Finals - Week 1, 2006

 

 

 

After two years of tireless agitation, footballinvective.com this week claimed its first coaching scalp, as Grant Thomas was sacked by St Kilda.

And having been told incessantly for all of this year and last by footballinvective.com,  the lesser football finally woke up and figured out that he was a coach who couldn't deliver.

 

Like long-suffering Iraqis who could finally vent their frustrations after the fall of Saddam, downtrodden Saints fans can now say what they always thought about their former coach, and not surprisingly, they flooded the football world with comments. Footballinvective.com has extracted the best of the readers comments on which appeared on the Hun web site on Tuesday night. The last comment is particularly noteworthy: 

 

too little, too late saints will be bankrupt before they win another flag. if only they had kept Blight, a 5 time GF, 2 time flag winning coach.

Posted by: bkv of Hawthorn East 6:21pm today

 

Bring back Blighty. We would have 2 or 3 premierships if Thomas and co hadn't knifed him in the back.

Posted by: Gazza of St Kilda 6:09pm today

 

I'm sick of hearing about St Kilda's great list. Let's be frank, our best 10 are great but beyond that it's hideousness. Peckett, Thompson, Powell, Milne and that Richmond reject wouldn't get fed anywhere else. Our ruck division is like a Benny Hill skit, with Kosi the little bald bloke getting slapped on the head and running into things. hamill gone. Harvey was great - past tense. Fraser cactus. Just what we need is Brereton down there to talk about the fundamentals of the game like balls swinging left to right. Give me a break.

Posted by: brad Davies of melbourne 6:05pm today

 

Adios, caio and get lost! May have an excuse for yet another injury riddled year but fancy playing an untried ruckman in a bloody final. Several odd decisions over the years have cost us games, who knows even a premiership. Get me someone who inspires the boys and is tactically adept.

Posted by: Chenzo of Nunawading 5:50pm today

 

Send him to Carlton. That way they will be sure to stay at the bottom. Lets get a professional with some idea of tactics. I am sick of picking moves and tactics from the loungeroom and waiting 20 minutes for GT to make the move. Goodbye GT, HELLO 2007 Flag!

Posted by: Mick Ford of Caranarvon 5:42pm today

 

couldn't give a rats what happens to this mob,the fact remains they shafted one of the all time greats and a brilliant coach and look at the result"day of the jackel stuff again" they are all a pack of whimps,no one in their right mind would go near them unless there were wholesale changes made to their management structure

Posted by: graeme 5:35pm today

 

He had blood on his hands from Day One...and none of it has washed off! The sword is 2 years too late!!

Posted by: Handy 5:32pm today

 

Better late than never... A nobody who knew the right somebody!

Posted by: Relieved of Collingwood 5:05pm today

 

All l can say is "Zero tolerance to mediocrity" GTs own words. Thomas bought stability to the club but his tactics have failed in 3 finals attempts with each year getting worse. We don't want to be the new Geelong.

Posted by: Zoran Blagojevic of East St kilda

 

I'd just like to apply for the job online now. I mean with your Riewoldts and Gehrigs up forward and your Hayes', Ball and Dal Santo in the centre, I could get the job done!

Posted by: Gary Ayres 5:30pm today

 

The demise of Thomas finally means rough justice has been dispensed to one half of the duo which deviously colberted Malcolm Blight back in 2001. But it should not be forgotten that the other half - Saints president Rod Butterss - still remains. Reports in the Hun indicated that "a falling out with close mate and club president Rod Butterss was) at the heart of the decision."

 

The Butterrss-Thomas story is like one of those classic movie plots where two partners in crime get away with all sorts of nefarious deeds, but when the going gets tough, one of them cynically abandons the other in order to save himself. A bit like Lando Calrissian handing over Han Solo when Darth Vader started to turn up the heat. However, unlike Lando, it will take a LOT more than destroying a Death Star for Rod Butterss to redeem himself in the eyes of footballinvective.com

 

Just as Thomas paid the price for several years of under-achievement and tactical Baldrickery, Butterss - who was equally responsible - must also be held accountable. Footballinvective.com suggests recriminations at the hands of Saints fans themselves would be a fitting outcome - throw him into the old "animal enclosure" at Moorabbin with 150 of the club's finest yobbos boozed to their eyeballs on bourbon and coke, mixed with the right dose of PCP, and justice shall be served. 

 

In the aftermath of the Thomas sacking, Stan Alves and Tim Watson must be feeling a little less persecuted and downtrodden, whilst Malcolm Blight is rumoured to have scored an albatross on a 400 metre par 4 hole up on the Gold Coast, so delighted was he with the news. Footballinvective.com always predicted that Blighty would have the last laugh over Thomas and Butterss. To commemorate the moment and really rub it in, perhaps he could film his next Toyota ad in the old boardroom in Moorabbin, and re-enact the time when Thomas and Butterss made him feel like Monica Seles felt circa 1993.

