Round 19, 2006

In yet another example of the lesser football media only cottoning on to an idea after it has been aired on footballinvective.com, Round 19 was the round when lesser commentators finally wrote off Geelong for season 2006. Footballinvective.com wrote off the Cats in Round 8, having first seen the writing on the wall and all the tell-tale signs of Geelong softness after Round 3. Yet the lesser football media, having done no research more in-depth than recalling the last 3 seconds of the Cats 2005 season, kept kidding themselves that the Cats were still in the hunt, and not as gone as Tony Mokbel after a bail hearing. Unfortunately, too many football journalists (and desperate Geelong coaches) seemed pre-occupied with the concept of it being "mathematically possible" to make the finals, a highly misleading term if ever there was one. It is, of course, also "mathematically possible" for a Datsun 120Y to reach 200km/hr if it is traveling down an abnormally steep hill with a a gale force tail wind, but that does not mean such an outcome is either likely, or desirable. 

Robert Walls, in a piece fittingly entitled "Weak as Puss" in The Rage this week (an article that could easily have been written after Round 3) summed up Geelong perfectly:

GEELONG doesn't hurt enough. Nor do the Cats demand enough of themselves...

 

These Cats have been mollycoddled too long. You knew the game was shot late in the third quarter when Cat defender Josh Hunt failed the courage test...

 

I'm reluctant to comment on the coach because he is going through hell. But his after-match press conference was too accepting of the situation. Supporters need hope, need to see a direction, a plan...

Several Geelong clangers from the game are worthy of particular attention, namely:

• Josh Hunt - the little lairiser apologized to the team for his priceless act of squibbing under a routine contested mark in the third quarter (to add to his highlights reel of LWA moments in ’06). Now perhaps the entire coaching staff, club board and three-quarters of the playing list could do the honorable thing and follow his lead by apologizing to their supporters for the past 17 rounds of squibbing.

• In a game when the club felt its season was on the line, Bomber chose to start his most potent key forward this year, the Big Hairy Cat, in the backline. About as intelligent as Eisenhower starting D-Day with his best amphibious battalion still back at Southampton dock. Geelong and St Kilda have been evenly matched over the past three seasons, and the 6 games they have played have been split 3-all. Each time Geelong have beaten them they have done so through attacking tactics, not by trying to "save" the game by loading up the backline.

• Furthermore, at the start of the two most crucial quarters of the year for the Cats, the third and fourth, Bomber chose to start the club captain Stephen Queen on the bench. Either this demonstrates that Bomber agrees with footballinvective.com's assessment of Queen’s leadership (as stated by footballinvective.com since Round 5) or, if Bomber still has faith in his skipper, it says even more about his tactical nous. Perhaps Stephen Queen needs the sort of treatment given to Bill Lawry by the Australian selectors in 1969 – not only dropped as captain, but dropped from the side completely. If even his coach thinks he is not good enough to start the two most important quarters of football for the year on the ground, then it’s well and truly Fat Lady time for the Big Ted of football.

• Peter Riccardi - ended up playing his last game ever this week. Fittingly for the club, if not the man, Riccardi's career began with a patented Geelong big game fade-out in the 1992 Grand Final, and ended exactly the same way 14 years later. 

As FGY told footballinvective.com last time we stood on The Great Man terrace at Unskilled Stadium, the Cats could be playing in Carrara in five years time if they keep up their current mentality, and their soft supporters in the Brownlow Stand will wonder why, given that they too seem completely impervious to failure, mediocrity of humiliation.

Port Adelaide hard man Dean Bogan was in the news again this week, and continues to be a role model for scores of Port supporters:

Brogan's assault case adjourned

 

Port Adelaide footballer Dean Brogan will front the Adelaide Magistrates Court on an assault charge just days before the 2006 AFL Grand Final.

 

Brogan - who is not on bail - is accused of assaulting oral surgeon Dr Zahi Khouri in October 2005.

 

Prosecutors will allege both men were walking their dogs on the Goodwood Orphanage grounds when Brogan assaulted the 41-year-old doctor, of Hyde Park.

 

Prosecutors have yet to decide if Brogan will be further charged with assaulting an Adelaide Crowns fan in June.

 

The ruckman was at Adelaide Airport, about to board a plane to Melbourne when he was reportedly taunted by Magill teenager Dale Mortimer.

 

The Crows fan said he was playing for the wrong team and called him a "dickhead" - Brogan allegedly punched him on the nose.

Speaking of role models, Warwick Capper also bobbed up with a new career move this week, which continues his on-field tradition of shameless lairising and chick magentism:

Warwick's love life takes off

 

PUNTED by his fiancee just last month, Warwick Capper has bounced back in a new relationship - and career - with a stripper.

 

The larrikin former Sydney Swans star has hooked up with former adult magazine cover girl Alicia Duvall and become a business partner and high-priced stripper in her company, Red Hot Strippers.

