Rugby League vs AFL

I noticed yesterday that the CEO of the Parramatta Eels rugby league team, Paul Osborne, dismissed the new Western Sydney AFL team as being a threat by saying,

‘I am not particularly worried by it… It’s a pretty ordinary game and we’ve got a much better product.’

He went on to say,

‘I am not too concerned as I am sure they will come back when they see how boring it is. They are quite intelligent in Western Sydney.’

Ha ha ha. Don’t make me laugh. Rugby league is only strong in NSW and Queensland whilst Aussie rules is strong not just in Melbourne but in Adelaide and Perth, both the Swans and Brisbane Lions are very strong, whilst Tasmania have been begging the AFL to grant them a franchise for a dozen years or more. The NRL has just two non-NSW or QLD teams, one from New Zealand and the Melbourne Storm. (I know technically Canberra is in the ACT but in reality it is part of NSW) The Adelaide Rams rugby league team lasted just two seasons, and although they had attendance figures that put most Sydney rugby league clubs to shame, Rupert Murdoch decided that they could not compete with the AFL’s Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide Power.

The Storm have been a roaring success in Melbourne but it is still just a handful of regular supporters who attend every match. An average of 12,474 spectators to their home games in 2008, whilst the Parramatta Eels attracted 16,478 spectators to their home games in 2005 (the latest figure I could find). An average of 16,466 people attended NRL games in 2009. In contrast 37,776 people attended each AFL game, with Port Adelaide having the lowest average attendances every week at 25,589. The Sydney Swans attracted an average crowd of 30,857 spectators to their games in 2009, with 2008 seeing an average crowd of 31,821 at Swans games. In 2005 an average of 37,000 people attended Swans games. In 2008 AFL had 1,784,000 MORE free-to-air TV viewers in the capital cities each week than the NRL. If Aussie rules was such a boring game and rugby league so superior wouldn’t it make sense that more people would go to or watch the games and that it would have penetrated into more states of Australia? Since around twice as many people attend Swans AFL games than those of these two NRL teams I reckon there should be a lot of concern. If Paul Osborne isn’t worried now he should be.

I hate Geelong!!!

I hate Geelong but after tonight’s performance I think I hate Collingwood even more!

I hate St Kilda

I hate St Kilda!!! I hope that whoever wins tomorrow night between Collingwood and Geelong smashes the Saints next week!

Sigh!

I am resigned to the fact that Collingwood will not win this year’s AFL Premiership. A couple of weeks ago I was confident but after successive losses to the Bulldogs and St Kilda, I concede that they have no hope. Today’s loss to St Kilda showed that the Magpies still have a long way to go if they want to be able to compete against the top teams. Now we have to play a semi-final against the Adelaide Crows at the MCG and while we always do well against the two South Australian teams, especially in finals matches, I don’t think that we will be the in-form Crows. As I said in an earlier post Collingwood don’t have any really great players, but do have a lot of good and potentially great players, but this is not good enough in the finals month, especially when playing against super-star studded teams such as St Kilda, Geelong and Adelaide. A lot of Collingwood’s highly rated players often go missing during big matches, especially finals games. Sadly I think our season will end next week.

Pathetic

Collingwood were smashed by Carlton today. They were simply pathetic. While Scott Pendleberry played virtually a lone hand with a little support from Leon Davis, all the other players were terrible. Some people may try to make excuses by saying that we have injuries, but that does not explain the horrible kicking and decision making of veteran players like Heath Shaw and Dane Swan. Kicking for goal was particularly terrible.

I doubt that Collingwood will reach the finals this year; if they do it will be a miracle. I believe that there will probably be a change of coach at the end of the year. The last two weeks have been the worst of the last decade under Malthouse and it seems that many of the players lacked motivation. If Collingwood players cannot get motivated for a game against Carlton then you know something is wrong! Malthouse must be given some credit as he has taken a team full of average players and turned them into regular finalists, but if we are to compete successfully with Geelong or St Kilda we need something more. I do believe that Nathan Buckley will coach Collingwood sooner or later and he could be doing so next season. I also wonder if the rumours that Malthouse is interested in the upcoming Richmond coaching job have caused the Collingwood players’ motivation to wane a bit.

Bad Old Collingwood

Collingwood were thrashed by 88 points last night. St Kilda really spiflicated them and as a Collingwood supporter it was another hugely disappointing night. It is so frustrating because we have a lot of good players who for some reason don’t look like they will ever take the next step to being great players. Guys like Thomas, Swan, Cloke, Shaw and Didak are just too inconsistent to realise their full potential. I also think that perhaps Anthony Rocca’s time has come. Collingwood desperately needs one or two great players of the calibre of Chris Judd or Gary Ablett to be able to be considered serious premiership contenders. At the moment we do not have that.

