Round 7- Adelaide v Carlton: Come, Come Mr Bond

 

We have radio wars in our car when the boys, wife and I travel together, and I’m annihilated, acoustically.

Despite my best attempts to provide a robust musical education, as the Subaru backs out of the garage, voices from the back seat holler, “Mum, can you put it on NOVA?”

Or, “Change it over to MIX.”

To which I respond, “What do you say?”

From behind me a reluctant, “Please” then chirps across.

MIX self-describes as, “Adelaide’s widest variety of music” but if there’s any truth in radio station slogans it’d be, “Adelaide’s widest variety of Pink.”

Saturday night viewing is providing similar conflict, at least for me. The footy is winning the battle, but only just as 9 GEM is showing all the Bond films, having started a month ago with Dr No which, given our youngest’s current oppositional defiance, is a domestic theme.

However in a rare nocturnal excursion, for the first time this season, I found myself on the bottom deck of the Chappell Stand, taking in the Crows and Blues. To alleviate any clash concerns The Blues are wearing their John Howard-inspired gray guernseys. Really? You’d find greater similarity in the vocal stylings of Taylor Swift and Taylor Walker.

It’s a glorious autumnal evening by the mighty River Torrens – warm, still and clear. Both sides are missing many of their big names and given how many have moved between these clubs, out on the turf it must be like the first hour of a school reunion, you know, before the Brandivino works its liquid magic.

Carlton find space early and vital big rooster Kreuzer snaps to give the Blues their first, and only lead for the encounter. Adelaide then settles and slots the subsequent six with alliterative forwards Josh Jenkins and Mitch McGovern each scoring an appropriate two goals.

On TVs across the ‘burbs Thunderball is also away and SPECTRE has stolen some NATO bombs, and is threatening to destroy a US or UK city, later revealed as Miami which seems a little unambitious, given they’re working in the Bahamas. Why not be lofty in your aims and lob one at Luton, although, to be fair, it’d be difficult to tell.

In his first match against his former mob B. Gibbs (Bryce, not Barry) has continued his silky form and is accumulating possessions across the ground like MI6’s finest collects casino chips. During the break I get out my Texas Instruments calculator and start punching in cricket scores to see how far up the table the Crows will be by midnight. This arrogance guarantees the Blues (Grays) fightback is on.

Skill execution errors, even from diminutive half-back assassin Rory Laird means the visitors enjoy a dominant quarter with some clever work from Levi Casboult whose hulking presence could be handy in Thunderball as things get desperate in the Aston Martin. The game is poised at the half and I get approval from our bank to undertake some Goldfinger action of my own: I buy a beer and some hot chips.

Any lingering tension quickly evaporates into the May sky as Adelaide registers a pair of majors in the opening minutes. Eddie Betts is involved, but his form and his season are simmering, not Bond-movie-speedboat-explosions, just yet. Footy itself has been strangely subdued thus far in 2018.

Mitch McGovern doesn’t so much mark the Sherrin as pluck it from atop the pack in a way that startles everyone. He elevates himself onto Liam Jones’ shoulders and completes the catch as if Q had lent him the famous jetpack. It provides some frisson on a night when the narrative arc is as predictable as a commercial radio playlist (Up next we’ve got some Captain Beefheart).

Cam Ellis-Yolmen continues his steady progress and is stringing together games in his much-interrupted career which began way back in 2011, when you could sneak your track-suited self into a Blockbuster and borrow Kung Fu Panda 2 for a fiver.

I admit it’s been a minor treat to see Carlton’s Cripps and Curnow in action. They’ll drive the Blues bus for the next decade, or half a dozen coaches, whichever comes first. Their win/ draw/ loss tally now reads:

007.

Despite another obligatory hamstring injury Adelaide moves confidently to the next instalment of the Showdown franchise next Saturday in the twilight.

There should be no televisual conflict with Casino Royale beginning just on the final siren. I best iron my new tracky-daks.

