Round 14, 2007

Everyone's a winner at Geelong this week as the Cats notched up 9 wins in a row for the first time since Pyramid Building Society was solvent, Sam Newman was broke and Nathan Ablett was in nappies.

Adam Ramanauskas did his best Kylie Minogue impersonation with a much-anticipated comeback from cancer, but his night turned out to be like some of Kylie's earlier songs - well and truly best forgotten. James Hird's 250th also ended in tears, the victim of another Hird trademark weird injury, whilst Alwyn Davey also copped it, finishing up with an arm resembling Nathan Brown's leg. It was also a week of disappointment for Scott Camporeale, who was also due to play his 250th game but was dropped from the side because, to quote a Caroline Wilson-style "source" in the Bombers cheer squad “With Hirdy and Rama together, there just wasn’t enough space in the banner for a washed-up Carlton reject”.

Brisbane pulled off the upset of year over the Eagles in a match highlighted by the "colourful" antics of Leigh Matthews hitting out over a West Coast's "lack of respect". During the game Lethal looked as pumped as any time during his playing days, as if he was itching to lash out at an errant behind post or Neville Bruns once again. But instead of these hapless targets he had the "easier to hit than the side of a barn" gigantic edifice that is the West Coast Eagles collective ego. The Psychopathic Pharmacists’s men have now lost 5 out of 8 games and boast a forward line more dysfunctional than a Jerry Springer special, with its bumbling forwards cobbling together just 9 goals. Things are looking to even worse for the Eagles, with Ben Cousins' comeback once again on ice and Daniel "Special K" Kerr earning time on the sidelines after his elbow confused the side of a Brisbane head with the roof of a Perth taxi cab.

In contrast to the dysfunctional Eagles, the (gay) Pride of South Australia showed it is well and truly back in town against the Hawks. Fittingly, the Crows midfield resembled the Sydney Mardi Gras – loose men everywhere, sharing around the leather and scoring prodigiously. Edwards (41), McLeod and Thompson (39 each) got more touches than they could even hope for in the middle of Oxford Street during the parade, whilst for Hawthorn the experience of being belted by a rampant Crows midfield must have brought back memories of opening night 1991, when A. Jarman, McGuinness, Tregenza and co. ran riot.

Whilst sitting in the coaches box made famous by Mick Malthouse and his classic meltdown in Round 20 last year, Alistair Clarkson gave a performance that makes him the runaway leader in the 2007 Best Coach Dummy Spit Award (proudly sponsored by Telstra). After his phone connection to the Hawthorn bench cut out for an entire quarter, Clarko vented his frustration on the phone itself, perhaps imagining it was Jim Buckley or David Rhys-Jones at The Oval circa 1987. Hawthorn support staff have reportedly put in a call to a Telstra call centre in India in an attempt to have the problem rectified, but are apparently still on hold.

Clarkson shows his disdain at the sub-standard phone service

Collingwood just beat St Kilda in a game highlighted by what should have been Goal of the Year by Magpie apprentice lair Dale Thomas. With Collingwood streaming forward in the final term, mop-haired Thomas baulked one Saints defender, dummied a second and beat off a third, then ignored a safer option to handball before attempting a reverse banana from the boundary line that miraculously rolled its way through the sticks, before then setting off on a gratuitously lairish victory lap of the MCG, only to be pulled up almost a minute later by a slow-witted boundary umpire, who from a distance of 30 metres claimed to have spotted a skerrick of Sherrin over the boundary line. 

Eddie claimed the boundary umpire had robbed Thomas of a car, but he would end up ruing his comments, as the switchboard at the Lexus Centre immediately went into meltdown with 20,000 Collingwood fans offering their services to steal the car back for him.

Thomas - Denied.

It was meant to be 70s round this week but for some reason Collingwood refused to participate, instead wearing its "We hate Port so much we'll copy their jumper" guernsey. But Collingwood would have been the perfect team to celebrate 70s round. With Harry O'Brien's afro, Dale Thomas's haircut and Mick Malthouse's tash, the Pies had one of the biggest collections of 70s memorabilia of any team, and that's before we even include the thousands of duffle coats still worn by their supporters.

Port Adelaide at last got to wear the famous "Prison Bars" guernsey and, of course, looked resplendent - even in a squirrel grip:

In  a desperate attempt to play down the criminal heritage of much of its fan base, proud Port man Dwayne Russell tried desperately to convince us that the prison bars were, in fact, wharf pylons, but nobody was fooled.

A banner seen flying from the front gate of Yatala Prison this week

Port's guernsey also included the "100" logo used to celebrate the centenary of the SANFL in 1977, back in the days when Russell Ebert reigned supreme:

As footy fans travel back in time to admire the front page of the Sunday Mail circa 1977, they may stop and wonder why there is a huge blank space on the front page of a newspaper. Apparently the blank space was to have been filled with a story celebrating the opening of the new terminal at Adelaide Airport and the introduction of air bridges to South Australia, but it had to be held over...

Grant Thomas continues to surprise with his regular column in The Rage and this week shed some light on his former strategies as coach of the Saints when he wrote a defence of tanking:

Tank is weapon of choice in basement battle

 

IT'S around this time of year that the key decision-makers within football clubs work out their strategies for the rest of the season. They have two options to consider. The attraction of each is proportionately lucrative, the rewards potentially defining. One is the quest for the AFL premiership cup and the other is the quest for the AFL draft cup.

Perhaps this explains the results of Thomas's Saints in 2001 and 2002 (15th, 4 wins and 15th, 5 wins). It certainly gives a whole new meaning to the concept of "Thomas the Tank Engine":

Thomas's musings immediately led to speculation that Denis Pagan has been employing similar tactics since 2003, whilst Richmond also had a question mark over them, before everyone realised that they aren't tanking after all and really are that crap. Not to be deterred however, Terry Wallace came out and promised not to tank this year. Instead he solemnly vowed to continue trying just as hard as he has all year to make creative excuses, rationalise failure and keep extending his time frame for actually being held accountable. But then again, Plow can afford to to make such promises given that the Tiges would need to win 5 out of their last 8 games to avoid the priority draft picks. 

The coaching merry-go-round speculation has started, and was given an unexpected but welcome contribution from aspiring AFL coach Andrew Jarman:

The Magician from Prospect - The man for the job

Meanwhile, the knives are out for Chris Connolly from a Freo administration which has lost faith, and is looking to find it again in the form of the Reverend. Denis Pagan was also under the gun this week, but dismissed such speculation by saying that "Opinions are like noses - everyone's got one". He then lamented that "Unfit captains are like sulking full-forwards, unsupportive boards and treacherous assistant coaches - only I've got them."

Hero of the Week: Lethal Leigh for sledging West Coast, and John Worsfold for sledging right back. Their teams loved it and the fans loved it. The AFL needs more colourful comments and trash talking of this kind from coaches. Which can only mean one thing - bring on Andrew Jarman.

Cult Figure of the Week: Dale Thomas was regrettably denied Goal of the Year by the geometrically-challenged boundary umpire, but with his shameless lairising in front of goals, introduced some classic 1970s razzle-dazzle to the 70s round. What a pity his stick-in-the-mud club couldn't do the same.

Clanger of the Week: No doubt about it, the kill-joy boundary ump who denied the Thomas goal in undoubtedly the worst boundary line performance since Ricky Olarenshaw last appeared on air for Channel 7. For his part, Mick Malthouse later said that he couldn’t comment on umpiring decisions, but the controversial record of the boundary umpire in question spoke for itself:

Some previous dubious decisions by the Dale Thomas 

boundary umpire