Round 4, 2007

 

 

Two games were played at small interstate venues this week - one in Tasmania and one on the Gold Coast. Both locations have a similar size population; both are strereotyped as being full of bogans; both have a small crappy stadium and offer big financial bribes to get teams to play home games there. Yet whilst one is at least located in Aussie Rules territory, it's the other one that continues to delude the AFL that it should have a team located there full-time.

 

The first "Queensland Derby" was won by the Kangaroos in front of a crowd of 11,000 in an 18,000 venue (most of whom were probably lions fans anyway). And the small handful of Roo fans and unaligned Gold Coast locals who did attend were not exactly flocking to the Kangaroo merchandise marquee:

 

 

Hats off to Michael Voss for being the only person to talk sense on the Gold Coast issue in The Rage this week:

 

THE AFL will be committing suicide if it tries to fast-track the Kangaroos experiment on the Gold Coast.

The 10-game commitment over three years is about right to test the market and perhaps establish a platform for a second team based in south-east Queensland.

 

…If we jump into something prematurely and get it wrong — as we did with the Brisbane Bears under Christopher Skase 20 years ago — there will be no third chance.

 

…To even hear that another side could exist on the Gold Coast 14 years ago, I would have asked which planet you lived on but now it is becoming a reality and to put a time frame on it is very hard. Eventually, though, it will be time to bite the bullet but let's build the foundation first before we put on the top.

Currently, we seem to want to put the top on first. Doing it that way, it is destined to topple.

 

Well spoken Vossy. Though if the Roos are "testing the market", surely it won't take 10 years to figure out what the result of this "testing" will be. The Roos have been "testing markets" for the last decade in Sydney and Canberra. In each case they reached the conclusion that both were football backwaters that could not support the Roos relocating there. Its already obvious that the same conclusion will be reached from the Gold Coast. Perhaps when the Roos and the AFL finally realise it they could then try "testing the market" in Singapore, to test Aker’s theory that "There needs to be a team in Asia, there just has to be. It all just makes sense on so many levels”.

 

 

BruceWatch, Part 2: The hits just keep on coming at Channel 7, as football's new custodians have continued to cover themselves in glory since footballinvective.com’s last ‘BruceWatch’ section. These three offerings in the past two weeks were particularly noteworthy:

• Bruce McAvaney in Round 3, commenting on Collingwood’s new recruits Shannon Cox and Brad Dick: “Gee, I don’t mind Cox”. (Lucky he didn’t also say “Dick goes long…”).

• Tim Watson, interviewing Rodney Eade at ¾ time last Friday (when the Bulldogs were leading): "We're you happy with what you said to the guys out there?" Footballinvective.com hereby issues a challenge to any football fan anywhere to find a coach anywhere in the known universe that would ever answer ‘No’ to such a question...

• Watson then followed it up by asking “Is it time to panic?”. Find us a coach anywhere in the known universe that would ever answer ‘Yes’ to such a question...

• Then on Friday night, Dennis Commetti was obviously flummoxed to receive this pearler from Watson: "The AFL has made a strong statement that no matter what anyone says to you out on the football field, you cannot react the way Des Headland did". Yes, folks, Watson said this AFTER the tribunal let Headland off.

Channel 7’s latest innovation this week was to attach a microphone to Bulldogs runner Peter “Meatballs” Filandia to hear his instructions to players. However, as if to acknowledge that even Channel 7 concedes that it wasn’t exactly scintillating TV entertainment, Seven mercifully only screened about 20 seconds of the footage and comments, and did so after the end of the game when everyone had gone to bed. And Filandia only said 5 words anyway: “Man up! Man up! Grab a man! Grab a man!”. Yep, really insightful stuff that by Channel 7, although given Filandia’s past, his comments to “Grab a Man” took on a whole new meaning.

 

TigerWatch, Part 1: Richmond and Melbourne are now the only two winless teams left, but given that Melbourne has about as many fit players as it had supporters left in the stands at the end of its loss to Freo on Sunday, the Demons are slightly exonerated. Whilst the Tiges return to the bottom, Terry Wallet still sticks to his 2011 timeline, as his previous 5 Year Plan (2005-2009) is now a 4 year plan for the Tiges to make the 8 (2007-2011). Upon reflection on Wallet’s 4 year plan, footballinvective.com this week turned to the history books to see what other people have been able to achieve in 4 years throughout history. On the basis of these examples of great historical achievements within 4 years, we believe that Plow's ambitions are just a bit too modest:

 

• 335BC-331BC – Alexander the Great conquers half the known world

• 28AD-32AD – Jesus Christ has a bit of a purple patch

• 1913-1917 – Vladimir Lenin goes from bumming around Switzerland to Soviet head of state

• 1960-1964 – The Beatles go from unknown back-up band to something a little bigger

• 1980-1984 – Tony Montana goes from low-life Cuban refugee to dominating “the world, and everything in it.”

