If desperation has been seen like it, Fremantle coach Mark Harvey reckons that the media should do their job property and call the Dockers dangerous. Yep, that's right, the team that just broke the record for most consecutive losses after leading at 3/4 times, the team that is 1 win from 11 encounters, the very club that still plays Shaun McManus each week, is dangerous. Seriously, if ever there was a case of deja vu out of control, it's Fremantle. Up at 3/4 time, Farmer does some ridiculous celebration after kicking the winning goal, other team gets back in front, Pavlich hits the post, Dockers lose, but they're a chance next week at least. Harvs really doesn't like the honest, put your head down and play footy approach does he?
And, incredibly, in the same week that Harvey rewrote the meaning of dangerous, Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse pulled another gem out of the coaching bag of random complaints, saying that 'blockbuster fatigue' at the MCG and being the hunted team is getting too hard because he can't fire the team up like the other teams do against them. Fair dinkum, you'd hate to see the Magpies as the reigning premiers (for more reasons than one), look at how Geelong have coped with having one of the most dominant seasons of all time and now being well and truly the hunted for 13 months now, they've bowed to the pressure a whopping two times from their last 30 encounters. And this is compared with the hunted Magpies who are on the back of the best 4 game winning streak ever seen! He even finished the sentence saying they needed to find greater consistency. Seriously, if you can't convince your team to play football, I can only imagine what else he'd fail at. Still, Mark Harvey might want to read this, because if he could just remind the Dockers that their blockbusters last 4 quarters their fire up might actually work!
And how about Geelong losing to Collingwood? I know, it was a while ago, but if media reports are to be believed, it's really started a new craze in football. If I had a nickel for every special commentator who's 'mentioned' Collingwood's tackling against Geelong 'like we've never seen' I might stop pulling out my hair in frustration at hearing it. It was fantastic, Mick Malthouse is a genius, but come on, this is the 150th year of football, surely by now everyone's figured out that you're allowed to tackle and that it helps when you can get the football back. You haven't found a weakness in Geelong's gameplan, you've found a general rule about footy - if you tackle people who have the ball, it generally helps!
Showing posts with label Fremantle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fremantle. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Monday, 28 April 2008
More rule tampering? No thanks Tadhg!
A simple solution for the recent bickering about last minute bad decisions costing Sydney 2 points and Fremantle 4 points - don't let it end up that way!
Sydney's Tadhg Kennelly became the second AFL player in as many weeks to call for an end to the draw in the AFL, the first being outspoken Bulldog Jason Akermanis. It followed a week of controversy in which Sydney and North Melbourne drew due to a last gasp disallowed goal, when the goal umpire (perhaps incorrectly) ruled that Brett Kirk's kick had been touched before the line by North defender Michael Firrito. Only two days earlier, Fremantle lost to Geelong by a solitary point, a match which was also marred by controversy when the umpire called back a kick in (after Joel Selwood kicked the ball out on the full) in the dying moments and lost several crucial seconds from the clock. This of course had Dockers fans up in arms over the result.
Now far be it for me to question the efforts of a professional AFL side, but when you've had 80 minutes to decide a match, and you can't get in front, why should you get another 10 to do so? And what if you lose? The losers would feel cheated, and rightly so. One of Kennelly's more interesting points was that North was down an injured player, and that the Swans were coming back, which underlines the very point that Sydney had 4 quarters to work its way in front, and could only start to do so when North had a player down, but could not even complete such an act. Does that sound like a team that deserves another 10 minutes to do so?
Akermanis' point was that football was a game of results, and that it was more fitting to end the game in with one team winning and the other losing. Football is also a game of four quarters however, and it's one where surely the most fitting result is the one where the game ends when the final siren rings? Draws are part of almost every sport. Only knockout matches need a result and rules are modified as such. The dejection that players feel after a draw is natural, but that's the way that both sides played the game. If you want to blame it on the umpires, fine, but just remember to magnify every single incorrect decision throughout the match, and see if you were as robbed as you thought you once were.
The same applies to the Fremantle match. The Dockers squandered a 39 point lead late in the second quarter to find themselves 2 in front at half time. They then messed up another comfortable buffer after a good third quarter, to lose by a solitary point. One might think that in an entire match they'd find something other than the timekeeper to blame. Even that ignores the fact that Harry Taylor had marked the ball when the siren rang, would have held the ball for the full allowed time, then proceeded to kick it as long as he could towards a large pack. The chances of a Fremantle player then getting clean possession, booting it not only as long as Taylor but getting it further and through the goals, in less time, are all incredibly unlikely. This all must happen in 9 seconds by the way.
The fact is, the draw is part of the game, and so are incorrect umpiring decisions (going both ways) and if Sydney, Freo and the Dogs don't like it, well how about not letting it happen or come down to that in the first place?
Sydney's Tadhg Kennelly became the second AFL player in as many weeks to call for an end to the draw in the AFL, the first being outspoken Bulldog Jason Akermanis. It followed a week of controversy in which Sydney and North Melbourne drew due to a last gasp disallowed goal, when the goal umpire (perhaps incorrectly) ruled that Brett Kirk's kick had been touched before the line by North defender Michael Firrito. Only two days earlier, Fremantle lost to Geelong by a solitary point, a match which was also marred by controversy when the umpire called back a kick in (after Joel Selwood kicked the ball out on the full) in the dying moments and lost several crucial seconds from the clock. This of course had Dockers fans up in arms over the result.
Now far be it for me to question the efforts of a professional AFL side, but when you've had 80 minutes to decide a match, and you can't get in front, why should you get another 10 to do so? And what if you lose? The losers would feel cheated, and rightly so. One of Kennelly's more interesting points was that North was down an injured player, and that the Swans were coming back, which underlines the very point that Sydney had 4 quarters to work its way in front, and could only start to do so when North had a player down, but could not even complete such an act. Does that sound like a team that deserves another 10 minutes to do so?
Akermanis' point was that football was a game of results, and that it was more fitting to end the game in with one team winning and the other losing. Football is also a game of four quarters however, and it's one where surely the most fitting result is the one where the game ends when the final siren rings? Draws are part of almost every sport. Only knockout matches need a result and rules are modified as such. The dejection that players feel after a draw is natural, but that's the way that both sides played the game. If you want to blame it on the umpires, fine, but just remember to magnify every single incorrect decision throughout the match, and see if you were as robbed as you thought you once were.
The same applies to the Fremantle match. The Dockers squandered a 39 point lead late in the second quarter to find themselves 2 in front at half time. They then messed up another comfortable buffer after a good third quarter, to lose by a solitary point. One might think that in an entire match they'd find something other than the timekeeper to blame. Even that ignores the fact that Harry Taylor had marked the ball when the siren rang, would have held the ball for the full allowed time, then proceeded to kick it as long as he could towards a large pack. The chances of a Fremantle player then getting clean possession, booting it not only as long as Taylor but getting it further and through the goals, in less time, are all incredibly unlikely. This all must happen in 9 seconds by the way.
The fact is, the draw is part of the game, and so are incorrect umpiring decisions (going both ways) and if Sydney, Freo and the Dogs don't like it, well how about not letting it happen or come down to that in the first place?
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