2011: Are we there yet?

Is it just me or does the 2010 AFL season seem like a distant memory? It may as well have been the 1998 season as far as my brain is concerned. Maybe it was because Geelong got knocked out in the Prelim. Maybe it was all the travel I was doing at the time. Maybe it was that I came back to not one, but two Grand Finals that I had no interest in.

(Note: After watching Collingwood choke away the first one, in which I loudly proclaimed early in the third quarter “the choke is on!” it was hard to really pick a horse for Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich part II. If anything, I was barracking for another draw, multiple ACL injuries and for someone from the crowd to a launch a 55-metre barrel into Lionel Ritchie’s head.)

For whatever reason, I was ready for the footy to finish and was completely locked into some sunshine, getting stuck into the mountain of duty-free booze I had accumulated and watching Brad Haddin repeatedly loft Graeme Swann over mid-on. Fast-forward three months and the Ashes are lost, half the country is underwater and my recycle bin has more empty Bombay Sapphire bottles than Michael Clarke has single figure scores.

But guess what? The most exciting AFL season in recent memory starts in two weeks.

West Coast and Richmond remain relevant due to their massive, and largely delusional, supporter bases and for the controversial revelation/push-to-get-back-into-the-spotlight by Ben Cousins that I’m tentatively pencilling in for round 6.

Essendon have just hired golden boy James Hird and his gravity-defying ears to coach, plus they sneakily lured Lips over to fill some sort of managerial role which I assume will be about showing Hird the ropes of senior coaching, isolating and antagonizing your best player and the correct etiquette for swingers parties.

Meanwhile, players have spent the off-season scrambling to get out of Brisbane faster than people leaving the cinema after watching “Little Fockers”. Sherman’s gone, Brennan’s gone and half the coaching staff are gone, who, I’ll point out, were largely Voss’ ex-premiership-teammates. Oh, and Fev got arrested again, may have some sort of a David Schwarz-esque gambling problem and has done his pre-season training from inside a rehab centre. If I’m Neil Balme, I’m waiting until Brisbane hit 1-12 and then sending Jon Brown a “Season 2009” DVD, a map showing Geelong’s proximity to Warnambool and an outline of the plan that has allowed us to pay Bartel, Chapman, Selwood, Scarlett and Ottens outside the salary cap for the past 5 years.

Melbourne, North Melbourne and Carlton all showed signs of life at various points last season and are all probably fighting for eighth spot and the chance to get smoked in the first week of finals. Off the field, Stynes is hanging in there, Brayshaw has added some life to Channel 9’s cricket team and Chris Judd has already slipped one past Twigley and through to the keeper. (By the way, a friend of mine pointed out the greatest potential AFL story of this year: Melbourne makes the Grand Final inspired by Jim Stynes, only, and here’s the rub, for it to be a true tragedy/triumph, Stynes would have to die Grand Final week before the Dees capture the flag. A little morbid? Sure. But I can already see Channel 9 casting Callan Mulvey as Brad Green in the mini-series.)

Port Adelaide will remain irrelevant as the Cornes brothers will mail in more performances this year than Billy Bob Thornton’s last 5 years of cinema, whilst Adelaide have reached deep in to their bag of tricks and produced Richard Tambling as the man to turn things around… Let’s just say I’m looking forward to Neil Craig’s work on Footy Classified in 2012.

Hawthorn’s never ending search for a ruckman led them to David Hale who once kicked 8 goals against Geelong, which is akin to a Golden Retriever parallel parking a 1979 Ford Cortina. And due to the 2008 aberration they will continue to be talked about as “a premiership chance” until Doc Brown picks me up in the Delorean and I can go back to kidnap Lips’ kids until he agrees not to play Matthew Stokes on Luke Hodge.

Fremantle finally got their shit together this year only to be pumped by The Cats in the semi-final, which led to Geelong hiring Freo’s assistant Chris Scott as their new coach. Good times?

Sydney traded for Andres Everitt, Spider Everitt’s son or younger brother or something, and also will give us the first look at the how the pre-arranged “coaching handover” goes. Although, has anyone actually seen or heard from John Longmire in the past 6 months? Don’t be surprised if he turns up hogtied in the boot of a car somewhere as Paul Roos continues pulling the strings MI:2 style in a Longmire mask.

