Tuesday February 17: Great oratory...

Vive Le Revolution...

With the abundance of 'yeah, nah' and a horrid habit of appropriating senseless grammatical crimes from American sports, football and great oratory are two things not often associated with each other. Occasionally though, someone steps up and delivers a speech so gosh darn inspirational that we here at Smother House feel the need to drape ourselves in an AFL flag, wipe our weeping eyes and march down to Demetriou's waterfront office shouting Vive Le Revolution.

Yesterday, that man was Alastair Clarkson. "For too long, coaches have had that attitude or felt they should. For too long, we've said nothing. We need to speak up about this" He Martin Luther-Kinged, ''We're only temporary custodians. We're just here to protect the game and pass the baton on to the next generation and ensure it is in a good state.

''We've just got to make sure that things like what happened last year must never be allowed to ambush the game again, to tarnish what is a great game"

He was, of course, referring to Essendon, and with the usual decorum that has defined the Hawthorn-Essendon relationship over the years, he couldn't resist the chance to pass comment on exiled dictator James Hird. "'Hirdy needs accreditation to coach under nines but not an AFL footy team. It really concerns me that the game doesn't protect itself in the way, say, the teaching industry does." Tasty stuff...

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Meanwhile, new West Coast Coach Adam Simpson has promised a tangible sense of chaos for tonight's faux derby in a place I've never heard of. "I’d like 10 games before round one to be honest. It could get messy on the weekend", he teased, leaving the waiting media whether or not he had spent the afternoon on Tinder looking for big strong men who could possibly hold down a key position. 

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The cost of living allowance (COLA) debate has drawn on, with Mike Fitzpatrick giving the strongest hint yet that the COLA has little, it anything, to do with the COL. 

Asked about the changes, AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick showed the standard political guile required of an AFL chairman by answering an entirely different and completely made up question that he felt more equipped to answer. "I think if your question is, are Greater Western Sydney at a different stage of development to Sydney? (it wasn't...) I think the answer's yes", he self-answered, showing a limited understanding of either the property market, the purpose of the allowance, or both.


The most likely path appears to be the removal of the COLA, replacing it with an 'expansion allowance' which will allow GWS to continue to rort the system while appeasing those outraged by Lance Franklin's signings. A 'yeah, nah' if ever we heard one...

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In the news...

43 touches and 7 inside-50's for David Zaharakis was not enough to get the Bombers over the line at Metricon Stadium last night, with a Gary Ablett buzzer-beater getting the Suns home 90-89.
Essendon youngster Alex Browne suffered a leg injury of as-yet-unformed severity, while the Gold Coast shook of a shoulder scare to recruit Sean Lemmens. "He may be right next week, if not definitely for Collingwood" said Guy McKenna, proving that if the draft gives you Lemmens, you should send someone to Lemmens aid. 

The Gold Coast's Sean Lemmens is likely to play next week despite a shoulder scare, when the draft gives you Lemmens...

Adelaide have added Ricky Henderson to a pre-season casualty list which already includes captain Nathan Van Berlo. Henderson has a suspected leg fracture after landing awkwardly in a tackle.


Go go gadget...
Maverick Weller, who has moved from Gold Coast to St. Kilda, has praised the proportions of the Sun's prodigy Jack Martin."It’s not that he’s that tall but I reckon he’s got really long arms, which helps him take a good catch.", said Weller. 

Thursday, February 13, 2014: Winning form is (maybe) good form...

Form is an elusive beast. While most coaches agree that good form is good, there is some conjecture on whether bad form is necessarily bad, especially in this pre-season 'challenge', where players can be 'better for the run'. Regardless of the debate on its value, form was the first of our few justifications for saying goodbye to our loved ones and setting in for 18 days of ultimately meaningless football.

The second were the umpires, and whether recent rule changes would finally allow an enraged Travis Cloke to perform some jiu jitso wrestling maneuver on his opponent, forcing the poor defender to eat the grass with one hand while taking juggling marks with the other. That there were only 27 free kicks for the game was a positive sign in that regard, although that was offset by an average 45 degree trajectory on the centre bounce. The rustiness of the affair was not confined to the players. 

The third is of course injuries, the prevention of which is the ultimate goal of these pre-season dalliances. Geelong looks to have lost George Brrrrrrberry to a broken jaw, after the 21 year old made a promising start. Collingwood's Nathan Freeman tore a hamstring, and Tim Broomhead damaged a hand, although he's hopeful of brushing it off before round one (sorry...). Brodie Grundy returned to the field after a head-clash, although he may require surgery to remove a malignant hair bun that threatens to bring the game, and indeed the country, into disrepute.

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Meanwhile, with all the enthusiasm of a hungover teenager on a family beach trip, we turn our attention to tonight's all-holds-barred jog around at the Docklands Dome. Hawthorn coach Alistair Clarkson, fresh from Premiership glory, has done his best to inject some fun into the occasion, adopting the role of game show host to fend off questions about how his club will fill the now infamous Bud-hole. 
"How is our forward line going to structure up without Bud? Who is going to replace him? Is it a taller player or a smaller type of a combination of both?" he questioned, lacking only a spinning wheel and Adriana Xenides. "The same goes for Guerra going out of our back end. Is that Taylor Duryea or Matt Suckling?"

Unfortunately, with the game show gag thoroughly exhausted*, not even Clarkson could muster much in the way of excitement for tonight's contest.  "we will get some kind of gauge of where our guys are at compared to the other 17 clubs" he opined, before completely retracting everything he'd just said, "I think we lost three out of four games in the NAB last year, three of them by a point, but it's not an accurate gauge in terms of what happens in the main season."

"But winning is good form" he added, his strongest hint yet that he will actually attend the match.

*by his standards, not ours. If we even vaguely approach funny we're milking that cow until it flops.

Other news...

St. Kilda's Rhys Stanley has promised to "play his natural game" in 2014, which supporters hope is football, given the salary he is paid. Payback Records boss (and former Essendon footballer) Nathan Lovett-Murray raps to The Age about The Hird. 
Jack Riewoldt has been dumped from Richmond's leadership group, Caroline Wilson thinks it's a sign of deeper problems.