In a strange way, last Friday night may well have taken the cake for most frustrating Eagles game of the season. Not for the same reasons as some of the previous games mind you, in which the frustration was created by a never ending flow of complete incompetence. Instead, for the very first time this season, West Coast got stuck in and actually played pretty well. The frustration wasn’t even related to the fact that we lost, although that played its part. It was more because we all realised that had we played like this two months ago, we might currently be on the brink of a very special season.
But alas we are entering the ‘too little, too late’ phase of a season that has all but slipped straight through our fingers, much like the football has on a very regular basis. At present, our only real ambition is to scrape into the top eight, and while that is a far cry from the lofty goals we all set preseason, it would be a pretty reasonable achievement from where we sit now. However, should we play as well as we did against Hawthorn for the rest of the season then there is every chance we could upset a few, and may even be able to upgrade 2013 from ‘Terrible’ to ‘Mediocre’. And I think that would probably describe the team this year pretty well. Not completely terrible, just a bit meh, and meh won’t get you far in a league as competitive as this one.
Despite seriously testing the Hawks and looking very dangerous in attack last Friday, we never really looked like winning the game, and the final margin was probably about right. We were predictably beaten for pace, as we had little answer to the now familiar tactic of swamping our forward line and then counter attacking into space. It’s stupidly simple, and stupidly effective against us. Last week I implored Luke Shuey to step up against top opposition, and I’m pleased to see that Boots obviously reads these previews. He was fantastic, and was clearly the best midfielder on the park. Here’s hoping he can carry that quality on through the rest of the season, because if nothing else, it would be great to watch. JK continued his charge towards a Coleman with five more goals, and helped the commentators to reach the illustrious milestone of ‘100th Joke about Josh Kennedy’s Run Up’. I’m curious to see at what point an action that we see seven or eight times a week stops being outrageously unusual and hilarious, and just becomes part of the game. These are the same people that allowed Cameron Ling a job in front of a camera, so they should be used to bizarre looking things on the tele.
All eyes now turn to Thursday night though, as we approach a game that is crucial to our finals aspiration. I’ve made a decision to try and swerve the whole systematic cheating through illegal and performance enhancing drugs in this preview as well, for what it’s worth. The high road is the only way to go. Anyway, Essendon are a good team, and certainly have been better than us this season, but should we take a standard of play similar to last week’s into this game at home, then we must be considered a chance. Certainly it would be a real shot in the arm to our season if….. Ahh crap, sorry about that one. No more drug references. We will be without Shannon Hurn and Scott Selwood for quite a while thanks to injuries suffered against Hawthorn, and they will no doubt prove big losses for this game. Hurn’s absence was noticeable against the Hawks to, as his ability to thread the eye of a needle by foot is… Shit, did it again. Sharrod Wellingham still looks a couple of weeks off his return, which is even more important now that Scooter is hurt. Sharrod needs to come back in just to inject that real toughness… Sakes. You know what? **** it. I’m going HAM.
Last night, Essendon’s captain and last year’s Brownlow medallist confessed to taking an illegal performance enhancing drug. Most Bombers fans have rebutted that by saying “so what? We already knew that all of our players had been taking this illegal performance enhancing drug”. Now, let’s put all of the finicky bullshit to one side for a second and just look at these bare facts. They cheated. They confessed to cheating. After they initially lied about cheating. And these same people have the opportunity to come to Perth and take premiership points off us on Thursday night. And the worst bit? The players are being lauded as heroes. We hear about how brave these players are, and how amazing it is that they can keep on winning with all of the ‘unnecessary distractions’ in the background. To say the landscape is different to, say, 2007 is an understatement. But they shouldn’t be the same, because one is clearly a lot worse than the other. One drug related scandal involved a handful of players and their private lives. The other involved an entire club, including players, coaches and staff, and directly influenced AFL matches. Guess which club is the devil and which one is tough and brave. Go on.
I know that sounds bitter, and that’s because it is. If Essendon successfully weasel their way out of all of this then we have good reason to feel hard done by. The AFL’s freak out over Ben Cousins destroyed our club for three years, and we still haven’t fully recovered. I remember at the time people were trying to get our premiership rescinded because apparently the cocaine that almost killed Cousins was actually performance enhancing. If they stay even remotely true to this form, then I’m expecting suspensions galore and a whole screaming shitload of points being stripped down at Windy Hill. But given that I’m pretty confident that they will somehow swerve a punishment that harsh at the end of the day, the least we can do is beat them right down on Thursday night. A bloody, merciless beat down that makes them wish they had done eight lines of cocaine instead of just jabbing themselves with boring old PEDs. Clearly one is more effective that the other.