The always thereabouts Bulldogs are finally free of Brad Johnson, who was so washed up that he ended last season with a whole cutlery draw sticking out of him, including the mystery “fifth slot" which contains anything and everything that isn’t a fork, knife, tea or table spoon.

Then there are the two top teams from last season, who were so evenly matched we needed an extra week, and an extra slab of Coopers Pale, to sort it out. Collingwood have started their premiership defence by adding a former washout and much maligned full-forward to presumably come in and play full-back, and a former Richmond player, WAFL Sandover medallist and Wooroloo inmate to join their already impressive array of small-forwards/criminals.

And then there’s St. Kilda, who have had a pretty quiet off-season. Yep, just business as usual down at Moorabbin. Nothing to see here… (For round one, can someone please arrange for a banner that reads “It looks like a penis, only smaller”? Thanks.)

Which brings us, finally, to Geelong. Speaking to Mrs Watson a few weeks back, he pointed out that for the first time in at least three years he has no idea how The Cats will go. They are no longer the best team in football, no longer have the best player in football and no longer have the coach that led them to three Grand Finals and four broken marriages.

Besides the changes to game-plan, or subtle differences in zoning and set-up, etc., and ignoring the number of times this year my Dad will call him Brad Scott or Robert Scott, the most interesting thing to watch about Chris Scott is how he goes about selection. Will Dawson Simpson elbow Mark Blake out of the way, or is Nathan Vardy a real chance? Is there room for Byrnes and Stokes? How will he squeeze in Taylor Hunt, Mitch Duncan and Daniel Menzel? And how about the latest crop of draftees? According to Brenton Sanderson, the rookies are coming to the AFL more and more prepared to step straight in every year. And Nigel Lappin has already said most players on the list will get a run in the pre-season; that’s at least five chances for Mrs Watson to come up with convoluted nicknames.

Add to this a Lightning premiership type pre-season set up, an insane new “super-sub” rule, a full year of prickly Mick Malthouse interviews as Buckley sizes up his chair, the endless sledging of St.Kilda, the on-going unintentional comedy of “Rexona’s Greatest Athlete Challenge”, the chance for me to make at least two Tom Selleck references before his new show gets cancelled and did I mention A WHOLE NEW FRIGGIN’ TEAM featuring Gold Coast Gary and the Schoolies!?!

And it all starts in two weeks. Just enough time to see if I have more Gin & Tonics left in me than Michael Clarke has runs.

Ashes Defeat, or, Crash & Burn


After witnessing England win their first Ashes series in Australia since ’86-87, I thought, what better way to commemorate it than by using a classic film released in 1986 and a gimmick I ripped off from the Sportsguy to bring you the Ashes ‘Top Gun’ memorial awards! Enjoy!

We've seen this before.
No sir, I'm holding on too tight, I've lost the edge.
To Ricky Ponting, who looks like the past few years have caught up with him all at once. His captaincy nous was never his strength, but once upon a time Ponting could always be relied upon for runs; not so now, it would appear. Being an international batsman requires such high levels of concentration, eyesight, reflexes, footwork and balance that once it starts to go it’s like falling off a cliff – there’s only one outcome. Unfortunately Ponting appears to have hit that point. Let’s see if he’s willing to turn in his wings.

Do you think your name will be on that plaque?
Yes, sir.
That's pretty arrogant, considering the company you're in.
To the Australian cricket hierarchy, who failed to give the players the stability, direction and preparation required for this Ashes series. England, who had been planning for this tour for two years, sent over a settled line-up that came out early to acclimatize to conditions and played a number of tour matches against State and other rep sides. Meanwhile Australia was involved in a pointless Twenty20 series in the sub-continent, played no 4-day lead up games then, after using an Australia A game essentially as a “bowl-off”, they named a 15-man squad that didn’t include the incumbent spinner, selected a spinner from outside the squad (Doherty) and ignored the spinner who was in form and well-performed against England and at first class level (O’Keefe).

