Tag Archives: patrick-dangerfield

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 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 – AFL, Sheffield Shield, Peter Moody, Jason Day

Chris Barwin HillsWell Easter must be one of the most diverse periods for sport in Australia, we had the start of the AFL season, the Stawell Gift, the bellsBells Beach Surfing Classic, the Sheffield Shield Final and some big horse races from Sydney. We also had soccer World Cup qualifiers either side of Easter.

It was great to have the football back despite Essendon not having much to look forward to. The debut of Patrick Dangerfield for Geelong was clearly the difference that got them over Hawthorn and Dangerfieldif he had of kicked straight they would have won by more. Collingwood and Fremantle were very disappointing, but I think both sides will perform a lot better this week. The Bombers first half was probably as expected, but their second half was a bit better. Given the number of new players due to the supplement scandal outcome it might take a while for the team to gel, but the wooden spoon still is theirs for the taking!

Also great to see Victoria win the Sheffield Shield away from home. A couple of weeks ago I was going to comment about the demise of Cameron White as a cricketer and while he has not put himself backsheffield in the frame for Australian selection, he has redeemed himself. When he lead Victoria to the Shield win just after David Hookes died I thought he was a future Australian Test Captain and while he did play a couple of test matches, he was mainly a ODI and 20/20 player, but his star had dimmed in recent times to the point where he missed selection for Victoria.

I was sad to see Peter Moody retire from racing and he has now sold moodyoff all his gear to resist the temptation to return to the sport, but I think, once his suspension is over, he will come back and establish a smaller boutique stable just to keep his hand in. It is very hard for real horsemen to simply walk away from the sport it is too ingrained in their DNA.

Also good to see Jason Day back to the world number 1 position in golf and I just hope he maintains his form going into the Masters.

Have a great weekend!

AFL Trade Period – Dangerfield, Carlisle, Selwood, Hawthorn…..

Chris Barwin HillsWell I must say that not much has grabbed my attention this week save for the AFL Trade period, but even that drags on like unwanted guests. It was good to see the Patrick Dangerfield deal go through early and both clubs should be commended on how it was all done. I cannot Dangerfieldbelieve that Dangerfield has copped grief from Adelaide supporters when he gave them 100% throughout his time there and didn’t go for the money, because he could have got just as much from Adelaide and more from other clubs. I do feel some sympathy for Adelaide, over recent years they have lost Kurt Tippett, Phil Davis and to a lesser extent Nathan Bock, with Dangerfield now leaving there is some pretty fair talent out their doors in recent times.

I must say that my club, Essendon has always had the reputation for over valuing their players and as a consequence being difficult to deal with at the trade table and I have to say that from a distance carlislethat looks like a fair assessment. I don’t think that Jake Carlisle is worth St Kilda’s pick 5, but I do think that he is worth more than their 2nd round pick and it is interesting to see that the best team in the competition, Hawthorn, has now come out and put two late first round picks on the table for him so they must rate him higher than I do. On my estimation he would be worth around the 15-18 mark, but should Carlisle agree to go to Hawthorn, the Bombers could snare both of those selections.

There has also been a lot of discussion regarding the compensation picks for free agents moving clubs and it does seem incongruous that Melbourne got pick five for James Frawley and West Coast get pick 35 for Scott Selwood. I know Selwood didn’t make the grand final frawley
side, but he has had an injury interrupted year and he is former best & fairest so pick 35 seems a little on the light side. Having said that, Hawthorn getting pick 19 for Buddy Franklin seems ludicrous and perhaps Hawthorn should have adopted the same tactic that Adelaide adopted for Dangerfield to secure a better draft pick for one of the better players in the competition.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the trade period pans out.

Have a great weekend!

Friday musing – Bart Cummings, AFL, sling tackles, player management……

Chris Barwin HillsLast weekend we heard about the passing of J B Cummings and with his passing we say goodbye to the trainer who trained more Melbourne Cup winners than any other trainer by a fair margin. He may not have trained as many winners or Group 1 winners as Tommy Smith or Colin Hayes or won as many trainers premierships, but in the race that every trainer sees as the pinnacle in Australia he imagestrained more winners of the Cup than those two trainers put together. His record of 12 Melbourne Cup winners will not be broken in my lifetime and with the internationalisation of the race I doubt it will be broken at all. Vale James Bartholomew Cummings an absolute legend of the Australian turf.

