Round 8, 2007

Footballinvective.com has long argued that Aussie Rules is the greatest game in the world, but this week the great game was brought to its knees by The Abomination, aka the Hawthorn St Kilda game at the MCG.

Footballinvective.com had the misfortune the sit through the first half, in which a grand total of 4 goals were scored and 962 uncontested marks were taken, before deciding that an evening spent watching grass grow at the the new Wembley Stadium (apparently the equally dull FA Cup final was also taking place) would be more entertaining. But having seen one half, footballinvective.com is determined to name and shame those who were responsible for this piece of anti-football.

In particle physics, anti-matter is the opposite of matter – it is a negative presence which destroys all it touches. In sport, anti-football has the same effect on the skills of the game. When teams are instructed to play negative football, never kick long and never go for contested marks, the inevitable result is that they start to lose the ability to do such things, as those skills are never exercised. This was demonstrated on Saturday night, with the appalling spectacle of Nick Riewoldt dropping sitters and Fraser Gehrig fumbling simple handpasses and missing shots at goal from 15 metres. If players are instructed to play like hacks, then they will, of course, end up as hacks. The write-up in the Hun summed it up perfectly:

The highlight of the first half was a piece of comedy early in the first term when Fraser Gehrig chested Trent Croad to the ground, earning a 50m penalty which Croad mucked up when he tried to play on and was tackled by Stephen Milne. Milne then passed the ball to a loose Gehrig who not only kicked a behind, but finished on his backside when he slipped over as he kicked.

Malcolm Blight said two years ago that “flooders are doomed” in the long term and that playing such a style of game on a regular basis would only de-skill a team, as they never got to practice skills that matter:

"You won't win...if you do it consistently, week-in, week-out," Blight told The Age yesterday. "It's a hard way to play footy. I reckon blokes get tired and their skills really drop off.

Not only will their skills drop off, but certain players may drop off completely. Aussie Jones this week warned that Fraser Gehrig could retire in frustration if he was continually forced to play anti-football. At the moment he could probably find a more stimulating job as a laxative tester or a speech writer for Humphrey B Bear than a job as a member of the St Kilda Anti-Football Club.

Gehrig: Losing it

Of course, the only thing more appalling than the anti-football itself was the parade of excuses and rationalisations for it from those responsible.

Ross Lyon, who clearly bore more responsibility than his Hawthorn counterparts, amazingly blamed Hawthorn:

"Lyon insisted his Saints had not flooded, and had only attempted to combat the large number of Hawthorn players clogging his forward line. "There's a lot of apportioning of blame … a few of our leaders are disappointed we're being accused of flooding," the St Kilda coach said."

It looks like Lyon has been watching too much of the Simpsons. His excuse was a combination of Bart's "I didn't do it" and Homer's "It (the flood) was like that when I got here".

Even worse than Lyon's excuses was the attempt by Rod Butterss to rationalise the un-rationalisable:

"It wasn't pretty, but I didn't mind because I knew what we were trying to do. I enjoyed it from that perspective.”

Turn it up. How can Butterss possibly claim to have “enjoyed it?” Given that his team actually lost, and butchered the game of football in the process, what was there for him to enjoy? And what are we to make of his comment that he supported what the team was “trying to do”? What was it that they were trying to do - render redundant its 2 most potent forwards? lose a game by five goals? de-skill its midfield, alienate its supporters and risk losing its full forward?

It contrast to the musings of the St Kilda president, Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett did the right thing and took a stand against Anti-football - the only thing in the AFL that is uglier than his ridiculous brown and gold jacket: 

"...it's not the football that, in my opinion, will win you Grand Finals or keep teams up the top of the ladder.

"Until teams play a more pro-active game and a more constructive game – and whether they may win or lose the points is immaterial – to me, they won't be playing in Grand Finals.

"So my wish for my team is that we will play a much more constructive game of football."

But clearly Kennett's comments have fallen on deaf ears. It’s a pity he couldn’t adopt a tactic from his political days and stand outside the Saints coach’s box hurling shovels of sand at Ross Lyon.

Sure enough, however, the biggest clanger to emerge from the debate about anti-footballer came from none other than the pen of Terry Wallace. Just like every other topical debate in football, Plow just couldn’t resist doing his best Kent Brockman impersonation and offering his own 2-cents worth:

"As a football lover and someone who has been involved in the game for 30 years, I would refuse to go if I knew the game was going to be played in the manner in which I watched on Saturday night."

