 | The first round of the 2007 season will go down in the history books as one for the tea ladies. If you tipped half the winners you were considered above average, which just goes to show that a bit of extra adrenalin can make even average teams like Essendon play reasonably and the heavy burden of too much expectation can bring down even the best of sides. |
| Let's not let anyone kid us, Essendon will be lucky to improve on their one win for the entire season. Just like the Eagles one goal in half was ignored because they won the game, the fact that Essendon were playing half an Adelaide side who were about as interested in the game as Justin Longmuir is in sitting through a Tony Robbins seminar seems to have been lost in the Sheedy spin. Once upon a time, if a kid wanted to learn to swim, his dad threw him off a jetty and told him to meet him back at the esky for lunch. Sure, a lot of kids didn’t make it back to the esky but it meant a lot more watermelon for dads. Then the do-gooders invented things like swimming lessons and floaties, spoiling a lot of the fun and resulting in a lot less watermelon for parents, to give the kids a bit of confidence and get a grip on the basics. Back in the day, if a kid wanted to learn how to play cricket, he armed himself with a stick and got his mates to chuck rocks at him. Now they give them plastic bats and soft cricket balls with detailed grip markings and Dennis Lillee rocks up to give them lessons on how to bat (Dennis doesn't really know all that much about teaching batting, he just likes an audience).
| | Kids wanting to learn how to play baseball didn't have it any easier, they'd tell someone they wanted to play baseball and then his mates started chucking rocks at him until he agreed to play cricket - at which point they'd give him a stick to defend himself from the rock attack. Then they invented T-Ball and you just hit a ball off of a stick.
Bike riding enthusiasts get training wheels so their bike doesn't tip over, helmets so if the training wheels fail their head doesn't crack open, and spokey dokeys so people can hear them coming. Learner drivers get seatbelts and working brakes. Even crippled kids are getting crutches and wheelchairs to help them along.
And now there's a football equivalent to all these confidence building training devices - the Essendon Football Club. A sure fire way to get 4 points on the board and a bucket load of self assurance for any footy club.
Unfortunately for Fremantle, a few days after being declared the premiership favorites and having to reinforce the wheels on the FREO Speedwagon, they lost to Port Adelaide and saw an exodus of support unseen since Mosses called a stop work meeting on the pyramids. Not much has changed though, an undermanned Fremantle defense had a bit of an off patch and let some unknown Port players slipped under their guard.
Now, while Essendon are the training wheels of the AFL, Fremantle are the nuclear power industry. No matter what they do to clean up their image, one little mishap and people start crying Chernobyl, or the Fremantle equivalent - Telstra Dome circa 2003.
So, a ten minute patch with a freak wind (not be confused with the radioactive cloud that was blown over the surrounding populations in Russia which, in technical terms is actually a mutant wind), some uncooperative umpires and the biggest streak of luck since Paddy Hannon lost his horse.
Let's face it. Fremantle are going to smash Essendon this week. Their midfield consists of Old Man Hird who, while being a handy player at one point, is now entirely held together by the chemicals in his hair. One misdirected spray from the water bottle on a hot day and he's likely to find himself leeching into the carpark underneath the Dome (which is why Sheeds always parks his Jag outside. Well, that and the fact that he refuses to take off his Richmond license plates). Then there's a couple of kids who showed up at the club's open day and were given a game to try and ease the salary cap pressure and a bloke who's spent more time in the twos than Steven Flemming chasing a big total.
Put that up against the Carr brothers, Paul Hasleby and Peter Bell all being spoon fed by the biggest man ever to throw on a couple of footy boots and you're looking at a quiet day if you happen to be wearing red and black and have your pants hitched up around your armpits.
Their back line involves the league’s oldest serving scragger yet to be pensioned off to write about how much better football was in the 80's when you could get your mates to chuck beer cans at your opponent from the sidelines; a bloke who retired because he thought the game had passed him by, only to realise that his bank account had also passed him by before deciding to milk a few hundred thousand dollars out of a coach desperate not to get the sack; Flinchy McPhee who has managed to make a career out of hiding in the pockets and gaps so no one will scare him and a former East Fremantle star who they expect to carry the entire side in just his second game of football.
Put that up against Pavlich, Tarrant and the 2007 smokey for the Brownlow, former Bomber, Dean Solomon. The most potent forward line you're likely to see that doesn't include a young man with long hair, crazy ideas and a penchant for producing miracles
And then there’s the much talked about Essendon forward line. When Matthew Lloyd started playing football, his high pants were something his friends made fun of him for but, amongst the crowd he hangs around with now down at the osteoarthritis clinic, he's quite the fashion guru. Scott Lucas kicked 7 goals last week. That tells you two things - Adelaide are going to win the spoon this year and Scott Lucas has played his best game for the season. They've even thrown Timmy Watson's kid into their forward line, the only reason anyone has been able to come up with for that move is that it's an attempt that's to keep their supporters happy in the hope that a conflict of interest will keep Tim from commentating on their games.
Even if the ball does get down there, put that up against two likely All Australian defenders in Luke McPharlin and Antoni Grover; throw in the ever reliable Shane Parker; David Mundy a man so cool under pressure he spends his day off running an airport control tower and, of course, Roger Hayden, the man who Stephen Hawking is writing a book about and his ability to manipulate time and space.
Don't get sucked into the Essendon publicity machine. Sheeds is clinging to his job, their best players are only there to milk the Essendon gravy train and the only team who'll struggle more this year and the ones they beat last week. Fremantle are angry, Fremantle are proud and they'll have the bandwagon refilled by quarter time on Sunday.
The Teams
You Be Chris
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