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getseriouser · 8 years ago

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20 THOUGHTS: 2017 Get Serious Awards for Football

THIS column has become such a juggernaut we are dedicating an entire column to our own version of honours for the 2017 season.

That whilst all the other scribes and bloggers and twitter menaces have their say on who was the best, the worst, their highlights of the season, why would I begrudge this snowball of an audience by not chipping in with our own version.

So as we celebrate the home and away year in this chasm between the last round and the first week of finals, let’s look back and reminisce by calling it as we see it, who outperformed, underperformed and work out just who had the shitter year out of Damien Barrett and Mark Robinson.

Some of the following awards are cliché and obvious, some though are a bit different and unique to the Get Serious platform, so get on board, get yourself a cupper and a bicky, and prepare to be enlightened.

SURPRISE OF THE YEAR:

Nominees: Liam Jones (Carlton), Tom Mitchell (Hawthorn), Ben Brown (North Melbourne)

Winner: Ben Brown – Bloody hell, the once-third ruck option down at Arden St. almost won the Coleman in a team barely able to avoid the wooden spoon. And the crucial kicker to be as good as the season was, it won’t be a flash in the pan. Given he is only 24 Shinboner fans can expect him to build on his 63-goal season, which is a scary thought really.

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR:

Nominees: Gold Coast, Western Bulldogs, AFL Senior Executives, the married ones, who should know better….

Winner: The Match Review Panel – stuff the nominees, we had to give it to the MRP. Do we need to explain this one, I mean Jack Redpath, Brodie Grundy, Toby Greene, the list goes on. Horrid, awful, un-Australian really…

GAME OF THE YEAR:

Nominees: Round 2 Geelong defeats North Melbourne by 1 point; Round 4 (Good Friday), Bulldogs defeats North Melbourne by 3 points; Round 14, Sydney defeats Essendon by 1 point; Round 19, Collingwood draw with Adelaide; Round 22, Adelaide defeats Sydney by 3 points.

Winner: Round 4 (Good Friday), Bulldogs defeats North Melbourne by 3 points – great game, great occasion. There were so many close, exciting, high standard games this year, it was the best season on record for close finishes, but we loved this game back in April. It was well promoted, it worked beautifully as an initiative, and on the fast track at Etihad the final term especially was pulsating.

COACH OF THE YEAR:

Nominees: Don Pyke (Adelaide), John Longmire (Sydney), Damien Hardwick (Richmond)

Winner: Don Pyke – Horse and Dimma are stiff but here’s why: Horse has got the Swans into great shape, but we’re going to knock a couple points off for the start of the year from a coaching standpoint, and Dimma, he would have yielded a similar result to last year if it wasn’t for two things, the soft draw and the turnover of assistants. Pyke has kept the Crows up all year and deserves the minor premiership.

TEAM OF THE YEAR:

Nominees: Adelaide Crows, Sydney Swans, Richmond

Winner: Sydney Swans – so we knocked points off Longmire in the previous award, but the best team for much of the year were the Swans, who almost knocked off the top of the ladder Crows in Adelaide. Yes, not a super start, but since Round Six no-one comes close, a phenomenal performance, scary, and given the Dogs saluted from 7th last year, the 6th placed Swans are a massive show to go one better in 2017.

THE ABEL TASMAN PERPETUAL PLATE (MISS OF THE YEAR)

Named after Dutch sailor Abel Tasman, who on his journeys centuries ago, discovered Tasmania, discovered New Zealand, but sailed straight past Australia, and instead of being a Commonwealth country under British rule, we so easily could have been pot-smoking tulip farmers. Bloody Abel.

Runner Up: Josh Bruce (St Kilda) for not one but two shockers in the goal square, down in Tassie against Hawthorn and against Richmond at Etihad.

Winner: Melbourne – when your marketing department comes up with the website banner for finals arrangements, you better do better than six first quarter tackles when Collingwood has already kicked six goals and stuff up the unmissable finals spot at the final hurdle.

