The View From Shepparton- Final Grand Final Edition

For Sale. One redundant St Kilda Football Club flag, brought in the heat of the moment 10 days ago to counter balance a neighbour who had for some reason or other purchased the Collingwood Football flag. And there it had been, protruding out of his mailbox, in all of its ghastly glory. I spent $20 to make a point. Would I buy an Australian flag for that? Couldn’t see it, no. And for $20 one can buy a decent DVD for example one covering the match where Brisbane beat the Pies earlier this year.Or it could have gone to some charitable organisation like my soon to be formed DPSA (Distressed Parson’s Son’s Association) its sole purpose being to; well actually I don’t think that it will have a purpose other than to provide aid and succour to parson’s sons when their footy team is belted.

OK well I have to hand it to the victors, they were clearly the better side all day and to be fair for most matches this year as well. I knew that St Kilda were dead and buried once Riewoldt played on and had his kick gloriously (for some) knocked out of his grasp by Heath Shaw who flew in from nowhere to make the spoil, as contact was made. I think that it can be assumed that that is one horror video that St Nick will never want to review although ratbag Collingwood supporters will replay it endlessly no doubt.

The atmosphere in our lounge room had been nothing like the week before, for starters the representatives of the Collingwood tribe had not been able to be present this week which was a real pity as it turned out as it would have been in a sort of horrifying way nice to share their delight at game’s end. We had as replacements our son in law and his four daughters (three of whom were triplets who sensibly tired of the whole thing after ten minutes). 

Game started, Pendlebury to Cloke after about 20 seconds, he was so close to the goals even he couldn’t have missed but the ball was taken off him. Whaat???!!!. The Magpies though seemed to be in permanently in attack as happened last week so that it was only a matter of time before they would get away from the Saints. It was ironic almost that Goldsack should be their first goal scorer given that he had replaced Neon.

Talk about the Pies being useless in front of goal. Another player who won’t enjoy the video is Gilbert who had three misses when any one of his shots might have reignited his team. It was worse than a medieval water torture watching St Kilda miss opportunity after opportunity and sooner or later it was going to catch up with them.

Enough of that. At the end of every Grand Final one is likely to take a position that the winner could be the benchmark for years to come, and mostly this view is proved to be wrong not far into the next season but this time around, given that the new teams are getting the draft picks and that Collingwood has a really young and skilled team I can’t see anyone getting near them in 2011 at  least and possibly 2012 as well. Although as a temporary St Kilda convert I wasn’t thrilled by the outcome the fact is they were outplayed by a team whose skills were a joy to watch. Perhaps thought should be given to leaving them in experienced hands for longer than just next year.

Magpie fans, enjoy the moment, it was thoroughly deserved. For St Kilda fans, but for one fickle bounce last week the glory could have been yours, then.

My favourite sporting moment this week was the St George Illawarra female fan recounting her feelings after their win yesterday, particularly as the game evolved after half time. Unfortunately trying to put into words her thoughts having heard the tape replayed a few times would not do her happiness justice but sport had just given this person unalloyed joy after a wait of over 30 years. That’s sport; it can cause pain and pleasure in equal parts.

About Peter Schumacher

Wannabe footy commentator and writer, used to be a wannabe footballer

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