 

But the biggest effect of Thomas's sacking will surely be felt by the bandwagon jumpers in the in the lesser football media who so shamelessly went along with him for the last 5 years, and refused to say that the emperor had no clothes. Mike Sheahan was last seen walking despondently up the West Gate Bridge with passing motorists yelling "don't do it" when he heard of his best mate's demise. But Sheahan's history of flawed commentary regarding Thomas is well and truly overshadowed by Robert Walls - a man who should have known better, but in the end proved to be just as fickle and impressionable as the rest of the lesser football media.

 

Consider this: At the start of the season Walls struck a welcome blow for common sense at The Rage when he wrote that:

 

“If the Saints fail to reach this year’s Grand Final, Thomas should do the honourable thing and fall on his sword….  

“Just recently, Thomas said the best is yet to come. I think he is deflecting pressure. The Saints’ window of opportunity began in earnest three years ago. They have the talent to be the best but do they have a coach who can bring that out?”

Yet despite these words of wisdom, by Round 20 Walls had turned, and wrote a nauseating piece of brown-nosing entitled "In praise of Thomas": 

"By reaching three successive finals campaigns, coach Grant Thomas will do something no one has achieved at Moorabbin since Allan Jeans in the early 1970s.

"Despite that, there are still many who question whether Grant Thomas is a decent coach.

"...It's hard to find an unhappy St Kilda footballer. The Saints are a tight-knit bunch who have great faith in the club's program.

"...Match-day moves is an area Thomas is improving at. Will Nick Riewoldt be on a wing or at full-forward? No longer is Stephen Milne stuck in the forward pocket. Who would have expected Michael Rix to line up at centre half-back last week? Montagna is now a top-line midfielder — ignore him at your risk. Dal Santo, if tagged, could become the new full-forward.

"A major triumph of Thomas' coaching had been his handling of the veterans. You sense they have been kept on edge, being told that each game and season could be their last....It is a credit to coach and players that the oldies have excelled.

"...By rotating the captaincy, year by year, as Thomas has done, the Saints will end up with a group of 25-year-olds who will have a far better understanding of what leadership is all about.

"...Are the Saints good enough to win a flag? Next year, with a full list, could well be their — and Thomas' — time."

When footballinvective.com read this puff piece we assumed that Walls had either caught the Mike Sheahan disease or had been invited over for cheese and chardonnay at Butterss' Brighton lair. The only question that remains for Robert Walls now is: would he like the egg on his face poached or fried?

 

The game that brought on Thomas's demise turned out to be one of the most entertaining that footballinvective.com has seen this year, as the Demons over-ran the Saints in the last quarter and for the third year in a row, Thomas found himself leading at three-quarter-time in a sudden death final - and lost. The prospect of the demise of Thomas meant footballinvective.com has never barracked so hard for Melbourne in its life. 

 

Nathan Carroll helped set up the win in the second quarter with THAT tackle on Fraser Gehrig in the 2^nd quarter (Fraser Brown style) injuring the white hot forward in the process, which was just as well for Ben Holland, who had the big G kick 3 goals on him in the first quarter. 

 

 

Another magnificent performance from Aaron Davey as well, as the Flash came to the fore in the last quarter, first giving away two 50 metre penalties (one resulting in a goal from point blank range) for questioning some outrageous umpiring decisions, then blowing his top, and getting dragged by the Reverend. He then copped a sermon on the phone and after calming down on the bench, returned to blow off half the Saints midfield, gather the greasy ball one-handed on the forward flank, take a one-handed bounce on a surface as slippery as Rob Butterss' loyalty, then spear a 50 metre pass into the bread basket of Nieta in the square to slam through the goal that put Melbourne in front. Rough justice transformed into  poetic justice by the young star. And while all this was happening Thomas again showed his tactical nous, with the following coaching moves likely to be his dubious legacy to football:

• Keeping the G Train on the field, even though he was limping like he'd just gone for a stroll through a Cambodian paddock circa 1980;

• Keeping a similarly underdone Aaron Hamill in the forward line

• Throwing rookie psuedo-ruckman Michael Rix up against Jeff White in the centre bounces. White proceeded to win every bounce and had more taps than Fred Astaire. 

However, credit where its due, and despite their bumbling and under-achievement this year, the Over-Rated Football Club at least did one positive thing by biting the bullet and getting rid of a dud coach. In so doing they set an example to other clubs of how to make tough decisions and NOT SQUIB when the team flops (Carlton please take note).