THE LANCE ARMSTRONG AWARD FOR HONESTY (LIE OF THE YEAR)

Runner Up: Perth radio shock-jock Who-Cares McSomebody who had Nat Fyfe as a lock to St Kilda, weeks later the Dockers captain re-committed to the club for five years.

Winner: Jordan De Goey – blamed a broken hand on playing with the dog before eventually confessing he did it in a weekend scuffle at a watering hole. Now come on Jordan…

THE Y2K BUG GOLDEN JUG (WORST PREDICTION OF THE YEAR)

Winner: Me – for predicting West Coast will finish a strong third or that I had Fremantle improving resoundingly into eight spot. Yuck.

THE GET SERIOUS PREDICTION OF THE YEAR

Essendon – In the lead up to the season proper I was bullish about the Bombers in 2017, that the 2016 wooden spooner could do the unthinkable and ascend into a September appearance as early as a year later, and then March 30 suggested Dons fans get ready for finals, they are good enough now. Low and behold, they came through like a treat, well done to the club and the faithful alike, pretty amazing year.

FIRST YEAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Nominees: Andrew McGrath (Essendon), Sam Petrveski-Seton (Carlton), Sam Powell-Pepper (Port Adelaide)

Winner: Andrew McGrath (Essendon) – you don’t believe how much I wanted to award my pre-season Rising Star pick SPP but one must concede the Bombers defender did just enough to pip the bull from Alberton. Amazing poise and contribution, consistently over the entire year too, so whilst it’s closer than many think, especially those Victorians who don’t see enough of Port Adelaide, this one goes to McGrath.

THE CHER MEMORIAL TROPHY (“If I could turn back time” REGRET OF THE YEAR)

Winner – Chris Mayne (Collingwood) – Four years. And VFL track-watchers advise his form in the seconds as the year progressed was hardly progressing either, not good. Four. Years.

THE 1944 NORMANDY LANDINGS MEDAL (TACTICAL MOVE OF THE YEAR)

Winner: James Sicily (Hawthorn) – Sicily was an ‘ok’ key forward prospect in a club who started the season 3-6. Alastair Clarkson throws the magnets around, turns Sicily into a tall ranging midfielder and with great success it helps turn the Hawks season around. From that point, the Hawks lose only three of the next ten games and 22-year old averages 24 disposals and nine marks a game in that stretch – a superb positional move.

THE GET SERIOUS PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Nominees: Patrick Dangerfield (Geelong), Dustin Martin (Richmond), Tom Mitchell (Hawthorn)

Winner: Dustin Martin (Richmond) – Geelong are annoying but somehow get the job done, and hosted a preliminary final as recently as last year. The Tigers meanwhile stunk so bad last year if their coach not had this year already on his contract he would have been booted. We award this to Martin over Danger because of the influence he has had on his side finishing where it has. We rate the Cats list a little better than the Tigers list, structurally, especially with tall stocks, the Cats do a lot better than the Tigers. But the games that Martin has single handedly won are mesmerising, and not to downplay Dangers’ 2017, he has been a jet, this column just acknowledges that in our view, Martin was a smidge more valuable, a smidge more influential, a smidge better.

And now the big one….

THE SEAN SPICER ‘SWINGERS PARTY KEYS IN THE BOWL’ PAPER MACHE BOWL FOR OUTSTANDING MEDIA PERFORMANCE IN FOOTBALL JOURNALISM

Nominees:

Damien Barrett – ‘breaking’ the Rod Butters story about his alcohol and drug issues as President of St Kilda on the Footy Show when the Herald Sun ran the same tale as a feature six years ago, and also for being very boring, more narcissistic as the year progressed, and for claiming on his own podcast St Kilda had double standards for criticising Sam Newman’s transgender comments when by doing so was double standards in itself.