What's your problem, Kazanski?
You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous.
That's right! Ice… Man… I am dangerous.
One of the great, and many, unintentionally hilarious and homoerotic scenes of the film goes to Mitchell Johnson who seems to swing between unplayable and unpickable for no discernable reason. When he’s up and firing, as we saw in the third test, he absolutely wins games by himself, but if he’s slightly off, he’s a liability. Let’s hope it doesn’t take the tragic death of Ben Hilfenhaus for Mitch to get his head on straight.

You're a little low. You're a little low. Come on, buddy, pull up.
To all of Australia’s fast bowlers who continually bowled too short or too straight and, really, seemed unable to land three deliveries in the same spot, let alone six. I mean, Alistair Cook made 900 runs or whatever and didn’t play a single straight drive – do you think maybe you should pitch it up to him?

You wanted to know who the best is? That's him. Iceman. He flies ice-cold. No mistakes. Wears you down. You get bored, do something stupid, and he's got you.
To England’s fast bowlers who continually put the ball on the spot and waited for Australia’s batsmen to nick one to the keeper.
Since I have nothing else to add here, was Iceman Val Kilmer’s greatest role? The guy seems like he’s been around forever and done a heap of films, but did he ever again nail a signature role like he did with Tom “Iceman” Kazanski? C’mon, who else could have pulled off that arrogant, preppy, bleached flat-top, chest-out-strutting-around action?

You're the top one percent of all naval aviators. The elite. The best of the best. We'll make you better.
To the Sheffield Shield competition, which desperately needs the National players back playing for their state so it’s actually possible to, you know, groom some international cricketers.

Let me ask you something. If you had to go into battle, would you want him with you?
I don't know, I just don't know
To Michael Clarke, whose future seems as uncertain as Maverick’s was after he pursued Jester below the hard-deck. Prior to the series he was being called Australia’s best batsman and has been the captain in waiting for as long as Ponting has been in charge. Now he’s coming off a series where he averaged less than Peter Siddle, is speaking like he doesn’t want the captaincy and has retired from Twenty20 duties. Are we sure this all can’t be tied to Lara Bingle? Even though their relationship generated a ton of negative press, and she may very well have stolen her own car for insurance purposes, he at least seemed to be making runs. For the sake of Australia’s middle order we need to get Clarke hooked up again. Is it too much to ask James Sutherland to get Megan Gale’s number?

And you asshole, you're lucky to be here!
Thank you, sir.
To Phil Hughes, who apparently earned a recall to the Test team by averaging under 20 in Shield cricket. Yes, I defended his selection, but I wasn’t aware of his State numbers at the time (which were kindly pointed out by a couple of readers). Plus, I was more so pleased that the selectors had chosen to right a previous wrong, as he should never have been dropped in the first place. Now that he’s back in the team he needs an extended run, and it’s not as if anyone is banging down the selection door. (Yes, that's the sound of me furiously back-pedaling.)

I got another problem here. I gotta send somebody from this squadron to Miramar. I gotta do something here, I still can't believe it. I gotta give you your dream shot! I'm gonna send you up against the best.
To the selectors and Steve Smith, who was promoted as a potential solution to both the lack of spin bowling and middle order batting and ended up doing neither. He does appear to have some natural talent but at the moment, to paraphrase Jeff Thomson, he’s not a top six batsmen’s asshole. Could he develop in to a handy all-rounder? Absolutely, but that looks a good couple of years away, plus, he has to survive the all-rounder rule which states, he must be good enough to be selected as a specialist.

You were number two, Cougar was number one. Cougar lost it-turned in his wings. You guys are number one.
To Cameron White, who gets a chance to show his captaincy credentials as the new Twenty20 skipper after Michael Clarke retired from the shortest form of the game. White has often been lauded for his captaincy skills and feel for the game and has even been suggested as a future Test captain, but has not been given a chance at the game’s highest level. Would he have done any worse than Steve Smith? Certainly not. And I get the feeling he’ll get his chance soon enough, and even more so if he can take the Twenty20 leadership role onboard and still score runs.
(Note: In the previous post I proposed the idea that three separate teams for the three forms of the game would be a legitimate and very possible outcome in the near future. The Clarke retirement and the lack of temperament from Australia’s Test top order seems to strengthen that idea, right?)

