Round
3, 2009
Tigerban
on the edge
The
Easter round of football always serves up the odd resurrection and
crucifixion, despite Comrade Demetriou’s insistence that Good Friday be
kept a day of religious solace and contemplation. But if the AFL wishes to
keep alive its once-yearly observance of religious tradition, perhaps it
should simply schedule Richmond matches on Good Friday in order to avoid
football being played on that day.
As predicted by Football Invective.com in Round
1, the Tigerban is in full cry after a typical Richmond display against
the Bulldogs; surely it can only be a matter of time before the rabid armies
descend on Punt Road in their religious fervour to stone all and sundry
within reach.
Not
surprisingly, Richo
was despairing after the game. The level of Richo's despair is directly
proportionate to the level of violent anger amongst the Tigerban, which
means the Tigerban is currently poised to blow up some buddhas and bring down some
sky-scrapers. Those in the vicinity of Punt Road should immediately move to Defcon 1.
Women and children are encouraged to evacuate. Be alert, and alarmed.
As
an ominous warning of what is to come, Thailand-based Richmond fans traded
their duffle coats for red jackets and took the streets of Bangkok this
week. Fortunately, Bangkok authorities were more prepared than their
Melbourne equivalents appear to be:
As a pensive and portentous Rex Hunt said after the game "I know the way things work down at Punt Road
and after today, you can't
help but feel that the drums are starting to beat."
First
to hear the drums was the Herald Sun, which did not do the responsible thing
and try to placate the hordes, but instead incited them to even greater
levels of bloodlust on Tuesday morning, with both its front and back pages
dominated by morbid predictions of imminent carnage:
Not
that the Tigerban needed much encouragement. As anyone who tuned into AM
radio in the 24 hours after the game would have realised, Richmond fans were
already on the warpath, and the battle cry could be heard across all open
talk back radio lines. As Hutchy said on 'Footy Classified' "If talkback radio is the measure
then things are already starting to implode down at Richmond".
3AW
even put together a highly irresponsible, highly provocative (yet utterly
hilarious) highlights package of Richmond talkback calls on its web site.
There were so many highlights that the whole thing goes for 29 minutes.
(Click here to listen to bile):
Like
the latest broadcast from Osama from his cave, this highlights reel will
succeed only in further inflaming the already incendiary intent of the
Tigerban.
Typical
of the war cry was the first caller on the highlights package:
"We
need some sackings, we need them immediately. We need a clean-out and we
need it post haste. First of all Terry Wallace. Now. Immediately. Don't
wait for Melbourne. Just get rid of him. Sack the mongrel, because he is
crap. He cannot coach, he just can't, he's got no idea. Then the players -
Schultz, Edwards, Brown, King, Tambling, Tuck, Jackson, Polo, Simmonds,
Bowden. That's enough."
Even
if this means Richmond faces it next match minus a coach and minus 10
players, according to Tigerban logic this is a small price to pay for being
true to the fundamentalist faith. Just as impressive was the little old lady
who lacked nothing in fundamentalist fervour:
"I've
never liked Terry Wallace because he never loved Richmond at the start,
and my big concern is that he might bring Richmond down with him!"
If
ever there was a call to arms, this was it. Even
Ben Cousins went public
predicting that there will be "blood
in the street" if the Tiges lose to Melbourne this week.
Tigerland
is no stranger to coups and revolutions. Just ask Kevin Bartlett and Danny
Frawley, the latter narrowly escaping dangling from a Punt Road lamp-post in
2004.
However,
all coups and revolutions, even when ground in large-scale popular support,
still require a leader or, at least, an eminence grise behind the scenes. Tsarist
Russia had Lenin. Socialist Spain had General Franco. Sukarno’s Indonesia
was toppled by General Suharto’s “New Order”. Whitlamesque Chile was
brought to an end by General Pinochet. The Shah of Iran was seen off by the
frenzied mobs inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979-1980 (also a period
that also saw the true years of Tiger dominance. Coincidence? We think not).
At this stage there is no similar figure threatening Terry Wallace. Punt
Road awaits its Finland Station moment.
As
Lenin asked “what is to be done?”.
The
clear answer is that the movements of Kevin Sheedy should be scrutinised in
coming weeks and, indeed, his actions in recent weeks also deserve closer
scrutiny. His behaviour coincides with classic signs of faceless agents
provocateur raising the expectations of the Tigerban, inciting the always
vulnerable Richmond faithful to believe that 2009 would be the Year of the
Tiger. Then came the Carlton loss, the Cousins demise and now the
realisation has set in, post-Easter Monday debacle, that 2009 will be eerily
similar to 2008, and 2007 ....
Freo
rushes to Richmond's aid
As
Plow faced his own death
row, the most recent victim of a Tigerban jihad, Danny Frawley, sent
a message of support to Terry Wallace this week. Even more bizarrely, so
did Mark Harvey, who slammed
Mike Sheahan for his "death row" headline. Just like Jimmy
Carter sent a message of support to the Shah and George V pledged support to
his cousin Tsar Nicholas II before the axe fell, they are futile gestures.