 

Last week Carlton looked set to sack Denis Pagan, but then took three days to decide they didn't want to after all, and copped a bollocking from the lesser football media for its backdown. Caroline Wilson in particular had been baying for Pagan’s blood from the sidelines, as she did her best impression of Glenn Milne by attempting to effect regime change with her typewriter:

 

Failed coup cripples Carlton

Caroline Wilson
September 8, 2006

 

WITH Carlton Football Club's board the laughing stock of football, Denis Pagan licking his wounds and Stephen Silvagni wondering what hit him, it is clear there is more to come in this amazing saga of the failed coup.

 

Clearly, the Carlton directors are now riper for takeover than they have ever been. They voted 7-3 on Tuesday night to sack Pagan and had at least $600,000, courtesy of Fraser Brown, with which to pay him out. Then they got cold feet.

 

...And if Stephen Kernahan, who sanctioned the takeover bid only to back down at the death knell, stays on board, then it will be clear that he may never step down and will remain a Carlton director for life. Kernahan has a big reputation, one he truly deserves, but it will need to be big to survive this stuff-up.

Now that a coaching vacancy has arisen at Moorabbin, Pagan may well be regretting not taking the $600,000 in cold hard CASH reportedly offered by Fraser Brown to leave the Blues, though footballinvective.com wonders if the original source of some this cash was the brown paper bag payments form Wes Lofts and co. in Carlton's salary cap rorting days. The words "Fraser Brown", "money" and "Carlton" should set alarm bells ringing in the AFL and ASIC whenever they are mentioned in the same sentence...

 

Caro ultimately got her comeuppance at the hands of Stephen Kernahan, who in a golden speech at the Carlton B&F finally held the lesser football media accountable by Naming Names:

 

“Caroline Wilson takes one “leaked comment” from the club, another “comment” from someone else, then puts them together and gets something completely different.

“...Patrick Smith spends Christmas Eve by himself because he’s got no mates”

 

“Jake Niall is Caroline Wilson’s lap dog at The Age. He’s been licking at her heels for years because he wants her job. “A source” down at The Age tells me he wants her job.”

 

Footballinvective.com is delighted that Sticks is now following in our footsteps by naming and shaming those who exist as protected species in the lesser football media. If he keeps this up we could even make him a guest columnist.

 

On Saturday, the Crows rebounded from weeks of poor form and vindicated Neil Craig's rigorous Tour de France training regime (minus the roids). Fremantle once again learned that WA still has nothing on South Australia's finest, with the result re-igniting the passions of Angry Docker Fans who had been uncharacteristically subdued for the previous 9 weeks. Even Chris Connolly predicts a rabid army of Angry Docker Fans at Subiaco this weekend:

 

Fear Fremantle fans, says Chris Connolly

 

FREMANTLE coach Chris Connolly has warned Melbourne it will encounter a rabid away crowd at Subiaco next week after his team yesterday plunged to a qualifying final loss against the Crows.

Meanwhile, WA radio commentators Karl Langdon and Glenn Jackovich took insular parochialism to new heights on Sunday afternoon when they claimed that Melbourne actually had the greater advantage than Freo by playing the match at SUBIACO on a Friday night:  

 

“You’d have to say there’s no advantage to Freo. They finished higher than Melbourne but had to travel, Melbourne got a home ground advantage and now Freo find that they get a day’s less rest…”

Yeah right.

 

On Saturday night, the Eagles and Swans put on another epic contest, with Paul Roos' coaching genius giving the Poultry in Motion a one point win. Roos further demonstrated his nous with a brilliant ruse in the last quarter - flooding the Eagles forward line with the Sydney Swamp at one end of the ground, whilst playing the modern equivalent of Pagan's Paddock at the other other - leaving Barry Hall and Mickey O'Loughlin each one-out as the only Swans players at that end. This was always going to be lethal for John Worsfold, who refused to send players down to plug the gaps. One-out in a paddock full of space, Hall and O'Loughlin will always be better than a 50-50 change to beat their opponents, as O'Loughlin proved by burning off Kinglsey Hunter to kick the winning goal, before spraying some gold-plated invective at feral Eagle fans behind the goals (including Massive Merv from Margaret River, on the left):

 

 

The first week of finals also produced some vintage clangers from the lesser football media. In particular, footballinvective.com salutes The Rage for wheeling out a panel of experts to comment on finals coaching tactics. Click on the extracts below from the The Rage to read these exclusive insights (Warning - more clichés than a margarine commercial too…)

 

Tony Shaw tells how he would coach Fremantle
Let the juggernaut continue. After winning nine games straight, there’s no reason to meddle with the style of play or the players. more

Tim Watson tells how he would coach Adelaide
One of Adelaide’s prime objectives will be to make sure that it applies enormous pressure from the opening bounce. more

Dean Laidley tells how he would coach West Coast
Do not expect this game to be one of the great shootout finals. Rather, it will be an arm wrestle from start to finish. more