 

ADELAIDE       7.2       9.3       15.8     19.11 (125)
CARLTON        2.1       6.4       7.8       10.10 (70)

GOALS
Adelaide:
McGovern 5, Jenkins 3, Douglas 2, Lynch 2, Betts 2, Greenwood 2, Laird, Gibbs, Mackay
Carlton: Casboult 2, McKay 2, Kreuzer, Phillips, Dow, Graham, Wright, E.Curnow

BEST
Adelaide: McGovern, Laird, Douglas, Crouch, Gibbs, Greenwood, Ellis-Yolmen
Carlton: Thomas, E.Curnow, Cripps, Simpson, Kerridge

INJURIES
Adelaide: Milera (leg)
Carlton: Casboult (ribs), Plowman (quad)

Reports: Nil

Umpires: Stevic, Brown, Harris

Official crowd: 47,422 at the Adelaide Oval

Our votes- Crouch (3), Q (2), Ellis-Yolman (1)

About Mickey Randall

Now whip it into shape/ Shape it up, get straight/ Go forward, move ahead/ Try to detect it, it's not too late/ To whip it, whip it good

Comments

  1. The Blues outfit is worse than their style of play. And worse than the Hawthorn power rangers outfit a few seasons back. And that’s saying something!!!

    I watched 10 minutes of this game in Carlton’s “dominant “ period. It was dreadful. I think the Blues kicked it backwards and sideways on about a ratio of 2:1. So I switched over to re-runs of Play School.

    Meanwhile at the MCG yesterday Bomber supporters gave the Bronx cheer when their team kicked it forwards. Is footy rooted?

  2. “007” Boom Boom. Great stuff Mickey. More entertaining than the game. The one at the SCG only marginally better due to the closeness not the skills and game style. However those of us at Subiaco East had a fine day.
    “You don’t think I enjoyed what we did this evening, do you? What I did tonight was for Queen and country!” (JB in Thunderball).

  3. The strategy seems to be one of harm minimisation Dips. Carlton have some monsters up forward like Levi, McKay and Phillips so why wouldn`t they try to get it down to them? Kicking backwards when eight goals down? I guess Bolton was trying to protect his side from a blowout.

    My recent interest in Bond has been amplified by the latest intalment of The Trip series- this time to Spain in which Coogan and Brydon again spend much time trading impressions, with 007 on high rotation. Despite our big win there were surprisingly few highlights, PB. A job done, rather than an inspirational result for the locals.

    Thanks.

  4. Rulebook says

    Superb Mickey love the school reunion line v v clever re James Bond overall well played

  5. Mark Duffett says

    Good to know the blame can be shared for Carlton’s second quarter revival; I’d thought it was entirely my fault, since I tuned in at that point.

    Caught the end of last night’s Bond movie while waiting to introduce the lad to Blade Runner. While very funny, this linking of it with last night’s game did briefly induce a nightmarish vision of the AFL attempting a rebrand of AFLX as Thunderball.

  6. Thanks ‘Book. It was a strange evening in some ways. The most engaged the crowd seemed to be was in the second half with a (leaky) raft of poor umpring decisions, aside from the McGovern hanger. However, there was a healthy Carlton contingent in attendance and they provided some atmosphere.

    Once home I flirted with Blade Runner and Scarface but decided there’d been sufficient retirements for the night, Mark. If AFLX were to be played in the Bahamas and I jagged some gratis tickets then maybe…

    Thanks fellas.

  7. Mark 'Swish' Schwerdt says

    It was probably a better spectacle than the previous week Mickey, but at least you could see the Suns. That all grey getup is blander than George Lazenby.

  8. Swish, I think the high point of George’s acting career is that he was married to Pam Shriver, who, of course, was the first player to use an oversized racquet, a Prince. I don’t know what to make of this.

  9. Excellent write-up, Mickey.

    For mine, the Trip to Spain was a bridge too far. I sincerely hope Coogan and Brydon don’t go back to the well for more.

  10. Luke Reynolds says

    Nice work Mickey. Love the Carlton/007 correlation.
    Commercial FM stations are largely totally horrendous now. Discovering community radio the past few years, in addition to being an ABC listener, has given me some much needed radio options instead of bloody Pink!

    Your favourite Bond? Connery/Moore/other??

  11. Dave Brown says

    My nephew worked the Owen knock knock joke for Carlton supporters last night (‘knock, knock’, ‘who’s there’, ‘Owen’, ‘Owen who?’, ‘Owen seven’). Interesting that both Carlton and St Kilda have been able to better than break even with Adelaide by fairly negatively blocking up their space. Also interesting to see Adelaide kick their way through it rather than handballing at all costs. A Richmond beating strategy methinks. Good to see McGovern get his touch back and a couple of passages which suggest Eddie is heading back to very good form. A bit worrying to have two softer games going into the Showdown, though.

  12. Loving the conversation around this.

    But, I can’t believe there’s a dozen commenters and no-one has mentioned the line of the piece:

    ‘the mighty River Torrens’.