Frawley and Harvey should remember that when the Tigerban are in a feral
mood, anyone suspected of giving aid and comfort to Terry Wallace may be
hanged with him.
Or
perhaps Harvey and Wallace could simply swap jobs - Harvey could learn the
cruel arithmetic of Richmond expectations the hard way, whilst all Wallace's
dreams would come true if he could coach at a club that (a) has no
expectations anyway and (b) thrives on excuses.
This
week the
Old Heave Ho proceeded to give yet another display of ineptitude the likes
of which haven’t been seen since, well, the Dockers match in Round 2. Following
this latest capitulation, Mark Harvey spent the week singing Terry Wallace's
praises and publicly
slagging off Grant Thomas for these
classic comments:
"Dare
I say it, but there are some coaches that were born to be an assistant
coach. I think Mark Harvey is one of those coaches"
Dare
we say it, but Football Invective.com emphatically agrees with Grant Thomas
(or maybe he was just channelling us).
If
Mark Harvey and the rest of the Freo brains trust had been coaching the
North in the Civil War, the South would still be in the hunt – and if the
North had had Freo's current playing list in its ranks, Barack Obama would
today be an expert on picking cotton rather than sitting in the big chair.
With
a run of bad coaches, bad recruiting, bad trades and bad players stretching
back to the water polo genius Neesham and his speedo-wearing acolytes, Freo
is currently neck and neck with Richmond in the race to be awarded Football
Invective.com's latest prestigious award - the Leigh Colbert Medal, which
goes to the first club to comprehensively succeed in colberting
itself.
Limp
Cox and Lame Eagles
The
once dominant, strutting Eagle porn stars again went into limp riposte after
copping a 97-point belting from the St Kilda Night-clubbers. The entire
Saints playing list seems to have lifted its efforts this year, possibly in
a bid to impress the Gold Coast hierarchy in the hope of a big contract and
a sun-tanned existence post-2011.
The
previously virile and shamelessly hedonistic Eagles now resemble the latter
stages of the plot of 'Boogie Nights' circa 1984 when it all went
pear-shaped for every character - Dirk Diggler's once flashy Corvette
wouldn't even start and he was forced to sell hand
relief for $10; Buck Swope couldn't get a home loan and had to rob the
7-Eleven; and Roller Girl was reduced to illiterate humiliation with total strangers in limos.
John
Worsfold currently resembles the humiliated Jack Horner in the age of video
tape and a dwindling audience. His biggest stars (the Studd
and the Cuz) have, just like Dirk and Chest Rockwell, left to pursue solo
careers, leaving his studio bereft of big-name talent (apart from Big Cox,
who simply lacks the bodies around him to have the sort of impact he used
to).
They
thought they were coming
In
the best game of the year so far, Carlton
had a stumble against an Essendon side in a "rebuilding" phase.
But as the Blues discovered, if you venture onto a building site unprepared, that's when
accidents happen.
After
two games for zero goals, Matty Lloyd returned to form in spectacular
fashion. Either Lloyd was flagrantly ignoring his coach's instructions or
Matthew Knights has finally uncovered the revolutionary idea that full
forwards who’ve kicked nearly 900 career goals are probably best played at
full forward, as opposed to the wing. Now that Lloyd has been re-acquainted
with the big sticks, Essendon fans can now look forward to the big man’s
grass samples being tested with more frequency than those of Richmond’s
new recruit.
The
rebuilders
Whilst
Essendon freely admits it is still rebuilding, Carlton has deluded itself
that it has moved beyond that stage. Recent history provides some
instructive examples of successful and not-so-successful rebuilding
programs, with the two most striking examples being Hawthorn and - here we
go again - Richmond.
It
should be remembered that at
the end of 2004 the Tigers were separated from Hawthorn in 16th and 15th
spot respectively by 0.92 of a percentage point. At that time they were both
laughing stocks, both looking for a new coach, and both had a swag of first
round picks in a draft with more talent for the taking than the Playboy
Mansion.
In
the 4 years since, Hawthorn has built a premiership list that looks as
strong as the dynasty they had in 1991, whilst Dear Leader Wallace’s
Tigers have built a soviet 5-year-plan that them looking like the Soviet
Union circa 1991. After 4.5 seasons of resultant
mediocrity, the chickens have come home to roost at Punt Road (as have the
inevitable truckloads of chicken manure).
In
terms of 'rebuilding' projects, Hawthorn's resembles the Atlantis Hotel in
Dubai - a glittering new edifice completed in 2008 ahead of schedule, on the
site of a former arid wasteland:
Richmond's
rebuilding project on the other hand resembles the West Gate Bridge after
the 1970 collapse - not even close to completion and currently suffering
what engineers call catastrophic failure as a result of fundamental flaws
and misjudgements in in the design phase:
(Structural
engineers blame the collapse on the use of the highly unstable Tambling and
Deledio building materials that were used in the foundations when they were
first laid in October 2004.)