Rohan Connolly tells how he would coach Sydney
Our biggest challenge is clearly to find a way to shut down the impact of the Eagles’ midfield. more

Given the collective coaching achievements of the above line-up, footballinvective.com would have to conclude that Rohan Connolly is the best qualified to give coaching advice.  Now that coaching greats such as Shawry and Timmy have had their say in The Rage on "how to coach finals teams", footballinvective.com has learned that The Rage is about to launch a spin-off series of "how to" books by equally qualified authors. The following 10 titles, proudly published by The Rage, will soon be available in "all good book stores" (and plenty of sh*t ones as well):

 

1. "How to win elections" by John Hewson and Mark Latham.     (foreword by H.V. Evatt)

2. "Humility as a sportsman" by Jason Akermanis

3. "Winning majors with the mental edge" by Greg Norman

4. "Creating the happy, productive team environment" by Gary Ayres

5. "Loyalty - my footballing creed" by Leigh Colbert.  (introduction by Peter Bell)

6. "Recovering from a knee reconstruction - it can happen for you" by Leigh Walker

7. "Don't piss in your own backyard" by Wayne Carey

8. "A gentleman's guide to courting the fairer sex" by Leigh Montagna and Stephen Milne

9. "Monogamy - a way of life" by Shane Warne

10. "Choosing the right AFL team - a must-read for any first year draftee" by Nathan Buckley

This week also saw the announcement of the All Australian Team, which once again vindicated the comment last year by Jason Akermanis that it was the "All Australian Encouragement Award" (certainly one of Aker's funnier musings, though these days they are as rare as rocking horse manure).

 

According to the All Australian selectors, this is how the team should look:

 

B:    N Bassett,    D Glass,       L Gilbee
HB: C Bolton,       J Bowden,    A McLeod
C:     S Goodwin,   S West,      A Goodes
HF:  A Didak,        B Hall (vc), R O'Keefe
F:     B Johnson (c), B Fevola,  N Riewoldt
Rucks: B Lade, C Judd, B Cousins
I/change: S Burgoyne, D Cox, J McDonald, M Pavlich

Not surprisingly, footballinvective.com begs to differ, on the following groungs (for starters...):

 

1. Rutten at full back (who cares that Glass gets no help)

2. Chad Cornes at centre half back

3. Pavlich at CHF, Barry Hall at full forward and Fevola on the pine

4. Riewoldt to get nicked and take his blonde mop and chest marks at the centre circle with him

5. Daniel Kerr and Nick del Santo to be anywhere on the park (especially if Didak is in the team)

6. Furthermore, if they're going to pick Didak where's Aaron Davey?

7. James Clement a bad omission (what is the deal with J. Bowden?! - footballinvective.com suspects Plow has had some underhanded role in that one)

8. Where is Wirrpunda? The only guy you could call a traditional style backman in the Eagles line-up

9. Nice work by Ryan "Princess Mary" O'Keefe, finally getting due recognition for past exploits, both on and OFF the field

10. Dean "Big" Cox very stiff to miss out as starting ruck - selection panel has decided to get Lade instead
11. No disrespect to Brad Johnson, but giving him the captaincy ahead of the most influential player in the game and finest exponent of leadership going around at present (B. Hall) is a major clanger. Unlike the All-Australian selectors, footballinvective does believe in the radical theory that a bloke given the captaincy should at least be captain of his own team for starters.

12. No DOBMs in the team - take note Messrs Laidley and Worsfold

The 2006 Footballinvective.com All Australian Team team is:

B    N Bassett    B Rutten    L Gilbee
HB  J Clement    C Cornes   A McLeod
C    S Goodwin   S West      A Goodes
HF  N dal Santo  M Pavlich   D Kerr
F    B Johnson    B Hall (c)    A Davey
Rucks   D Cox   C Judd (vc)    B Cousins
I/change R O'Keefe   D Cox   B Fevola   D Wirrpunda

 

Hero of the Week: Stephen Kernahan - Footballinvective.com may disagree with his decision to keep Dennis Pagan, but we applaud the style in which he defended it. In a week of vindication for footballinvective.com, Stick's comments on the failings of the lesser football media are further proof that we were right all along.

 

Cult Figure of the Week: Nathan Carroll - Laid out the G-Train in superb style to set up the win for the Dees. Not to mention the finest tash to grace the MCG since Merv Hughes.

 

Clanger of the Week: Robert Walls - his weakness in the face of the Grant Thomas love-fest of the lesser football media now makes him the red-hot favourite to take out the Mike Sheahan Medal for Clanger of the Year by the football media. Fittingly, this would make it two out of two Sheahan Medals for The Rage. No doubt Caroline Wilson will be eager to turn it into a three-peat in Season 2007.