down there in a few weeks and start trying to build some sort of new forward line. I don't rate The SME as a magnificent forward, in fact at times he barely qualifies as an average one, but if Jamar is going to ruck 80/90% of the game I'd much rather have Martin in the forward line than Spencer. At least if the defence gets pounded you can switch Stef down there. Is it going to help? God I don't know, but we've got to have some options even if they're decidedly uninspiring.
Brad Green came back for the third term - because he's a gun - but it seems that he was the only person who bothered to show up because Hawthorn went absolutely coco bananas and by the ten minute mark we were 80 points behind. Bad things were about to happen. Open up any old Melbourne forum you like, your 'land, your 'ology, your Big Footy, and look at the threads on there. People are going off their nut. Imagine if Hawthorn had pressed on and beaten us by 120 points? The internet would have collapsed under the weight of distress. The thought is terrifying, especially for those of us who consider ourselves to be moderate in our internet spazzing out (says the guy writing about 20,000 words about the game). Would have been like the end of the world.
The thing was Hawthorn weren't actually that impressive. I certainly wouldn't be rushing to have money on them for the top four. Definately a finals side, especially with the players they have to return, but how many times did we give them the ball on a plate? They're not going to get that every week. And if there's any justice in the world we're not going to give it to teams every week either. Sadly as we all know there is no such thing as justice and we'll continue to be the most generous hosts in the competition for many weeks to come.
Late in the quarter fighter jets flew over the ground as part of the grand prix entertainment. Unfortunately just as it would have been welcomed they failed to open fire on the ground and bomb us all back into the stone age. My highlight of the quarter was McDonald getting away with the most obvious deliberate of all time. It was karmic payback for the criminally bad one he copped in the last 30 seconds of the match against Port in 2007. Lest we forget that being the decision that caused me to go spaz and kick a bin over - happy days. Unfortunately the difference was that day we were fighting for victory and today we were fighting to avoid being 250 points behinds. It's time for that song again - it might be close to the worst track ever recorded but it's apt for us.
We won the last quarter, but that was like starving for two weeks in the desert then being handed a tofu burger. Hawthorn not only put the cue in the rack, they put their feet up on the couch, lit a pipe and had a brandy. At least we took advantage of it, it could have been ugly otherwise. Finally the forward line started looking like something worthwhile of AFL football - Petterd showed that he has inherited Robbo's role of junk time specialist. Additionally Grimes and MacDonald were much better in the second half. Ridiculously had Ricky P kicked the goal on the final siren we'd have avoided being last on the ladder after round one. Providing nobody gets thrashed by ten goals or more in the next couple of days we lost by the same margin as Richmond and only kicked three points less. Cheers Clarko, you're a mate.
Miller got a couple of goals but he was generally awful. The two goals, and a dearth of other forward options, might be all that saves him. I can't remember if he's under contact next year or not but does anybody doubt that if Bailey randomly ends up in conversation with Guy McKenna at some point that he won't casually mention how young Brad is a native Queenslander. Hell, more matches like today and Deano will be trying to find Guy's number to call him and yell TAKE MY GOOD LOOKING BUT USELESS FORWARD PLEASE. Even my mother who has been running the "but he's so attractive" line since 2003 couldn't bring herself to defend him today, and had already walked out in disgust by the time he kicked his second goal.
Davey was pretty ordinary, but it's no surprise that he didn't go near it early on when he was up forward and we couldn't get the ball anywhere near the place. As much as I hate to say it, because it feels like a step backwards, I feel like he needs to go back and do what he did last year. We need some poise in that backline to go with the grunt - Rivers is a pretty good user but only by defender standards. If/when Bennell can do it then let him but sadly Davey is probably more use there than he is forward. Moloney was fairly anonymous (though I'm shocked to see he had 22 touches) and Jones didn't have a great game either.
Spencer, Bate and Miller were abysmal. The other two have form but Bate was astonishgly bad. I choose to believe it's got something to do with Miller the goose crashing into him during the first term. Absolutely nothing he did came off. We've got to keep playing him because he's too good to be running around at Casey, but he'll want to watch the tape of today a couple of times for educational purposes and then throw it into a fire. Ridiculously Spencer managed to rack up a kicking efficiency of 100% when his one decent effort all day - intercepting a kick and delivering inside 50 - came off perfectly. Other than that he was exhibiting spud-like qualities in ways that would make an Irishman blush.
Anyway, if you're feeling poorly about today just think about the guy who had 100 grand on Hawthorn at -59.5 at quarter time. When they were 80 points in front he must have been dusting off the champers and deciding what he was going to do with his extra 87k in the phone betting account. Sucked in you clown. People with more money than brains like that deserve everything they get.
Finally I'd like to announce that due to his performance today I'm provisionally promoting Brad Green to my favourite player. I have manlove for The SME, but poor Brad must have woken up from his coma, looked at the scoreboard and wondered why the hell he didn't take the deal to join Collingwood. Then he came back, went 100%, never dropped his head and probably would have been our best player but for lack of time on ground. That's he's got my vote for our next captain. Legend.
Coaching Corner
I've got my concerns about the way we're going but I'm not going to go "spit at Spud Frawley over the fence" spaz yet. Having said that if we don't improve this year then the famous one year contract extension for Bailey is going to become a massive story. The stated reason for doing it was to avoid the "will they or won't they" media circus halfway through the season, but is it better or worse to have the media on your back than your own fans?