Whose butt did you kiss to get in here anyway?
The list is long, but distinguished.
To Michael Beer, who has modest figures in the handful of games he’s played for WA and yet somehow jumped the queue to claim a Test place just like Maverick and Goose “slid” in to Cougar’s spot. Plus, there are theories floating around that he only got a start due to being Warnie’s mate and getting a massive endorsement from Mr. McChicken himself. Having said all that, he seemed competitive, reasonably tight and had an idea of what he was doing. But is he bringing anything to the table that Nathan Hauritz or Steve O’Keefe or even Jason Krezja aren’t?

The plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies room.
Another one for Michael Clarke, after his name was brought up as a potential Test captain and my Dad screwed up his face before spitting out, “He looks like he sits down to piss”.

You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're dead.
To Shane Watson who either completely over thinks things once he nears a milestone score, or completely stops thinking after a break in play or when running between the wickets.
Going forward, what to do with Watson will be a tough decision. He consistently gets good starts at the top of the order but never kicks on to get a century. And he often can’t contribute enough as a bowler because he’s being saved to open the batting.
I’d like to see him batting lower in the order, perhaps at four, and then sent to live with Jacques Kallis (South Africa’s very own Iceman) for 6 months.

If you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong!
To Tim Nielsen and Andrew Hilditch, who have apparently been put on notice by the Australian cricket board. It was good to read Dean Jones calling out Nielsen this week, pointing out that, you know, it might be a good idea to have a coach who had success as a player at international level.

You can be my wingman any time.
Bullshit… You can be mine.
The ultimate hilarious/homoerotic and confusing moment of the film goes to the confusion of finding a suitable Test captain to replace Ponting once he calls it a day. Michael Clarke, the vice-captain and long touted replacement is horribly out of form, Mike Hussey has probably played his last Test, Shane Watson can’t seem to manage walking and chewing gum at the same time and Brad Haddin seems slightly more intelligent than a well-trained kelpie. Not good times. So either Ponting sticks around for longer than he should (perhaps sliding down the order?) or Clarke is given the job by default and persevered with.

No, Mav, this is not a good idea.
Sorry, Goose, but it's time to buzz a tower.
To the review system, and specifically Brad Haddin’s 100% incorrect record in it’s usage. And while I’m on the topic, let me get this rant out of the way: Why give the teams two reviews each if the umpires are able to arbitrarily review anything? Someone is given out and then they think, oh, maybe that was a no-ball, and so they review it based, not on either side asking for it to be reviewed, but just because they wanted to. Doesn’t that completely undermine the player’s reviews? Make a decision and let the teams decide whether to review it or not or just fucking review everything. Rant over.

Lieutenant, what were you doing there?
Communicating. Keeping up foreign relations.
This one is awarded to both teams for the sledging in the third test that got so heated Matt Prior was asking Peter Siddle to meet him behind the sheds and settle it King Street style. It was good to see the Aussies showing some spirit and aggression and it was equally funny to see Ponting attempt to calm Siddle down in the above scenario one second before launching his own verbal attack on Prior the next. And he wonders why nobody likes him.
Honorary mention goes to Ian Chappell and Ian Botham who still refuse to speak to each other after coming to blows more than 30 years ago. Stay classy, gents.

Bullshit ten minutes! This thing will be over in two minutes! Get on it!
To the Australian top order, who collapsed with such monotonous regularity that anything better than 4/70 could be considered “a good start”. And as much grief as the bowling attacked copped, the first step to competing, especially when batting first, is to post a decent total. Each Test I would tune in with a renewed sense of optimism and each Test Australia’s batting would fall apart worse than Tom Cruise’s acting when he has to talk to Kelly McGillis about his family history.

It's the bottom of the 9th, the score is tied. It's time for the big one.
You up for this one, Maverick?
Just a walk in the park, Kazansky.
To the English: Their bowlers were disciplined and skilful, their batting was patient and determined and they took all their chances in the field. In short, they owned Australia like it was 1776.

Talk to me, Goose
To you guys, the readers! Drop some comments, ask some questions, suggest some blog ideas or just suggest a movie I could watch that was made after 1996!