Tag Archives: dustin-martin

The Weekend Musing returns!!

It has been a while, but I thought it was time to put pen to paper so to speak.

When the Victorian teams went into hubs and it was clear there was going to be no football in Victoria for the remainder of the season I think I “mused” that the season would favour Brisbane, Port Adelaide and West Coast. They would be able to play home games and have a relatively normal season compared to the Victorian and clubs. After the first week of the finals I was thinking I was right and was looking forward to a Port Adelaide -v- Brisbane grand final on the Gabba. This was a game where I didn’t particularly care who won, but would be favouring Brisbane at home.

Then along comes Richmond Geelong to upset the apple cart. While it put me into a conundrum about whom to support on the big day, you have to admire what both clubs have achieved by just getting to the final game of the year. Both teams have been in hubs for over 100 days which is a totally abnormal situation. Some clubs responded well to “hub” life which included these two and I would probably throw in St Kilda & Melbourne as well, while my team Essendon, North Melbourne and GWS clearly did not. It probably says more about the stability and cohesiveness of the clubs that did not respond well than those that did and these three clubs have been shedding players since their seasons finished.

Turning to the game itself, when it became clear last Saturday night that it would be Geelong -v- Richmond I did not favour one side over the other and I even contemplated not watching the game. Richmond have won two out of the last three flags and Geelong has had a lot of recent success and living in Geelong I didn’t know if I could put up with the local hysteria. I live in a street 10 minutes walk from Kardinia Park and many of the houses in my street are festooned with Cats paraphernalia. Walking past scarves draped around fences, it is in your face and just reminds you what you are missing. In the end I have decided to support Geelong. It would be good for the town and I think Patty Dangerfield does deserve a premiership. Not only is he one of the best players of the last decade he is also quite humble and anyone down here who has met him says he is very easy to talk to and always finds time for kids with photos & autographs.

Dangerfield and Dustin Martin have been identified as the key players for each club as both are great mid-fielders and very dangerous when they go forward. I think Geelong can win without a stellar performance from Dangerfield, but Richmond cannot win without a starring performance from Martin. Each player requires a different match up in the mid-field and in attack. For Martin, I would have Cam Guthrie run with him in the mid-field and Tom Stewart pick him up when he goes forward. With Dangerfield, I would have Shane Edwards go with him in the mid-field and Dylan Grimes pick him up in the forward line.

I think Richmond’s bottom 6 players are better than Geelong’s bottom 6 players, so that favours Richmond in a close game. However, I think Geelong probably have more match winning players and if there is a blow-out it is more likely going to be Geelong. The threat of rain would favour the way Richmond play as they play a wet weather type of game even when it is dry! So if it rains, I am picking Richmond and if it remains relatively dry I am picking Geelong.

If it had been a Port Adelaide -v- Brisbane grand final there may have been an asterisk on the 2020 season, but with neither team making it I think the winner this year will deserve every accolade.

Have a great weekend and I hope we get a game worth watching!

Weekend musing – the Brownlow medal, Grand Finals in AFL & NRL……

I was pleasantly surprised to listen to Dustin Martin at his Brownlow presentation on Monday night. He came over a lot better than I had envisioned and he seemed like a reasonable bloke who loves his footy. Bruce McAvaney was a little sickening, but he did a good job getting Martin to talk so it worked.

With 36 votes Martin scored exactly the same amount as the entire All Australian back line of Rory Laird (9) votes, Alex Rance (8), Michael Hibberd (7), Sam Docherty (5), Michael Hurley (4) and Jeremy McGovern (3). While I am not suggesting that Martin did not deserve his votes, it is a little hard to accept that these six champion players could only amass 36 votes between them as most of them are big ball winners as well. The forward line did significantly better with a total of 75 votes, but the forward line included Dane Zorko (14) and Robbie Gray (12) who are essentially mid-fielders and Lance Franklin (22) who seems to capture the umpires eye. With five votes it did endorse my view that Eddie Betts was lucky to make the team.

It was also interesting to see that nine of the 18 clubs had two players that secured half or more of their teams votes and at Richmond, Martin almost did that himself with 36 votes out of a team total of 80. As much as it is great to have a Brownlow medalist from your team, from a team perspective it is better to have a spread of vote getters. The two top teams were Adelaide and Sydney who both had 88 votes, but the contrast was that Adelaide’s top four Sloane, M.Crouch, Jacobs & Atkins contributed 51 votes and Sydney’s top four of Kennedy, Franklin, Parker & Hannebery contributed 67 votes with Hannebery only contributing 6 votes. I think the upshot from this was Adelaide had more to handle in trying to control Martin it will than Richmond had trying to control Rory Sloane…and that is how it turned out yesterday. One thing that the Brownlow coverage brought home was how disappointing it is that Jobe Watson is no longer a Brownlow medalist. To see Cotchin & Mitchell lauded as medalists was disappointing whereas I had not thought about it much beforehand.

