Pre-season Tips and Invective - Part II

 

 

After an Australian cricket summer during which eleven of Brett Lee’s soggy weet-bix could have defeated the insipid Pakistanis and the apathetic Windies (oh, what would we give for a return of Curtly, Viv, Javed Miandad and Imran “Hey Aussie girls, I’m single again” Khan) it is surely with great relief and certainly great enthusiasm that we welcome the 2005 football season.

 

Before getting down to business with predictions and prognostications for the season proper, it’s worth indulging in some further reflections from season 2004. At the conclusion of the 2004 grand final, certain truths became self-evident:

 

 

1. Silver teal: 

 

Before the birth of the Port Power in 1997, I was oblivious to its existence in the visible light spectrum. Suffice to say, just as the lame purple will forever deny the Fremantle Dockers any substantive football legitimacy, popular opinion at the time was that the new age Port jumper would be more at home on Commercial Road, Prahran than on any football ground, let alone the brutal fortress that is Alberton Oval. However, the 2004 season was indeed illuminated by the emergence of Port Adelaide, already omnipotent in the SANFL since the dawn of time, as a new force in AFL football, playing a style of football that was unashamedly South Australian. Spectators at last year's grand final (from a quality point of view, a gem of a match, despite Brisbane's lack of second half competitiveness) would have been astounded at the sheer will of Port midfielders to run forward of the ball with gay silver teal abandon at almost every opportunity, (Pickett, P. Burgoyne take a deserved bow) creating a wall of Power that eventually toppled over and crushed the lame, and most glaringly, unacceptably, arrogant Lions. 2002 and 2003 saw numerous dullard Victorian football 'experts' condemn the Power’s SA style as not being adaptive enough for finals football, (how quickly people forget the indomitable Jarman/McLeod double act of 1997/8) but one would suggest that Bomber Thompson, Grant Thomas and Lethal have undoubtedly learned the hard way.

 

 

2. Mark Williams: 

 

Was transformed in an instant from cock head to cult hero, with a series of impromptu high jinks which captivated a football world now accustomed to cliche and dispassionate professionalism. First, enthusiastically high-fiving his coaching staff with still minutes to spare on the clock; second, his priceless 'choker' jibe aimed directly at the bonehead media Nostradami and third, paying out Alan Scott in his victory speech, telling him basically where he can shove his Mack truck.

 

 

3. Brisbane: 

 

Fatally. as far as its quest for quadruple premiership glory was concerned, had become arrogant. The brave Cats (bar Rusty Nuts Ling, who is EASILY the most underrated player in the competition) simply lacked belief and some accurate Ben Graham punting in the prelim. Plugger Brown had, by season's end, become obsessed with doing Robbie Muir impersonations. Alistair Lynch's hamstrings were like a poorly tuned cello - ready to go 'ping' at the slightest stress. Moreover, his Bill Lawry flailings (you know, 'swing and a miss') at Wakelin clone Darryl were pathetic and humourous at the same time. Akermanis, whose occasional flamboyant outbursts, successful or otherwise, had led many to inquire about his mental state, did an EA Falcon and just completely blew a head gasket in the third quarter. Voss's knee (almost like Carey's shoulders) was ready to become a case study for a first-year pathology class. Pikey, the best ordinary player going round, looked in an acute need of an AA meeting, or was he just in florid alcohol withdrawal all September? And Lethal's bizarre comments before the prelim consigned Brisbane to football mortality long before a ball had been bounced in anger on Grand Final day.

 

However, every cloud has a silver lining, and the same can certainly be said of the wounded Lions. Firstly, Mal 'Thighblaster' Michael was easily best on ground by half time on the granny, and had a superb overall match at full back curtailing big Wazza and confirming his now undoubted status as the second-best full back in the country. And his post-match revelation of the rest of his team writing their Norm-Smith acceptance speeches before the game goes down as the gutsiest whistle-blowing performance since Michael Jackson’s “special friend” picked up the phone and dialed the LAPD. Second, Daniel Bradshaw, who has spent the last couple of seasons as a bit parts big man handy man type in order to improve his overall game (instead of just focusing on speccies and boundary line goals, learning to hold his own at CHB), displayed real maturity in the Prelim and Grand Finals, with over 10 marks in both games and seven goals, proving that there will be definitely life up forward after Chronic Fatigue.

 

 

4. Toby Thurstans: 

 

With three crucial Port Adelaide goals, became the 2005 winner of the Glenn Freeborn-Darren Flanigan-Tony Evans-Paul Barnard-Shane Ellen-Ted Hopkins Medal for best performance in a grand final by an otherwise ordinary player.