And make no mistake people are going to go off their chop this year if things don't at least seem to be coming good. You can argue all you like about rebuilding but people want to see some tangible improvement, it's not like 1979 where you can hide behind being poor and unable to recruit players. The system gifts you with one or more of the best 20 players in the country every year and you have to make something of that. We might have been unable to get big name players (mainly due to them being TURNCOAT BASTARDS), but we've got so many top twenty picks on our list now that people are going to want to see something soon. Guys like Jones aren't getting any better, and the likes of Dunn and Maric have gigantic question marks above them. Bailey and team can argue they didn't pick some of these guys, but bloody nora let's get serious and say that most of the players we had on the list when they took over haven't improved.
Now, here's a stat for you. Were we to finish last this season Dean Bailey would be the first coach in VFL/AFL history to ever coach three straight full wooden spoon seasons. University (and former Melbourne) coach Gerald Brosnan had three but a year off between the second and third, and Graham Gellie at St Kilda presided over three straight last place finishes in the 80's but only took control of the team in round 4 of the first one. That would make DB the first have a full pre-season with his players for three years and finish last in each of them. Wild. And this in the draft era? For now I'm choosing to drink the Stynes/Schwab KoolAid and believe that something big is going to happen, but I can see why people are starting to turn. Should be fun to see just how crazy the punters go throughout the year - and at what point I flip out and join them in burning effigies a'la Indian cricket fans.
Is anyone still reading this? You deserve a medal, how about a Player Of The Year that none of the players deserve?
2010 Allen Jakovich Medal VOTES OF SHAME
5 - James McDonald
4 - Mark Jamar (Leader: Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
3 - Jordie McKenzie
2 - Brad Green
1 - Jared Rivers (Leader: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
Apologies to Grimes (second half), Petterd (last quarter), Trengove and Scully
I don't give a rats arse what the newspapers and/or AFL website say, I'm not giving anything to Bruce, Moloney or Davey.
McDonald had 21 touches, won five free tickets and laid ten tackles. His disposals weren't spectacular, but who's were? Mr 100% Spencer? Actually somebody else did deliver at 100%, and that was Jamar. For him to have 11 touches, get all over them right and take 3 contested marks says to me that he's continued his career best form of '09. Now the issue is for him to play more than a handful of games. I found it hard to split the two for the 5 votes but eventually went for seniority. Besides, if I gave my new love child maximum votes there might be a Tiger Woods-esque scandal.
I'm surprised to go on a couple of forums and see people listing them amongst their worst players. Makes no sense to me but that's democracy for you. Until I'm a celebrity and can order executions at will it'll have to be the way.
Jordie was encouraging despite his farcical name. Looked comfortable for a 4th gamer, laid 11 tackles, used the ball pretty well and even managed to kick his first goal. Sadly for him he misses out on being eligible for the Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie of the Year by one week (played in R17 last season).
As for Scullgove I can sense a future of being abused for not slotting them into the votes, but I just couldn't manage it. They were both super impressive but didn't use it well enough for mine to slip into the votes. It was a toss up for one between JR and JT and in the end my sick fascination with defenders won out. Suffice to say they will both be racking up votes by the MILLION in years/weeks to come.
Crowd Watch
There's two things I hate about Hawthorn. One is their fans who don't put a number on the jumper despite the fact that the farking things are MADE FOR IT. There's a big white square there, DO SOMETHING WITH IT. The next is putting the years of membership on the scarf - would make me even more unlikely to wear it if we did that. Now you can add another, on the back of their members hat it says "2010 LOYAL MEMBER". What the hell does that mean? Sure if we did one then half of the members would have be sent one that read 2010 Queen's Birthday Bandwagon Arsehole, but that's not the point. Shambles of a statement to put on a hat.
Speaking of merchandise there was a wild rumor, presented as fact, on the radio at half time that there were bins in the 'G full of our 2010 membership scarves. I can't believe it, especially given that surely nobody went to the effort of actually going to collect the scarf and expected that we would be any good. Still, I love a good conspiracy theory.
AM/FM Watch
Started listening to Triple M, but about five minutes in I realised why I could never take 3AW. Rex Hunt called the first five minutes like it was the last five minutes of a Grand Final. It was pretty painful. Surely the first few minutes of a call are a slow build and unless something truly interesting happens you keep a lid on it. Old Mr "The Girl's Happy" just went off like a porkchop from the first bounce and had absolutely zero chemistry with the rest of the team who conspicuously couldn't help talking about Brian Taylor.
At quarter time I pulled the pin and went to 3AW, but the reception in the ground was atrocious. It was like listening to the BBC World Service from the bottom of a tin mine in the Congo, the one highlight being the bizarre effect it put on Matthew Richardson's voice which made him sound like a boy who has just had his voice break. Remember when they said changing to 693 would make it easier to get reception?
Eventually settled on SEN. Anything that means not having to listen to the ABC. Whatever, it did the job. Except that they were convinced Bennell was Davey. Should have washed their mouths out.
Next Week
Collingwood at the MCG. They should smash us but for the love of Philthy please let us have learnt some lessons from today. Any danger Sylvia might be ready to go?
On a panic scale ranging from Robbie Flower (least worried) to Isaac Weetra (positively terrified) I'm ranking somewhere around Craig Ellis.
Final Thoughts
The Melbourne fan standing in front of me on the train had a hospital tag around his wrist. Fairly apt I would have thought.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Demonblog's State of the Union...
(...and House of Appalling MS Paint work)
(... and the views contained within do not represent any sane individual much less the MFC)
(... and writing this has been such a painful experience that I can't be bothered proof reading it. Spelling mistakes and half complete sentences are very 2010)
My fellow footballing depressives, we stand just six days from the first game of our 110th season of VFL/AFL football. And where do we go from here? There have been worse times in our history since 1897 - missing three seasons during the First World War, suffering the premiership hangover from hell after 1964 or trading for Scott Chisholm but never in the modern era of AFL football have we ever been in this sort of position going into a season.
