AFL Round 19 – Hawthorn v Geelong: Oui are Geelong.

    I should have had a spring in my step as I strolled through the canal-enveloped streets of the Belgium hamlet of Brugge -the place they call the ‘Venice Of The North’. I had spent the previous fortnight savouring all the delights that a Mediterranean summer can offer. The Bride and I bounced the [Read more]

I just knew it

Hawthorn vs Geelong Round 19 2012. I don’t get along to see the Hawks as often as I should, but a Hawks fan these days should never miss a Hawks Geelong game, and as a result, I think 6 of the last 10 games I’ve been to have been a Hawks loss to Geelong (stretching [Read more]

How the Geelong Football Club helped me fall in love with Basil Zempilas

  Last night, or early Friday morning really, as the Germans and the Australians went flat out in the hockey (and I saw a couple of the calmest sporting officials of all time), I was moved to the ponderable. A few ponderings surfaced: is it appropriate to write a match report of a sporting fixture [Read more]

seconds ticking

  august night hot puffs of breath enter the stadium     the moon witness to all the mistakes under the sun     night chill Reid rises from the mist   bare trees all authority gone from our game     Saints hit the front the stadium changes tune     long bomb the rush [Read more]

Just a man with a ball

AFL Round 19 Hawthorn v Geelong By Susie Giese   They were packing up. Mum getting ready to leave bang on the siren, Darren wanting to go now, now, NOW! “I’m not leaving early,” I said, gritting my teeth. “We’re staying ’til the end.” One fifth of my reasoning was never giving those worst-examples-of-their-kind Hawks [Read more]

Rd19 2012 FEARLESS: and the gold goes to that tubby guy from the iselect ads!

The Olympics and the footy – toss a coin in the air…it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a great time to be in couch potato heaven with your remote control in hand. Watching my eldest son learn about countries and events/sports that he’d never heard of prior to the opening ceremony. It’s great stuff….even have [Read more]

The 2012 ‘Mopsy’ Fraser Cup – Round Nineteen

Greetings Tipsters If ever you wondered if it really could be lonely at the top, look no further than the vision of Matthew Primus standing alone in the rooms while the Blackouts were playing their most useless day of football in 143 years. Maybe if you’re feeling schadenfreuidan, you might gorge yourself on the shots [Read more]

Let’s forget about today

I am at the Charles Dickens. It’s just past 7. J is at the bar ordering another round. I’m in the corner. I cradle my pint glass as I stare into the distance. Adelaide and Essendon are replicating the epic battle of 1993. Patrons in ill-fitting suits cheer as Taylor Walker casually slots a goal [Read more]

Round 19 Winners and Losers

Round 19 gave us another Geelong v Hawthorn classic, some tremendous individual performances, and an unexpected but not unsurprising result at the Sydney Showgrounds. Winners Tom Hawkins What a man. It now seems eons ago when people were questioning if he had what it takes to fulfill his AFL potential. Hawkins delivered in spades once [Read more]

A bit of sport on the weekend

I saw a bit of sport on the weekend. A bit more than usual. All of it live. Missed some as well – two games of football and a game of netball. I will usually go out of my way to miss a game of netball. Most of the games had good outcomes. But there [Read more]

The revolution will be televised

With all this Olympics brouhaha dominating the news the Swans game this week crept up on me like a spider in the dark. Nine’s coverage has been in modern parlance an epic fail and it’s a relief when Sunday comes and we get to watch an entire sporting event. Imagine if Fox or 7 Mate [Read more]

The Wrap Round XIX – where life imitates football

And what a round it’s been in Footy Eddie.  On Friday night The Hawks & The Cats turned on yet another one for the ages.  In years to come, when space travellers from a Galaxy Far Far Away discover our burnt and smoldering Planet and sift through the time capsules we’ve left behind portraying the [Read more]

Diary of a madman (aka Bulldogs fan)

I’m looking through fingered-covered eyes as the Bulldogs run onto the ground to play the Roos. Silent prayers. No more hundred-point defeats please. Drew Petrie to miss a few goals…please. Nice start Bulldogs! I might just crack that Crownie put aside for the unlikely victory. Yeah, bugger waiting! Drew Petrie’s not doing much and we’ve actually got [Read more]

NOT another thumping – quite the opposite in fact

Where do I begin? What a day, what a game. We’ve been hammered in the last month by some of the best teams in the land, chasing not only the win but the percentage needed in one of the tightest seasons in memory. Our young kids have been valiant but have run out of legs, [Read more]

Some reflections of a tragic

  1.  Hey, Silver is looking pretty good.   We have lived with a week of Olympics and shaded expectations.  The golden avalanche has disappeared, our addiction to international success well and truly back in the box along with the expectations of certain success levels in international sports: tennis, Olympics generally, cricket specifically.  We are [Read more]

Learning from Pierre

 By John Green My jobs are almost done. I’ve ridden the bike up to La Trobe Uni and back for the exercise, completed the Saturday morning chores for the favour of the wife and visited a mate in the Austin. It’s time to spend some hours in front of the box watching a double header [Read more]

The song remains the same

We’re sitting in the All Nations Hotel on Friday afternoon. Yeatesy is leaning on the fireplace telling us about the 1989 Grand Final; about the day he knocked The Kid on his arse, bruised his spleen in fact. Yeatesy is a beauty; a raw boned country footballer made-good, the quintessential six foot three and three [Read more]

Cats Allegiance

We’ve done it again–defied the odds that is! Speaking of odds, earlier in the week I remarked to my brother Harry how generous the line odds of +25 points were for the reigning premiers. Then again hardly surprising with all the Hawthorn hype and the pervasive penchant for people to write Geelong off. Another brother [Read more]

Round 19 Geelong (v Hawthorn) player ratings

Round 19 Geelong (v Hawthorn) Player Ratings Jimmy Bartel Eased himself into the game. Played an elder-statesman scaffolding role.   Rating: 10/10   Paul Chapman As reliable as an atomic clock. Needed a jaw as hard as tungsten carbide to complete a fine game.   Rating: 10/10   Allen Christensen Copped a sly elbow. Often [Read more]

Hawkins pips Hawks in match of the year

GEELONG 9.3 10.5 14.9 18.10 (118) HAWTHORN 2.0 7.6 11.8 17.14 (116) 3 Hawkins, 2 Sewell, 1 Mitchell For a Geelong fan, beating Hawthorn with a goal after the siren is one of the sweetest tastes life offers. Only a big finals win beats it. There’s no point building it up. Tonight the Cats won [Read more]