There is also much speculation about whether this will be Mick Malthouse’s last season as coach. Rumours going around suggest that he has signed to coach Richmond next year, with either Port Adelaide’ Mark Williams or Nathan Buckley replacing him in 2010. I actually would not mind if Malthouse did leave at the end of the season. He has done well to get what is an average playing group consistently into the finals, yet perhaps we need someone new at the helm that can get us to take that next step.

Wayne Jackson

Former AFL CEO Wayne Jackson came out today to say that there are too many Melbourne football teams and that at least two of them, Melbourne and North Melbourne should merge. He said that Melbourne cannot accommodate 10 teams but I think that Wayne Jackson should just keep his biased mouth shut!!!

 It should never be forgotten that Jackson is a South Australian who as AFL CEO did a lot of things that were detrimental to Victorian football. North Melbourne CEO Eugene Arocca today said that it was Jackson who a decade ago encouraged Victorian clubs to sign up for the current stadium deals which in recent years have robbed the clubs of so much income. Jackson also was behind getting rid of Waverley Park, figuring that the new 50,000 seat Docklands stadium could accommodate the loss of the 90,000 seat stadium in Mulgrave. (I did note that current AFL CEO Andrew Demetreou said today that the AFL are looking at building a new stadium!) Jackson also saw the demise of Fitzroy when he was AFL CEO, when they were taken over by Brisbane, and almost saw Melbourne and Hawthorn (last season’s premiers) merge.

We really have to take his comments with a grain of salt as he has never shown any love for the Melbourne clubs or Melbourne people. He should just keep his thoughts to himself and stay in sleepy Adelaide. Maybe he should go to a Crows or Power game at Football Park with the other five Adelaide people who can be bothered going to the football.

They’re From Tigerland…

It’s looking increasingly likely that Richmond will sack Terry Wallace as its coach in the next few weeks. Unfortunately for Tigers supporters Richmond need more than a new coach if they are ever going to be successful. I don’t think that their problems lie with the coach!!!

When Wallace arrived at Richmond there were high hopes that he was going to be the one to take the Tigers to the premiership. He had previously taken the Western Bulldogs to a couple of preliminary finals and was seen as one of the AFL’s most professional and innovative coaches. At the end of 2008 the Tiges were a much improved team and looked like they were on the verge of success. Matthew Richardson had come within a whisker of winning the Brownlow Medal and Richmond had just missed out on a finals berth. Many people thought that this year, with the addition of Ben Cousins, that the Tigers would finally take the next step and deliver on all the promise that they have shown in the past.

After the first four games this season Richmond has again frustrated their supporters. They have not won a game yet and were last week outclassed by last season’s wooden spooner Melbourne. Many supporters are calling for the coaches head yet I feel that even if Wallace is sacked nothing will change at Richmond. Richmond will still be a mediocre team that will occassionally show flashes of brilliance that will get supporters hopes up high. Since they last held the Premiership Cup aloft in 1980 Richmond have had some great coaches such as Allan Jeans and Robert Walls who have both tasted premiership success with other teams (Jeans had multiple successes at St Kilda and Hawthorn, while Walls won at Carlton in 1987), as well as John Northey who took Melbourne to a Grand Final in 1988 and made the Demons a side to be feared in the late 80s and early 90s. Richmond has only been in two finals series since they lost the 1982 Grand Final to Carlton, the most recent time being in 2001 when Danny Frawley took them to a Preliminary Final.

There have been rumours that Richmond will replace Wallace with Kevin Sheedy sometime before the end of 2009 as an interim coach, with the aim being that they will try to snare Collingwood’s Mick Malthouse for 2010. Other successful coaches such as Leigh Matthews, Mark Williams and Dennis Pagan have also been mentioned in relation to the Tigers’ job. While the challenge of trying to make a basketcase like Richmond into a successful club has to have some allure, Tigers’ fans and board members are all well known for eating their coaches alive if (when) they do not get the expected success.

AFL – Collingwood

I have not made any comments on the 2009 AFL football season yet, even though round three is already upon us. The reason for this is because I am a Collingwood supporter and I have learnt not to get too excited about the Magpies as they always find a way to disappoint me. Yes, I know that this sounds so pessimistic but I find that whenever I have high expectations of Collingwood they end up having a shocker of a season, whilst if I don’t have great expectations that end up doing well.

 

As for 2009, I do not think that they will win the premiership as I believe that Geelong will bounce back after last season’s shock defeat at the hands of Hawthorn, to dominate this year. I think Collingwood will scrape into the top eight and may reach as high as fifth at the end of season, but that’s it. I hope I’m wrong, but after the first three games of the season I don’t think so.

 

Thursday night’s match showed just how much better Geelong are, than Collingwood. With the exception of the first quarter Geelong was so much better, accurate and disciplined.