I was at the MCG last weekend to see the Bombers take on the Tigers and I witnessed Courtney Dempsey’s tackle on Brett Deledio and I must say that it was extremely dangerous and Deledio was Unknownlucky he escaped with only a sore neck and a slight concussion. That type of tackle is probably worse than the sling tackle and Dempsey fully deserved his 4 weeks. The stupid thing about it was than it was also unnecessary, the game was gone and a standard tackle would have seen Deledio penalised for holding the ball as he had already broken one tackle.

Continuing the AFL theme it was with some interest I listened to Wayne Carey suggest that this weeks Geelong v Adelaide game should be for double Brownlow votes given that the earlier game between the two teams was abandoned due to the tragic death of Phil Walsh. I initially thought the idea had some merit, but the more I thought about it the less appealing it became. In the end it would mean that someone would play one game and get double the votes. IUnknown-1 dare say that if someone lost out in that scenario then there may be a legal challenge. It was also proposed that all games in that round have voting suspended and that doesn’t make sense either as it penalises those players that performed well that weekend and again could open up a legal challenge. The original game was abandoned and the points were split and all the participants knew that there would be no Brownlow votes awarded and that is the way it should stay. It will be bad luck if Patrick Dangerfield misses out on the medal by less than three votes, but would it be worse than Chris Grant missing out on the medal from what was really only a clumsy attempt to spoil, I don’t think so.

There has also been a lot of discussion around Fremantle and North Melbourne resting players for the finals this weekend. While the Fremantle decision has no bearing on the finals, the North Melbourne decision is not as clear and the AFL are rightly copping a whack as a result, but this has happened before. Kevin Sheedy rested players at the end of 1990 to allow the four Daniher brothers Unknown-2to play together in the last round against St Kilda. They won the game, but due to the draw between Collingwood and West Coast in the Qualifying final it back fired on the Dons and some of the players had three weeks off and the rest is history. Sheedy did it again in 2001 when Essendon played Richmond in the final round, a few players were rested, but the team clearly didn’t have a winning mind set and went down by about four goals. This result kept Richmond in 4th place and meant that Carlton could not get above 5th. The following week in the Qualifying final Essendon belted Richmond by about ten goals.

Have a great weekend!

Friday musing – Cobalt in the feed?, Darts, Taylor Walker….

Chris Barwin HillsThe big story this week was the three horse racing trainers possibly facing charges for traces of cobalt being found in their horses. This has the capacity to damage a sport that is already damaged so it will be interesting to see which way it goes. My gut feel is that the racing industry cannot afford to have three of the biggest trainers in the state suspended and this will be a shot across their bows as a warning to everyone else. The suggestion at the moment is that the horses that tested positive were well over the prescribed limit which would negate any assertion that it was bad feed, but it is difficult to accept that these trainers, who know the rules have allowed their horses to be administered cobalt to a level which is banned. These guys have teams of vets working for them and need to keep very detailed records of feed and supplements/medications which are administered, so what went wrong? There is more to this than the Essendon supplements saga, but it won’t attract as much attention because horse racing just doesn’t have the profile save for the Spring Carnival.

I didn’t go to the darts at Etihad stadium last week, however, I did see the news on Sunday and the behaviour of the crowd was deplorable. If it was a higher profile sport the examination of the episode would have continued all week. dartsThe reports from the event last year were that it was a great success, but now any future tournament will be highly scrutinised. Imagine if you attended on Saturday night and had your night ruined in that fashion, you would not be very happy. Perhaps they need to breathalyse patrons as they enter the stadium!

I was interested to see that Adelaide had named Taylor Walker as their captain for next year and for me, it raised the concerns about full forwards as captains. There is no doubt you can captain the side from full forward. The AFL’s longest serving captain, Stephen Kernahan, spent more time at full forward than centre half forward and I think the same could be said about Wayne Carey. Jason Dunstall was a genuine full forward who was captain and hisTaylor Walker influence was difficult to assess as Hawthorn were on the slide when he took over. My question mark about full forwards as captains is they have a limited opportunity to influence the game from that position, unless, like Carey, they can be swung onto the ball. I think the main reason Patrick Dangerfield didn’t get the position is not because he may return to Victoria, but his lack of popularity with his team mates which emerged late last year. It will be interesting to see how Walker goes.

Have a great weekend!