AFL Round 3 – St Kilda v Collingwood: Humble pie not on Mick’s menu

Welcome to Café Mick (“Nothin could be finer than to be in Micky’s Diner”), where every unhealthy white-man dish can be procured – except Humble Pie.

Even after being humiliated by the injury-ravaged Sainters, head chef Mick Malthouse (King of the Pampered Pies) used the excuse of bad luck in shooting for goal for losing the unloseable match. Never mind the fact that most of those missed shots were from the boundary line (which is where the Pies love to live), or rushed, harrassed, freakout snaps.

Cheyenne has the proven ability to travel through time, so let me take you back to Cheyenne’s report after the round one clash with the Swans. Cheyenne was dumbfounded because the Pies were suddenly flag favourites after beating the Dogs, so he singled out hacks and non-performers Cloke, Fraser, Johnson, Anthony, Neon Leon and Leroy Brown for some attention. Now lets see how they went on Friday night:

Ben Johnson – you were lucky because you were out injured; Jon Anthony – you were spared because you were dropped; Travis Cloke freaks out whenever he has to perform the most basic skill of our game (kicking set shots at goal). Josh Fraser and Brown – until late in the game I didn’t even know they were out there, and Neon Leon was also invisible except for when he was having a go at Mark of the Year, or in the background pretending to give chase to a Sainter with the ball. The fact that after about a dozen finals he still hasn’t got a kick in a big game must haunt realistic Pie fans.

But what about our Sainter warriors? Excluding Grand Finals, that was the best effort Cheyenne has seen (equal to the Qualifying Final win against Adelaide at AAMI in 2005). To the rest of the football world, who to a person scream “No Riewoldt, No St.Kilda!”, Cheyenne is happy to disagree. You only have to watch the way Bakes is playing to realise that, rather than slackening off in defensive pressure, our overall smothering, tackling, harrassing and spoiling has gotten even more outrageous.

There is also the matter of the huge improvement evident in the “5Gs” – Gilbert, Gram, Geary, Gwilt and Gardiner.

Nick will be a huge loss, but with Kossie back and Stanley and Lynch pressing hard for a spot, we’ve still got the firepower to be up there when Nick comes back. The coach is right about Nick – this is a great opportunity to work on an alternative forward plan. Grinding a comfortable win over the Pampered Pies without Nick is one thing, but you wouldn’t want Nick going down in a Grand Final against the Cats without a Plan B.

Cheyenne Autumn

Comments

  1. i have one question.
    Why is there so much hating on poor JACK Anthony? :(
    He didn’t burn down an orphanage on Christmas and he hasn’t taken candy from any babies!

    Blasted good performance by the Saints, too strong even with out the blond boofhead.
    p.s Not a Milne fan and never will be.

    Danni

  2. Mick Malthouse needs to quit now.

  3. 2- disagree with ya Joshy.
    I’m still happy for Mick to finish his reign as coach.
    What i didn’t agree with was him syaing that he didn’t say anything to the Saints players, that was a down right lie.
    We all knew it, he kew it and the camera doesn’t lie but Milne deserved what he copped and more.

  4. Still, suspensions should apply for coaches as well, and if they were, Buckley would be coaching for the next few weekends.

  5. 4- oh come on Josh, dont tell me u didnt LOVE it when Milne got a taste of his own vile medicine!
    i was counting on Leigh Brown to punch his face in, but you can’t have everything in life.
    I don’t really care if they were to suspend him,they shouldn’t, but if they did Meh.

  6. Michael Allan says

    A coach suspension? C’mon Barnstable that’s pretty ridulous. Have the fine and leave it at that. Besides West Coast showed us this week that not having a coach doesn’t mean much anyway. You can always just give em a call in the breaks.

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