The round ball game really is beautiful

Come back to my original AFL player suggestion as a soccer player,Buddy Franklin.Aint so shabby. The specifics of a players build is not so important when fantasising about champions playing in another code.The most important thing with daydreams is a players athletic ability,mindset,and instinct. There are literarly hundreds and hundreds of sporting champions in one code that would have been as successful in another if weaned on that code.

Keep your bluddy hands off James T Hird. The greatest player to ever pull on an Essendon jumper. James Hird would never make it in the SFC team as a Central Defender ... I have seen him scores of times crying on the boundary line with a supposedly knock on his knee ... the boy was a cry baby... Redb would tell you ... :lol: ... At the sight of blood he would faint.... :lol: ~~~~~~~~ KB

Pippinu Show a kid a brick wall today,then again a crazy thought. Too busy playing "Mutant Dog killers from Mars" on the X-box.

Towser you're absolutely right, and I too have played variations of this game with my brother - where we lived in Footscray there was a high and wide brick wall along one side of our drive way that was an old dairy, in the days when the milko delivered milk each day by horse and carriage, i.e. in our front yard, so the amount of games we made up utilising this brick wall, well, you can imagine youself - it was endless - football, hockey, cricket, lacrosse, variations of squash and tennis, you name it - we tried it!. But I guess it is also possible to spend hours against a brick wall on your own (with a round ball) in a manner that you normally can't with an oval ball (I say normally!)

Pippinu The 2 statements below are not mutually exclusive for the world game. Not kick to kick as in AFL, but a game called 10 down played between 2 people, or in my case for literally hours on end with my cousin who lived next door.. You face a brick wall(ours backed onto an entry from the front of the street into the backyard where the other houses of the back to back system of housing was). The idea being that you each started off with 10 points & you kicked off from a central point in front of the wall say 3 metres away. The other person had to kick your rebound back onto the wall without stopping so the plan was to kick it so the rebound forced the other player to return the ball to the wall at an acute angle. You also had 3 boundaries(2 sides one at the back in front of the wall & if you couldnt reach the ball before it went out you lost a point. You also lost a point if the ball didnt reach the wall due to the angle being so acute you fell over when kicking etc. or you kicked above the wall. The winner being the one who didnt lose 10 ponts first. It allowed for much innovation in the placing of kicks to the wall,sometimes soft sometimes hard depending on the position of your opponent. Needless to say we were not always popular as the entrance was falling to pieces as the BTB houses were nearly 200 years old & the roof of the entrance was constantly falling down due to our pounding of the ball against the wall. "Those who play the world game have probably spent many hours kicking the ball against a brick wall to hone the skills, etc." "not to mention that it’s a lot more fun playing kick to kick with a mate or mates, "

Redb I reckon supporters of all the codes can relate to the sentiment that your club will only gets a once-in-a-generation player, well, only once every generation! (every 20 years or so). With the bullies since the war, it would have been EJ (1951 to 1970, before my time); Dougie Hawkins (1978 to 1994, fittingly broke EJ's games record); and more recently, maybe Scotty West (1993 to 2008, too many B&Fs to count). With Westy, only the back fence stopped him from becoming a Bomber (while his mates Misiti and Mercurio went on to win premierships with the Dons).

thanks Pip, As an Essendon fan it was a very sad day when he retired it will take awhile before another player fills the void. cheers Redb

Canberra is not a big supplier of players to the AFL, and never will be given the prominence of the Raiders and the Brumbies of the club in the city - but if you walk into the Ainslie Football Club, there is an U11 B&F trophy taking pride of place in the front entrance. On that trophy you will seen the names of James Hird, Nathan Buckley and Shaun Smith, all winning it within about a 5 or 6 year period. I can't imagine too many U11 teams boasting that sort of hit rate!

redb I forgot to mention another interesting link between Hirdy and the world game, and I'm sure you've heard this story before as well. Those who play the world game have probably spent many hours kicking the ball against a brick wall to hone the skills, etc. This rarely happens in aussie rules because the the oval ball gets trashed very quickly (and a Sherrin is both expensive and sacred, thank you very much!) - not to mention that it's a lot more fun playing kick to kick with a mate or mates, and taking pot shots at goal from all sorts of angles. But when Hirdy went over as an 18/19 year old to Essendon, he did precisely that (kick the ball against the wall), and the club happily obliged, presumably he was sharpening his reaction skills. Apparently he went through a stack of balls, but it clearly paid dividends for the club! These days Hirdy is a big supporter of the Victory and is regularly in the rooms after games.

redb I imagine he would have played a bit of rugby as well, given he was born, raised and schooled in Canberra. My claim to fame is that I once played a game of footy in the same team as James Hird. We were playing a pre-season practice game on the Sapphire Coast, in Merimbula, and his dad asked whether his 14 year old son could have a run just to have a go at mixing it with bigger bodies (presumably as part of his long term plan to have him ready for the draft a few years hence). They put him on the ball, and I was in the centre, and I saw instantly he could find it and use it, and managed to kick a couple of goals - no mean feat for a 14 year old in a senior game of footy. Someone mentioned Hird as a defender, maybe a centre-half. I certainly could have imagined him as a Maldini. Tallish, athletic, able to read the game, never caught out of position, always making the right decision, never second to the ball, never caught with the ball and spot on with his passing - that would have been Hird (not to mention that Maldini continued the family tradition of having a stellar career at the one club)..

