The 2015 ‘Mopsy’ Fraser Cup – Round Five

Greetings Tipsters

 

First things first; our commiserations and thoughts are with the family, friends and teammates of Aaron Mahoney, captain of the Otway Districts Football Club seniors and coach of the U/17s, who died on the field on Saturday.

 

Puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it?

 

Frinite, Mick coached his 715th game and his lauded ability to get the most out of his players wasn’t in the least in evidence. Carlton were horrible – slow, slack, clueless.

 

Collingwood, on the other hand are looking like a serious team. One of the best young ruckman running around, pace, youth, and a physical attack on the man and the ball. Some of their tackling was reminiscent of Al Lynch tossing backmen around when he ruled the Gabba goalsquare. Dane Swan has tattoos on his fingers. Like many a young team, they may fade on the heavy tracks of July but they’re having a damn good crack.

 

They’ve yet to play a serious contender tho. Footscray have played two contenders in two weeks and accounted for them both. Saturday’s match at the SCG was a classic, the last term was real edge of the seat stuff. While Sydney made some stupid mistakes, the game was won with the Dogs’ five straight goals in the first and many of those came from recovering the ball in a congested backline and bulletting it downfield into space, where a goal becomes as much of a certainty as can be.

 

As good as that was, even more impressive was the desperate defence in the last, when most everyone figured that older heads and bodies would prevail. Young Talia did as good a job on Franklin as we’ve seen and Bob Murphy has become an even better player. Why wasn’t he captain five years ago? Maybe he wasn’t ready for it then, but better late than never. Four wins from five games and a reasonably easy draw, the Dogs won’t be booking holidays in September this year.

 

Brisbane players can. They seem to be keen for it already. Jeez, ya gotta feel for Leppitsch. Centre half-back in one of the greatest teams of all time, known around the Stop Privatisation Of Football offices as The Last Of The Classic Football Teams, Lethal’s Lions never took a backward step, never shirked a contest. They never lost five talented youngsters all at once nor felt the need to recruit anyone remotely like Brendan Fevola. (What’s Fev up to these days? Playing in the NW Vic League?)

 

Now, after doing all the right things, assistant coach here and there, he returns to replace his premiership captain and finds himself neck-deep in a quagmire. “Carlton next” he says at the coaches’ meeting, “if we can’t win this, we might as well forfeit the rest of the season and spend the next few months eating magic mushrooms on an isle in the Thai Gulf.”

 

The Limp Lions will manage at least one win this season. Yes, no, um, look, going forward, there’s a win somewhere down the line.

 

Anyone notice that three games were decided by nine points or less, that five games were decided by sixty points or more, and that only the Showdown bucked the trend, being a difference of four goals?

 

It’s a pattern that’s been happening most rounds this year, some dead tight matches, several thrashings and one or two in the middle. For all the talk of equalisation and coaches saying that it’s an even competition, it obviously aint.

 

We’ve got the Big Four, last season’s prelim finallists, one of them’s gonna drop off the pace this year, we’ve got the Almost There, the Plucky Youngsters and then we’ve got every other team. We can all agree that Brisbane, Carlton, Gold Coast, Melbourne, St Kilda and probably Richmond won’t make the Eight, that the Big Four will, that the other eight teams will be tussling for four chances in September.

 

So why all these thrashings? What happened to the draft-led equalisation? (I explained this the other week). I’ve got Vanessa Huynh, the new work experience kid here at the Stop Privatisation Of Football office, crunching some numbers and I hope she’ll come up with something I can understand. Monday morn, when my torn meniscus was giving me serious grief, she explained why 1 + 1 didn’t necessarily equal 2. She ran out of whiteboards, continued over the walls and then had to order a delivery of more textas.

 

Lovely girl, I recommended she watch ‘Moneyball’, now she’s analysing Carlton’s recruitment. I thought about writing her a reference, Steve could really use her skills, but I don’t wanna mess with the MIT scholarship.

 

Looking ahead, the 4&20s get to play a proper team, if Geelong still warrant such a description. Something of a “Crunch” match both ways. North get to redeem themselves, cos they’re playing Richmond.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if St Kilda beat Footscray. Saints are getting a little bit better, week by week, and the Dogs may be a bit too full of themselves. Bear in mind, StK were within a whisker of beating Essendon. Hawthorn, full of beans and fisticuffs, play West at the Sydney Showground. The Hogs only just sneaked past them at the MCG last year, just wait til they feel the lashings of orange passion!

 

Adelaide are the shortest odds of the round so far, playing at Carrara. Melbourne host Sydney – shouldn’t this be a big deal? Melbourne vs Sydney!

 

Melbourne is full of people who think that there is a city rivalry. Sydney folks have heard about it, but laugh it off, which really annoys the PFK outa Melbourne folks.

 

Freo host Essendon, Ross Lyon stays in bed and directs the win by telephone. Port host the Wiggles, that could be a good one. There’s another match, featuring two teams referred to above in less than flattering terms. It is not good for football to talk about it.

 

Cheers Tipsters

 

P&C, a Stop Privatisation Of Footy Production, a division of Trans-Dementia Inc.

Brought to you with the assistance of The Flatmates’ ‘Love & Death’

 

About Earl O'Neill

Freelance gardener, I've thousands of books, thousands of records, one fast motorcycle and one gorgeous smart funny sexy woman. Life's pretty darn neat.

Comments

  1. Peter_B says

    Monaros? Mini Minors? Sounds of Silence?

  2. Earl O'Neill says

    Yes, I forgot to write about that one. Something like:
    Doncha love it when the teev schedule really works out for you? After the SCG match, I watched ‘Grand Prix’, perhaps the best movie ever made about motorsports. Then it was time for the Monaros at Wiggles and those plucky youngsters were hanging in there, being outplayed and freaked out but only four points down when Big Josh left the field. “Here we go!” I yelled and, bang, three goals in three minutes! Unfortunately, they were kicked by the Wiggles.
    Halftime, 36 points down, I flicked over to ‘Monty Python’s Holy Grail’ and laughed. It’s been years since I saw it, when an ad break arrived I flicked back to the footy. A few minutes into the third and we were 50 points down, I said to Perky Girl “Do you want to watch Holy Grail?” She did, so we enjoyed a rather more pleasant evening, full of laughter rather than shrieks of terror.
    “WHAT is your favourite colour?”
    “Orange. No, charcoal grey…. AAAAGGHHHH!!!!”

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