• 1988-1992 – Bill Clinton goes from Hicksville Governor to President of the United States

• 2000-2004 - Mary Donaldson goes from anonymous single Sydneysider to Crown Princess of Denmark.

• 2007-2011 - Terry Wallace believes it will take this long to to from 9th on the ladder into the Top 8.

Footballinvective.com believes there is trouble brewing at Tigerland, though is surprised that Tiger fans have not already vented their anger. In previous seasons there has been a direct correlation between the level of Matthew Richardson's on-field frustration and the level of discontent amongst Tiger fans. Whilst Richo's pressure valve was on the verge of explosion on Friday night, Tiger fans were uncharacteristically docile and meekly accepting of the result as they went down to the Dogs. 

 

In an attempt to provoke a Tiger fan uprising, footballinvective.com’s latest columnist, “Veteran Tiger Fan” this week advocates Civil War at Tigerland as the only option left, as he fired this missive from his position behind a sniper’s rifle at Punt Rd:

 

“Even the Richmond website states that coach Terry Wallace cannot explain what is happening at Tigerland (and does not buy his excuse that we need to wait four years for an explanation). We are now second from the bottom – only Melbourne saves us from outright football ignominy.  However, rather than conduct our ritual “turn” against the team, seeking a scapegoat and guilty party in the manner of a show trial, we Richmond fans should instead accept that Richmond’s continuing crisis is, at its base, our fault.  Yes, for too long, like families coping with drug addiction (or the Eagles football department) we have denied reality, succumbed to the ‘spin’ of successive leaderships, and, more or less behaved like the docile comrades of some Soviet-style people’s republic.

 

It is we who have placed our faith in Punt Road’s quasi-Leninist 5 year plans. It is we who have deluded ourselves that the ‘Dear Leader’ coach (whoever – Bartlett, Northey, Gieschen, Frawley, Wallace) will each year give us some new approach that will, this time, bring us victory and instantly return us to the Hafey glory days. It is we who believe that, even with Richo, our brave if poorly resourced black and gold guerillas can stop the AFL’s panzers-clubs, like the Sydney, Adelaide and West Coast ‘axis of evil’, or even stymie such local outlaws as Collingwood and Carlton. It is our own misguided expectations and delusions of potential success that keep encouraging to club to pursue tin-pot strategies for short-term success which clearly will not work. The accountability that so many of us in Tigerland have demanded of others we must now demand of ourselves.  Tigers fans:  heal thyselves – It’s Time to Turn – on ourselves.

 

It seems Tiger fans are more reluctant to turn than they once were. Perhaps they need an incentive. How about an inventive like on the TV ads where if they turn within the next two rounds the get a free set of steak knives? And no prizes for guessing what they would do with the knives:

 

 

 

Hero of the Week: Brett Ebert - A South Australian favourite son (and thus, naturally, a favourite son of footballinvective.com) Ebert showed he is a man for all seasons, going from overhead aerialist last week to mastering wet conditions better than Yoda on planet Dagobah, as it bucketed down at the G, setting up Port Adelaide's rise to the Top 4 (we tipped this) with 3 goals in the first half against the Pies:

 

Cult Figure of the Week: Adam Cooney - Another South Australian favourite, Cooney was BOG for the Dogs with 4 goals from the midfield, and put the icing on the cake with some vintage crowd-baiting in the last quarter, which in its own small way has hopefully helped to send Tiger fans closer to the edge, and the football world closer to the joys of a Tigerland Civil War. Cooney is truly Good for Football.

 

Clanger of the Week: Hard to go past Lance Whitnall’s brother Shane this week. Just when we thought the Whitnall Jerry Springer show could not get any funnier after Shane had his house egged last week, this week he was busted for breaching water restrictions when he hosed the egg off his driveway, in another example of vigilante justice gone horribly wrong: