Tag Archives: ben-cousins

Friday musing – AFL, Brownlow Medal, Nat Fyffe, Dally M, Jonathan Thurston, Wayne Bennett

Chris Barwin HillsI think everyone was impressed with the interview/acceptance speech from Nathan Fyffe on Monday night when he won the Brownlow medal. In my opinion it was the most impressive, natural post Brownlow performance I have seen. Not only is the guy a naturalfyffe footballer but he is a natural in front of the camera so you can imagine the media outlets will be lining up for his services and advertisers lining up for him to endorse their products. He is my favourite footballer that doesn’t play for my team and it was great to see him win.

The Brownlow voting seems to have changed over the last ten years. If you think back to 1990, Tony Liberatore and Gavin Wanganeen tied with 18 votes. Going back even further to 1986 Dipper and Greg Williams tied on 17 votes. In the last ten years only Ben Cousins in 2005 scored less than 24 votes (he scored 20) with five players HANNEBERYscoring 30 or more. In 2000 Essendon scored the most team votes ever in the Brownlow (116 votes), but James Hird was the highest with only 16 votes so the votes were more evenly spread amongst the players. Today we get star players dominating the voting. The best example of that is Josh Kennedy and Dan Hannebery from the Swans scoring 49 of the Swans 94 votes. That is more than fifty percent of the Swans votes between two players. It seems to me there is a bit of a “cult of personality” which has impacted upon the umpires and their voting.

I am hoping that the West Coast Eagles salute on Saturday, however, it is hard to see Hawthorn getting beaten.

The Dally M for the NRL was decided on the same night as the Brownlow and Jonathon Thurston won the award for a record fourth time. I am not a big rugby league aficionado, but that is a remarkable performance and now that the Storm has been knocked out of the johnathan-thurstonfinals it would be good to see his Cowboys salute in the grand final. Up against him is the Wayne Bennett coached Brisbane Broncos, who I understand has a perfect seven from seven record in Grand Finals. That is a remarkable statistic in its own right.

Have a great long weekend!

Friday musing – Chris Judd, Neale Daniher, French Open, Stan Wawrinka

Chris Barwin HillsIt was sad to see a champion of the game in Chris Judd end his career as he did last weekend. He is most certainly one of the modern day champions and for a period of 5-8 years was the undisputed best player in the competition. In my opinion his best form was at West Coast which took in a Brownlow medal, a Norm Smith medal in a losing team and he captained their 2006 premiership team. In this team he stood out in a team of good Unknownplayers like Kerr, Cousins & Cox. While there was no doubt he was still an exceptional player at Carlton where he won three consecutive best & fairest awards and another Brownlow medal, he stood out because he was so much better than the rest of the team. I think champions deserve to go out on their own terms and maybe going out the way he did took emotion and the fanfare away from his retirement which probably, in some strange way, suited him.

Sticking with football, it was great to see the football world rally around Neale Daniher and his cause last weekend. Neale was one of the most sublimely skilled players I have seen much in the mould of a Unknown-1James Hird, but unfortunately his body let him down before he really established his greatness. Having said that, I remember Leigh Matthews rated him ahead of Bruce Doull as a half back flanker, even though he had only played 60-70 games before he did his knee. Unfortunately for Neale his body has also let him down in life, but not dulled his spirit.

Moving away from football it was refreshing to hear Novak Djokevic acknowledge that he was beaten by a better player on the day in his post match interview after the French Open tennis final against Stan Warwinka. Too many times you have the sour grapes post matchUnknown-2 interviews where the skill of the opposition is not respected. In tennis I doubt I have ever heard Serena Williams acknowledge she was beaten by a better player on the day and certainly, in soccer, Sir Alex Ferguson never did!

Have a great weekend!

Sportzfan Radio #168.1

@SportzfanRadio now available on iTunes!29 August 2010 168.1 – The Panel comment on Ben Cousins documentary, talk US sport with Dan Butterly discussing Washington Nationals phenom Steven Strasburg requiring Tommy John surgery, looking at the MLB pennant races, Carmelo Anthony looking past his time at the Denver Nuggets and AFA football coach Troy Calhoun saying “no” to twitter. The Gelding reviews Saturday’s racing at Caulfield and Rosehill and awards two S-Hit rides this week. Daniel talks with the Professor about the Boomers shortcomings at the World Basketball Championships.

Sportzfan Radio #167.2

@SportzfanRadio now available on iTunes!15 August 2010 167.2 – The Sydney Colt talks about the best value when betting and says punters would be very foolish not to go with the Corporate Bookies. He also talks about the last table at the World Series of Poker and has framed a book on the next NSW RL State of Origin Coach ($2.80 Laurie Daly $3.40 Ricky Stuart, $5.00 Phil Gould, Steve Folkes, $12.00 Brad Fittler..). We get Dr Leslie’s CSA in earlier this week just prior to Paul Dalligan. Paul hasn’t been eating baked beans but says he had a foot long hot dog at the Mets. Whilst he didn’t do any stool gazing, he did do some beer gazing. He returns from his overseas jaunt to talk NRL but spends most of his time talking baseball. He has brought the Professor an umbrella from his trip to the Citibank Stadium super box. Paul would like to see Phil Gould as the next State of Origin Coach. The Professor reveals there will be no Sportzfan Radio next Sunday as Southern FM are off the air for maintenance work. In that case, Daniel decides to talk about next week’s results this week. The Panel talks to Nick Tedeschi about the NSW State of Origin Coach and Nick thinks Laurie Daly is over the line from the mail he has received. Nick would prefer Chris Anderson to coach the team. He also discusses the players leaving the Melbourne Storm and whether the Storm will be able to do a Canterbury Bankstown and win a flag within two years. The Panel spends the rest of the time talking about rumors and topics tweeted in. The Parkdale Pounce believes Matthew Knights will not coach Essendon next year but Matthew Lloyd will comeback and be coached by Mark Williams. There is also a discussion on changes by the AFL to the interchange rules and it is decided that we should start the “Benny Hill” segment for stupid ideas. Daniel believes Adrian Anderson would be part of the segment each week. The Gelding believes there should be a committee set up to watch over committees. In another nomination for the Benny Hill award, it seems Cameron White is playing for Bangalore against Victoria in the IPL competition – go figure! Will Richmond keep Ben Cousins? Time will tell although the Panel hope he comes back in 2011. Finally the Panel talk about the Socceroos new coach Holger Osieck – the no name coach, who is maybe twenty years out of his prime.