JB1975
Brownlow Medallist
You really need reminding? It was just over two months ago. Even my Grandpa would recall it, and he’s currently sandbagging his unit at the nursing home waiting for the Cuban Missile Crisis to bring ‘sweet apocalypse’. In any case let me tell you that we were brave. Taylor Adams was handsome and fierce. Collingwood led for most of the game but could not hold off the second-half charge of players such as Boak, SPP, Wines and Robbie Gray. Dixon tried to kick his team out of the contest but fell short. We lost by a dismal point.
Prelude: Considerations of Power
This is the moment where the previewer offers waffle with a rather tenuous connection to the match itself. But really, it’s only a game of football which hasn’t been played yet, in a season we’d all rather forget, so how f****** much can you really say about it anyway? If you are one of those uptight ‘just stick to the footy, thanks’ types, please feel free to pass over a few paragraphs until you arrive at my fine-grained analysis.
For myself, the forlorn quest of the PAFC to assume the identity of the Collingwood Football Club is much more fascinating, even if I have nothing whatsoever original to contribute to the discussion.
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s a little painting I’ve scrawled during this lovely lockdown we’re having:
Other people might say that it belongs to someone else, as if a Dutchman who hacked at his own ears could have produced such beauty. The more observant among you might see ‘Vincent’ scrawled on the vase. Vincent is my pet cockatoo.
Really, I simply want to reiterate that David Koch is a dickhead. He has the charisma of Angela Merkel on a double dose of Prozac. As the spluttering buffoon at the head of an imitation football club, he has long been honoured with the title of a ‘poor man’s Eddie McGuire’, although in latter days it seems that Ed might be looking to assume that title himself.
I’m told that charisma and good looks aren’t everything. All sorts of charmless and demented heads try and convince me of this, though I remain unconvinced. Still, I’m happy to explore ‘Kochie’ in deeper detail, beyond the superficial. Desperate for supporters, he has engineered the sale of his team to China. It was quite a feat of forward thinking and vision, playing games in front of 10,000+ spectators, some of whom might actually have been Chinese. The Chairman remains confident that the People’s Republic will resume its wild love affair with Port Adelaide once the pandemic slides into history. Those of you who read the news might have noted that China now has a rather ‘difficult’ relationship with Australian exports, not dissimilar to my ‘difficult’ relationship to dishevelled people selling religion on street corners, so we can confirm that this gimmick is another deadest loser.
Kochie has also managed to oversee an identity crisis. He has tried to pass himself off as an effectual leader, and he has also tried to position his Shanghai outfit as Magpies who should be robed in noble prison bars. Only on select occasions, he says, just a small concession, in the manner that Hitler told Chamberlain he’d be satisfied with the Sudetenland. It’s our heritage, he says. Well David, some social commentators in the distant past thought to observe similarities between the supporter groups of the Collingwood and Port Adelaide Magpies: they were both ‘rough-hewn’, possessed of a certain bawdiness, the ready manner of the industrial working class combined with the casual violence and jaunty indifference of the criminal classes. But you blokes dropped your shiv and the ball at the same time, when you turned teal and begged for entry into our competition. As the Power. With a lightening bolt as your emblem you lit up the sky, revealing quite clearly that Port is a disgrace to the black and white stripes. F*** off.
To complement my Shakespearian foray into the heart of darkness/self-indulgent tripe wrapped in balderdash, I’ve also crafted a poem. It’s a short composition which took a surprisingly long time to write. It is called Dickhead.
Those prison bars don’t belong to you, ya dickhead
You’ll never be Ed, ya egghead dickhead
You’re a dickhead.
(JB1975, 2021)
Form: Port Adelaide
I haven’t been watching them assiduously, been busy painting and engaging my legal team in an effort to secure sole royalties to a song I wrote but was never credited for (you might know it…Smells Like Teen Spirit by ‘Nirvana’), but the Power are travelling okay. They’re in the top 4, and every once in a while since the bye they have managed to resemble a top 4 side. Their win against St Kilda last week wasn’t sexy, maybe it was even unsightly, but it was a solid effort from an injury-troubled side against a finals fancy.
