AFL Football Round 5 Review - Part 3
In the first Draw for the 2008 AFL Football Season the Tigers kept their form from last week to finish level with an inform Western Bulldogs. I think Nathan Brown thought they won when the siren sounded only to then realize that the scores were level. Will Minson was the one who kicked a goal with seconds remaining on the clock to level the scores after Brian Lake was unable to take his kick from a mark. The Tigers need to do some work on the TEMPO football because that nearly cost them the game.
Scott Welsh just couldn’t kick it through the big sticks and ended up with 0.5 for the day and the Doggies wasted plenty of chances in from of goal. Goal kicking practice for them during the week. The Bulldogs pride themselves on being a running skill full side and The Tigers were excellent in pressuring them so that their run was kept to a minimum. Kane Johnson lead from the front in that department. Matthew Richardson again played up the ground and looks good running around the ground rather than kept to inside 50. He finished with 3 goals and 9 marks and at some stages I noticed was apposed to Jason Akermanis on the wing. Both teams will be disappointed with the result the Doggies would have been expecting to win while the Tigers had a 4 goal lead an blew it. Read more
AFL Football Round 5 Review - Part 2
Quite ironically Shannon Grant kicked a goal in the dying minutes of the game that helped get The Kangaroos over the line against the Magpies on Saturday Night. The last time they met it was Grant who cost them the game when he missed from 20m out on the siren. I honestly thought the Kangaroos were out of this game and it was a gallant effort to come back and get the points. The big Magpie forwards were well held by Michael Firrito and Drew Petrie and were not allowed to get into the game at all. Adam Simpson was excellent in the middle for the Kangas along with his sidekick Brent Harvey who is certainly in some good form. Daniel Wells regained some great touch and was also excellent running through the midfield. Leigh Harding is an interesting one, not really known as a defender Dean Laidley has been playing him back of late and on Saturday Night was great in defense for the Kangaroos.
The Magpies will be extremely disappointed with the result and the football public are now saying that the Collingwood Football Club is overrated. Alan Didak was outstanding and his smart play was great to watch, little deft taps and knocks on into the path of his teammates would probably go unnoticed to most. Paul Medhurst is enjoying his best run of form in his career I reckon and he was the pick of the Collingwood forwards finishing with 5 goals while Josh Fraser chipped in with 4. Leon Davis is causing some concern for opposition coaches in the midfield and he has certainly improved his fitness and is able to run through there, his skill and speed was a highlight for the Pies. Read more
AFL Football Round 5 Review - Part 1
Well Round 5 of AFL Football kicked off on Friday Night with the Saints back on the winners table after defeating the Bombers. Can I just say that Robert Harvey is an absolute champion and for all those knockers that said he should have retired at the end of last year you need to get a copy of Friday Nights game and just sit back and watch. 29 touches for the game and not 1 in the first quarter.
Mind you to have Harvey and Max Hudgton as your two oldest players and two best players may be a bit of a worry for the Saints. In what was a correlation to The Saints season so far they were good then bad then good again all in the one game, but were good enough to get over the line. As mentioned Harvey and Hudgton were outstanding, they lead by 51 points at one stage and totally smashed the Bombers in the first half. Then The Bombers kicked 6 unanswered goals to claw their way back. The catalysts for the Bombers were Adam McPhee, who finally stood up. The Bombers play the style of play that means that they are never out of the contest and can score ver very quickly and they showed that throught th erun of Nathan Lovett Murray, Andrew Lovett, Bachar Houli, and Brent Stanton who again got better as the game went on. If you are a Bomber fan then again there is plenty to look forward to, not a bad performance considering the quality of the players missing. The Saints just had to many big guns and the forward line actualy looked a bit better with ut the G Train down there. Stephen Milne would have had the Saints fans seething at times with some stupid mistakes as only Milne can but Max Hudgton was simply brilliant in containing Matthew Lloyd. Read more
AFL Football Round 5 Preview - Part 2
The Collingwood v North Melbourne game should be a belter. Both teams are sitting at 2-2 after 4 rounds and the Magpies will be determined to get back onto the winners list after somewhat of a shock loss to Carlton last week. While the North Melbourne side had a pretty easy day a the office against the Melbourne Football Club.
Heath Shaw has been in some hot form and is playing some great consistent football at the moment and providing some great run from the defensive have of the ground, North Melbourne coach Dean Laidley will be needing to negate the influence he has on this game. Brodie Holland comes back into the side for his first game for the year and may step straight in and take Kangaroo play maker Brent Harvey. Harvey had been in some rare touch of late and the Pies are going to need to put a good stopper on him if they want to win this game. The Pie forward line of Anthony Rocca, Travis Cloke, Alan Didak, Thomas and Medhurst need to lift this week. The Magpies are ranked last in the AFL for the number of Handballs Per Game which may indicate that there is a lack of run and quick movement of the footy. With a forward line like that they need to get it in their quick and give Rocca and Cloke an opportunity to compete one out. Read more
AFL Football Round 5 Preview - Part 1
As I have already mentioned and everyone should already know, Sydney have had a week they would want to forget with the Barry Hall incident. They have brought in Nick Davis to fill his shoes in the forward line after kicking eight goals in the reserves last week. The game is at Skilled Stadium which may just suit the Swans. They will be able to close the game down very nicely on the small ground which is what they will be looking to do I reckon.
