Special Interest

When I was about 17, I went hunting through all those Greatest TV Shows of All Time lists looking for something to watch. I stumbled onto The West Wing.  “I’m interested in politics”, I thought, “this will be a searing and interesting insight into what happens in that White House”. Then I started watching it and it’s just smug losers talking quickly using jargon, behind the backdrop of the most absurdly positive outlook imaginable. And this was the 90s-2000s with Bill Clinton getting serviced in the Oval and Bush lying about his military record! Not exactly the peak of trust!…

Even though the top-8 is incredibly close this year, it feels like there’s a big divide between the real contenders and the teams that have made the finals but are probably making up the numbers. There are five teams that can do it: Collingwood, Adelaide, Brisbane, Geelong, and GWS. But then there are another four teams that are still in the hunt to make the finals and are realistically probably hoping to jag a premiership in a year where each of those top five teams have shown legitimate frailty: Hawthorn, Fremantle, Gold Coast, the Bulldogs. So, who do the top-five…

Watching the whimper with which Port went down in The Showdown on Saturday night, I thought of Ken Hinkley and the rod that the club which he has faithfully (and mostly successfully) formed for his back. That rod, in my eyes, took away the Ken Hinkley superpower that has made his teams so special to watch. I remember that 2014 Port team that took the league by storm because they ran. They were like Coach Carter’s Richmond High School team and the rest of the league couldn’t keep up. They overwhelmed teams with their running power, and had enough skill…