Round 17, 2005

 

 

It was the week of the wooden spoon Grand Final, where the Dawks and the Blues went head-to-head for football’s greatest indignity. Despite cocky predictions of a Hawk spoon on footballinvective.com for the past 12 months, Carlton narrowly emerged victorious in the battle for the mahogany ladle. Hawthorn has now made it back-to-back wooden spoon Grand Finals but its record is starting to look like that of Geelong in real Grand Finals. For the second year in a row Hawthorn has somehow managed to cheat justice and escape a fate it so richly deserved. Just like Ronald Biggs living it up in Rio and thumbing his nose at the justice system that he successfully eluded, Hawthorn once again sit 15th on the ladder, secure in the knowledge that they too have gotten away with it. Whilst it would have taken a retrospective extradition treaty with Brazil to bring Ronnie to justice, it will take much more to ensure justice is done to Hawthorn in 2005, namely Carlton winning another two games for the season. This now seems as likely as Shane Warne standing as a candidate for the Family First party.

 

As much as Hawthorn escaping the spoon is a blow to any right thinking person's sense of right and wrong, we should remember that the glass is, after all, still half full. Hawthorn's repeated failure to completely fail at least provides the football world with the joy of watching Carlton once again bend over to cop another humiliating seeing-to from the mahogany ladle.

 

Three years ago Collo and Pagan inherited a club at its lowest ebb - bankrupt from paying a million dollars in fines, disgraced for having rorted the salary cap, with a list full of has-beens and never-will-bes, and having just taken delivery of its first-ever wooden spoon. Now, the results of their three-year plan of regeneration, revitalisation and new blood are starting to bear fruit. After three years of toil, sweat and effort they have achieved for the club …. another wooden spoon.

 

Football fans can rejoice that after spending most of their lives being subjected to Carlton arrogance, condescension and financial spivery (first through chequebook recruiting and then salary cap rorting), they can now take delight in seeing a dishelleved, divided and dispirited rabble in place of a once proud, nay monumentally arrogant, club. Before anyone dares to take pity on Carlton in 2005, they should remember a few pertinent points regarding Carlton's history, culture and ethos:

• Remember when George Harris gloated that "the only thing better than beating Collingwood by 5 points is beating them by one point" after the '79 Grand Final? 

• Remember how Carlton always used to snare the latest boom recruit or lucrative corporate sponsor, and show zero disregard for teams less fortunate than itself? 

• Remember when Carlton flashed the chequebook in SA and WA in 1986 and bought themselves the 1987 premiership? 

• Remember when John Elliott used to encourage six other Victorian teams to merge themselves out of existence? 

• Remember when Carlton attempted a hostile take-over of North Melbourne when it listed on the ASX?

• Remember when Carlton's greed and contractual intransigence forced all the other Victorian teams to play home games at Optus Oval in the 1990s? 

• Remember how Malcolm Fraser jumped on the bandwagon at the '79, '81 and '82 Grand Finals and ended up in the post-match celebrations on the ground? 

• Remember Elliott's gloating after the '95 Grand Final that it was "the greatest team of all-time"? 

• Remember all those impressionable smart-arse kids that you went to primary school with in the 1980s who jumped on the Carlton bandwagon and thought they were oh-so-superior? 

• Remember the permanently fixed smirks and general air of arrogance attached to all Carlton supporters at the footy from time immemorial up until about 2001?

Well it's all worth it now, given that we now have the pleasure of seeing Carlton reduced to mediocrity. It was all worth it.

 

John Elliott used to say that "we don't rebuild at Carlton". Such a comment is as ridiculous as Rudy Giuliani saying "we don't rebuild at Ground Zero", but whether it's Princes Park or lower Manhattan, the alternative to a comprehensive re-building program is to settle for a giant hole in the ground.

 

Footballinvective.com was indeed fortunate when an articulate Power fan who could communicate in words of more than two syllables came forward and offered his services as a regular columnist. The latest missive in his Teal Coloured Glasses series is sure to provoke further controversy within the Festival State:

 

It was a case of déjà vu for the Power at AAMI Stadium on Saturday night when for the second time against Richmond this year the reigning champs (I’m going to keep using that term for the short time I have left!) jumped out to a seemingly unassailable lead by the half-way point of the second quarter and then for the second time proceeded to throw it away in an inexplicable - but all too familiar - display of mental fragility.

 

So dominating was Port during the game’s first 45 minutes that far from worrying about the result, this writer was more interested in seeing how long it would take for Tiger fans to start tearing up memberships and make their way to the players’ race to give the players and coach a send off, Richmond-style. The Power mid-field engine was running like an Alonso Renault and there seemed to be a genuine taste for the contest in every player, spawned no doubt from poor performances both at Cat Park last week and in the two sides’ previous match-up back in May.

 

Just as in that match though, things changed quickly and before Power fans could finish sending the first boastful text messages to Tiger fans across the border, Richmond had come all the way back and Port seemed once again destined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With about ten minutes to go in the second quarter the rain arrived, washing away Port’s momentum and confidence – symbolized by Warren Tredrea - the best Centre Half Forward in the competition (Nick Riewoldt? You’re having a laugh!) -flooding back to the assist the overworked backline.