Michael O’Loughlin was great for the Swannies last week and will now need to take on the key forward role rather than lurking around in the pocket. He will probably be up against Scarlett so there will be no room to move there. Scarlett was outstanding last week and absolutely smashed the G Train. Looking at the Geelong side and you just can’t see a bad line, they are all in great form. Kieran Jack will get the job on either Ablett or Bartel, he was outstanding last week in negating Daniel Kerr but can he add one of these players to his list? Ryan O’Keefe looms as the key for the Swans and The Cats will have to shut him down, because he can create so much drive for The Swans. Tom Harley looks like the match up there so that will be pivotal to the outcome of the game. Brent Prismall finally gets an opportunity to show what he has got. Apparently he has had 38 touches in the VFL for the last few week and still failed to break into the team. He will be out to impress and look for a good game from him. Read more
AFL Football Round 5 - Friday Night @ The Dome
In a week that Barry Hall and the Sydney Swans would rather forget, all the focus now shifts to the real stuff again. AFL Football Round 5 action this week kicks off with the match between Essendon and St Kilda at the Telstra Dome.
The Saints have been out of sorts since their NAB Cup Win during the pre season and would be extremely disappointed with their performances and the Bombers, well they have been hit hard with injuries to key members of their line up and will be certainly be up against it for a few week until their return. Essendon have a string of Hamstring injuries including Mark McVeigh, Sam Lonergan, Courtenay Dempsey, Leroy Jetta and David Myers. Add to that Scott Lucas and Matthew Lloyd (who may return this week) and the Bombers are going to have to call on some youngsters to fill the voids. Andrew Welsh would come in you would think. The likes of Kyle Reimers and Tayte Pears are going to get a lot more game time and it will be interesting to see if they are up to the task. Read more
Jonathon Brown to Captain Collingwood?
There is a report in the Herald Sun today from Damien Barrett he reports that the Collingwood Football Club will be going hammer and tong at getting Brisbane Lion Superstar Jonathon Brown to return to Melbourne. He has suggested that Brown will be offered the Collingwood Captaincy along with massive amounts of cash and career opportunities after football.
If you remember back a while ago the Pies put in the hard yards the last time he was out of contract and missed out. Then they offered him $1 million a year and that was in 2005. Can you just imagine what that amount would have to be this time around? Brown is originally from South Warrnambool so he obviously has family and that sort of thing down here, but I think he is pretty comfortable where he is wouldn’t you?
The Magpies have denied all these rumours, but no doubt Eddie will be cooking something up behind the scenes you can bet on that. With Anthony Rocca in the later part of his career the Pies are going to need a handy replacement will it be the Big Brown Dog? I don’t think so. This move would be as big as the Chris Judd move from West Coast to Carton.
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AFL Hall Of Fame Tribute Match - Here is My Starting Line Up
Well I don’t care what anyone else thinks about this game, as a football supporter I think this game will be a brilliant spectacle!
What is better than seeing the best of the best running out on the same ground and playing against each other. It is a mouth watering proposition, with match ups that you are not likely to see ever again. Jonathon Brown, Chris Judd, Jimmy Bartel, Garry Ablett in one jumper and Buddy Franklin, Andrew McLeod, Matthew Pavlich, Simon Goodwin, Chad Cornes in the other jumper, I can’t wait. There have certainly been some knockers of this game like Graham Cornes, but nevertheless I am sure the players will be keen for this one. Read more
Ok, This Is Now Going To Far
So we all know that what Barry Hall did was shocking, well some of us anyway, but events that have unfolded since then have taken this incident to far. Do we really need comments from Brent Stakers’ Mother and Father, who describe Hall has as a “weak mongrel” and are calling for him to be suspended for the rest of the year? I mean c’mon. Yes what he did was not right but do we need to take things this far. I mean any journo can get a Medical Expert to mention that this punch could have killed Staker like we saw on TV down here in Melbourne last night, there was also calls for him to be charged by police for assault. Oh Please!
Both family’s are now getting involved here by defending both players through the media, with Barry Hall’s sister now coming out and saying that “He’s a better role model for the kids than Ben Cousins - at least he’s not a druggie,” . We have also heard from Sam McFarlane, who is a player that used to play for North Melbourne and had his jaw broken by Barry Hall in a reserves game 11 years ago. He has said this in an interview with the Herald Sun “This is not new. He’s been doing it for 10 or 11 years”
Well I have to disagree there Sam, he has not been doing this for 10 or 11 years if he had then I doubt whether he would still be playing the game. The main stream media is partly to blame chasing down these people for stories but this is now getting out of hand. Do we really need to hear from these people? What has happened has happened and let’s just let the tribunal handle it from here shall we.
The incident has been sent directly to the AFL Tribunal. The Match Review Panel deeming that is was intentional, of severe impact and high contact as well adding up to the highest possible assessment under the league’s points table.
What is Going On At Fremantle?
A New Season and the same old same old over at Fremantle. During the pre season of every AFL Football Season since their inception just about, the Fremantle Dockers are talked up as being finals contenders, premiership hopefuls etc etc. But come the start of the season proper reality sets in and they under achieve.
This season is no different. The Dockers sunk to a new level on the weekend, being beaten by a Matthew Richardson inspired Richmond Football Club who are by no means in great touch. To make things worse it was at the Subiaco Oval. After 4 rounds of AFL Football the Dockers sit at 1 win and 3 losses. If they do not get their act together then are in real danger of ending the season at the bottom end of the ladder. Mark Harvey will be tearing shreads of the Dockers players this week, this was a comment he made after the game. Read more
