by Mark O’Connell (with Timothy O’Leary’s Danny Roach Medal votes following) Preamble I like, so many thousands of others, left the MCG wondering how we lost and why we put ourselves through such misery time and time again. However, I have a painful duty to perform so I will to review the game as dispassionately [Read more]
Blowing bubbles at my first EPL game
April 27, 2009 by 3 Comments
By Rick Kane My first day in the UK, ever! We are off to see the Hammers go up against Chelsea this afternoon. But first we’re hitting London. The first postcard view I get is, well, of course, it’s the Tube. Richard, the friend who I am staying with, and I catch the Tube from [Read more]
Benched Coach
April 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment
by Andrew Fithall I didn’t have a good week this week. The Williamstown Juniors Under 16 Ds played Wyndhamvale at their ground and had a solid win. But I didn’t coach. There were a number of reasons for that. But, for the moment, let’s go back to Wyndhamvale. Wyndham was in the news a bit [Read more]
How low can you go? Goals washed away in the rain
April 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Andrew Gigacz’s Round 5 Stat. Declaration It’s only Round 5 but are we already seeing the men separated from the boys? Has the wheat already been sorted from the chaff? Has the cream already risen to the top? Can I use any more metaphors to say the same thing again? What I’m trying to get [Read more]
Round 1 Stat Declaration
April 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment
By Andrew Gigacz Can we really glean anything from a Round 1 Ladder? Well if 2008 is anything to go by, the answer is yes. This time last year Hawthorn was on top and the Demons on the bottom. By the time the season was done and dusted, those two teams were still there. So [Read more]
Round 3 Stat Declaration
April 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment
by Andrew Gigacz The wash-up from round 3 is that we have 3 teams on 3 wins and 3 teams on 3 losses. For a man who was born on 3/3 at 3:33pm weighing 3.3kg (me), that can only be described as a beautiful set of numbers. (You see, I’m not a freak of [Read more]
Round 2 Stat Declaration
April 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment
by Andrew Gigacz It took 83 years before it happened for the first time and now it’s happened twice in a row. After the Bulldogs joined the League in 1925, there were no occurrences of St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs/Footscray both winning the first two games of the season until last year. Now [Read more]
How D.C. McGillivray bought the farm
April 26, 2009 by 1 Comment
by Pamela Sherpa Running was an integral part of life when my grandfather D.C (David Crump) McGillivray was a boy. Chores were done morning and afternoon and running to and from school was the norm. Not surprisingly, like many of his time, D.C. discovered his athletic talents and developed into a decent all-round sportsman. He relished competition and adhered to the philosophy [Read more]
An Anzac Day reflection
April 25, 2009 by 2 Comments
By Damian O’Donnell A whole generation of blokes goes off to war in 1914. They go to a foreign land to kill and be killed. Today we might struggle to understand that. We, the inhabitants of this global village where the other side of the world is a click of a mouse away, cannot begin [Read more]
Bulldogs not on free-to-air? No surprise there
April 23, 2009 by 1 Comment
By Andrew Gigacz Imagine if Adelaide were second on the ladder and they were playing in top team St Kilda in Melbourne. For Crows supporters it’d be a dream scenario. First v second live into their lounge rooms. Now imagine that the game was only available for viewing in Adelaide via Pay TV. You can [Read more]
Wanted: music to lull me into an impenetrable bubble of football excellence
April 23, 2009 by 5 Comments
When I turned on the news in my Perth home on Friday night, WAFL footy led the sports news headlines. It was a phenomenon not seen in my three years in this city. There is renewed excitement surrounding the state competition. The Eagles and the Dockers are battling while the WAFL is producing nail-biters. Like [Read more]
Tigers need a young coach for a new era
April 23, 2009 by 5 Comments
By Paul Daffey In 2004 Hawthorn finished fifteenth with four wins and a percentage of 70 while Richmond finished sixteenth — last — with a percentage of 69. The clubs were separated by one percentage point. I know these figures because they’re burned in my mind. It hurts and confuses me to think what has [Read more]
Don’t mention the marshmallow war
April 23, 2009 by 18 Comments
North Melbourne a Essendon 1.10pm, Sunday, 19 April Etihad Stadium, Melbourne By Mark Wallace It was just like any other run-of-the-mill weekend day in our seaside hamlet on the Bellarine Peninsula. Nothin’ special. Picked up the papers, had the usual Sunday morning breakfast — poached eggs on sourdough toast. Stacey prefers it with a generous [Read more]
Collingwood Find Some Form in the Reclink Cup
April 22, 2009 by Leave a Comment
by Hamish Townsend There’s a point near the roundabout at Keele St and Gold where the wind changes to gusts. Local inns call with a false warmth and hospitality; The Leinster and The Bendigo either side or retreat to the Curry Family or Robbie Burns and its Spanish restaurant. This point is where the black [Read more]
Sydney Uni align with Collingwood — and stick with blue and gold colours
April 22, 2009 by 5 Comments
By Rod Gillett When the Collingwood Football Club first sat down with the Sydney University Australian National Football Club to talk about the proposal to field an under-eighteen team in the Sydney AFL competition the uni officials made it quite clear that the team’s colours would be blue and gold. This was not an issue [Read more]
Seventh heaven, my bootlace. Writing match reports is a terrible business
April 22, 2009 by Leave a Comment
By Andrew Stafford A few days after the Brisbane v Collingwood clash at the Gabba, I received an email from a fellow Pies tragic. “You must have been in seventh heaven!” she gushed. Several other friends, not all of them Magpie fans, made similar comments. My job is a source of some envy. I am [Read more]
Strange, tingly feeling leads to rare delight
April 22, 2009 by Leave a Comment
By Barry Levinson From the moment Round 3 concluded with yet another Richmond loss, I began looking ahead to Round 4 with a strange, tingly feeling inside … the sort of strange, tingly feeling usually reserved for the build-up to a final. But I wasn’t imagining the sensation … as a Melbourne supporter, this was [Read more]
In and outs of early Bendigo football
April 22, 2009 by 1 Comment
By Richard Jones In the early years of the twentieth century two of the Bendigo Football League’s present-day power clubs dominated. South Bendigo and Eaglehawk took it in turns to snare what was called “the premiership of the district” in the Bendigo Football Association. For a number of seasons no finals were played; clubs that [Read more]
Tigers continue to wander around the desert in circles
April 22, 2009 by Leave a Comment
By John Green It’s the game Richmond have to win. When supporters first perused the 2009 draw this clash with lowly Melbourne was pencilled in as a certainty. Humiliate those Bluebagger upstarts who were coming and we all knew it, fly the colours against the Cats and the Bulldogs in the following rounds, boost the [Read more]
Footy keeps home fires burning
April 21, 2009 by 2 Comments
By Pamela Sherpa Timing is everything they say. A visit home to Gunbower in northern Victoria luckily coincides with a “home” footy match against the nearest rival. Leitchville-Gunbower v Cohuna Kangas, Round 2, Central Murray Football League. Two teams that used to be four. It’s a situation that typifies country football. Effectively half the district has combined and is playing at [Read more]
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