    I love this line for so many reasons. I reckon Phil Dimitriadis could get a one hour poetry lecture working through that line.

  13. Smokie- I love the Trip series, in part because of the predictability. It’s like an AC/DC album. A mate and I saw the movie which is the abbreviated version and about three quarters through I said to him I was worried that they hadn’t exchanged Michael Caine impersonations, and then at the final restaurant, out they came. Indeed on the DVD one of the best bits is a deleted scene in which after a prawn dish they try to upstage each other with a Michael Caine poem on prawns that starts-

    Twelve little prawns
    sitting on a plate
    We ate four
    and then there were eight.

    I enjoyed this more than I should.

    I’m a community radio fan too Luke with Three D being our RRR equivalent over here. I played footy with a chap who does Thursday morning breakfast, and a few months’ back they only played songs shorter than a minute across the entire three hour show. I think they took the following week off, citing exhaustion. Their program is “The Sound of Museli.” Saturdays’ country hour is “The Hillbilly Helpline.” Great stuff.

    Dave- I reckon among the night’s strangely infrequent highlights (especially in a ten goal win!) were the two or three intercepts Eddie pulled off, resulting in turnovers or great pressure. I was also pleased to see lots of good decisions about long kicking- it was a perfect night for it!

    JTH- ‘mighty’ is rarely applied to much South Australian, natural or otherwise, so I figured a timely boost was needed! Granite Island? Perhaps not? Mt Lofty? Optimistically named. Rockfords’ Basket Press. Now we’re getting close.

  14. John Butler says

    Onya Mickey.

    Our second term burst was the Crows shaken, but hardly stirred. As it panned out.

    Oh how I hate us playing in anything but Navy Blue. Especially that polyester pyjama grey.

    We haven’t really been able to settle on a style and tempo this season. Started helter skelter but couldn’t keep it on the road. Kept ending up in the ditch. Since the Weagles game it’s been back to more cautious ball movement. Unavailability of key personnel (both injured and traded) the main contributor to this.

    And so to the Bombers….

  15. george smith says

    Oh for the days when Carlton was a genuine Bond villain with evil henchmen like Percy “Oddjob” Jones, John “Dr Coat” Dorotich and Wayne “Arminator” Johnston. Now they’re just the heavy who gets pushed into the bath with the toaster in the first reel.
    I nearly feel sorry for them, until I remind myself of 3 grand final defeats plus 8 stomach churning premierships from 1968-95. We do need our villains in footy, so here’s to a speedy but not too successful recovery for Carlton and Brisbane.

  16. JB- A couple years’ ago I saw Levi take Collingwood apart at the MCG and he’s now a cult favourite- was saddened to learn of his injury. Cripps could be anything too. The Blues must surely soon begin their ascent.

    GS- Oddjob in Goldfinger is one of the great, wordless screen performances, in a villianous, stereotypical Bond fashion. Tremendous fun. I reckon Percy could do some damage in his front bar if he flung a bowler hat among the punters.

    Thanks.

  17. Mathilde de Hauteclocque says

    I reckon gameside banter would be a hell of a lot of fun with you Mickey!

    In writing terms, I always feel as if sportswriting could/should be about capturing human movement: ‘Mitch McGovern doesn’t so much mark the Sherrin as pluck it from atop the pack in a way that startles everyone’ is a very fine example.

    And alliterative forwards! How lovely!
    Phil should do a team of alliteratives!

  18. Thanks Mathilde.

    I reckon we also watch sport in hope of seeing the extraordinary occur in among the ordinary, and players like McGovern are capable of this. While I loved Adelaide’s two big finals wins last year I really enjoyed our come from about fifty points behind draw against Collingwood when McGovern took a mark on the siren. That was a pluck too!

    Disappointingly, as near as I can tell the only alliterative forward on the top 50 goalscorers of all time is Hawthorn’s Michael Moncrieff. This seems linguistically unlikely. Surely a catch name would’ve elevated more players up this list!

  19. Phillip Dimitriadis says

    Funny and entertaining Mickey. Many memorable lines. I’ve switched to NOVA. I like Pink, but only in small doses. Same with Bond movies, although I enjoyed the humour of Roger Moore who was really taking the piss out of himself and everyone else in those movies. Cheers

  20. Thanks Phil. I first heard and really like “Feel It Still” by Portugal. The Man when Nova was on in the car. It’s a ripper. Always good to be surprised!

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