Things are cranking up

Sorry for the delay in hitting the keyboards but it was due to circumstances beyond my control that being lack of content. Bugger all been happening in the H of S as February is basically the gestation prior to the impending rebirth of the football season. The A-League continues to provide interest to fans of the round ball code. The return of the tri-nation format in the ODI cricket has sparked as much interest as a driving through Holbrook. We have to do in order to get to our real destination, which is the footy.

Black Caviar has again stamped her equine brilliance upon the national psyche. However, one might have thought that backing up from a 1400m doddle to a 1000m dash down the straight 5 at Flemington was horse racing’s answer to curing cancer. The horse is a bloody marvel to genetics so could the racing pundits please stop taking the old if my aunty had a dick she’d be my uncle angle with all their what ifs and buts. The same goes with commentators who see the installation of a Friday night meeting prior the Cox Plate as the harbinger to night GFs and the Melbourne Cup. Gee, what if they moved the Moomba Parade to 7.30pm?

The past week has had more training down of houses and players being set on fire. Captains and leadership groups continue to be rolled out and the arrival of lot of young blokes now have grandmothers sowing the number 62 on the back of the grandkid’s duffle coats. It also heralded the unveiling of the revamped Fox Footy Channel and “the greatest coverage of the game ever”, so we were told. Unfortunately, the spruiking didn’t indicate that Spud Frawley and Eddie McGuire would be placed in the same room as each other. Worst still, they were also provided with a microphone. Similarly, little bit of Dermie goes along way and his “gee I’m clever for pointing out the bloody obvious” smugness is already grating.

The Greedy Bastards Cup has kicked off and the given supporters the chance to see how their favourite sons have pulled up after the off season hamstring implants . The new kids on the block, the GWS, had a hit out last night in front a warm crowd at Bankstown oval. The Gnats played all their young recruits and acquitted themselves well against the Pies and Doggies. Izzie Folou had the historians reaching for the record books ( when was the last time a $1M recruit failed to rack up a possession in a game? ) and Sheeds believes that the AFL’s move to the western suburbs of Sydney has been vindicated and he fully expects to have the silverware cupboard full within a couple of years. It would have been a big night at the Rooty Hill RSL. Post game footage of Heath Shaw has confirmed what we already thought. He is bat shit crazy.

Still it was football and that can only be good. It must be because Adrian Anderson said it was.

You’ve Been Verballed by Mick

What was a sneaking suspicion has now turned into a nightmarish reality. Mick McGuane is now back in the chair full time on RSN of a morning. Now many of you could say just put on another station. However, when the alternate option is Michael Slater on the 2UE Big Breakie show, I’m afraid it is slim pickings in the national capital. I could of course seek out other stations via the web but sitting on the throne of a morning with a lap top is kind of weird.

Mick was again strangling what version of the English language he possesses with this ripper about Jimmy Bartel, “his underestimated importance should not be underestimated”. I can only assume he was applying the mathematical double negative making a positive theory. I would also have thought that Jimmy’s Brownlow and Norm Smith Medals may have alerted the opposition to his footy smarts. But I don’t think like Mick and to my parent I’m forever grateful.

Tip of the Week
Again on the home renovation theme and avoiding schoolboy errors. When purchasing a replacement bath it is prudent to measure if the existing taps will be higher than said new bath. This apparently involved the use of a tape measure and alleviates the need to remove recently laid tiles and hire a plumber to relocate pipes to a higher position.

Tony’s Weekly Dump
Professional sport continues to evolve, some for the better, some for the worse. Similarly, sport coverage has evolved unless that coverage is golf on pay TV. Is there any other sport programme that devotes so much time to not actually showing its’ sport than the Golf Channel? It makes the NFL positively break neck. Why must we endure such pitiful waffle in the form saccharine montages and mind numbing statistics? How can any sport have any street credibility when it “Mr Everyday Kinda Guy” is named Bubba and has a pink shaft in his driver? How can any presentation devote more air time to the commentators and sponsors than those actually competing? Why must the golfing fans of world have there collective noses pushed into the great divide between rich and poor that is held as a virtue by the PGA Tour. It’s sport answer to the Republican Party and its’ shite. Pure unadulterated shite. I yearn for Peter Alliss.

See ya next time

About Tony Robb

A life long Blues supporter of 49 years who has seen some light at the end of the tunnel that isn't Mick Malthouse driving a train.

Comments

  1. The golf channel has an equivalent here. In some cases the ‘live’ sport occasionally interiors the ads. I thought the point of pay tv was to only be forced to watch promotional programming for the current and/or sister channels…

  2. *interrupts

  3. John Butler says

    TR, that’s a much more imaginative name for the NAB Cup.

    And I reckon NAB would at least earn kudos for honesty if they made the change.

  4. Peter Alliss: I love the guy, especially after a coaching video he made helped turn my bunker nightmares into pleasant dreams.

    Jimmy Bartel.

    I started penning an article a couple of years ago which I was going to title, “The true test of leading teams.” The gist of it was that whilst Geelong’s on field success was a good guage of the effectiveness of the Leading Teams programme, the real test would be how well the Club and players handled the transition from old to new.

    There is often acrimony and bitterness when players (particularly, older, loyal, successful ones) are left out of GF teams or become bit players as younger players come through. Except for perhaps Mark Blake in 2007, the players have handled themselves very professionally and with class.

    Jimmy has been a prime example of the “team comes first” ethos. There is no doubt that he would have continued to play in the midfield post-Brownlow, been a ball magnet, and consolidated his reputation as an elite midfielder.

    He has, instead, happily taken on less glamourous roles for the sake of team balance and structure.

    I think I understand what McGuane is getting at. Jimmy does not get the weekly 30 or 40 possessions that midfielders get, and so does not appear to be central to the team’s success. He’s unlikely to win the Midfielder Medal, sorry, the Brownlow Medal again, and scribes will probably undervalue his contribution for lack of big stats but Jimmy is pivotal to that team, and will be even more so now that Lingy is gone.

  5. Pete I admire you for understanding anything Mick is getting at .Jimmy is a savant, Mick is just a plain idiot

  6. Pamela Sherpa says

    Your bathroom renovations are proving to be more amusing than the sporting summer Tony.

  7. I agree Pamela.

    I’m taking notes for when we renovate.

    Into the valley of death rode the man and his screwdriver…

  8. Nice one Tony. You are right to be concerned about packaging Moomba in with the other sporting stratospheric event. Not even the City of festivals could handle that much celebrity white trash, er, I mean, noise.

    As for the scale of weirdness and where the lap top rests in that scale could you kindly inform a less urbane reader of this prestigious site, what of the Kindle? Is it an acceptable accompaniment while sitting on said throne?

  9. Pamela, Im to revovations as what Eddie McGuire is to “the good of the game”
    JB Ill be down in July so if you need a few tips give me a yell. You may need a tape measure
    Rick Can you pick up the Melbourne ABC on a Kindle. If so It all right with me?
    cheers
    TR

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