Tuesday, April 15, 2014: Why we love Collingwood

We don't know much here at The Smother, but we know two things for sure; that is two things that we really aren't good at. The first is painfully obvious, we aren't that good at running a blog. The second is also painfully obvious, we don't meet a lot of women.

In fact, we would go as far as to say that the only people who know less about meeting women than us are the presumably desperately lonely men who actually read this thing (a comment which in itself is evidence of the first failing - ie. calling your few readers desperate or lonely). Say what you will about our bad jokes and lack of interpersonal skills, you can't say that we don't try. And try we will.

Because women, when you think about it, are a lot like a football team; and this is how we settled on Collingwood (that's not technically true, we support them because our fathers did, but there is something tremendously creepy about choosing the same woman as your Father, a topic that probably deserves more of a thesis than a blog - but we digress).

Collingwood is a big hunk of lady who you can always depend on. Let your mates laugh and heckle, let them poke fun at her masculine figure and facial hair, her failing dental health. It doesn't matter, what does matter is that she's hefty and ugly and she'll always look after you.

Richmond, she's beautiful and knows it. She's always up for dinner and you're always paying and every time she insists that tonight's the night... until she remembers her parents are staying or she has to be up early or something. It's all false dawns and Punt Road, and you end up down $150 and flicking through Tinder on the train ride home.

Carlton, on the other hand, excites you like no-one else. She's got model good looks and lives her whole life on the edge of her seat, launching into far-flung escapades that dabble with the very edges of law & order. She's always close, she wants to be an actor and insists she only needs to spend a few more thousand on a promo reel and her career will take off, then she'll marry you. It's better than Richmond, in that you actually get to sleepover, but it's worse because you know that you'll both be either in jail or dead before you're walking down that aisle.

There's always heartbreak in football, but give me my dirty black and white lady any day.

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In the news...
Lions tall Matthew Leuenberger is expected to miss up to 12 weeks after injuring a right knee in the process of being thoroughly buggered by the Crows at the weekend. Pearce Hanley will also miss the next fortnight with hamstring-strain.

Dale Morris has gleefully accepted a one week ban for tripping, knowing that a leg injury will keep him out anyway.

Dockers coach Ross Lyon has condemned a lack of a discipline from his new signing Colin Sylvia. Sylvia faces suspension for rough conduct in a WAFL match on the weekend.

And in further evidence of Essendon's need to listen to doctors, at least six players and their coach have been struck down by a virus. Assistant coach Simon Goodwin has ordered those struck down to stay away from the club, while Medical Professional Dr. Ageless insists he could have the whole thing gone in a jiffy.

Thursday, March 27, 2014: Unadulterated guff...

Perhaps i'm in the minority. A relic of a simpler time, when kids played on street corners and the world just seemed nicer. A time when going to the football was an experience in just that, the strange orange and black scoreboard at VFL park being more than enough amusement for those whose eyes wandered from the play.

Thursday, March 6, 2014: This local eatery...

It's time that the AFL got serious about equalisation. Forget Eddie's tantrums and who paid how much for Lance Franklin, if we continue to allow our great game to be continually smeared by the scourge of crippling inequality, we'd best prepare ourselves for a dark, dark future. "Look at all the stats and Sydney is a lot more expensive to live than any other city" says economist and midfielder Kieran Jack, and he had evidence, hell, actual  anecdotal evidence, to back it up. “I certainly know how hard it is to live in Sydney, not if you’re an established player and you’re already earning OK money, it’s all right. But younger players coming in, they really struggle."

We agree with Jack, in truth, if we had one issue with the 9.8% allowance to help Sydney teams attract players to the harsh economic climate of the harbour city, it's that it didn't go far enough. There are other teams who are suffering, struggling to retain players in the face of ambitious raids by clubs fortunate enough to be surrounded by affordable housing. 

Geelong for example, where the cost of living is - according to some actual data we found - 15% cheaper than Melbourne, or St. Kilda and Hawthorn who have deviously relocated to suburban bases where $200,000 goes a lot further in the property market - safe in the knowledge that the league lacks the moral fortitude to adjust the salary cap accordingly. 