As one who gloated at length about his use of Anti-Football tactics to defeat Adelaide last year, Wallace's change of heart is, to say the least, a turn up. Terry Wallace lecturing us about ugly football and how to get rid of it is a bit like Larry Flynt entering a debate about smut in popular culture, and asking how we can rid the world of this curse. Plow should stick to what he does best, which these days, given Richmond's fate, is probably not much.

At Sleepy Hollow Geelong won three in a row for the first time in two years, and may finally have discovered the word "consistency" in its dictionary, though that is still a big "if". Steve Johnson gave hope to Byron Pickett that he can make a successful return from beer-propelled estrangement by kicking four goals, whilst the stiff breeze blowing in from the Western District was as strong as ever, prompting Andrew Bews on K-Rock to remark that “there’s a chook facing east which has laid the same egg three times”. Gold.

After his pole-axing of Cameron Bruce on Sunday, Daniel Kerr is now out of the running for the Brownlow, which is probably a relief for the football world. The idea of sitting through a Brownlow night with Kerr leading the count would have been akin to watching the Tour de France – after every stage the whole event would be dominated by speculation as to whether or not the leader was persian rug assisted. Mike Sheahan seemed to concur with footballinvective.com that Kerr’s ineligibility was Good for Football:

"The suspicion, this time, is Andrew Demetriou and company won't be at all disturbed by Daniel Kerr being suspended and thereby eliminated from medal contention.

"On exposed form, Kerr would be a worthy winner, yet it would have been a win that sparked widespread criticism, particularly from that growing army of people with an instant opinion on all things AFL."

As a 3-star general of the "growing army of people with an instant opinion on all things AFL" (not to mention an instant opinion on all things Mike Sheahan) footballinvective.com believes that whilst Mike's instinct may be correct, he is clearly being too trusting of the AFL Politburo. If Comrade Demetriou can pay a personal visit to Ben Cousins after his return from re-hab, then he will probably pay a consolatory visit to Kerr to help him through his current difficulties. The CEO of the Amsterdam Football League seems not to be too judgmental of those with persian rug question marks over them.

After two successive canings, Richmond almost pulled off a miracle against the Crows, going down by 9 points. Matty Richardson suffered a horrific facial injury which would have surely been career-ending had it happened to Nathan Brown, for whom a comeback from a horrifically broken leg is one thing, but any comeback from facial damage would surely be out of the question.

Prior to the Essendon-Brisbane match Leigh Matthews poured a bucket on Mal Michael before, accusing him of treachery, disloyalty, the introduction of the cane toad and the death of Bambi, amongst other things. He even had a crack at his charity work in PNG: 

"I heard Mal's not playing (at Telstra Dome on Saturday), he's in Papua New Guinea on his charity foundation duties," he joked."

Lethal was right about Michael being involved in charity work, though he is actually a recipient rather than a provider of charity, in light of the retirement/pension plan he is currently receiving at Windy Hill.

Unfortunately for Lethal, Michael had the last laugh. He was ostensibly put on Plugger Brown, but fortunately for him, Sheedy’s tactic of triple and quadruple teaming Brown meant that Michael never had to face the music one-out. Lucky for Mal, who gets to avoid football accountability for (yet) another week.

Michael: Charity

A football backwater once again pretended to be a serious AFL venue this week, as the Roos returned to the Gold Coast. For the second week in a row, Leigh Brown, aka the General Leigh was The Answer in the Kangaroos forward line, with 3 goals. Just like Stephen Queen’s absence from the Cats, many will now question whether the absence of Nathan Thompson is really hurting the Roos, and whether they really need him back, given the versatile General Leigh’s ability to plug any gap. In keeping with the spirit of their new Gold Coast residence, perhaps Roo fans could conduct a Big Brother-style eviction vote to see if the Arab will be allowed to return.

The Kangaroos latest visit to the Gold Coast once again prompted speculation about their future intentions. A report in The Rage stated that the club is surprised that is has 4,000 less Melbourne members than last year. Well d’uh. On the other hand, they still have does more members in Melbourne than the capacity of Carrara, an irony which is not lost on footballinvective.com, even though it is clearly lost on the Kangaroos board. The Rage went on to say that:

By yesterday just 20,055 members had signed on for 2007 — almost 4000 less than last year … While the club remains thrilled at its recent on-field performances — it has a perfect record at Carrara this season and is now in the top eight — the Roos are bemused at the lack of response from its past members.

