Friday, March 21, 2014: A tired father feigning effort...

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Thursday night review

Geelong 119 defeated Adelaide 81

Say what you will about Adelaide. It seems that everyone, Patrick Dangerfield included, has stuck the boot into a club which has gone from within a kick of a Grand Final to a bottom 8 team in a few short months. The club did the impossible at the trade table, in a deal that saw it donate Kurt Tippett to the Swans and cop a fine for its generosity. Left completely bereft of draft picks, a forward line or even the faith of their own captain - at least the Crows have a sense of occasion.

Thursday, March 20, 2014: We've got plenty of tickets available...

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In March 2006 Melbourne was gripped by Commonwealth Games fever. Athletes from every corner of the Queens influence descending on our hollowed MCG turf for a fortnight of decadence; running, jumping and swimming against each other in a stunning array of purpose built facilities. It was a predictably enjoyable affair, so enjoyable that two thirds of the Sierra Leone team couldn't bring themselves to leave, preferring instead to abscond from the Games and hide - waiting for the whole thing to blow over. 

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.

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.