The Grand Final was a reasonable game and even though I thought Adelaide were the better side going into the game, the Grand Final was played on Richmond’s home ground which, in my view evened out the contest. Richmond were worthy premiers and it says something for a Club that decided to hold fast in the face of great criticism of their 2016 performance. If the Tigers had buckled at the end of last season and sacked Damian Hardwick, I doubt they would have climbed to the heights of premiership glory.

The Melbourne Storm are my fancies in the NRL decider today. They
have had a great season led by Dally M medallist Cameron Smith. North Queensland Cowboys have had a remarkable run to the Grand Final but I believe they will fall short especially as they are without their champion play maker Jonathan Thurston.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend musing covers the AFL’s final round and the Dustin Martin saga

This weeks final round of football is an absolute cracker with every game having some influence on the final standings. In the Herald Sun they have equated this round to the final round of 1987 where several games impacted the make up of the finals. As an Essendon supporter I am happy that my team has control of its own destiny. The Bombers should account for Fremantle at home, but having seen my side cough up a 27 point lead against Brisbane at home you never can be sure. It also may be Jobe Watson’s last game in the red and black. He certianly got the most out of himself and it still riles me that he returned his Brownlow medal.

The Dustin Martin saga seems to be dragging on and it seems more likely that he will leave the Tigers. I know he is an important player and this year’s likely Brownlow medalist, however, if the reported offer from North Melbourne is $1.5m a year for 7 years the Tigers should not attempt to match it as it would jeopardise future contracts and their payment structure. I do not think he is worth anything like that sort of money as he doesn’t provide any sort of marketing clout save for his position as a star player. I also do not think that most Richmond supporters would want their club to go too far to keep him. Martin needs the money and I have no doubt he will go to the highest bidder. He is not a media performer and he is not coaching material, so he has to make hay while he is playing. If North Melbourne do get him there is no guarantee that he will be the panacea for their woes in any case. Paying a player that amount of money will no doubt cause a ripple affect amongst the other players as Tom Boyd’s contract apparently did at the Bulldogs. This guy is no Paddy Dangerfield.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend musing – Arsenal’s FA Cup, Wenger re-appointed, AFL, Dreamtime game controversy, Huddersfield Town promoted to Premier League

I was pleased to see that Arsene Wenger re-signed with Arsenal for another two years. While I understand there is a lot of discussion about him being moved on by Arsenal supporters, in the end he has still had a good year. The Gunners accumulated 75 points this year finishing fifth in the EPL. That would have got them into the top four on eight of the previous ten years and in two of those years they would have finished second. Arsenal also won the FA Cup last weekend with a great win over Premier League Champion’s, Chelsea. So the year, while frustrating, has not been a disaster. The key now is to ensure Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez remain at the Club on a long term basis. That is the biggest challenge facing Arsenal and Wenger at the moment.

The Dreamtime game between Essendon and Richmond produced a couple of controversial issues. Firstly the rushed behind resulting in an easy goal to Essendon and then Dustin Martin being named the best player on the ground. I thought the rushed behind decision was technically correct, but I certainly would not have been happy if my team was on the receiving end. A good question was raised during the week on the issue – would the Richmond player have rushed the ball through if the scores were level with little time left on the clock? I think the answer would be “no”, he would have tried to tap it to his team mate who was nearby at the time. As regards Martin being best on the ground, last year he clearly was the best on the ground, but this year I didn’t think there was a clear stand out player. In my opinion Brandon Ellis was Richmond’s best and Brendan Goddard was Essendon’s best. Martin got close to 30 touches, but his disposal efficiency was similar to the major Essendon ball winners. I was a bit surprised when Martin also got both coaches votes. I must be a poor judge!

Also great to see Aaron Mooy’s Huddersfield get into the EPL with him scoring in the penalty shoot out.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend musing – father/son combinations, Richmond FC woes……

Sfan OB6It was great to see Kyle Chalmers win our first men’s 100m freestyle Olympic gold medal since Michael Wenden in 1968. He is the son of Brett Chalmers who made his name playing AFL and it got me chalmersthinking about other father/son combinations in different sports. There is Gary Jack (rugby league) & Kieran Jack (AFL), Jack Newton (golf) & Clint Newton (rugby league), Ray Ruffels (tennis) & Ryan Ruffels (golf), Tony Mundine (boxing) & Anthony Mundine (rugby league & boxing), John Ronaldson (VFL/AFL) & Tony Ronaldson (basketball), Pat Cash Snr (VFL/AFL) & Pat Cash Jnr (tennis) and Dimitri Markov (pole vault) & Oleg Markov (AFL). There are bound to be a lot more, but this is a good starting point for further discussion.