Last year Dean Bailey became the first Melbourne coach ever to be in charge of two wooden spoon sides. This year he is fighting to not only avoid extending his 'record' to three in a row, but to avoid joining a select (and depressingly bad) club of sides to have finished last on the ladder three years in a row. St Kilda did it for the first six seasons of VFL football, and backed up with another four in a row during the 1980's, University didn't win a game for their last three years amongst four straight spoons and North Melbourne bombed out in the 60's, finishing last in a row three times - but that was all in the era before the draft. You could excuse putrid football.
Sydney did it in the early 90's when they were at complete rock bottom on and off the field and commanded so little respect from other clubs they received players like Jayson Daniels as "compensation" for their performance. Back then the draft was so lightly regarded that the Swans didn't even pick until #5 after being last in 1992. Even then they picked Jason Spinks who played a grand total of... zero games. Fitzroy were on course for a hat-trick when they were given the arse to Brisbane, but the way they were going they were probably lucky just to have a team on the park long enough to get two spoons.
Yes, we may very well be the worst performed side of the modern era. The 2001 Fremantle Dockers who didn't win a game until Round 18 might have claims, but at least they won 8 and 9 games on either side of that year. Even the abysmal Carlton double spoon sides of the mid 2000's can blame being knocked out of the draft for all their woes. You and I know that having a club run by twats probably didn't help (and my god haven't we got past experience in the same thing) but who's going to care about that in a hundred years. And lest we forget that in that three win 2006 season they beat us twice. Good god how did we even last this long without toastering up?
And so that's the historical context into which we enter this season. A season we go into after spending all of 2009 being assured that things would start getting better this year. We went along - reluctantly in my case - with the 'management' of the side in the second half of last season. Looking back I can almost even laugh about the idea of Matthew Warnock (1 career goal) being thrown into the forward line against Richmond under some flimsy excuse about building a more flexible forward structure. The whole thing was grubby and sleazy but, as many people quite rightly pointed out, merely playing the AFL's rules for what they were. "If Carlton were allowed to do it, why shouldn't we?" people argued. Bleh. Whatever. We did it, we got away with it, let's move on.
But first let's chart how we got to where we are now in the first place. In 2006 we made the second week of the finals and were in the match against Fremantle until three-quarter time. We'd unleashed a slashing comeback to beat St Kilda a week before, and it seemed that it was only the interstate factor which stopped us from making a preliminary final against Sydney in Sydney, where we had an excellent recent record. Personally I'd back the 2004 side to smack the 2006 variety, but there is every possible chance we could have played in a Grand Final that year. Mightn't have been deserved, and we would probably have been rumbled by the Eagles in the big one but who's going to argue a Grand Final?
Not surprisingly we entered the 2007 season touted as Victoria's great hope to win back the flag after a lengthy period of interstate dominance. On paper we looked like contenders, but things were starting to become wonky. When the previously deadbeat Hawks ran over the top of us in the last quarter of our first Round NAB game not many eyebrows were raised, but in retrospect we should have seen that half of our last were on their last legs. '06 had been our last chance.
So while we were concentrating on emerging players like Jones and McLean, the likes of White/Bizzell/Neitz/Pickett/Brown etc.. etc.. were about to fall apart spectacuarly. We didn't win a game for the first nine weeks of the season, Daniher got the boot and only putrid Carlton and Richmond sides kept us off the bottom. Out went Daniher, and looking over the likes of Sheedy (thank christ) and Connolly we went for the untried but well credentialled Dean Bailey as coach. He then lost his first two games by an average of 99 points.
Now, I don't need to fill in Round 3 2008 to Round 22 2009 for you - especially because reading about it may cause you to throw yourself from an upstairs window. The positives are there but you have to scramble to find them - significantly the Stynes/Schwab administration seem to have gotten us back on track financially, and on-field we've unearthed a handful of exciting players (Grimes, Jurrah...) Other than that it's been misery, misery, misery and the promise of good things to come. Which is lovely in theory, but bloody hell none of us are getting any younger. Especially the kids we're relying on to jump aboard and be the supporters of the future. Can't see too many kiddies clambering to support as while we're scraping the bottom of the barrel and acting as laughing stock to half the country. If we're going to go for the "premierships by the draft" tactic (which is currently shooting at about 0% lifetime) can we get it right before all the 90-year-old fans die, aren't replaced and we're shipped off to play in Hong Kong?
ANYWAY, let's talk about season 2010 (at last). We were putrid against Freo, decidedly ordinary against Essendon, nearly beat Adelaide and competitive for a half against the Eagles. What does all this mean? Absolutely nothing come 2.10pm on Saturday. But what we've seen is that our skills and decision making are still generally rubbish. Certainly not good enough to, as much as some deluded people might want to believe, sneak into the finals. The only way we're making the eight the way we're playing at the moment is a Bradbury-esque entrance on the back of a Black Plague style injury toll in front of us. And that's not to say we're not getting better, but realistically who else is getting worse? Richmond? Well, being slightly better than them is hardly the recipe for September success.
My biggest cause for concern is where we're going to get goals from. Even before his injury the Jurrahcane was coming under massively increased pressure from opposition defenders. Brad Miller is Brad Miller, Robbo is gone, Jack Watts is about 13-years-old and Wonaeamirri has hamstrings that apparently snap like a rubber band. The King of Misery Maric should chip in for a few goals, but the way it's going Ricky Petterd and Matthew Bate are going to be our spearheads. I like them both but GOOD GOD that does not equal a free scoring side. And neither does this farcical situation we always seem to find ourselves in when the entire team pushes up the ground then when we force a turnover there's no forwards anywhere near the forward 50. I can't explain that, but then again I'm not a coach so what do I know? It would seem necessary to have people in goal scoring position to score goals, but apparently not.