 

There is hardly a player in the league who can stop an in-form Wazza, yet all it takes for an opposing side to get him to voluntarily vacate the forward line is kick consecutive goals. Personally, I am convinced that this is another plot hatched by the evil maestro from Crowland, forward line coach Tony ‘Gollum’ McGuiness. The man will stop at nothing to in his quest to cripple the Power machine from within and with 10 Power goals on the board with 10 minutes to go until half-time he had to pull a rabbit out of the hat if he was to achieve his objective of sabotaging Port’s finals chances. Moving a four time All-Australian CHF to a loose-man-in-defence was his Machiavellian solution. It certainly did the trick.

 

Things were looking grim indeed at three quarter time but a last quarter fade-out by the visitors kept Port’s Calista Flockhart-slim finals hopes alive, at least until next week. There is nothing surer in the world that the Kangaroos will snuff out that chance in Round 18, for two reasons. Firstly, Port hates playing the Roos, always has. Secondly, the game is at Manuka and we all know the Shinboners just do not lose in Canberra. The Harlem Globetrotters will lose three straight to the Generals before the Kangas go down at Fortress Manuka. As for the Tigers, like moths to a flame they seem fatally attracted to ninth position on the ladder. It’s quite comforting to know that no matter how inconsistent your own side can be, at least some things never change. Keep those honourable losses coming, Plow!

 

TigerWatch, Week 17: Whilst footballinvective.com has been wiping much egg from its battle-scarred face over previous predictions this year in relation to the Tigers, which ranged from everything from a Round 4 turn to premiership glory, this web site gives a rolled gold guarantee that it will be vindicated in relation to its more recent punditry envisioning a ninth-placed finish for the Tiges. Richmond did little to dispel such a view on the weekend. Nor did Terry ‘Wow I’m Plow’ Wallace do anything to dispel views previously expressed about him on this site. One of the authors innocently tuned in to 3AW on Sunday morning, not knowing the result of the Tigers-Port game the night before, to hear a most surreal interview with Plow, who was saying how good his team was to come back against the Power, and then had the gall to get stuck into the psychological fragility of certain Port players (he even 'named names'). Given Plow's gloating and condescension, it was naturally assumed that the Tiges had won. Only later was it revealed that they actually lost. Amazing. The only conclusion to draw is that it’s Plow’s world and we just live in it.

 

Down at the Dome on Saturday afternoon, Italian fashion houses and retailers of women’s accessories were put on notice that the Australia’s single biggest market for handbags is still undoubtedly Pivot City. In the clash of the gutsy over-achievers versus the fragile under-achievers, over-achievement (ie the Dogs) came out a clear winner. Never was there a more accurate assessment of Geelong’s enigmatic inconsistency than the phrase uttered some time in 2004 along the lines of “Geelong is only having a good season when they win they games they are expected to win”. Alas, 2005 is not such a year.

 

 

Hero of the Week: It was fitting that a week after footballinvective.com paid tribute to him, Allan “Yabbie” Jeans appeared in the Round 17 football “Record” with a lengthy dissertation of his pearls of wisdom. Jeans is a straight talker and a clear thinker with a rare gift for philosophical clarity. With his thoughtful words, calm wisdom and modest countenance he is truly the Dalai Lama of the AFL. Like Mr Lama, he is one of those rare people whose insights and sayings are so clear and wise that you wonder why they weren’t bleedingly obvious all along. The timeliest of his pearls of wisdom, given Geelong’s performance on the weekend, was his advice to “always treat your opponents with the same level of respect, regardless of where they are on the ladder.” Never was there a more glaring illustration of the truth of this proverb than Geelong’s handbag-propelled ‘effort’ against the Dogs. The Cats should pay attention to the wise words of a master like Yabbie, whose record speaks for itself. Unfortunately, so does Geelong’s.

 

Cult Figure of the Week: After a season of being derided by the boneheaded football media for anti-football of the Sydney Swamp, Paul Roos became a media darling this week simply because he managed to knock off the Eagles. A cult figure for the rest of the media world, but a different sort of cult figure for footballinvective.com. We give him this award not for his on-field achievement, noteworthy though it was, but for again demonstrating just how fickle and impressionable the football media are.

 

Clanger of the Week: After a year of sustained and unrelenting vilification from footballinvective.com for an act he committed almost 6 years ago, Leigh Colbert deservedly gets the nomination for Clanger of the Week for something he did less than 6 days ago. Last Sunday when the Roos-Crows game was in the balance and the Roos had the momentum with two minutes left and were less than two goals down, the ball fell to Colbert, unattended and uncontested in the "true centre half back position" at the back of the centre square. He had clean possession, was in the clear, and had the chance to launch a fresh Roo attack. This was what coaches call an "accountability moment", where a player must stand up and be counted and make the right decision in a clinch. An occasion where somebody feted as an "on field leader" such as Colbert should be able to act decisively, to rise to the occasion and in so doing set an example for the rest of the team. But what did he do? Held on to the ball. Looked to the right, looked to the left, then looked to the right again. He thought about it for a bit, then thought about it for a bit more. Then what did he do? Finally decided it was all too hard and handballed backwards to the General Leigh, in a less advantageous position and with two players bearing down on him. At least the General Leigh was able to pump the ball long down the guts, a straightforward task that was obviously beyond the capabilities of "on-field leader" Colbert. Not only did he handball the ball, he handballed his responsibilities and handballed the problem. Another fitting display of squibbing from a player who has forgotten more about this concept than most of us will ever know.