I was pleased to see Richmond win last week to get the heat off Damian Hardwick. As much as I thought Richmond erred by martinextending his contract at the start of the year, I thought he should be excused one bad year. The discussions about Richmond this year remind me of the discussions about Richmond of 10-15 years ago. Back then they had fourn players, Matthew Knights, Wayne Campbell, Nick Daffy & Matthew Richardson and then they fell away and now it is Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt, Brent Deledio and Alex Rance and then they fall away again. Is history repeating itself?

Have a great weekend!

Weekend musing – Journalists, Lindsay Thomas, LeBron James….

Chris Barwin HillsThe biggest story this week in sport again had nothing really to do with sport and those that play it. I passed comment a few weeks ago about journalists creating stories around themselves and this week maguireit has gone to a whole new level. I am not going to give a view on the rights and wrongs of the whole debate, but it is time we moved on and concentrated on the sport. Richmond’s decision to ban Triple M seems somewhat hypocritical given the Dustin Martin situation earlier this year. Their response would be that the allegations were unfounded but let’s have some consistency in the way these matters are treated.

It was not really a surprise to see Lindsay Thomas not paid free kicks in last Friday nights game against Hawthorn. While Brad Scott’s thomascomments about the umpires was proved to be factually incorrect and he and North paid a hefty price, I have no doubt that the umpires saw the vision and heard the ongoing commentary of and about Thomas in the game against Sydney and were always going to react. No one likes being made a fool of. I harken back to 1999/2000 when Matthew Lloyd was highlighted for diving in a game against Richmond where he received three free kicks. Lloyd got a reputation for diving on the back of that game and while he did take it out of his repertoire, he very rarely received a free kick for being pushed in the back in a marking contest after that game. James Sicily could be next on the list!

An amazing performance by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA and I think it does emphasise that LeBron James is one of the greatest Unknown-1players of all time and probably the best since Michael Jordan. What has been missed in this is that in culminates in a hat trick of NBA wins by Australian players. Mills & Baynes in 2014, Bogut in 2015 and Dellavedova this year. It is great to see Australians playing on the big stage and hopefully they can all be fit for the Olympics because they have a genuine medal chance.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend musing – Chris Gayle, Big Bash League, A League…..

Chris Barwin HillsWell we are back in the swing of things for the new year and the biggest story in sport this week had nothing to do with the actual sport, but the comments by Chris Gayle to Mel McLaughlin in an interview after his innings in the Big Bash. I did not see the interview live, but heard it replayed the following day. My initial thought was chris gaylethat it could have been a set up given Gayle’s playboy image, but was assured that McLaughlin was not comfortable with it. There is no excuse for Gayle, what he did was wrong and it warranted a fine and he won’t be asked back so he has cooked his own goose, but did it warrant the analysis that it got? The ABC ran a story on the 7.30 Report and it was the hot topic on talk back radio. No one died and no one was physically hurt or threatened and whilst I am sure Mel McLaughlin didn’t appreciate the comments or the attention the incident created, let’s keep it in perspective. Obviously a slow news day.

This was not unlike the Dustin Martin, chopstick incident where the martinmedia pushed the story, whilst the woman who was threatened, did not want to make too big a deal of it. Having said that, the Martin incident would appear to be a lot worse than what Chris Gayle said. On the scale of transgressions, I think being physically threatened is worse than inappropriate language.

In the meantime, the Big Bash has gone from strength to strength and I doubt that Cricket Australia will get better crowds for the ODI series against India. 80,000 at the MCG for a domestic 20/20 game is amazing and the scheduling is perfect for night time viewing. I don’t have a team, I like both the Melbourne teams with a leaning towards the Renegades, but that could be a reaction against the Eddie Maguire aligned Stars.

I went to the soccer at Skilled Stadium last night and there was another good crowd in attendance. I think there is a bit of a push to have an A-League or a Big Bash team based in Geelong. I believe marinersthere is enough interest down here, but I am not sure if there would be enough corporate support. That being said there seems to be enough crowd support to warrant more A-League fixtures and Big Bash games once Skilled Stadium has been upgraded.

Have a great weekend!