Mark Stevens – late entry, but for following Dustin Martin to Auckland this week, chucking a microphone under his chin at the airport and expecting something. Martin is as introverted a footballer anyway, let alone the fact he was going to get nothing close to ‘hi Stevo, look, I can reveal to your audience exclusively, since you made the effort to make the trip over here, that I will be moving to North Melbourne next year”. And for ‘making up’ that the Pies want/need Jarrod Harbrow. Time to take a look in the mirror Stevo, average by you.

Mark Robinson – one thing to send out an insensitive tweet about a player with depression, but it’s another thing to reach out with an apology letter, after being told not to, which included an interview request at the same time to further feather your own nest. Seriously you can’t make this stuff up sometimes.

The Winner – Mark Robinson. Not a great year for the chiefy chief-chief of the sport’s biggest publisher. But the clincher for our friend Slobbo ‘Time to say no at the dinner table’ Robinson, was when he accused in the wake of Tom Boyd’s public battle with depression, that manager Liam Pickering or president Peter Gordon might be to blame for the illness, for not thinking of the psychological repercussions of the monster contract that Boyd signed in moving to the Dogs a couple years ago. Really? Very ordinary stuff. Time for a spell we think, maybe a ‘promotion’ to the classifieds section of the Colac Observer, or into photocopying for the Ovens Valley Bugle?

(originally published August 30)

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getseriouser · 8 years ago

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20 THOUGHTS: The calm before the storm

WE are a couple weeks away from the start of another season, one where the Bulldogs are reigning premiers, Sam Mitchell plays for West Coast, Jordan Lewis plays for Melbourne yet the most important player for the Hawks, who won three of the last four flags, hasn’t played for them yet nor played a game the last two years.

This will be a weekly column (hopefully) where I can offer some thoughts on footy, some insightful, some observational, some even from the grapevine.

1. The commentary on the TAC withdrawing their sponsorship of Geelong after Joel Selwood’s driving offence has been awful. That because either “we’ve all done it” and/or because “Selwood’s a good bloke” is the sort of rhetoric that flies in the face of the great work the TAC is trying to achieve. They were well in their right to dump the Cats who are sponsored to be ‘brand ambassadors’, so for the captain of the club to be caught 27 kmh over in a 100 zone is hardly ambassadorial.

2. Dustin Martin will not only offer no contract update all year, he will vehemently look to avoid the issue. Why? Primarily because it’s a distraction to his footy each week, but mainly because he won’t publicly state he has either given a new club a verbal agreement for 2018 or that he is mulling over two or three offers, none of which include re-signing. Richmond need a miracle to keep him and they know it.

3. In a cynical way the main focus for Gary Ablett this year is to nurse his body through unaffected so that he is able to make a contribution on the field to Geelong next year. This year in red and yellow means very little for the two-time Brownlow medallist.

4. There’s a lot riding on Steve Johnson’s shoulders this year, to play ‘what if’ is always fraught with danger but there’s every chance he might have been the difference in that prelim last year, then who knows the week after. This looks to be his final year in the game and the pressure on the leaders at the GWS to deliver their club’s first flag this year is enormous.

5. How’s the Buddy-Sydney marriage going? Sure, they’ve won a lot more than they’ve lost and they’re right in it again this year as one of the flag fancies, but they made a substantial financial investment, over a long-term, for no flag as of yet. He is 30 years old now, in his fourth of seven years with the club, the pass mark was to be one, if not two premierships to justify the move, so far not so good.

6. Watch the CBA get done nice and smoothly, all this talk of being poles apart, the threat of strikes and sit-downs, it’s a whole lot of hot air compared to any of the workforce action that goes on in the States with their major sporting leagues.

7. Josh Daicos might be one of the very few highlights for Collingwood in 2017. He was largely overlooked in the draft before going after a mid-draft bid from North Melbourne. But even the Pies’ coaching staff are surprised at how poised and natural he is looking when mixing with the senior players and rival clubs are already making Caleb Daniel comparisons, someone who can warrant midfield time right away and who will impact games as a teenager. A Rising Star smokey.

