GuyWhoLikesSport

Big moments have a tendency to reveal essential truths. It’s true of people, institutions, and sporting teams alike.   They don’t always reveal weaknesses necessarily, like when Hans Gruber and his boys took over Nakatomi and the essential truth of John McClane revealed itself to be that he’s a smartass with a pretty good eye for stopping robberies, nor do they always reveal strengths.  They simply revealed truths that were always there if you were looking for them.   In the qualifying finals, essential truths were revealed about Fremantle and Brisbane. It’s not that they can’t pull a 2020 and end up meeting in the Grand Final anyway, nor is that those truths…

The true week 1 of the finals throws up a slate of four games that each have pretty obvious storylines.   There are anointings and inevitable destructions.  There are ends and beginnings of hype trains.   Of course all of those things are expected…but maybe something else could pop up and throw a big old fly in that bowl of ointment. In honour of the greatest bit in the history of stand up comedy – Louis CK’s “Of Course…but maybe” – let’s have a look at the counternarratives that could arise as we get through the weekend.   Hawthorn v Fremantle: OF COURSE the Dockers last three weeks don’t matter because they were coasting for…

In the final fight of Skyfall, James Bond learned the same lesson that the U.S. military learned in Iraq: “Sometimes, the old ways are best.”  Outgunned and outtechnologied, Bond and the Iraqi resistance to the American occupation alike went back to analogue weapons of war in a digital age and emerged victorious.   Carlton did the same thing.   Josh Fraser got in his 1963 Aston Martin DB5 and booby trapped the house full of Michael Voss’ methods of pressure, contest, and surge. They ended up beating Melbourne in an extraordinary game the old-fashioned way with a few Fraser sprinkles on top.  The Voss principles, familiar to anyone who knew Carlton under Voss were…

The much discussed Wild Card games are finally here. After a poor year for the AFL in terms of parity, off-field management, and gameplay the month of the season that can make everyone forget the shitty things is finally here.   The Melbourne v Carlton wildcard games feels like the game to decide who gets to play spoiler for the top-6 while the Collingwood v Bulldogs game is more of a ‘Happy to be here’ Cup.  What’s one thing that will go into deciding each game?   Let’s look into it.   Western Bulldogs v Collingwood: Who can stop the other team’s talisman?  Outside of maybe Adelaide, no teams are as reliant on their stars as…

For a variety of reasons, this was meant to be a year of real progress for North Melbourne and St Kilda. And yet, as we look toward the finals series coming up, neither will be part of it.   Disaster would be too strong of a word to describe the two clubs’ respective seasons with 19 wins between them, but after a week in which one lost to a Gold Coast team whose coach publicly gave up a month ago and the other lost by 9 goals to Bill Cosby FC the week a scandal broke, neither side could possibly be happy with their year. …

The relationship between coach and club is like a relationship between partners. They go up and down and eventually they all end, whether by death or choice.   The only difference is that the relationship between coach and club is super public, which means they can only really be compared to the relationships that we consume on our screens.   So heading into the final week of the regular season, with a week full of dead rubbers because the Wildcard Round took a sledgehammer to the race for eighth, let’s check in on each club’s relationship with its coach.   Just a note that…

The AFL is probably the most prolific upward failer in the world. At least right next to the mostly annoying and probable sociopath Ryan Reynolds.  Here, with the wildcard tournament, they’ve done it again. They’ve copied the NBA’s homework but without any of the nuance of the NBA’s play-in tournament, and in the process robbed us of what would have been an exciting race for seventh and eighth over the last fortnight and an essentially set – barring a miracle – top 10.  But, as is always the way, they look like they’re going to luck into a bloody good result. They’re careening toward a Collingwood v Carlton wildcard game in the first year…

At half-time and then at full-time of Melbourne v Freo on Saturday afternoon, I was welling up. I felt like Carmela Soprano looking at that painting of baby Jesus and crying.   I was emotional for a couple of reasons.   The first was that the footy itself was almost a religious experience. It was aggressive and attacking in the first half, then in the second it became a game of styles make fights. Freo was trying to slow the game down, and did so sucacessfully at stages, but when Melbourne managed to force some speed onto the game they caught up with the league leaders who could…