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As an opinion writer I like to think I’m open to being proven wrong, and while I don’t always stick to that as much as I probably could, I will say that Nathan Buckley and Collingwood have proven me wrong this year.
At the start of the season I thought there was just about no way the team would be a finals threat and could even be in the running for the bottom four. After all, they’d lost one of their biggest stars in Dayne Beams, and seemed to be running out of quality depth.
Their early season form was the first indicator. Now, they didn’t beat too many good teams early, but they were able to very consistently beat the poor teams, which does show that they’re a rung above that level.
However what’s really surprised me and prompted this change of opinion is Collingwood’s ability to beat or at least come close to the sides who are in finals contention. Their wins over North Melbourne and Greater Western Sydney were both very impressive, and their ability to push Fremantle right until the last 10 or so minutes on Thursday night was probably their best effort yet.
While I don’t think they’re a premiership contender just yet – and they may even still slip out of finals if their second half of the year goes ill – what is clear is that their side still boasts an excellent amount of talent. It’s not just the star players, but they’ve found some role players who really know how to play the role.
On top of that, Nathan Buckley, a coach I thought might not see out the year, has proven that he very much can get the team working together towards a goal, and that his tactical prowess can stand up in big games. It’s been a long road, but it seems that his efforts to push out the ‘rat pack’ and install his own new world order has been successful.
With three top 10 picks from the last two years still yet to debut and more youth to come in as time goes on, I don’t see any reason why the Pies shouldn’t be in premiership contention within a couple of years.
Phil Walsh – yea or nay?
Here’s one I’m still undecided on myself. What do we think of this Phil Walsh bloke? Twelve rounds in he looks capable of taking Adelaide back to finals footy, but does anyone else reckon that a 7-5 record is still underperforming, given the quality of talent they have available?
The Crows still seem a few paces off really challenging for a flag but either way I think the success or failure of this season and, in a larger sense the sacking of Brenton Sanderson and appointment of Walsh, will be decided by whether or not they can get Patrick Dangerfield to sign a piece of paper.
At least for neutral fans we can celebrate the fact that, with prime entertainers like Kevin Sheedy, Mark Thompson and Mick Malthouse all gathering dust on the sidelines nowadays, Walsh has stepped in as our go-to guy for a bizarre press conference.
It started with his repeated use of the phrase ‘man conversations’ but really took off this week when he compared Adelaide’s season to a Van Gogh painting. Noting the beauty in the frustration of Van Gogh, Walsh said he hoped Crows fans can still find something beautiful in their frustrating form of late – arguably one of the oddest footy metaphors ever made.
All I can say is that if frustrating is what Walsh is going for, he nailed it with Adelaide’s hot-and-cold performance against Brisbane on the weekend. I’m looking forward to Starry Night on next year’s AFC membership cards.
Jabs and war dances
All you need to do to make social media explode at the moment if you’re an AFL personality is make some sort of new reference to the ongoing peptides saga at Essendon, and boom! You’ll see the old arguments argued for the thousandth time.
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday when footage was caught of Sam Mitchell having a bit of a sledge at the Essendon players by pretending to jab himself with a needle in the fourth quarter.
Now, I can agree that there’s been something of an overreaction by the many who would gladly have Mitchell locked in a set of stocks in front of Windy Hill, where disenchanted Essendon members could pelt him with rotten tomatoes.
The footy field, after all, isn’t like the rest of the world – it’s a place where you can knock a man out cold and still be good mates after he comes to.
I’d still say that Mitchell’s sledge was in poor taste, especially given the predominate view that the players have been the biggest victims of the supplement saga. Whether or not he crossed the line, he was at least within sight of it.
But Mitchell’s sledge isn’t what bothers me. We all do things we might regret in the heat of the moment, and him having said as much himself, why not just move on?
No, what bothers me is to see thousands of people celebrating Mitchell’s sledge online when just a few weeks before they were calling Adam Goodes’ goal celebration ‘offensive’ and ‘violent’.
And if you think I’m making a stretch in comparing the two, I’ll let you know I’ve seen more than a few people joking about making Sam Mitchell the next Australian of the Year.
Maybe it’s not a massive issue but all things considered, it bothers me that our sport has a following happy to throw a parade for a man who sledges his opponents with a taunt like this, but condemns a man standing up to celebrate his culture.
Members versus mascots – a bizarre tangent
This observation comes courtesy of one of my Twitter followers who randomly pointed out, following the recent Richmond announcement that they had signed up 70,000 members, that the number of actual tigers left in world (estimated around 3200) is massively outnumbered by the number of Tigers fans.
Okay, it’s not strictly speaking a football observation, but it got me on an odd train of thought. How many clubs can say the same about their mascots and member base?
I’ll leave out the Saints, Demons and Giants, who all have to grapple with theological or fantastical issues to answer that question, and the less said about ‘Blues’ and ‘Power’ the better. Aside from that, I think maybe the Suns are the only team who could also make the claim, and even that depends on semantics.
At any rate, here’s hoping that Richmond fans aren’t soon following an extinct mascot. If you’re in the mood for donating to a good cause, why not help out the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)? Here’s a link.