Form: Collingwood
We’ve changed coach since we last played Port, and we’ve had a stirring win, but our form remains – how to put it delicately? – largely shit. We’ve had three losses since the bye, the worst of which was last week’s capitulation against Carlton. The younger players in a building team are allowed to have dodgy games, but the failure of the team’s leaders to offer resistance cannot be excused. I remain horrified.
Opposition: Disconnected Thoughts
Having successfully petitioned the AFL and SA government to let them flee the moribund town of Adelaide, Power will be playing a home game in Melbourne. That won’t bother them too much. They are a team heading towards the serious end of the season, vying for top 4, and they will see this as a chance to bolster their percentage. If they need any more incentive than that, they can look to their captain. Travis Boak plays his 300th game on Friday night, an impressive achievement by an impressive player.
I love Robbie Gray, but he can be a hurtful man when he plays Collingwood, so it’s a relief that he won’t be playing this week. Unfortunately, other weapons are on hand to wreak havoc upon us. Mitch Georgiades didn’t worry us too much last time, but he’s having a good season, while the return of Connor Rozee adds yet more firepower. Our cause won’t be helped by the sublime form of Ollie Wines. It was Port’s midfield which took them over the top of us last time, and it’s quite easy to see it gaining control of the game early and not letting go.
Path to Victory
I thought that a visual representation could best render our path to victory for this week.
That’s right, it’s an impenetrable forest, within which lurks a creature who looks forward to (playfully) removing our heads from our bodies.
Decapitation is actually one of the very few ailments which haven’t featured in our list of injuries, which is otherwise quite exhaustive. From last week we’ve lost Callum Brown, Josh Thomas, Chris Mayne and Will Hoskin-Elliott. Maybe none of these are short-list candidates for AA selection, but they compound injuries to other players (notably Howe and Moore) and force us to further explore the nether regions of our playing list.
But in a spirit of defiance and hope (and a touch of desperation), we welcome two debutants for Friday night. Jack Ginnivan will hope to replicate his fine VFL goal-kicking form, while Anton Tohill continues his journey from Ireland to AFL.
We were pummelled in clearances last week, and arguably lucky to lead the game for as long as we did. Could the return of Brayden Sier have helped to turn that around? Hard to say, but more certain is that we’ll all come to regret another week of wailing from TheGreatGrundy. Will Pendlebury play a more defensive role in the middle, to take the pressure off our waferish defence and to give our forwards a chance? Will Grundy give us one of his more herculean efforts, four quarters of grim determination and unstinting power, to lift the less talented and less experienced who surround him? Taylor Adams will launch himself like a cannonball like always, but can JDG actually manage to gain a clearance this week?
Not many among us would describe the Collingwood forward line as ‘potent’. The thing is, I’m a man with an expansive imagination, and I declare that –on its day– it can reasonably aspire to competence. Ollie Henry, Brodie Mihocek, Darcy Cameron and Jamie Elliott are capable of multiple goals, and Ginnivan has shown the same at a lower level. If the ball gets to them enough times, if it arrives to them with a semblance of system, then who knows what sort of magic may happen. And if the ball doesn’t exit our offensive half almost as soon as it gets there, like an exotic bird too frightened to be in one place for too long, there may well be miracles. We just need to control that exotic bird for a bit, hold it in, get some repeat inside 50 entries and boot it through for a few more goals.
The Result: Inevitable
I’ve done the hard yards of crafting the battle plan, all that remains is for the real black and white to put this sophisticated formulation into practice and bring us the glory. We’re a young list, almost heartbreakingly inexperienced, filled with ‘try’ more than talent.
That’s why it’ll get done by less than three goals instead of ten.
Pies by 17 points.