To all, Keep your bluddy hands off James T Hird. :-) The greatest player to ever pull on an Essendon jumper. He did actually play junior soccer and mentioned it in his bio. His kicking skills were average though, his ability centred around finding the ball and having the courage to put his body on the line to get the ball and create momentum for his team. He had a very good football brain and was a natural leader on the field. In terms of a good sporting brain yes he could have played any sport, he had the 'time' to make the right decisions. I would argue that his hand skills were far superior to his foot skills, I would see rugby as a more natural alternative than soccer. Redb

Redb Just sticking up for the Sydney team even if it is AFL its our AFL

Midfielder, Seeing as you repeatedly say you have no idea about AFL football I think your statement lacks veracity. The Swans play a boring brand of football, end of story. Hawthorn and Geelong play an exciting and attacking style. Take you left foot out of your mouth and feel free to replace it with the right. :lol: Redb

fair enough Towser. I didnt see the game in question. All football is helluva lot more interesting with intensity. Some of the rugby union action in particular is awesome when one team is attacking the others line, defence is stretched and they're throwing everything at each other. Good stuff. The moral of this article/story is not so much that one game is better than another, it very much depends on if the two teams, participating in any code, decide to turn up and really play. RFL, This is the problem when the media has shareholder interest in a particular code. You can't blame TV networks however for giving one sport more coverage than the other when they are a host broadcaster of that sport. Some newspapers are sponsors of sporting clubs, eg: The Age and Melbourne Victory - it makes it difficult to know what is real news and what is getting bumped when you sponsor a sporting club. Redb

Robbos You said .." The true football code wars will be fought for the best Australian athletes, while some may be suited to certain sports, there is no doubt, some of the more athletic type would be a success in whichever sport they choose" Very true, and is where football is putting a lot of resourses to hold onto as many as possible. Redb. In the Fair dinkum department ... boring Swans ... a bit of one handed typing there old son. Even worst did you take both hands off the key board .." Geelong or Hawthorn are great to watch" Onside Good the last post of yours.

Beaut article. Recently there was an article (a very small one at that) in the SMH that mentioned all 4 codes getting together to encourage Sydneysiders to get along to football matches ... irrespective of code. That would've been a great front page good news sort of story! It is good to know that in this day and age football followers can appreciate more than one code. This is something the media truly seems unable to comprehend - it seems to follow a logic that people have the capacity or interest to follow one code only. And just in case there is a danger this isn't so, media operators DAMPEN DOWN coverage of, and therefore interest in, other codes that don't constitute 'core business' (eg. AFL coverage in Sydney vs. NRL coverage in Melbourne vs. peripheral treatment for football & etc.) It's even better to know the code and club administrators can actually come together in the interest of a greater good - dare I say it, perhaps even enjoy a beer or 2 in private. Afterall, did not Ben Buckley and Andrew D work together for many years?

onside well said, and I agree that the only way Australia may develop the same sort of reputation as say Brazil or Portugal in futbol is to get the Kooris involved in a big way - they are instincting footballers, but I guess AFL and NRL have a massive attachment with the Aboriginal communities throughout Australia, and sadly for a large part of its history, professional futbol was never really as inclusive as these sports were. Dunno about a HAL side in NT, it only has a population of 200K - maybe having a team in the B-League when it gets up and running would be a better idea - or better still the NQ Fury could play a few games there and help develop the local game. Re Ella, not sure if he would have been an immortal of futbol, one of his many strengths was his passing game which is not really a skill that would have amounted to much in futbol...

Redb & Others Not strange at all if you had watched it live. The pace & intensity of this match was not lacking. Lacking the technique of the players in the EPL Yes but the rest was just as absorbing. Having watched 95% of Roar matches since the A-Leagues inception & being a staunch critic of their home matches for the first half of the season (flat as a pancake),believing in what you see is what you get, the last few matches involving the Roar & indeed Perth Glory recently have all been absorbing. The mission statement for the A-League is to produce a competition where the majority of the matches fall into the absorbing capacity despite the lower playing standard than the EPL.

Very good points Onside, especially in the comment on the 'kids are our future'. My nephew is 14, comes from a huge Rugby league family, plays himself & was ballboyfor the Eels first grade side. I spoke to him yesterday, & I said I hope the Eels lose this year (being a dragons supporter) & he said he didn't follow league that much anymore. Then I mentioned to him that Man U won & he said great, did Ronaldo score? This is the differnce, this is what globalisation brings, in years to come the AFL players, the Rugby league media & the Football fans (or a mixture of the above) will all have an aflillation with other sports & not treat some as foreign, like some Rugby League scribes who think AFL as foreign sport forcing it's way into Sydney thru money. Or the scribes or fans of other codes that view Football as foreign. The true football code wars will be fought for the best Australian athletes, while some may be suited to certain sports, there is no doubt, some of the more athletic type would be a success in whichever sport they choose.

Fraggle... I have to agree with others, an A League game is a strange one to inspire. I like the EPL for my soccer fix, it's pace and intensity puts the A League to shame. I find most A League matches boring on TV, a little like watching the Swans in the AFL. Where as Geelong or Hawthorn are great to watch. If your flicking through channels on Foxtel and find a Liverpool game, look for one Fernando Torres - the man kicks goals like cannon balls. Redb