THE FLAG WILL WAG. That is a preview of Footscray’s 2010 season in four words. The longer version is below. The Dogs were very close to a premiership in 2009. They finished third, behind Geelong and St.Kilda. They lost a final to each of those teams, by 14 points and 7 points respectively, and it [...]
READ MOREArticles by Scott Shepherd
Victoria T20: Rare excellence in team sport
On the weekend, Victoria won its 4th domestic T20 competition in 5 seasons. It would have been 5 from 5, but for a very narrow loss to NSW in last season’s final. For an elite level sports team to perform so well, so consistently, is rare. The relatively small size of the competition does help, [...]
READ MOREAfter 5 hours, Danny Green beats Roy Jones Jnr
I got to my friend’s house with time to spare before the start of the coverage. I ended up spending about 5 hours there, to see 2 minutes and 2 seconds of action. Boxing is like that. The copious amounts of torturously boring “filler” material included in the coverage were painful. I did not care [...]
READ MOREAFL player draft
It is the time of year when fans of Australian Football are starting to miss their regular footy fix. The long season of saturation media coverage, along with tipping competitions and maintaining fantasy teams means that most are happy enough when October rolls around and they can stop thinking about footy. It is a relief [...]
READ MOREHitler’s reaction to the AFL grand final
As Leigh said, Downfall parodies are the gift that keeps on giving.
READ MOREThe unlikeable All Australian team
The AFL All Australian team will be announced on Monday night. Given the debate that always surrounds the team, I think it is actually a statutory requirement to offer an opinion on where the selectors got it wrong. In that spirit, I offer up my own version of the All Australian team. To make it [...]
READ MOREPassion Play
A while ago i wrote about a paper written by Matthew Klugman. Klugman has now written a book about aussie rules “barrackers” (as he calls them) called Passion Play. I am a friend of the author, and as such have been lucky enough to look at an advance copy of Passion Play. I am a [...]
READ MOREA week late
Last week I was going to write about how special it would be if St Kilda went through the whole season without losing a game. I ran out of time, and then on the weekend they got beaten by Essendon. If the Saints go on to win the premiership this year, they will be the [...]
READ MORETo “spot him up”
You hear the phrase “spotted him up” often, and variations on it, when watching AFL games. It is a phrase that in isolation would be very difficult to understand. So, what does it mean? It is an abbreviated way of saying that the player who has the ball has seen his teammate who is in [...]
READ MOREAFL coaches 2010
More AFL clubs might change coaches from the start of the ‘09 season to the start of the ‘10 season than we have seen in…well, longer than my memory. Already two changes have been made, and we are only half way through the season. So, who will be coaching where in 2010? Here are the [...]
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