I'm more bullish about the midfield than is perhaps healthy. Morton was threatening an excellent season before he got hurt, but provided that Sylvia is back early in the season I think we've got a lot of improvement to come here. Trengove and Scully will be handy contributors straight off the bat, and if Moloney can stay fit again he'll be super important. Bruce, McDonald and Green (if he doesn't go forward) should be handy as well but we've got to ensure that we're not wasting our opportunities by kicking into a forward line that is hopelessly overmatched. Getting there in the first place without turning it over while chipping it around would help, as would getting the handballs right and not spending 30 seconds using it by hand, getting nowhere and then giving it up to the opposition.
Obviously the one to watch in the middle this year is Grimes. The kid has superstar qualities, but I remember saying that about McLean a few years ago and he never really came on. This should be different. There's a reason you're still hearing bitter recriminations about Woewodin but nobody seems to care about trading TJ.
I'm ultra-concerned about the ruck department. Last year Jamar became the first person ever to play seven games in his seventh season that were better than anything in the first six. Problem was that he was injured the rest of the time. Johnson is next in line, but who knows which skitz version of him you're going to get? "Jaws" Gawn is off the table due to injury, Meesen has gone back to not existing, Spencer is uninspiring and The Stefan Martin Experience a fill-in. Winning the ruck contests is not the be all and end all if the midfield aren't going to get the ball anyway, but we need some serious luck in this department if we're going to improve significantly - especially against the best teams in the league.
The backline is serviceable. Hopefully Garland is right to go (unless he's used as a wildcard forward option), and Rivers stays fit again. Frawley should improve markedly again, MacDonald will provide run and I'm fairly confident in the ability of Warnock to hold firm in the face of repeated entries inside 50. These guys are crucial because if we're not going to be a high scoring side - and at the moment nothing points towards us being anything like one - we're going to need to defend grimly to avoid being thrashed by some of the big hitters. These guys have done a mighty job over the last couple of years, now it's time to get some help from the middle.
But for all the improvement I still don't think we're going to be that much better overall. I just have this horrible feeling that we're going to overuse the ball and get murdered when we finally do manage to get inside 50. For mine the end of season ladder looks something like this (brace for impact);
1 - Geelong
2 - Footscray
3 - St Kilda
4 - Collingwood
5 - Adelaide
6 - Brisbane
7 - Hawthorn
8 - Sydney
9 - West Coast
10 - Essendon
11 - Carlton
12 - Port Adelaide
13 - North Melbourne
14 - Fremantle
15 - Richmond
16 - Oh fuck it
You have no idea how much I want that to be wrong. I can't manage to see us above 12th even in my wildest, sick footballing fantasies but there's no doubt to me that we could roll most of those sides immediately above us if we're lucky (how could we be any unluckier?). Then there's the wildcard unexpected team plunging down the ladder (see 2007). Here's to Carlton filling that spot. The problem is that I can see Port and Freo surviving on their home ground advantage, North's young players being more damaging than ours with a year or two under their belt and Richmond.. Christ, I don't know why I think they'll finish higher than we will. Maybe it's just an attempt to find some positive out of finishing 15th above them? Please hold your abusive emails and abduction of my pets until the end of the year.
Now, what happens if we do finish last? What if we turn for round 12 with a record of 1-11, 2-10 or 3-9? Are we going to have to go through the same bullshit as last year? You would have thought this would have been a perfect time for the AFL to pull - or at least refine - their priority pick rules. More than one team has had it and we couldn't possibly sit down and argue with them that we should be eligible for it again this year, especially when the draft has been otherwise rigged to buggery to give Gold Coast every opportunity to build a winning side straight off the bat. But for some inexplicable reason they haven't made any changes. It's such a stupid idea that I almost can't believe it myself. Tellingly I can't find the article to link to - maybe I imagined it all? From what I can work out Gold Coast get the first three picks no matter what, and if we are THAT bad we'd get P4 and P6 for finishing last.
At the risk of being controversial I don't want us to get an extra pick if we finish last this season, even if we win 0 games we don't deserve one. We've got two #1 picks and a 2, 3 and 4 on our list now (albeit two of them starting the year injured) and we've got to live or die on our picks. Enough of this scraping the bottom of the barrel charity bullshit. Call me when Carlton or St Kilda win something with the picks they got for being completely rubbish. We should be ashamed to be so terrible, not punting it home like masochistic freaks. Once was enough, never again. Especially not for pick fucking four.
And now, the updated markets for our awards.
Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year
Previous Winners
2005 - Travis Johnstone
2006 - Brock McLean
2007 - Nathan Jones
2008 - Cameron Bruce
2009 - Aaron Davey
$3.50 - Davey
$4 - Moloney, Green
$5 - Jones
$8 - Sylvia
$15 - Bate, Frawley, Grimes
$20 - Petterd, McDonald, Rivers, Trengove
$25 - Jamar, Miller, Scully, Warnock
$35 - Bennell, Martin, Morton
$50 - Cheney, Jetta, MacDonald, Wonaeamirri
$65 - Garland
$80 - Maric, Jurrah
$85 - Watts, Bartram, Dunn, McNamara, Strauss
$125 - Gysberts, Blease, Johnson, McKenzie
$250 - Bail, Newton, Spencer
$500 - Bell, Fitzpatrick, Gawn
$1001 - Tapscott, Healey, Hughes, Meesen
Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year
Previous Winners (Most votes for a defender in the overall tally. Must play the vast majority of games in the backline to qualify.)