All we can say it that It doesn’t take much to bemuse the Kangaroos these days. Asking a lapsed North Melbourne member to take out membership this year is a bit like asking them to take out a long-term lease on a property which is going to be demolished in a year’s time. Apparently North Melbourne's attempts to woo former members back into the fold has included a telethon by current players ringing up the former members and putting the hard word on them to re-join. Perhaps they should have also roped Leigh Colbert into telethon duties. His presence would certainly be fitting given how the board of the Roos is planning to repay the loyalty of the club's Melbourne supporter base.

According to an article by Caroline Wilson and her much-vaunted thources, the Roos are currently considering four options for the club’s future. Each option is listed below, with footballinvective.com’s translations:

Option 1: Permanent relocation to the Gold Coast (aka the Christopher Skase/Brisbane Bears Mark II option)

Option 2: 11 home games in Melbourne (aka the option most appealing to the 90% of its members who actually live in Melbourne)

Option 3: Retaining the status quo with three-four games a season on the Gold Coast (aka the $400,000 per game club prostitution option)

Option 4: A hybrid of the above, which would include the sale of games to various locations around the country (aka the Top of the Town “full-service” option, in which the club completely prostitutes itself to the highest bidder. Come to think of it, that’s what they’ve been doing for the past 9 years, with Sydney, Canberra and now the Gold Coast. There aren’t many other “locations around the country” left).

Furthermore, according to Caro's scoop:

“A strategic sub-committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow to look at a series of consultants who have tendered to undertake the "sensitivity analysis".

“…Duff said the club had received a number of offers from various Gold Coast developers keen to enter into a joint gaming license venture with the club to establish a venture with 280 poker machines.”

If this is correct, then the White Shoe brigade is knocking on Duff’s door to help him turn the once-mighty North Melbourne Football Club into another spivvish Gold Coast pokie business. No “sensitivity analysis” is required to tell Duff the bleeding obvious, namely - no self-respecting Roo supporter wants their club to be sold-out so it can trade-in its fabled Shinboner Spirit in order to set up shop as a poker machine business in the land of fast bucks, white shoes and spivvery. The club that has battled the odds for decades to emerge triumphant as the AFL’s most innovative team has for a century been inspired by the image of the shinbones in the butcher’s shop windows in Dryburgh St. It should not trade in the image of the butcher's shop shinbones for the image of rows upon rows of life-sucking poker machines in the window of the Southport Sharks pokie club (which allegedly runs a football team on the side).

But as if the indignity of looming takeover by white shoe pokie merchants is not bad enough for the once-proud Roos, Caro's article also concludes by stating that:

"Adding to the club's woes, the Kangaroos are operating without a marketing or sales manager, both of whom resigned from the club in the past fortnight."

Whilst the loss of these two key personnel is disappointing for the club, their departure should be seen as an opportunity to rejuvenate the organisation by appointing suitably qualified replacements who will be able to take the decisive action necessary to breathe new life into the Shinboners.

Accordingly, footballinvective.com hereby submits its application for the positions of marketing and sales manager of the Kangaroos, and hereby presents its own Four Option plan to revive the Roos (complete with "sensitivity analysis").

Given the currently dull, plain-jane nature of the team (poor-old Adam Simpson was this week described as the most ordinary player to play 250 games) and its penchant for prostituting itself to the pimps of the AFL and the Gold Coast, footballinvective.com hereby presents its ingenious marketing plan to save the Kangaroos and keep them in Melbourne for all time. Footballinvective hereby presents:

Pimp my Team.

Footballinvective.com's four-point plan 

to save the Kangaroos

Pimp my Team is a four-pronged strategy to revive the Roos and put some excitement back into the club:

1. Recruiting:

Let's face it - the club’s current list (Leigh Brown and Daniel Wells excepted) is bland an unexciting. It is the football equivalent of a clapped-out 1974 Chevy Nova, that needs the “pimping” treatment to liven it up and make it more attractive to fans.

The Club should purge its dead wood and DOBMs and adopt a LODP (Lairs Only Drafting Policy) with Daniel Wells not only given a free reign to play his natural game, but also given the job of recruiting manager, with specific instructions to only recruit players in his own mould.

The club should then engage the services of gangster rapper Xzibit (host of “Pimp my Ride”) as a full-time employee. Not only could he play the role of MC at home games, he could also play full-back and receive special dispensation from the umpires to use all his gangster-homey methods to take out the opposing full forward. This will give the team the two-pronged benefits of not only eliminating the opposition’s leading goalkicker but also freeing up Leigh Brown to move permanently to the forward line.