So, while you celebrate the abolition of the COLA and the apparent return to a level playing field, spare a thought for teams doing it tough. Teams like Collingwood, who are working in a rapidly gentrifying area where the cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years. After all, who would stay at Collingwood, Richmond or Melbourne when the price for food at this local eatery, for example, are so exorbitant. 

Equality means a level playing field, and it requires taking everything into consideration. Adelaide and Port Adelaide, where players benefit from a city that eschews frivolous excesses like any semblance of nightlife or the hopes of a job for their children, should not be competing on the same figure as Melbourne or Sydney clubs.

It is a debate that surely continue, but so long as The Smother isn't fired for a blatant lack of research and overwhelming bias, we'll continue to fight it...

In the news...

Carlton's Marc Murphy has signed am exciting 4-year deal with the Blues. "I just want to say how proud and humbled I am. It's extremely exciting" he said. 

Those wanting to fist-bump Dane Swan from interesting angles will be disappointed to here that he will never again have a full range of motion in his injured wrist. Despite this, he will play round one. 

Media ban be damned, Jack Riewoldt has been named for Richmond's practice match against Essendon at Punt Road, practice match team information is here. 

And finally, fans of Donnie Darko, Lantana and other films with confusing plots might enjoy the AFL's latest effort - the futuristic tale of a girl, an old man, and the 2013 Grand Final. 

Monday, March 3, 2014: At least on par with professional cycling....

So that's that, the inaugural NAB Challenge has been run and won... well, run at least, owing to the abandonment of the NAB Cup, there were no winners. But it happened, and that's got to stand for something.

According to some, who we haven't met but assume exist somewhere in the dark underbelly of AFL House, the 18 games in 18 days format was an unqualified success. Spreading football across the country with games in far-reaching places like Wagga Wagga, Ballarat and even in the sparse docklands of Melbourne is an admirable goal - and we think it's fair to say the event took on a life of its own, well, it at least looked that way from the filthy couches of Smother House.

Speaking of taking on a life its own, we have to spare a thought for Geelong captain Joel Selwood. Selwood was subbed out of the penultimate NAB Challenge match on Friday night after experiencing sentience in his hamstring. "Selwood experienced some awareness in his leg" Tweeted the club, leaving journalists to ask whether the leg was happy at Geelong and if, under the new free-agency agreements, the leg could sign a separate contract and nominate for the rookie draft.

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But that is all old news now, 11 days before the first (probably diagonal and recalled) bounce of 2014, the Biggest of Cheeses, Andrew Demetriou has announced that this will be his last season at the helm. The man who brought football to the Gold Coast and Blacktown, denied it to Tasmania and is currently engaged in a ferocious campaign to turn the game into a working example of communism will be sorely missed, according to fawning AFL Commission Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick.

"Andrew has been one of the most influential CEOs in our history" he told the waiting media, pointing to the establishment of an integrity unit as one of his crowning achievements. "Andrew has been the first in Australia sport - after the racing industry - to deliver an integrity unit" said Fitzpatrick, suggesting the league was now, in terms of integrity, at least on par with professional cycling. 

Credit should also go to metal health advocate Jeff Kennett, waiting 2 torturous hours after the announcement to get himself in the papers. "I hope Mike Fitzpatrick is also resigning because the AFL commission has been far from active, far from good at upholding good governance and the AFL commission has accepted no responsibility itself for the failing of the code over the last three years" he barked at Fairfax radio.

Still, it would be unfair of us not to give the last word in The Monday Smother to the AFL's CEO of the decade, and certainly the greatest we've seen since Wayne Jackson. "I didn't inject anyone ... it had had no impact on me" said Demetriou of the Essendon scandal, leaving us to wonder whether the league was a little harsh on James Hird. 


In the news...
In the weekends results, Collingwood overcame a 41 point half-time deficit to defeat the Suns by 14 points at Metricon, while the Giants smashed the Saints on Saturday night in Wagga Wagga and Friday night saw the Cats defeat Melbourne by 13.

Meanwhile the ASADA investigation continues to leak like a sieve, with News Limited spending the weekend naming and shaming Essendon players who are under investigation. We have joined Fairfax in choosing not to name the players, our concerns not being the breach of privacy but the refusal of our own Big Cheese to buy us an online subscription to the Herald Sun.

Friday, February 21, 2014: Cheering and being a squad...

