The View From Shepparton: Round 4

The Lions, as I predicted from the outset are four zip at this stage. What legends they are.

Somehow Collingwood are three one. How the hell did that happen? And it is surprising that the Bulldogs are now two and two. I thought that they were better than that.

South Australian football is in total disarray. As a born and bread Croweater this saddens me greatly.

The highlight play has to have been that Crow reject Mattner running half the length of the field and then goaling from over fifty metres out. Pity that I didn’t actually see it but the bloke on the wireless, Stan Alves I think, referred to it a few times. Sydney’s gain is Adelaide’s loss.

The highlight match had to be the St Kilda Freo game. I sort of kept an ear open from a distance as my adviser may have been tiring from wall to wall footy and we were watching West Wing on DVD. I was on line though when Pavlich kicked the 60 metre goal and then the next Freo goal a few seconds later which propelled them to a 7 point buffer. “You beauty”, I thought, “got them at last”, but my rejoicing was premature. Just as well I wasn’t in a public space with a gold jacket. I find Milne extremely irritating, as does one coach at least, but he can play, as can Goddard of course. The truth is that this was a magnificent win by the Saints, particularly given their outs but they were really pushed. Freo should be able to regain momentum next week given that they are playing Richmond.

I watched the first half of the Essendon West Coast game before deciding that it was a fait accompli. Essendon have probably done the competition  a favour in that at last the West Coast are up and running. Naitanui is a footy freak. Just drool over how good he is going to be with a couple of years under his belt. Priddis was very impressive as well, when I was watching he seemed to be able to get the ball at will. Rotten luck for Kerr and the Eagles though.

The best thing about watching Hawthorn go down is seeing Jeff Kennett apparently ready to implode. It’s only a game mate! Collingwood did (again) look pretty all right. Can’t make them out at all. Like last year it appears at times that they might be unbeatable and yet somehow they never go the full distance.

I was listening to the Brisbane game and was appalled and depressed when they were down by 30 points. It’s only a game mate! I now understand Herr Kennett. It might only be a game but the trend of events had the capacity to totally ruin my weekend. Hall had kicked four and our much vaunted forward line had hardly been sighted. Fortunately the Fev came to life in the third quarter, (I had bet that he would) and Brown in the last. Meanwhile Brennan played another blinder. I was a bit worried (read I was a shaking nervous wreck) when Brown missed two set shots in a row in the last quarter when the Lions were still behind. As is normal in these things, had the Bulldogs got a few things right in that last quarter the result might have been different. The round 12 return match at Etihad will be interesting. I note that Brisbane has Sydney (in Sydney), Freo and Geelong for first three rounds in May, certainly know how good they are at the end of that

How long can Neil Craig get away with saying that the Crows are training well? I was going to have a nice relaxing afternoon seeing them wallop Carlton but it wasn’t long before I was disabused of that view. Put simply they were hopeless. Carlton aren’t that good, but anyway a win in Adelaide is not their usual performance. Garlett and Yarran are goers, that’s for sure.

I should have mentioned it previously but once again Sydney were very impressive. I had thought that North Melbourne might have been on the way back but with Bradshaw starting to fit in (and absolutely good on him) and Goodes and Kirk going well also, they were also going to be hard to beat.

Geelong thrashed Port Adelaide. I understand that the Cat’s third quarter was as good as it gets. Be a bit depressed as a Power supporter to hear that in Mark Williams view they were OK at half time. I doubt that either Port Adelaide or Adelaide would have many wins in the VFL.

Melbourne thrashed Richmond but everyone will do that. They could be OK yet too, they have some good players coming back in the next few weeks. Liam Jurrah, who is as exciting as Naitanui in my view is one of these.

In general terms the big debate revolves around the question as to how quick the game has become and how skills are being lost because there is not time to execute them. Player welfare should of course be of paramount importance which of course relates to the number of interchanges, but given that, the little footy I have seen on TV or live has looked pretty OK to me, that is fast and exciting with little margin for error. Now about the goal kicking……

About Peter Schumacher

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

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