AFL Round 3: Nice weekend, shame about the footy

By Dan Crane

It had been an action-packed weekend before I woke up on Sunday the 11th of April.  My best mate Tim had flown over from Adelaide on Friday afternoon and he, my wife and I had then spent that evening drinking beautiful beer at the Little Creatures dinner hall on Brunswick Street.  Tim prefers the Bright Ale (and the pipsqueak jocks) and yours truly adores the Pilsener.  In a weekend full of ironic moments little did I know that I would go from loving something crafted from Fremantle on Friday night  to being grumpy about Fremantle on Sunday night when they blasted my Cats away in the 4th quarter… great game though.

But back to the weekend – Saturday involved more beer drinking, Tim and I wondering around Chapel St looking for affordable bongo drums, my good wife Stacey shopping, coming across celebrities (James Hird, Barry Stoneham and the guy who won big brother in 2007 – although whether he’s a celebrity is highly debatable) and then to cap it all off the three of us went to a wedding party of another great friend of mine who got married in London and had the shindig at his folks’ in lovely Brighton (awesome finger food and a backyard fire).  As Tim, Stace and I retreated to slumber on Saturday night it was fair to say that we were spent but in a very much satisfied way.

Now you may ask what relevance any of this has to do with the Dees v the Crows on Sunday?

No relevance whatsoever!!! But…

My point is that as a relative neutral (albeit wearing a Crows scarf due to marital loyalty) the ‘match’ between the Crows and the Dees was one of the worst I have seen in living memory.  Yes, it was a great, much desired win for the Dees, who were so much hungrier; yes the Crows were incredibly unfortunate with injuries (get better soon Dangerfield); and yes the chips with chicken salt were expensive but superb. But, still, as Timbo rightly pointed out, it was hardly an advert for the great Australian game. Stacey was equally as disappointed in her hot dog.

The footy was fiddly stuff. The ‘swirling breeze’ used as an excuse was hardly that from where we were sitting, and the most entertaining aspect at the G for the 3 of us was probably a battle between watching the Auskickers at half time versus chuckling away at the 2 members of the MCG security forces scanning the AFL members stand for renegade people with feet on seats.

Come to think of it I’m sure that those security guys were agents such as those seen in The Matrix … and heading back to work on the morning of Monday the 12th, still dehydrated, tired and weary, it really was a case of ‘welcome to the real world’.

Melbourne 1.5 (11) 1.8 (14) 5.11 (41) 7.15 (57)
Adelaide 2.5 (17) 4.9 (33) 5.10 (40) 5.11 (41)

Crowd: about 23,000 Melbourne fans, 500 diligent security guards and one sleeping, hungover Cats fan.

Best players:

3  – Cameron Bruce (MELB)

2  — Jack Trengove (MELB)

1 – – Brad Green (MELB)


About Dan Crane

Hi , I'm Dan. I'm a Geelong, Liverpool, Sturt and Celtic FC fan with soft spots for Richmond, Chester and Leicester FC's as well. I'm an Geography, History & English teacher who adores sport but whatever you do, don't ever start me on music....

Comments

  1. Yes I remember last years M Vs A game was a very similar affair! – ugly to watch and a low scoring, rather windy clash. Crows have far too many injuries in my opinion, somethings changed at training to cause them…14 injuries and its only Round 3!
    Hopefully they can beat a depleted Carlton this week at home, if not its extremely doubtful they will make the top 4.

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