From his understated Toorak manor, the reserved philanthropist, amateur economist and Collingwood president had finally seen enough. After staying silent for countless hours, the media shy Edward McGuire finally said what needed to be said. It is time that "everyone, players included, make their workplaces successful and thriving. Otherwise, the lessons that have been learnt today - at Ford, Toyota and Alcoa - will be wasted on the AFL."

"Let's sort out the economy of football, so that everybody continues to have a job and that we have a great competition" McGuire lectured, reminding all of us the ultimate fragility of the pathway from AFL player to person employed in a position they have no little to no qualifications for. 

We mustn't forget McGuire's history in the providing jobs for downtrodden workers who don't necessarily having the prerequisite skills or experience. The club he quietly leads, Collingwood, has employed former lanky defender Simon Prestigiacomo as its merchandise manager, retired midfielder Nathan Buckley as head coach, and as recently as last year employed retrenched Jordan Russell as an AFL player despite a complete inability to kick a football.

And the economic smarts at Collingwood don't stop there. The industrial age theory of specialisation, which allowed factories to thrive by giving employees small tasks at which they can become highly proficient, is now officially back in vogue at the Westpac Centre with yesterday's announcement that they had relieved their cheer squad of the onerous task of sticky-taping bits of crepe together.

"Volunteers will create the banner, members will hold it up" professed club spokesman Stephen Rielly, noting that this would allow the cheer squad to focus on their core business of cheering and being a squad. "the cheer squad will be all about barracking and sounding great on the day... We want them to not be concerned about the banner and to focus on making a lot of noise". The move came as a result of an off-season survey which allowed the club to glean the ultimate goal of the cheer squad (that being to be "more unified and make a bigger noise" ie: cheering and being a squad).

And while on first glance it may seem like a blatant commercial ploy, we here at Smother House understand the difficulty that some behind the goals feel when deciding whether to go with the quintessential 'Collingwood-clap-clap-clap', or the moving ballad 'Colllll-inggggggg-woood'. It's the same challenge Oasis must face when choosing a set from their daunting back-catalogue, and they have roadies for the heavy lifting....
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In the news...
Sydney defeated a plucky GWS side by 40 points in Canberra last night, with the Swans bearded backline of Rhyce Shaw and Nick Malceski holding strong. The weekend will see Hawthorn play North Melbourne in Launceston, Collingwood take on Richmond in Wangaratta and another pretend derby between Gold Coast and Brisbane on Sunday in Townsville. 

Despite his lack of any time at Collingwood, Carlton midfielder and personal friend of Bryce Gibbs Marc Murphy looks set to re-sign. "I'm pretty close to 'Gibbsy' and from talking to Gibbsy I don't think he'll be going anywhere", he name-dropped.

Morning TV host and Port Adelaide chairman David Koch has revealed he would sack Jake King over his friendship with Bandido Toby Mitchell. ""We would get rid of him, absolutely, as simple as that," he holier-than-thou'd, from behind a camera a long way from Bandido Toby Mitchell. 

Young Magpie Marley Williams has been found guilty of causing Grievous Bodily Harm after his warning punch erronoeusly connected with the jaw of a man in an Albany pub. "I was not intending to hurt anyone. It was more of a warning punch. It was either strike or be beaten up" he said.

Jack Riewoldt has stuck to his media ban, withdrawing from Saturday night's NAB Challenge game with a thigh injury due to the presence of cameras.

Wednesday February 19, 2014: The navy blue light on the dock..

The Great Pendlebury...

"Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock....his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him." 

Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury must identify with Jay Gatsby. He's lost his own Daisy, to Carlton of all places, and after his pre-season jaunt to the US with Gary Ablett Jr, he's gone and got himself caught up in his own impossible American dream. "The parties were bigger, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the models were looser, and the ban on alcohol had backfired. Making the liquor cheaper. Wall Street was luring the young and ambitious, and I was one of them..." he didn't say, but he was drawn by the experience of the Superbowl, and has set his sights on bringing that great American dream down under. 

"After seeing it, I spoke to 'Gaz' over there and said it would be pretty cool if we did this back in Australia" he yankee-doodled, "Even a 4.40pm timeslot where the entertainment at half-time was under lights.... It 
created a great buzz and certainly something that opened my eyes over there is how well they did it."

