The view from Shepparton: Round 17

I wonder  what will happen one day when Buddy kicks five goals but gives away two consecutive 50 metre penalties with the opposition kicking the winning goal as a result in this year’s grand final. And this will all have happened after coach Clarkson has tried to tell him nicely to stop being  a goat and needlessly giving these penalties away all of the time. Who will Jeff blame, Buddy or Clarkson?

Well that is a long way off, meanwhile the orange flag on the boundary line will get to be feared as much as was Jane Saville’s red flag when within a few hundred metres of winning that gold in Sydney she was stopped in her tracks. Who could forget that, and who would forget it if a boundary lapse saw  a sequence of events explode into a winning goal against the flow of play.

Meanwhile, what a game that was on Friday night. I know, I viewed at least five minutes of it with the sound down during a very pleasant Friday evening gathering at home, during which those present played the card game “Mongrels” and then made cynical comments to each other about the game as it unfolded. We couldn’t immediately understand of course why Rioli’s goal had been disallowed but we soon found out.  I do know that Koschitzke got three first quarter goals and then had hardly any further involvement in the game. Must have been a great contest given the closeness of the  scores all evening. And how teams keep playing on he Docklands surface I don’t know. It has been iffy ever since the place was built. I remember being there and seeing sand fly up as the ground was traversed by a rushing”football” of players. (Can someone please advise me of the correct collective noun)? As usual, a draw doesn’t do anyone any good but I wouldn’t change the system for words, it is and should remain one of the quirks of Aussie Rules.

I had hoped that the West Coast would beat Carlton and it looked pretty good until half time. In fact I turned off the coverage happy in the knowledge that Carlton had had it. I was thus shocked to see when I got up at about 2am to check the scores  that they hadn’  of course. The thing is though, that whilst Carlton too missed easy shots for goal particularly in the second quarter, the Eagles could have just about sewn it up had they kicked straight. Gee, a goal kicking coach position that worked would have to be some sort of holy grail.

Brisbane can make put up all of the spin they like but Fevola has been a disaster for the club. Oh sure he has kicked a lot of goals to the extent that he was leading the list for a while, and if one uses injuries or potential injuries as the excuse for getting rid of Bradshaw well it has to be admitted that his transfer to Sydney hasn’t exactly worked out either but at least he wasn’t a hulking sulking skulking bulking individual apparently beset by personal problems. He should be dropped. I hate to think what his attitude does for the morale of the club in much the same way that Acka’s attitude must have upset his team mates. So they (Brisbane) lost again. They were always going to at Cat Park. The Gold Coast recruit did pretty well for Geelong

The Essendon North Melbourne game was a shrip norter. I had hoped too that Essendon would get up so that Adelaide might have had more of a chance but in the end it didn’t matter anyway. Meanwhile this too was a great game and a source of relief for Mr Knights no doubt.

Poor old Richmond’s bubble has burst. I think that to the average observer this is a real shame as they had just started to look something this year. The average observer also wouldn’t have been too happy with the percentage boost that this gave Collingwood. I reckon that Joffa could have thrown on the coat at quarter time. (I take it that he still indulges in this aggravating ritual). Got to hand it to the Pies though, right now they are looking fabulously fabulous.

The Powerless unfortunately had too much tow for the Crows. I reckon that a lot of Victorian followers would be very pleased that the two South Australian teams knocked the stuffing out of each other to the extent that that state now has both of their teams shot for the finals. The Crows did have to do everything right to do any good after their poor start to the season and thus it was probably inevitable that eventually they would come unstuck. Nice win for coach Primus though.

Wasn’t expecting Melbourne to get up over Sydney let alone thrash them. Like coach Roos said, some of Sydney;s young players have to start standing up. Can’t expect the aging brigade to keep holding it together. Be nice if Melbourne could somehow still make the finals. On their day they are pretty good.

I had expected the Bulldogs to get up over Freo, they have lost their momentum now to the extent that I expect the Eagles to win against them. Being Aka less was obviously a boon to the Dogs.

Watch Invictus today, pretty inspiring sports and political story. As was said in the accompanying commentary it had shades of Chariots of Fire about it. Perhaps Julia should look at it and try to inspire the Australian cricket team.