Carlton's
rebuilding phase currently resembles that of ground zero in New York. Just
like Carlton, the site has looked pretty shabby since September 2001, and
despite all the bold plans and supposed grandiose visions, we are still
waiting for something to re-emerged from the rubble.
Melbourne's
purported rebuilding resembles the BrisConnect project - devoid of money,
devoid of confidence and on the brink of being wound up. Not coincidentally,
all roads would have led to the Gold Coast had BrisConnect been built.
Perhaps the Demons should have considered the same strategy.
Finally,
the Gold Coast and Western Sydney resemble the latest $43 billion National
Broadband Network proposal - a speculative pipedream that will have piles of
cold hard cash thrown at it, but still likely to end up a white elephant.
In
a weekend dedicated to religious observance, there was no more appropriate
place to be that the City of Churches itself.
Teal
Coloured Glasses paid his respects at Footy Park on Easter
Sunday, and watch Port's arrogance (if not its credibility) rise again
against the hapless Demons.
On-Field:
Unimpressive.
Port played 25 mins of good footy spanned between the end of the 2nd
and start of the 3rd quarters but that's about it. Still too
many players content to let others do the heavy lifting, and concentration
errors abounded. Could have won that game by 100 if we’d been switched
on. I have no idea what Captain Dom and P Burg thought they were doing
taking out players off the ball but it’s garbage, cheap-shot stuff which
doesn’t fool anyone. I have zero confidence we will win any of our next
3 against Hawthorn, St K, and Adelaide.
Fortunately,
Daniel Motlop – who is genuinely the most under-rated player in the game
– provided some vintage moments. Have you seen much of him? If not, I
urge you to watch out for him. I’m not being parochial here, the guy is
just a freak. He constantly does things on a footy field I’ve NEVER seen
before (and that's just his facial expressions). It’s just a travesty
that people generally don’t realise how special he is.
As
an aside – Melbourne are just an awful footy team. As bad a team as
I’ve seen for some time. As directionless as a cargo ship over-run by
Somali pirates.
Off-field:
Port’s
(or was it the SANFL's?) attempts to make AAMI Stadium feel more welcoming
to Port fans are feeble and futile. I have previously vented my teal
coloured spleen against AAMI on this site, and pointed out that one of the
key reasons that Port fans don’t attend games is that they feel like
AAMI Stadium is Crows turf because their HQ is there and they train there,
etc. Putting up a teal sign over Gate 1 saying "Home of the
Power" is pretty redundant when all you need to do is tilt your head
to the left to see the giant new Crows social club being constructed. A
worse band-aid solution than a Rudd stimulus package (but thanks for the
$900 anyway - it'll buy plenty of bags of goon at the Salisbury Hotel).
In
encouraging news this week, the SANFL is finally considering alternative
venues to Footy Park for future AFL games, but unfortunately it has picked
the wrong one, thinking Adelaide
Oval may be the answer. Apparently the SACA (and possibly the SANFL)
want to redevelop it to seat 50,000 people.
What
a travesty it would be to lose the great Oval as we currently know it -
the
magnificent grass hill in front of the magnificent score board with the magnificent West
End bar underneath it (that thankfully doesn't serve West End).
The
Marylebone Cricket Club would never consider rebuilding Lord's to turn it
into a Premier League ground, so why would the SACA consider doing something similar
to the finest cricket ground in Australia?
The
Adelaide Oval is a 19th century cricket ground. What Adelaide needs is a
21st century footy ground. Bring on The
Slammer.
Hero
of the Week: Paul "Uncle Fester" Chapman - The most
dominant individual performance of the round as Chappy was switched to the
midfield, gathered 30-plus possessions and still managed to kick 5 goals.
Every effort by frustrated Pies to tackle and later decapitate him proved
futile, as human hands cannot possibly cause any damage to a body that
resembles a flying block of granite.
This
week the patronising and oh-so condescending Hero of the Week 'encouragement
award'
goes to Richo, who somehow managed to restrain the urge to belt the living
suitcase out of his 21 team-mates and throw his lot in with the Tigerban
hordes after Monday’s debacle.
Cult
Figure of the Week: Paddy Ryder - In
another classic game in a truly classic rivalry, the young man put in a
match-saving tackle in the dying minutes to bring down Marc Murphy, after he
was set up by Judd to kick what would have been the winning goal. Up there
with Fraser Brown's epic effort on Wallace on that fateful day in '99.
Clanger
of the Week: Leigh Brown - A
former favourite of Football Invective.com, the General
Leigh has now found a new garage
at the Lexus Centre. But on Thursday night he missed three sitter shots for
goal that could have put the pies 5 goals up. He kicked for goal like he was distracted by
a buxom Daisy Duke blowing kissed at him whilst getting her gear off in the crowd.
There can be no other plausible explanation for such repeated lapses.