 

Duvall has appeared on 32 magazine covers including Hustler, The Picture and People and was most recently a finalist in the Best Female Stripper category at the Australian Adult Industry Awards in 2003.

 

While he is tight-lipped on the romantic front, Capper is baring all in his new business partnership with Duvall, getting his gear off as the star attraction of her stripping venture.

 

And at $3000 for corporate events and $1200 for hen's night parties, he is charging plenty to get down to his famous Swans tight shorts.

 

"I was in Penthouse three times, so I don't mind (stripping). It is just a bit of fun," he said.

Capper - Genius

It seems that footballinvectice.com's musings are not going un-noticed amongst the AFL's playing fraternity, as this fiery missive which arrived this week demonstrates:

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Beth”

To: <forum@footballinvective.com>

Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 3:10 PM

Subject: Leigh Brown 

 

What narcism you have to post such rude comments online about others.

I'm sure you have flaws (as such, Leigh is not the beefed-up jock you refer  to him as) and I'm sure people don't criticise your imperfections in such a manner (ONLINE)!

It just frustrates me to read comments about friends when they are untrue and intentionally out to offend.

I wonder how successful your website is. and how many other dark-minded people are out there to join your club.

We could understand if such a letter had been sent by a friend or relative of Leigh Colbert, but to object to our coverage of Leigh Brown over the years is a bit like the Soviet Communist party getting stuck into "Pravda" for critical coverage. 

Some points in response to Beth's emailed invective:

1.      Love the spelling of narcissism. GOLD.

2.      Just in case she has been reading the wrong site, footballinvective.com LOVES Leigh Brown. The General Leigh was a strong tip for the Peter Bosustow Medal for Cult Figure of the Year in 2005, and in the end was only upstaged by some blatant bias in favour of the progeny of The Great Man.

3.      Leigh Brown remains (with Nathan Ablett) the only player to have won nominations for Cult Figure of the Week and Hero of the Week in the SAME round. A grand feat worthy of special mention.

4.      Football players are public property and have to expect some commentary on their attributes. For example, anything that footballinvective.com has said about The General Leigh’s physical conditioning is nothing compared to the description meted out by The Rage to Stuart Dew this week, when it described him as “Talented Port designated kicker with perennial weight and form issues”. Now, don’t get us wrong, footballinvective.com would never suggest that anyone ever use The Rage as its moral compass (if they did then they would be in grave danger of turning into a terrorist-appeasing, Joan Kirner-worshipping, latte-sipping illiterate) but it does prove our point.

5.      Footballinvective.com challenges Beth to find another media outlet which has singled out her mate Leigh for as much attention and praise as footballinvective.com.

6.      In response to Beth questioning the popularity of footballinvective.com, a total of 2,381 viewers visited the site on the day she sent in her missive. 2,381 black minds can't be wrong.

7.      We note with interest Leigh Colbert's better half has decided NOT to respond with vitriol to footballinvective.com's commentary on the general subject of colberting. This simply vindicates everything that footballinvective.com has said on this issue, and  can only indicate that she considers our comments to be a fair cop.

8.      On a completely different topic, did Laidley sign Jon Hay as a 10 year project player or something, or as Club Substance Provision Officer? And why did he sign a has-been full back he already had Leigh Brown as a more than adequate replacement?!

9.      Footballinvective.com has an admittedly short but already proud tradition of backgrounding thoroughly all its information and sourcing its material responsibly, and clearly demarcates in its musings what is indeed fact, and what is merely (admittedly hilarious and witty) hyperbole and DIATRIBE. Beth would do well to follow the example of footballinvective.com, rather than denigrating and pouring horse manure (with absolutely no foundation, mind you) all over football's most reputable media outlet.

Finally, apologies to Matty Ahmat, who also had a mate of his write in recently questioning his inclusion in Sydney’s “most ordinary” team since 1990. Admittedly, injuries did kill his career off, but he's hardly the first name that springs to mind when recounting the glories of the Swans in the early 90s.

Hero of the Week: Shaun Burgoyne - turned back the clock to the glory of '04 by showing the way for Port Adelaide to carve up the Dogs with 5 goal 10 in the last quarter up in Darwin. It must have felt like being back home in Alberton for the Port boys,

Cult Figure of the Week: Warwick Capper - One of footballinvective.com's all-time favourites, who proved that there is a career path for ex-players beyond the stereotypes of media commentator or assistant coach (or fashion designer, in the case of Nathan "Say no to Drugs" Brown)

Clanger of the Week: Bomber Thompson – As Rex Hunt so fittingly expressed it during the game, this match (and this season) were the big chance for the Geelong Football Club to stand up and show what they were made of , but what these cats are made of turned out to be something not even worthy of filling a bunch of cheap dim sims.