Round 18, 2004

 

 

It was allegedly the Heritage Round this week, and didn't the Crows and the Roos serve up a prehistoric artifact, straight from the same putrid stone-age bog in which the Piltdown Man was laid to rest all those eons ago. Based on last Friday's effort, both teams can consign themselves to the same heritage-listed dustbin of history for the rest of 2004.

 

Every week one team proves that stupidity is alive and well in football and this week it was Collingwood's turn. The Woods seem to think they are now Back in Town after two wins in a row, this time by beating .... (drum roll) .... Richmond, by .... (wait for it) ...... 5 points! Footballinvective.com was unfortunate enough to leave the MCG after the game behind three Pie fans discussing the team's prospects for the rest of the year. Their conversation went something like this:

Pie 1: "We could still make it, you know."

Pie 2: "Yeah, we can. We've got Port and Essendon in the next few weeks. We always play well against Port. And Essendon, well, there just sh*t now..."

(just as they were on the verge of getting carried away, Pie 3 bobs up to put them back in their box, with the following call...)

Pie 3: "Now, lets be realistic here. Yeah, Essendon might be sh*t, but we're still sh*tter"

 

Thank God for Pie 3, the only island of sanity in a sea of stupidity. Can it really be true that there are so many dumb Collingwood supporters out there? Or alternatively, as has been suggested, perhaps it was just a freak co-incidence that footballinvective.com just happened to cop the only two moronic Collingwood supporters in Melbourne. WE'll leave it to readers to conclude which of these two explanations is the more plausible.

 

The wise words of Pie 3, "Essendon might be sh*t, but we're still sh*tter", must have been ringing in the ears of Mark Williams, and possibly may have even passed his own lips, as the Silver Teal once again wilted under big game pressure against the Dons. All the other 7 finalists must be down on their knees praying that they are lucky enough to cop Port Adelaide in the first week of finals this year. On the basis of this week's 'effort' it looks like nothing has changed from their past two Septembers. The coach and the players got off too lightly after the '02 and '03 chokes. This time they'll need a bit more ruthlessness down at Alberton. This time Allan Scott shouldn't just let the matter through to the keeper. He'll need to show a big of that rugged truck-driver heritage of his, pull out a big tyre arm to whack the coach, back the big Mack over the match committee and toughen up the playing personnel by feeding them up on a healthy diet of T-bone steaks, eggs and chips. Then maybe, just maybe, Port might just be able to be considered a side with a bit of mongrel in them.

 

In Heritage Week, it was indeed fitting that the Cats and Saints put on a display of heritage football that reflected the glorious heritage of the pre-AFL era: two Victorian teams in the Match of the Day at an old fashioned suburban-style ground. Most importantly of all, in this age of flooded backlines and players not playing any to any fixed positions, wasn't it magnificent to see a big game whose feature attraction was two high-class key position forwards lining up against two high-class key position backmen. And once again, the Gehrig-Scarlett and Riewoldt-Harley battles went the way of the Cats. Harley shut down the Riewoldting haircut for 3 out of 4 quarters, whilst Scarlett had the G-Train gasping with exasperation at being constantly out-positioned and out-thought.

 

Footballinvective.com has great sympathy for long-suffering sentimental Cat fans, so it is truly heart-warming to see a Geelong side whose greatest strength is its backline, particularly after the Era of Ignominy of 89-92-94-95, when Geelong regularly blew sides away with the most prolific attack in history, yet its lack of backline soundness repeatedly cost it the ultimate prize. 

 

It really does beg the question - Just how many flags would Geelong have won in the 1990s if they'd had Scarlett at full-back during that time? If only Gunner Scarlett had mucked around more as a young man and sired his magnificent defensive progeny a decade earlier. If he had, then footballinvective.com is in no doubt that the Brisbane Lions would this year be seeking to equal the four-in-a-row premiership record that Geelong notched up in 1992-93-94-95. 

 

Just imagine just how unstoppable a team with a key position spine of Scarlett-Stoneham-Couch-Brownless-The Great Man would have been? Add to that the names G. Hocking, M. Bairstow and J Barnes on the ball, P. Riccardi and K. Hinkley on the wings and coaching by a certain M. Blight. Could there possibly have ever been a greater side in history? Perhaps the only down side of this hypothetical fantasy is that the 1994 Preliminary Final would not have ended up being the Match of the Decade, as Scarlett would have surely given Wayne Carey a bath, thus denying the Roos 6 goals. By the time the ball fell into the Hand of God in the last two seconds of the game, it would have been somewhat anti-climactic as The Great Man lined up after the siren to stretch the margin to a lazy 42 points.

 

Oh what could have been.