2005 - Nathan Caroll/Ryan Ferguson
2006 - Jared Rivers
2007 - Paul Wheatley
2008 - Matthew Whelan
2009 - James Frawley
$3.50 - Frawley
$5 - Rivers
$13 - MacDonald, Warnock
$16 - Bennell, Cheney
$30 - MacNamara, Bail
$50 - Dunn, Petterd, Martin (all unlikely to qualify)
$15 - Any other player
Jeff Hilton Medal for Rookie Of The Year
Previous Winners (Highest player in the overall tally to play their first game that season OR to have played only in the last three rounds of the preceding season.)
2005 - No players eligible
2006 - Matthew Bate
2007 - Ricky Petterd/Michael Newton
2008 - Cale Morton
2009 - Jack Grimes
$3.50 - Jack Trengove
$5 - Tom Scully
$12 - James Strauss
$18 - Sam Blease, Jordan Gysberts, Rohan Bail, Tom McNamara
$25 - Jack Fitzpatrick
$50 - Danny Hughes, Rhys Healey
$100 - Luke Tapscott, Max Gawn
Strawbs O'Dwyer Medal for Ruckman Of The Year
Previous Winners
2005 - Jeff White
2006 - Jeff White (2)
2007 - Jeff White (3)
2008 - Paul Johnson
2009 - Mark Jamar
$1.50 - Mark Jamar
$7 - Paul Johnson
$7 - Jake Spencer, Stefan Martin (who may not qualify)
$50 - John Meesen, Max Gawn
$30 - Any other player
Top Goalkicker
$7 - Petterd
$9 - Miller
$12 - Bate
$17 - Davey, Green, Jurrah
$25 - Sylvia, Bruce, Maric
$30 - Martin, Moloney, Watts
$40 - Wonaeamirri, Jamar
$65 - Johnson, Newton
$100 - Hughes
$25 - Any other player
The fanfooty.com.au Tombstone Award for First Long Term InjuryWinner: $2 - Any played not listed (Morton)
My advice for Season 2009? Dial zero, zero, and when I say so dial zero again.
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Another day, another debacle
In a grand twist of fate the DemonsHQ Twitter feed listed five best players for today's match. I missed it due to work and it sounds like that was a wise decision - unfortunately the same thing isn't going to work over the next six months, because it's going to be a LONG half a year.
So, thanks to the club the votes and final Plate positions are as follows;
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance votes
5 - Cameron Bruce
4 - James McDonald
3 - Nathan Jones
2 - Brad Green
1 - Brent Moloney
Final Leaderboard
10 - Green
8 - Petterd, Jones
6 - Trengove, McDonald
5 - MacDonald, Bruce, Grimes, Scully
4 - Jurrah, Rivers
3 - Sylvia
2 - Frawley, Bennell, Maric
1 - Moloney
Do we play another practice match next week? Who knows. Whenever we've played the last one if I haven't killed myself look ouy for the Demonblog STATE OF THE UNION address.
So, thanks to the club the votes and final Plate positions are as follows;
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance votes
5 - Cameron Bruce
4 - James McDonald
3 - Nathan Jones
2 - Brad Green
1 - Brent Moloney
Final Leaderboard
10 - Green
8 - Petterd, Jones
6 - Trengove, McDonald
5 - MacDonald, Bruce, Grimes, Scully
4 - Jurrah, Rivers
3 - Sylvia
2 - Frawley, Bennell, Maric
1 - Moloney
Do we play another practice match next week? Who knows. Whenever we've played the last one if I haven't killed myself look ouy for the Demonblog STATE OF THE UNION address.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Paul Prymke Plate updates
Given that our own website doesn't bother to put up a report of yesterday's game I've been forced to copy the votes from a Fox Sports article. Buggered if I know if these even moderately resemble what happened because I didn't follow the game. Direct your complaints to Fox Sports.
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Tom Scully
4 - Ricky Petterd
3 - Jack Trengove
2 - Addam Maric
1 - James McDonald
Leaderboard
8 - Petterd, Green
6 - Trengove
5 - MacDonald, Grimes, Jones, Scully
4 - Jurrah, Rivers
3 - Sylvia
2 - Frawley, Bennell, Maric, McDonald
I won't be at Casey for the Eagles game next Saturday because I'm a money hungry whore who agreed to work instead. I refuse to work on the weekends during the home and away season (and by extension in the last few years, September) so unfortunately the NAB Challenge comes second to cold, hard, rock solid CASH. Please let me know if you want to write the report - otherwise we'll end up in a farcical situation like this where the votes of some bullshit wire reporter go down in history as the gospel truth. Email - demonblogger@gmail.com or Twitter me (Twat me?) @demonblog.
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Tom Scully
4 - Ricky Petterd
3 - Jack Trengove
2 - Addam Maric
1 - James McDonald
Leaderboard
8 - Petterd, Green
6 - Trengove
5 - MacDonald, Grimes, Jones, Scully
4 - Jurrah, Rivers
3 - Sylvia
2 - Frawley, Bennell, Maric, McDonald
I won't be at Casey for the Eagles game next Saturday because I'm a money hungry whore who agreed to work instead. I refuse to work on the weekends during the home and away season (and by extension in the last few years, September) so unfortunately the NAB Challenge comes second to cold, hard, rock solid CASH. Please let me know if you want to write the report - otherwise we'll end up in a farcical situation like this where the votes of some bullshit wire reporter go down in history as the gospel truth. Email - demonblogger@gmail.com or Twitter me (Twat me?) @demonblog.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
It could be worse..
