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Roar Guru
Joined April 2015
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Footy: The Doggies won the 2016 Premiership!! Soccer: From Ronaldo to Ronaldinho to Messi and seemingly back to another Ronaldo. Full circle!
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Bruce McAvaney cops a lot of flak these days, but he and Dennis Cometti are the last remnants of the older, superior commentators who actually trained as such and know how to give a situation its poetic grace.
It was mid-2017 – that strange jumbled year when no one really wanted to win the premiership – when Chris Scott decided to play a hobbled Patrick Dangerfield up front against Alastair ‘System’ Clarkson’s Hawthorn.
I have a rule with sports books: if the print is big and double-spaced, it means there’s not much content and the author doesn’t have so much to say.
I’m 38 and my vanity has convinced me I can recognise patterns over the years of watching footy.
Sometimes being the best is more of a feeling. A ‘vibe’, as they say. Usually it relates to being top of the ladder for a while. Maybe in our heads it can be like boxing: once you beat the man, you are the man.
Sometimes being the best is more of a feeling, a ‘vibe’ as they say. Usually it relates to being top of the ladder for a while. Maybe in our heads it can be like boxing: once you beat the man, you are the man.
I play indoor football, and I don’t have the greatest sports psychology in the world.
Collingwood lost the preliminary final to Greater Western Sydney by just four points, after a furious comeback – coming 51 weeks after losing the 2018 grand final to West Coast by five points.
Let’s face it, GWS were on a hiding to nothing.
This year, we have had a completely featureless Super Bowl and now a completely featureless Champions League final. The stark scorelines were New England 13 LA Rams 3, and Liverpool 2 Tottenham nil.
The 2018 season is the second time in a decade that, when the vibe of Australian Rules Football has wandered into a defensive vogue, West Coast has stepped in, based their play on pace and superior ball use, won the premiership and restored equilibrium.
I meant to write this one the day Germany were eliminated, but real life called. Today Mesut Ozil has published a long piece of writing on his Twitter account about no longer being emotionally able to play for Germany.
There is something not quite right about France’s World Cup win.
Four matches into Germany 2006, Brazil had won 11 consecutive World Cup matches, had reached the previous three World Cup finals, and won two.
Is France a Latin country? Sort of. Their language is. Their culture is 50-50. They are Latin enough for me to christen this most difficult quarter of the draw ‘The Latin Quarter’. Yes, yes, I’ll get my coat.
There is a saying in South America particularly used in Peru: “We played like never before and lost like always.”
It is human nature to lament the passing of time, to feel more centred in the experiences of our formative years rather than what is going on in the world when we are older.
Martin Flanagan’s essay about the 1970 Carlton-Collingwood grand final, simply titled ‘1970′, is the best piece I’ve ever read about football.
I was never that big on “Leo Barry, you star.” Doesn’t have much gravitas. “NIck Davis! I see it, but I don’t believe it” is surely the one. Anthony Hudson was actually pretty good at those, he also did “Who would have thought the sequel would be as good as the original” in the 2006 GF, which I suspect he might have had up his sleeve in advance.
Five clutch grand final moments that have been unfairly forgotten
A lot of Judd’s stats were in the first quarter though, after that he played a regular game. West Coast didn’t even win.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
Just for argument’s sake he didn’t hugely stand out in the 2017 GF. But Richmond were more a collective and no one does for them really.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
Judd got a Norm Smith and an extra Brownlow on reputation.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
A lot to digest here, I had to think through all your points. Geelong stoppage wins –> Geelong ball control.
I had somewhat lazily assumed the opposite, that Richmond’s pure pressure is the perfect game style to disrupt Geelong, as Geelong conceivably don’t have the free players to pass to and things then break down.
Brave gameplan by Geelong this year, I gotta say. Very precise and a lot can go wrong.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
Richo’s year on the wing was really stunning, you’d have never thought he had it in him. Didn’t he almost win the Brownlow that year?
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
Surely Danger does cover more ground as a mid. He’s a more pure midfielder than Dusty but also a more pure forward than Dusty as well when he is up there, which is funny. Dusty just does what he does I guess.
I can never “see” the in-and-under types like Cotchin, Selwood, Dahlhaus at the Bulldogs etc when I watch a match. They influence a match but beyond my comprehension of what they actually do. Cotchin’s ball use is not great but his pressure is very good I think, which is guess is Richmond Trademark.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
My worry is that Paddy up front is not necessarily in charge of whether he can influence the game or not.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
Until last weekend I had my doubts about whether post-Gold Coast Ablett was still up to the pace. The sight of Cochin spinning him inside out in last year’s PF kind of said it all.