2. Entertainment:

The Roos were clearly ahead of their time with their half-time entertainment at Arden St in the 1970s (featuring the rogue elephant which memorably ran amok). They need to revisit this idea, whilst at the same time making the entertainment more relevant to contemporary audiences.

The centrepiece of their first half-time entertainment extravaganza should be a WWF-style cage match between Wayne Carey and Glenn Archer, to finally settle the scores of ’02. In Carey’s corner, Miss V8 Supercars could parade around the ring holding up the numbers for each round. In Archer’s corner would be his two managers - Anthony Stevens and Sally Carey’s father, with Sally’s dad given a free megaphone to strut around the outside of the ring yelling abuse at Carey.

Half-time entertainment in subsequent games could also feature other former Roo greats being brought back to entertain the crowd. Crackers Keenan could go 6 rounds of shadow boxing with Don Scott. Adrian McAdam could perform his party trick of kicking footballs into 44 gallon drums from ever-increasing distances. Given McAdam’s current physical shape though, he’d probably look a bit like a performing seal on the Gold Coast. Instead of throwing fish, audience members could thrown a jam donut into his mouth for each successful kick.

Finally, just as the North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast has been a huge fund-raiser for the Club, the Roos could expand this idea by putting on a similarly big televised breakfast function every week. It could be their own version of a live “Sunrise” type TV show. Kangaroo philosopher-king Sam Kekovich could be the host and give a regular monologue commentary on “the week in politics”, and any other musings on world affairs that take his fancy:

3. Facilities:

Now that the Arden Street grandstand has been demolished, the Roos spiritual home should be re-developed to feature a a suitably appropriate edifice that could be constructed on the site. They could begin by building a giant “Pimp My Ride” workshop. This workshop could become a lucrative business venture for the club, which could not only transform fans' cars by giving them the “Pimp my Ride” treatment but also transform the supporters themselves by giving overweight cheer squad members the full “Biggest Loser” treatment. Each week a different club could donate its most obese cheer squad members to get the treatment. This could then form the basis of a new reality TV show, which the club could then sell to Channel 7. This ingenious plan will kill two birds with one stone, as it will also solve Channel 7’s perennial problem of not being able to come up with any football-related show that is even remotely entertaining.

4. Finance:

Just as the Roos pioneered private ownership, Friday night football and the Grand Final Breakfast as innovative money-spinners for the club, they now need a new breed of business ventures that can rebuild their shattered bottom line.

The "Pimp by Ride" workshop out the back of Arden Street will bring in much-needed cash, but more can be done. For example, the club could also run a gangster-style protection racket in which they extort money from the other clubs. Under this plan Eddie Maguire will receive a visit from some of Xzibit's hard pipe-hitting acquaintances, who will convince him to pay half of Collingwood's annual profits to the Roos, in return for Xzibit not conducting drive-bys on the Lexus Centre.

Another lucrative money-making venture is to revive the abortive fundraising concert with Deep Purple, that the Roos were planning to hold back in 2002. This was clearly an idea that was ahead of its time. The club should hold several “Live Aid” style concerts to raise money. Xzibit could use all of his gangster-rapping contacts to assemble an A-list line-up of rappers to do a huge show at Telstra Dome, just like the “Up in Smoke Tour” featuring Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. Snoop Dogg would need to have his visa restriction lifted, and Daniel Kerr and Ben Cousins could join Dr Dre on stage to sing about "the Chronic".

Finally, Jim Krakouer to receive early parole so he can assist the club’s finances by donating some of the proceeds from his “business ventures.”

Hero of the Week: Mick Malthouse and Rodney Eade - the day after The Abomination, the two coaches put on an entertaining, free-flowing and high-scoring game, which proved that real football values can still triumph over the pernicious cancer that is Anti-Football.

Cult Figure of the Week: Leigh Matthews - whilst his trash talking of Mal Michael was ultimately futile, footballinvective.com firmly believes that coaches should dish up more of this lost art. Lethal's comments are a step in the right direction.

Clanger of the Week: Ross Lyon in a complete no-brainer, just edging out Alistair Clarkson, who gave him a real run for his money for the best exponent of Anti-Football. If this is the best they can do, then bring back Peter Schwab and Grant Thomas.