... you could be a Richmond fan aged 30 or under.
I can see the reason why an overwhelming majority of fans don't bother with practice matches. They're shit. Even the last one I saw us win in person, against the Tiges in 2006 (?), was only memorable because it was 30+ degrees, sunny and I got a corker of a tan - other than that they're completely disposable and you forget what happened ten minutes after you walk out the door. Halfway through the game today a Melbourne fan called me and asked where I was - it would be nice to be like that.
Starting with Green, Davey, McDonald, Bate and Bruce missing from our best starting lineup you couldn't expect too much - but when was the last time you ever had high expectations? Round 1, 2007? Those were the days. Now, we're overjoyed to win a quarter. What did people do in the days before the draft when they couldn't even pin their hopes on rebuilding through the draft? If I'd been around in 1979, with no internet to let my frustrations out on, it would have ended in murder.
With the Bombers fielding what seemed (for somebody who couldn't care less about opposition teams) like a pretty experienced squad we were - against all odds - surprisingly dominant in the opening few minutes. The problem was that, as has been the case so much in the last few years, we were let down by our forwards. Again Jurrah was being well beaten in the air, this time by Fletcher, and even when we did end up with a gettable kick on goal we'd miss. It was painful. Of course the moment Essendon got themselves together they went down the other end and started snapping goals out of their arse left, right and centre - that's just the way we roll.
The Stefan Martin Experience started in the forward line, and my god if I didn't have his number on my jumper I'd be melting the internet down with threads about how he should never be allowed down there again. He was creditable in the ruck but around the ground botched pretty much everything he went near. The one time it nearly worked was in the first when he threw a snap onto the boot from 30m out and it almost went in despite flying so high that it almost took out a passing helicopter. What there was of a house would have been brought down if it had gone in, but that was pretty much as good as it got for SME fans today.
We finally got our first goal late in the first quarter, which is pretty much par for the course these days. At least, unlike last week, we got one. It was a nice one too, Petterd kept a ball from rolling through for another wasted point and knocked it back to Maric in the forward pocket. The World's Most Depressed Man snapped one around the corner to Jones about 45m out. It was scrappy, but at least Ricky showed some desperation in trying to create something - most would have just gone for the point. Jones' kick was lucky to go through after it swung in on the breeze 3cm before crashing into the left hand goalpost. Grimes got the second not long after and it looked like the comeback was well and truly on - shame about the 6 to 25 minute mark of the quarter when we were abysmal.
Moloney kicked what would have been a 9pt goal under NAB Cup bullshit rules after taking a handball from The Jurrahcane, but that was pretty much the end of both of them for the half. As an aside would you agree that the only positive contribution that bullshit Cougartown show has made to society is ensuring that LJ is never called The Cougar again?
As the rain came, which was a surprise to those of us who had dressed for the forecast 33 degrees, Essendon got back on top again. SCULLGOVE were both looking promising, and Gysberts did a couple of nice things but we couldn't get any sort of momentum. You always knew that Essendon were going to hit back. Didn't help that Maric and Martin missed two sitters. The Maric one I could understand because it was off the ground in shit conditions and the ball could have been bobbing up anywhere, but the SME's one was terrible. He got the ball kicked to him all on his own 20m out, turned out to play on and missed it. Right then I would have been ashamed to have been seen in my #34 jumper, but to be fair I did buy it purely on his defensive contribution and have been stooged ever since.
By half-time we were fairly well stuffed. It was the same old story as every other week for the last few years. The backline did what it could but cracked under continuous pressure, the midfield showed a little bit of flair but cocked it up eventually every time, and the forward line didn't exist. How many times do we steal the ball on the counter and have nobody inside 50 to deliver it to? Cue somebody having to step around like an idiot waiting for an option to appear. Then it ends in anything but a six pointer. And how frustrating is watching us fire off four consecutive well-delivered, smart possessions only to see the last one - the one that could push us into attack or deliver us from the backline - stuffed up. Lightning fast handballs are great, but not when they're fired at somebody's feet.
Newton moved into the forward line for the third quarter and was about as useful as you'd expect. Fitzpatrick too didn't go near it despite spending plenty of the game up forward, he'll benefit from playing in the VFL but I can see why they're persisting with him - if we don't get something up forward soon we're just going to get blown away every week. Won't you join me in killing some chickens in voodoo style to try and get Jack Watts fit and firing? Today reminded me of how good Watts was against Essendon last year, dying to see him this year - hopefully in a game where we're competitive unlike two of the three he played in '09.
The story of the third quarter was Grimes with a side order of Petterd. Jack dominated the centre and looked sensational, with Ricky kicking two goals and providing a handy target up forward. When RP got his third goal 35 seconds into the last term we were back within fifteen points and the comeback was on. Then, as soon as it was on it was off and Essendon ran away with it comfortably. Get stuffed.
SCULLGOVE both had decent days at the office. Tom"Rush" Scully got a bit of it, and though he didn't hit the target much you can tell he's a superstar in the making. Trengove was pretty good as well, and though neither of them would get near the starting lineup of a top 4 team at the moment I'm assuming that both will play Round 1. And why not? They don't look fragile so they'd may as well get started now and hopefully play finals in 2020. There was a lovely piece of LEGEND OF SCULLGOVE interplay between them during junk time of the last quarter. Got me about as excited as I can get during a certain loss in a pre-season game.