And while anyone with even a passing interest in music will tell you that the vast amount of natural light provided by the afternoon Grand Final was the third biggest issue that confronted Meatloaf in his shambolic performance (the other two being giving him a microphone and booking him at all), we think it's time to get back to basics. The recipe for a great AFL Grand Final - which has worked for thousands of years - is quite simple; put Mark Seymour in the corner and start a game of Little League whilst gouging supporters for their every dollar with prohibitively expensive flat beers, cold pies and multi-million dollar 'healthy choice' sandwiches for those watching their weight (as opposed to their wait - which grows every year as the league sends more and more staff upstairs to massage the feet of corporate executives who don't even care who's playing).

That, Mr. Pendlebury, is the great Australian dream - even if it will never bring Daisy back. 

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In other news...

The Eagles started their redemption campaign with a 148-64 win over a group of strangers in Fremantle jumpers. 

Collingwood's Quentin Lynch has put his hand up for the 2014 Johnny Rotten medal, "I don't care what other people think" he screamed defiantly when asked about his spot in the side, sticking a safety pin through his ear and giving the finger to 'the man'. 

Essendon's Alex Browne has joined his exiled coach James Hird in missing the 2104 season after scans revealed ACL damage. 

Meanwhile, the salary cap debate roars on. This time it's the AFLPA suggesting that perhaps their should be a cap on total 'football' spending, including players, coaches and facilities. Carlton is licking it's lips at the proposal as it prepares to sack Mick Malthouse and rehire him as a 'marketing manager'.

Justin Leppitsch has promised to rebuild the Lions without a significant bottoming out. "There's a basic formula for age and experience analysis out there that can tell you a premiership team's make-up and a finals team's make-up, We're probably a little bit south of that just on numbers", he underestimated.

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.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014: Enough of this shallow unity...

Well that was fun. For a few weeks my fellow Australians and I, even those despicable freaks who chose (I repeat...CHOSE) to support Carlton, shared a sense of unity, a common purpose. We had a new mortal enemy, an enemy dressed in red and white and drunk on the sort of smug confidence for which the English are famous. Little did they - or many of us for that matter - expect the pummeling that would befall them.

And though the 5-nil Ashes victory is nothing to be sneezed at, our cricketers would do well not to get too carried away. They are soon, unfairly in this correspondents opinion, to be relegated to the deeper realms of the sports section. Tonight, 138 days since Hawthorn saw off the famed purple swarm, football is back - and in a big way.

Tonight's Geelong V Collingwood encounter at Kardinia Park is the first game in a NAB Challenge series that will answer some pertinent questions. Questions like, why are we doing this? How do you win? Wait, IS there even a winner?

Preliminary questioning on the purpose of this pre-season competition proved fruitless, save for that weird guy in The Smother office who held us hostage for 45 minutes explaining the methodology he uses to develop his fantasy football 'squad'. Attempts to change the subject also proved fruitless. It was altogether a fruitless morning.

What we do know is that tonight, after a sweaty tram ride home and a microwave meal, I will be able to flick over to Fox Footy and watch some actual football. Regardless of the Mickey Mouse nature of the game itself, it will be lapped up with the kind of feverish demand often associated with explorers discovering an oasis in the desert (as opposed to anyone discovering Oasis in Dandenong, which - if it still exists - deserves no further mention).

So, well some interest is reserved for how Collingwood manage to fill the hole left by Dale Thomas and Heath Shaw, and whether Geelong has the young players to continue their dominance, nothing of substance will eventuate. What really matters is that this charade of unity associated with regaining the Ashes can be dropped, and this country (or this state at least) can get back to what's really important - division, frivolous division based on football teams who share stadiums and have little, if any, connection to the suburbs they're named after.

The Knock On Wood

It would be cruel to continually remind Carlton fans about their awful recruiting. So in that spirit, we will be closely following the fortunes of Cameron Wood, the ruckman who was delisted by Collingwood years ago before becoming a regular attendee of ruck contests in the VFL.
Mick Malthouse is nothing if not on-message. Sticking fast with the title of his recent tome 'The Ox Is Slow But The Earth Is Patient', he has signed one of the slowest oxen available. While we won't comment on whether this is this another example of Malthouse ingenuity (or a sign that that his famously quirky brain has conked out completely), The Smother will be following with interest.