8. The Nat Fyfe situation will be mega awkward all year at Fremantle. Deliberately not voted in by his peers as captain last season, one where Mundy was, then the captaincy process was scrapped this season so that the club could anoint Fyfe as part of a ploy to keep the pending free-agent at Freo for 2018. It’s a messy one the coaches will be very keen to manage carefully.

9. The new Perth Stadium is well on track for the 2018 season and the transition for West Coast and Fremantle from Subiaco to Burswood is massive. The capacity prospects alone are stark – Footy Park and Adelaide Oval hold roughly the same amount, Subiaco holds 40,000, the new ground holds 60,000, 10,000 more than Adelaide Oval. You think the Showdown is something at its new home, the first Derby at Burswood will be something else.

10. Not only do the Giants possess the best list in the league, who arguably had the most talented side from last year’s finals series (no disrespect to the Doggies), the addition of Tim Taranto and Will Setterfield is just staggering, two kids who already are warranting midfield time in a side oozing with existing talent. They won’t miss Lachie Whitfield in the first couple months one iota.

11. Carlton will have a tough time this year kicking a winning score, and to make matters worse the off-season plans to improve that area are seemingly being questioned already. To face that conundrum before Round One is a big problem.

12. West Coast were fantastic in 2015 before doing a Greg Norman on Grand Final Day. They then had the shocker of all shockers in 2016 with a horrendous record away from home yet still finished sixth, losing in the first week of the finals to the eventual Premiers. The top four beckons this year especially with the addition of Sam Mitchell.

13. Christian Petracca looks like he will continue in a forward/mid role which is to the relief of some rival clubs who are convinced once the high draft pick gets a full time role in the middle he will dominate games like Mark Ricciuto at his best.

14. Adelaide are still dirty they didn’t get the Bryce Gibbs trade done. They fully believed the addition of the South Australian would have been the final piece to a real flag tilt this year.

15. One trade that did go through which might look like some of the best business when we look back in a few years’ time – Jack Steele to St Kilda. The Giants won’t miss him but in isolation he was, pardon the pun, an absolute steal with the compensation the Saints paid for him. Already flying on the track and such a snug fit with the existing St Kilda list and with the progress they are making with their rebuild.

16. Something is amiss with Port Adelaide. It’s almost unexplainable to many at the club who can’t work out what’s preventing such a talented list from getting back to the good footy they played two to three years ago. Not looking good.

17. The Footy Show returns this week and those closely involved are concerned that the twenty-plus year run is getting very close to its end; there are only so many adjustments you can make, hosts, format, etc., before enough will be enough. It rated ‘ok’ last year but it’s not going to track back up in the ratings anytime soon let’s be honest.

18. This year will be the last ‘day’ Grand Final, there’s even suggestions the twilight timeslot will come in for 2017. That’s unlikely, but 2018 is at very short odds to be something around a 4:40pm start.

19. Bit combative between Collingwood and Fox Footy in the off-season. The channel wanted Nathan Buckley back on Monday nights, however he made it quite clear, with the support of the club, he wanted little do with Mark Robinson for another season after the drug story from this time last year. Not at all friendly.

20. The AFL expansion is right where it should be with one club but very much in a spot of bother with another when you look at the membership numbers for their 17th and 18th clubs. The Gold Coast are stagnating badly whereas there is real progress being made in Western Sydney.

The Suns had 14k members in their first year but have since gone 11, 12, 13, 13 with 9k signed up so far this year. The Giants on the other hand, one year younger, kicked off with 10k before going 12, 13, 13, 15 last year and already onto 16 this year. The Gold Coast will be the same last year, if not less, either way it will be a poor result. The Giants can break 20 this year, definitely a step in the right direction.

(originally published Friday 10 March 2017)

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