Tell you who we reminded me of today, and don't throw your keyboard through the window when I write this, late period Fitzroy. Look at their best 22 in 1996 and project forward three years - would have been a corker of a side but at the time they were a mix of too young, too old, good ordinary players and people who just weren't going to make it. What they lacked is some kind of superstar to build the side around, and that's our problem at the moment. Luckily we've got more time then they did to get it right - and are travelling in a vastly opposite direction financially - but it's not going to be pretty in the meantime. I know we've tried to sign every decent out of contract player going in the last couple of years and been rejected, but we've got to get some good mid/late 20's players in the next couple of years.
Koaching Korner
I'll bet that after today the "Dean Bailey extension - why?" threads will be going bananas. People probably have a point in questioning it, but for once I'm going to put my faith in the club and hope this works. What it means is that he can coach towards a goal this year rather than trying to look good and keep his job. No matter what happens in the end as long as it doesn't end up with Garry Lyon being parachuted into the job from nowhere then I'll deal with it. Either Bailey gets it right or somebody else (and if we MUST have a former player ffs call Todd Viney) gets handed a list featuring the likes of SCULLGOVE with two years under their belt.
One thing that is concerning me is the seemingly glacial pace of improvement by players who have been around for years. I love watching Morton play but in a shit side his game isn't damaging enough. If you swapped him with Joel Selwood he'd probably be running around winning a Brownlow but it's just not doing it for me. Are we destined to have a club half made up of silky users of the ball who can't get it out of packs and half of rough nuts who can't hit a target from 20m.
*UPDATE* Looks like the injury Morton suffered late in the game could be serious. That's shit. He's had a great run with injury in his first two years, would be a shame for him to miss a lot of this one.
Whatever. I'm almost over this season already. Some other shit probably happened. If you were there you'd remember it, if you weren't just don't believe the ludicrous Age report which suggests that Bate was one of our best players. Idiots.
Positives
* I got a corker of a park despite showing up five minutes before the first bounce.
* Not having to pay to get in due to having a membership.
* Grime Time
* Ricky Petterd continually surprising me as a forward.
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Jack Grimes
4 - Ricky Petterd
3 - Colin Sylvia
2 - Jared Rivers
1 - James Frawley
The bottom two pretty much slide in by default. Apologies to anybody who paid at the gate to watch that shit, and to any Essendon fans who think that victory means they're a decent team.
Leaderboard
8 - Green
5 - MacDonald, Grimes, Jones
4 - Jurrah, Petterd, Rivers
3 - Trengove, Sylvia
2 - Frawley, Bennell
1 - McDonald
Next Week
No idea. If it's interstate or Saturday during the day I won't be there. Prepare to be called up as a guest reporter. What I would like to see is us play one of the better teams in the competition - we've been tonked by a couple of also rans so I'm not sure what slopping around with bottom of the table
Final Thoughts
It's going to be a long year, but at some point during the season we're going to have a moment that you'll look back on in five years and say THAT was the turning point. Whether that's in round 2 or round 22 may very well be the difference between me ending up in a mental institution or not.
I can see the reason why an overwhelming majority of fans don't bother with practice matches. They're shit. Even the last one I saw us win in person, against the Tiges in 2006 (?), was only memorable because it was 30+ degrees, sunny and I got a corker of a tan - other than that they're completely disposable and you forget what happened ten minutes after you walk out the door. Halfway through the game today a Melbourne fan called me and asked where I was - it would be nice to be like that.
Starting with Green, Davey, McDonald, Bate and Bruce missing from our best starting lineup you couldn't expect too much - but when was the last time you ever had high expectations? Round 1, 2007? Those were the days. Now, we're overjoyed to win a quarter. What did people do in the days before the draft when they couldn't even pin their hopes on rebuilding through the draft? If I'd been around in 1979, with no internet to let my frustrations out on, it would have ended in murder.
With the Bombers fielding what seemed (for somebody who couldn't care less about opposition teams) like a pretty experienced squad we were - against all odds - surprisingly dominant in the opening few minutes. The problem was that, as has been the case so much in the last few years, we were let down by our forwards. Again Jurrah was being well beaten in the air, this time by Fletcher, and even when we did end up with a gettable kick on goal we'd miss. It was painful. Of course the moment Essendon got themselves together they went down the other end and started snapping goals out of their arse left, right and centre - that's just the way we roll.
The Stefan Martin Experience started in the forward line, and my god if I didn't have his number on my jumper I'd be melting the internet down with threads about how he should never be allowed down there again. He was creditable in the ruck but around the ground botched pretty much everything he went near. The one time it nearly worked was in the first when he threw a snap onto the boot from 30m out and it almost went in despite flying so high that it almost took out a passing helicopter. What there was of a house would have been brought down if it had gone in, but that was pretty much as good as it got for SME fans today.
We finally got our first goal late in the first quarter, which is pretty much par for the course these days. At least, unlike last week, we got one. It was a nice one too, Petterd kept a ball from rolling through for another wasted point and knocked it back to Maric in the forward pocket. The World's Most Depressed Man snapped one around the corner to Jones about 45m out. It was scrappy, but at least Ricky showed some desperation in trying to create something - most would have just gone for the point. Jones' kick was lucky to go through after it swung in on the breeze 3cm before crashing into the left hand goalpost. Grimes got the second not long after and it looked like the comeback was well and truly on - shame about the 6 to 25 minute mark of the quarter when we were abysmal.
Moloney kicked what would have been a 9pt goal under NAB Cup bullshit rules after taking a handball from The Jurrahcane, but that was pretty much the end of both of them for the half. As an aside would you agree that the only positive contribution that bullshit Cougartown show has made to society is ensuring that LJ is never called The Cougar again?
