Tuesday, May 04, 2010

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.

25 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great to have you back Captain. This blog gave me de ja vu as this is not a new topic of yours and you seem to write about it every year. Having said that, it is a subject as relevant as ever with this crazy season.

-Tee from Vancouver

6:08 pm  
Blogger Chris Jackson said...

Questions:-
* Does Jnr think he can possess 'fuck you employer approach' because he's heading north next season?
* Does my 'modesty'/conceitedness know no bounds?
* Is the media reading far too much into the above bullshit question? (Not my conceit, it abounds.....)
* Is Pods as good as I read/feel? (I fkn despise the fact I struggle to get to see games - yes this is an excuse & reason in one)
* Is there a team with better drafting in the last 20 years than Geelong (aside from Hooper & Tenace who were our 2Rocky V's", and thus exonerated)?
* If dogs age seven years to our one, where does the boy from Casterton fit in? I reckon his body is about 48 by now!
* Why are bombers fans surprised?
* When I was chucking my guts up in Clichy in Paris last week I was incoherently yelling, "suck shit Tiges, you bunch of C*nts", then jumping my own puddles, celebrating the win, then repeating the aforementioned actions again and again - was it good/bad to ridicule Richmond FC?
* On the rhetorical questions scale, is the above a 9.7 or higher?
* Do I ask far too many questions?
* Do I get an exemption because I'm living in Lond?
* How drunk am I right now?
* Why is Michael Clarke playing T20 & how disenchanted are we because of the popularity of the game are we?
* On the 'Thank-fuck-he's-shutting-up-scale', where does the following rank?

*

9:44 am  
Anonymous attila said...

Whatever happened at the 2007 meeting, I think they may have done a mini version of it at half time yesterday. Beating up on Richmond is like stealing from a down syndrome kid, but Sydney are actually a half respectable team and we toyed with them.

Bradshaw is going to be walking funny for a week after being Scarlett's handpuppet all afternoon.

Bring on the pies in a couple of weeks - our previous black and white ass hat is looking slightly worn, time for a new one.

10:18 am  
Anonymous fustercluck said...

Are we calling the defeat of the Swans an asshatting, there were similarities to the 2009 preliminary final and a similar margin?

Bye Bye Saints!
Is this a runners-up hangover?

Tee, Heather Graham = plain?
Two words: Roller Girl

Captain, as you no doubt know, we play the Cream Pies in 10 days time. Here's hoping the Cats super-glue the switch into the ON position. It's time the perpetual May premiers got a fright.

...fustercluck...

9:29 am  
Anonymous Chris Jackson in Roti said...

Mate, you're giving Chris Jacksons everywhere a bad name.....

6:04 pm  
Blogger Chris Jackson said...

Where the fuck is Roti? I refuse to google that shit!

11:30 am  
Anonymous Chris Jackson as above (but spelled correctly).. said...

Roti's a bread. Never said I could spell!

1:45 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm confused

-Tee from Vancouver

6:39 pm  
Anonymous Chris Jackson in Rote said...

It's where the boats come from.

8:30 am  
Anonymous fustercluck said...

My Friday night wish is simple.

Cats by 10 goals? That would be a waste of a wish, there's a good chance of that happening anyway.

Pendles and Selwood head to head? Nah, that would be a gigantic missmatch and solo asshats are bad for team morale.

Didak to get ironed out by Byrnes? Tempting, as would be Byrnes getting ironed out by Didak, but no.

Hawthorn to be languishing near the bottom of the ladder and StKilda to have no football credibility whatsoever? No, that was my pre-season wish, it's already come true.

My Friday night wish is to see Joffa's ridiculous gold jacket flying from a flagpole at Geelong Town Hall on Saturday morning (extra points if Joffa is still in it).

Cats by 5-12 goals, Eddie McGuire wanting to backhand his kids by 9.30pm and the May premiers asshatted again.

...fustercluck...

10:16 am  
Anonymous FYC said...

3 words:

FUCK YOU COLLINGWOOD!!!!!!

10:25 pm  
Anonymous fustercluck said...

Anyone heard from the Captain?

...fustercluck...

1:20 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How long do we give him before we raise the alert?

-Tee from Vancouver

4:50 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh and anyone have any idea which St Kilda players might have been playing with a teenager?

-Tee from Vancougar

4:53 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rumoured to be Sam Gilbert and David Armitage. Dayne Beams from Collingwood is also rumoured to be implicated.
Seems the young lady in question is somewhat of a football groupie?
All players have since been cleared, as the alleged "teenager" is apparently closer to 18 and the "playing" was consensual!

Another slow news week and journo's shooting first and asking questions later?

11:37 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sam Gilbert, David Armitage & Dayne Beams walk into a bar... Barman puts a bottle on the counter and says "Do you want to share a 16 year old? ..."

12:59 pm  
Anonymous Spiro Mezakellis said...

Don't worry fustercluck. I saw the Captain at the G on friday night. Actually the turning point in the game came 15 minutes into the third quarter when said Captain reached into his front right jacket pocket, retrieved a genuine early 1980's Geelong beanie and plonked it on his tiny little head.

7:48 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sorry, checked in for a while, and first offical log one.

Thanks Chris Jackson London !!

Spiro are you the real one?

Captain, give us an update, post Pies Match !!

Baumy

8:38 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

I meant to say, sorry, haven't checked in for a while....

Here's 3 Cats jokes to come out of Friday Night, Pies v Cats....

1) The Take Away (Hamburger) - a familiar phrase in AFL Footy, when you get a ball that wasn't meant for you, or when you take it out of the backline.... the Take Away. I've been calling it The Take Away Hamburger for a little while now..... and after about 25 Take Away Hamburgers in the Cats v Pies match, I ask my brother Cam (we're at The G with Pies fans), "do you know why we get so many take away hamburgers?", "no", because we're still HUNGRY!!!".

2) Pies sort of kept coming at us for a while, but late in the 3rd, brother Cameron says, "Collingwood keep rolling the dice, but it keeps coming up Snake Eyes !!!!".

3) On the way home, I say, "The cream keeps rising to the top, and The Cats were there to lick it up !!!". In reference to the ladder !!, Challengers, etc.

Simon

8:45 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

jess.fitts@hotmail.com if anyone wantd to send some St.Kilda booties

12:16 am  
Anonymous Chris Jackson in Gaza said...

Why, has your wife recently had a child?

9:23 am  
Anonymous fustercluck said...

Spiro that is great news that the Captain is still alive. I was worried.

How does the saying go?
3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks between blogs.

...fustercluck...

11:32 am  
Blogger Chris Jackson said...

Fkn Richmond got on the board... a bit of a shame, seeing them 0-22 would have been one of the greatest sporting sights in history!

6:38 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=152386&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=113507258668246&aid=-1&id=100000682629034

lol

-Tee from Las Vegas

9:00 am  
Anonymous attila said...

If this keeps up I am going to ask for my subscription money back...

In your heart of hearts, did anyone actually believe we would be top of the ladder this season? I didn't think we were headed for a fall, but I did think that the extra % that has driven the Cats recently (especially last year) would be missing. Instead it is the flood monkeys and the May Premiers floundering around.

Plus, Freo's success means more shots from the commentary box at Subiaco, which means I get to giggle at the inflatable cock and balls they put on the stadium roof each game.

4:53 pm  

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