 

 

5. Josh Mahoney: 

 

Is he the WORST player ever to have played in a premiership side? Surely, this is a topic for heated debate, and certainly there will be huge conjecture both within and without the football world as to who is the crappest premiership player of all time. Certainly happy to hear the punters' views out there but here's a few more names just to tickle your fancies: David Calthorpe, (the last fat bastard in professional football) Shannon Motplop (no, that's not a spelling error, and which ever dud in the Melbourne football department thought he'd be a worthy recruit needs to go the same meeting [AA or otherwise] Pikey's been going to), Kevin Walsh (need I say more - that guy cops a beating), the entire Collingwood 1990 XVIII (how DID Sumich miss that bloody kick?), Greg Madigan (who?), Robert Scott (Sandy Roberts: “The reject is back!”) Dean Wallis (but THAT Fraser Brown tackle in the '99 prelim makes it all worthwhile), plus much more ...

 

 

6. Finally, and most importantly: 

 

Apropos to the comments made earlier about the thoroughly South Australian style employed by the silver teal, the 2004 Grand Final certainly made this football observer most nostalgic for the return in some way shape or form of State of Origin (SOO) football. The 1992 Vic-Croweater game at Football Park remains one of the greatest games I have had the privilege of witnessing, as the Big V were put to the sword by:

a)   a small, scruffy, tubby forward pocket (Adam Saliba) who would have looked more at home in the Salisbury seconds;

b)   a young man on the verge of world domination (Wayne Carey);

c)   two Jarmans (do they came any other way?); and 

d)  the freakiest Tony Hall goal in the dying seconds (miraculous banana kick running at full tilt on an 89 degree angle).

 

And the 1994 game saw The Great Man score a most outrageous goal whilst standing on his head on the boundary in a stellar performance, with a certain D. Calthorpe completely overachieving and winning an E.J. in another Big V losing side (Whitten medal that is).

 

Now, should the current AFL Commission have any imagination or balls, it would have the foresight to re-introduce state of origin. which remains the showpiece of the NRL (National Rapist League), and it should do so under the following strict conditions:

a)   one game between the Big V and SA every 4 years, to be held indefinitely at Footy Park (or Alberton Oval) in order to fully harness the mindless and moronic SA parochialism (and also according the SOO virtual Olympic or World Cup status amongst impressionable South Australians). This would work to engender greater interest in the event on the part of fans, coaches and players, and hopefully put an end to the perennial practice of star players pulling out of SOO at the last minute because they'd just had their period;

b)   no games to include WA (basically because they're soft) or the Allies (what was the AFL thinking?);

c)   Adam Saliba to be allowed the privilege to anoint one SA player in the named side (not necessarily from the AFL) who reminds him most of the way he used to play (not unlike Bradman's musings re. Tendulkar);

d)  2-4 hours pre-game in the Footy Park car park as the BBQs are being warmed up: numerous former SA, Port and Adelaide legends, luminaries, cult heroes and identities would be invited to circulate among the masses, enjoying piss, snags and a few anecdotes and laughs along the way, finally bringing the game back to the people who love it so much. Special guests surely would include the likes of the Scud, Scotty Hodges, Chris McDermott, Nigel Smart on the campaign trail (where’s that shopping centre again, Nigel?), the Weed, Sticks, Bicks, Dr Liptakle, Mods et al. Not to mention the famous valet parking, Moron Park style, whereby every car with Victorian plates gets carjacked, torched and dumped in the lake by a West End-fuelled lynch mob;

e)   pre-match entertainment from A. Jarman, with a slab of West End under his belt, blowing kisses at the crowd;

f)   half-time coaching clinic (with accompanying highlights reel) from D. Jarman. (Jamie Shanahan, the only player to have his entire career single-handedly ruined by one man in ten minutes, to be tied to a chair and forced to watch from the centre square);

g)   Malcolm Blight to be appointed SA Coach For Life;

h)    obligatory post-match SA-Big V punch on in the car park, followed by more “Kick a Vic” at the Ramsgate in the evening;

i)     SOO game to be referred to only as “The War” and marketed as such (thus continuing the tradition of 'Showdown' and further inflaming the volatile passions of impressionable South Australians) 

 

Some people could be mistaken for thinking that TV rights is all that is important in football right now. But any TV bidder who does not insist on terms such as the aforementioned cannot seriously claim have the interests of The Game at heart. 

 

Let The War Begin.

 

Moron Park: Home of The War