I don’t reckon Richmond will give him the space he’d want, and he doesn’t have the pace to create it himself now. Still great skills though.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
Cheers! I don’t actually think it’s a direct battle between them as such, it mostly about which collective delivers really. You’d think Richmond are less prone to breaking down than Geelong.
Martin versus Dangerfield may decide the flag
The dream will always be to ramp up the pretension and stuff my articles with so many literary quotes that eventually my writing will become as unreadable as Ulysses 😁
The quixotic quest of Luke Beveridge
Captain Ahab is a direct quote from Martin Flanagan’s book about the premiership, ‘A wink from the universe’.
Dogs have the mids but not the key position players, I’m not really holding my breath about them to be honest.
Thanks for the comment!
The quixotic quest of Luke Beveridge
You’re absolutely right. Dickson got 10, Smith 8, Picken 8, I know the stats off by heart.
Without D and P’s goals they don’t win generally, without S they don’t win prelim.
By my outlook here Dickson was the most important for providing a forward line focal point, important for this mythical “structure” I was talking about. Picken did the same thing against West Coast (all those contested marks). Cheers!
The quixotic quest of Luke Beveridge
But the sweet spot was bigger than you think, I reckon the comp was pretty formless from start 2017 to mid 2019. West Coast and Collingwood were two very random teams to meet on the big day.
Dunno what I’m actually trying to argue here, just being conversational 😁
The quixotic quest of Luke Beveridge
Thanks very much! Maybe I am on the side of winners too easily, but Geelong I couldn’t tell if it was just missed chances or they simply couldn’t penetrate, I didn’t feel it was a given they’d pull away from Port Adelaide despite being on top. Eagles on the other hand could have easily won, both teams played well. Sorry for the tangent away from the Bulldogs 😂
The quixotic quest of Luke Beveridge
I think the premiership team did have a game plan though: win the hard ball, handball a lot, flood the forward line with a press (it was arguably the early days of teams doing this), zonal denfence. It was frenetic and at that moment in time not counterable. Cheers for the comment.
The quixotic quest of Luke Beveridge
The 2016 Grand Final vid makes me laugh, for a half-second they have Western Bulldogs v Western Bulldogs. The Bulldogs had to confront themselves and their own demons to succeed 😂
Why 2016 was sport's best year
But Geelong have won 3 other premierships within memory! I think apart from St Kilda you could find a reason for any team in the league to be annoying in some way 😂
What we learnt about your club this season
Nah, I’m just here to be negative about Port, I don’t know how to actually be constructive about anything.
But I guess, Richmond vs. either Geelong, or Port, but Port could reach the granny or play a very average finals series, I just got no clue with them.
Rules to work out which AFL teams are truly legitimate
RE the Dogs potentially having to repeat going to West Coast for a final. We also had to repeat a visit to GWS in 2019, that went well.
West Coast would wipe the floor with us this time.
The AFL finals equation: Every contender's best and worst case scenarios
#2 was specifically supposed to be about standing up interstate, but you don’t have to win every interstate match, as long as you get close. The ‘interstate’ part was edited out but is the whole point of that rule.
Rules to work out which AFL teams are truly legitimate
I already dropped this comment on an article about GWS, but 5th is too low a starting point. Geelong 2012, Sydney 2017, West Coast 2019, they all should have made waves but didn’t. Sydney in particular were by far the best team of 2017 generally. You basically have to play a perfect finals series to win below 4th, one bad quarter and you’re done.
The neutral venues of this year would seemingly help low-finishing teams in 2020 but don’t seem to be the Eagles’ cup of tea.
The Eagles are flying under the finals radar
I’d dispute they were good in 2019. There were plenty of games where they didn’t show up and scored only 30-odd points (in a 20 min/quarter season). Those late losses against Hawthorn and WBulldogs were also really poor.
They got to the Grand Final because they didn’t have to play Richmond, Geelong or West Coast until week 4 of the finals, and look what happened when they did.
The Giants don’t deserve finals
I almost added that in as a contrast to how good Cometti and McAvaney were, but didn’t.
Kenneth Wolstenholme: “Some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over. It is now!”
Brian Taylor: “F-k.”
My most memorable commentary moments in modern AFL finals