The Switch

The first six rounds of season 2010 have been as unpredictable as any season in recent memory. The serial basket case Dockers are playing well above where I (and most others) expected them to be and could almost be undefeated. Adelaide, a top four team last season, is winless and Hawthorn has a fork sticking out them so big that Brad Johnson is jealous.

Check out this chain of results: Melbourne has beaten Brisbane, Brisbane has beaten WC, WC has beaten Essendon, Essendon beat Carlton, Carlton beat Geelong, Geelong smashed Port and the very next week Port beat St. Kilda. The Saints have beaten the Western Bulldogs, the Dogs beat Hawthorn, the Hawks beat Melbourne and Melbourne beat… Etc.

So what’s going on? How can previously hapless teams turn the corner so quickly? What light bulb goes off that allows them to reach their potential? How does a team transform, almost overnight, into an elite unit and vice-versa? How many of the same questions, phrased differently, can I use in the same paragraph?

Think back to round 5, 2007. Coming off a crap-the-bed 2006 season, Geelong capitulated at home to a very average North Melbourne team. Bomber Thompson was favourite to be the first coach boned, the players looked like they didn’t want to be there and Mrs Watson still knew that Big League existed.

During the following week there was some sort of mysterious meeting and then Geelong proceeded to kick the shit out of everyone on their way to a record setting 119 point Grand Final win.

Think about that for a minute.

The same playing list (plus Joel Selwood, I must admit) as the 2006 fuck-ups start ’07 in the same inconsistent way. They then have a meeting and turn into the best football team of all-time.

I mean, was this meeting at a crossroad at midnight? Did Steve Johnson trade his soul for a Norm Smith medal? What exactly was said and how could it be so Earth shattering that as professional football athletes they hadn’t heard it before? We have heard the reports about “accountability” and “telling some home truths” and “playing for each other” but this is all vague pseudo-psych talk. What we really want to know is what does this, in a practical, athletic, footballing sense, manifest as and why can’t teams simply do that?

This, I can not answer.

I suspect it is something to do with a maintaining of effort, intensity, a singular focus and these sorts of things. A disappointing conclusion, perhaps, but these sorts of things are never clearly defined by those who should know better. And even more mysterious is how this mentality spreads, or fails to spread, to 21 other men (although I, unlike Lips Thompson, will exempt Gary Junior here).

The 2010 Cats, after three impressive finals runs, will perhaps find it more difficult than others in keeping the switch firmly in the “on” position – the lay down against Carlton a couple of weeks back may have simply been a symptom of this – but they do, more than anyone else, know exactly how to find it when they need it most.