So that’s this week. As you can see from all of my in depth tactical analysis in this preview, it’s going to be a close game. Last week’s performance has at least made me look forward to the footy again, instead of just dreading more disappointment. For the first time in a while, I think we could be on the up.
May the best junkies win.
But alas we are entering the ‘too little, too late’ phase of a season that has all but slipped straight through our fingers, much like the football has on a very regular basis. At present, our only real ambition is to scrape into the top eight, and while that is a far cry from the lofty goals we all set preseason, it would be a pretty reasonable achievement from where we sit now. However, should we play as well as we did against Hawthorn for the rest of the season then there is every chance we could upset a few, and may even be able to upgrade 2013 from ‘Terrible’ to ‘Mediocre’. And I think that would probably describe the team this year pretty well. Not completely terrible, just a bit meh, and meh won’t get you far in a league as competitive as this one.
Despite seriously testing the Hawks and looking very dangerous in attack last Friday, we never really looked like winning the game, and the final margin was probably about right. We were predictably beaten for pace, as we had little answer to the now familiar tactic of swamping our forward line and then counter attacking into space. It’s stupidly simple, and stupidly effective against us. Last week I implored Luke Shuey to step up against top opposition, and I’m pleased to see that Boots obviously reads these previews. He was fantastic, and was clearly the best midfielder on the park. Here’s hoping he can carry that quality on through the rest of the season, because if nothing else, it would be great to watch. JK continued his charge towards a Coleman with five more goals, and helped the commentators to reach the illustrious milestone of ‘100th Joke about Josh Kennedy’s Run Up’. I’m curious to see at what point an action that we see seven or eight times a week stops being outrageously unusual and hilarious, and just becomes part of the game. These are the same people that allowed Cameron Ling a job in front of a camera, so they should be used to bizarre looking things on the tele.
All eyes now turn to Thursday night though, as we approach a game that is crucial to our finals aspiration. I’ve made a decision to try and swerve the whole systematic cheating through illegal and performance enhancing drugs in this preview as well, for what it’s worth. The high road is the only way to go. Anyway, Essendon are a good team, and certainly have been better than us this season, but should we take a standard of play similar to last week’s into this game at home, then we must be considered a chance. Certainly it would be a real shot in the arm to our season if….. Ahh crap, sorry about that one. No more drug references. We will be without Shannon Hurn and Scott Selwood for quite a while thanks to injuries suffered against Hawthorn, and they will no doubt prove big losses for this game. Hurn’s absence was noticeable against the Hawks to, as his ability to thread the eye of a needle by foot is… Shit, did it again. Sharrod Wellingham still looks a couple of weeks off his return, which is even more important now that Scooter is hurt. Sharrod needs to come back in just to inject that real toughness… Sakes. You know what? **** it. I’m going HAM.
Last night, Essendon’s captain and last year’s Brownlow medallist confessed to taking an illegal performance enhancing drug. Most Bombers fans have rebutted that by saying “so what? We already knew that all of our players had been taking this illegal performance enhancing drug”. Now, let’s put all of the finicky bullshit to one side for a second and just look at these bare facts. They cheated. They confessed to cheating. After they initially lied about cheating. And these same people have the opportunity to come to Perth and take premiership points off us on Thursday night. And the worst bit? The players are being lauded as heroes. We hear about how brave these players are, and how amazing it is that they can keep on winning with all of the ‘unnecessary distractions’ in the background. To say the landscape is different to, say, 2007 is an understatement. But they shouldn’t be the same, because one is clearly a lot worse than the other. One drug related scandal involved a handful of players and their private lives. The other involved an entire club, including players, coaches and staff, and directly influenced AFL matches. Guess which club is the devil and which one is tough and brave. Go on.
I know that sounds bitter, and that’s because it is. If Essendon successfully weasel their way out of all of this then we have good reason to feel hard done by. The AFL’s freak out over Ben Cousins destroyed our club for three years, and we still haven’t fully recovered. I remember at the time people were trying to get our premiership rescinded because apparently the cocaine that almost killed Cousins was actually performance enhancing. If they stay even remotely true to this form, then I’m expecting suspensions galore and a whole screaming shitload of points being stripped down at Windy Hill. But given that I’m pretty confident that they will somehow swerve a punishment that harsh at the end of the day, the least we can do is beat them right down on Thursday night. A bloody, merciless beat down that makes them wish they had done eight lines of cocaine instead of just jabbing themselves with boring old PEDs. Clearly one is more effective that the other.
So that’s this week. As you can see from all of my in depth tactical analysis in this preview, it’s going to be a close game. Last week’s performance has at least made me look forward to the footy again, instead of just dreading more disappointment. For the first time in a while, I think we could be on the up.
May the best junkies win.