As the rain came, which was a surprise to those of us who had dressed for the forecast 33 degrees, Essendon got back on top again. SCULLGOVE were both looking promising, and Gysberts did a couple of nice things but we couldn't get any sort of momentum. You always knew that Essendon were going to hit back. Didn't help that Maric and Martin missed two sitters. The Maric one I could understand because it was off the ground in shit conditions and the ball could have been bobbing up anywhere, but the SME's one was terrible. He got the ball kicked to him all on his own 20m out, turned out to play on and missed it. Right then I would have been ashamed to have been seen in my #34 jumper, but to be fair I did buy it purely on his defensive contribution and have been stooged ever since.
By half-time we were fairly well stuffed. It was the same old story as every other week for the last few years. The backline did what it could but cracked under continuous pressure, the midfield showed a little bit of flair but cocked it up eventually every time, and the forward line didn't exist. How many times do we steal the ball on the counter and have nobody inside 50 to deliver it to? Cue somebody having to step around like an idiot waiting for an option to appear. Then it ends in anything but a six pointer. And how frustrating is watching us fire off four consecutive well-delivered, smart possessions only to see the last one - the one that could push us into attack or deliver us from the backline - stuffed up. Lightning fast handballs are great, but not when they're fired at somebody's feet.
Newton moved into the forward line for the third quarter and was about as useful as you'd expect. Fitzpatrick too didn't go near it despite spending plenty of the game up forward, he'll benefit from playing in the VFL but I can see why they're persisting with him - if we don't get something up forward soon we're just going to get blown away every week. Won't you join me in killing some chickens in voodoo style to try and get Jack Watts fit and firing? Today reminded me of how good Watts was against Essendon last year, dying to see him this year - hopefully in a game where we're competitive unlike two of the three he played in '09.
The story of the third quarter was Grimes with a side order of Petterd. Jack dominated the centre and looked sensational, with Ricky kicking two goals and providing a handy target up forward. When RP got his third goal 35 seconds into the last term we were back within fifteen points and the comeback was on. Then, as soon as it was on it was off and Essendon ran away with it comfortably. Get stuffed.
SCULLGOVE both had decent days at the office. Tom"Rush" Scully got a bit of it, and though he didn't hit the target much you can tell he's a superstar in the making. Trengove was pretty good as well, and though neither of them would get near the starting lineup of a top 4 team at the moment I'm assuming that both will play Round 1. And why not? They don't look fragile so they'd may as well get started now and hopefully play finals in 2020. There was a lovely piece of LEGEND OF SCULLGOVE interplay between them during junk time of the last quarter. Got me about as excited as I can get during a certain loss in a pre-season game.
Tell you who we reminded me of today, and don't throw your keyboard through the window when I write this, late period Fitzroy. Look at their best 22 in 1996 and project forward three years - would have been a corker of a side but at the time they were a mix of too young, too old, good ordinary players and people who just weren't going to make it. What they lacked is some kind of superstar to build the side around, and that's our problem at the moment. Luckily we've got more time then they did to get it right - and are travelling in a vastly opposite direction financially - but it's not going to be pretty in the meantime. I know we've tried to sign every decent out of contract player going in the last couple of years and been rejected, but we've got to get some good mid/late 20's players in the next couple of years.
Koaching Korner
I'll bet that after today the "Dean Bailey extension - why?" threads will be going bananas. People probably have a point in questioning it, but for once I'm going to put my faith in the club and hope this works. What it means is that he can coach towards a goal this year rather than trying to look good and keep his job. No matter what happens in the end as long as it doesn't end up with Garry Lyon being parachuted into the job from nowhere then I'll deal with it. Either Bailey gets it right or somebody else (and if we MUST have a former player ffs call Todd Viney) gets handed a list featuring the likes of SCULLGOVE with two years under their belt.
One thing that is concerning me is the seemingly glacial pace of improvement by players who have been around for years. I love watching Morton play but in a shit side his game isn't damaging enough. If you swapped him with Joel Selwood he'd probably be running around winning a Brownlow but it's just not doing it for me. Are we destined to have a club half made up of silky users of the ball who can't get it out of packs and half of rough nuts who can't hit a target from 20m.
*UPDATE* Looks like the injury Morton suffered late in the game could be serious. That's shit. He's had a great run with injury in his first two years, would be a shame for him to miss a lot of this one.
Whatever. I'm almost over this season already. Some other shit probably happened. If you were there you'd remember it, if you weren't just don't believe the ludicrous Age report which suggests that Bate was one of our best players. Idiots.
Positives
* I got a corker of a park despite showing up five minutes before the first bounce.
* Not having to pay to get in due to having a membership.
* Grime Time
* Ricky Petterd continually surprising me as a forward.
Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
5 - Jack Grimes
4 - Ricky Petterd
3 - Colin Sylvia
2 - Jared Rivers
1 - James Frawley
The bottom two pretty much slide in by default. Apologies to anybody who paid at the gate to watch that shit, and to any Essendon fans who think that victory means they're a decent team.
Leaderboard
8 - Green
5 - MacDonald, Grimes, Jones
4 - Jurrah, Petterd, Rivers
3 - Trengove, Sylvia
2 - Frawley, Bennell
1 - McDonald
Next Week
No idea. If it's interstate or Saturday during the day I won't be there. Prepare to be called up as a guest reporter. What I would like to see is us play one of the better teams in the competition - we've been tonked by a couple of also rans so I'm not sure what slopping around with bottom of the table
Final Thoughts
It's going to be a long year, but at some point during the season we're going to have a moment that you'll look back on in five years and say THAT was the turning point. Whether that's in round 2 or round 22 may very well be the difference between me ending up in a mental institution or not.
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