Is It Me?????

Is It??? Am I the jinx?? Every sports team.... INTERNATIONALLY are either shit... or I'm a jinx. Now to give you an idea of my frustration, let's just re-cap 2006.

We will start with the only highlight for the year. The Brisbane Broncos won the NRL Preimership and Queensland won the State of Origin.

Now the fun stuff. We start with the AFL and that so-called team Geelong. After winning the NAB Cup pre-season competion, they won something like 8 of the last 10 games.... to finish 10th. Jinxed or crap???

I went to my mate Geeva's place to watch the V8 Supercars in the Bathurst 1000. Being an HRT/Mark Skaife fan I was pumped pre-race as Skaifey was starting on poll. So imagine my disappointment and sudden increase in alcohol intake, when Skaifey was speared into a wall just after the first corner and 45 seconds into the race. Because of a slipping clutch, he couldn't get the power down and took it, literally, from behind. Jinxed or crap???

We can now head overseas. The NFL and the Miami Dolphins. For the educated... need I say more. For the less informed, during the pre-season the Fins aquired Daunte Culpepper from Minnesota. The first franchise quarterback since the retirement of the great Dan Marino. In the first 3 weeks he was sacked a record 21 times. Now many would blame the offensive line for lack of protection, but has the guy never heard of a scramble??? The starting quarterback is now Joey Harrington. A guy who has never even heard of himself. The Fins are 1-6. Jinxed or crap??

Still in the U.S and the NBA. New York Knicks.... finished dead last, not only in their conference, BUT IN THE WHOLE COMPETITION. Jinxed or crap???

The MLB. This, I thought, was my last shining light on the season. The Detroit Tigers had a great season. They finished the regular season with the best record in the competition, and even though they limped into the play-offs after they dropped their last few games to the Kansas City Royals, all was forgotten after they showed the Yankees the door, in 5 games. They pulled Oaklands pants down and won four straight and fronted up to the Cardinals, who had a one day break after going the full 7 games against the Mets. Detroit had a 6 day break and pulled their OWN pants down and bent over, to get trounced in 5 games. They won Game two AND THAT WAS IT. Jinxed or crap???

Across the Atlantic to the Preimer League. Everton have started the season ok... but with my track record this year, I'm not holding my breath.

As for the Ashes series this year, I don't even want to start thinking about it.

It's Official

This is going to be short and sharp. My six year Membership with the Geelong Football Club is officially over. After winning the NAB Cup and belting Brisbane and Nth in Rd's one and two respectively, I thought..."finally, here we go". And go we went. On a 6 game losing streak which basically flushed our season down the toilet. I could ramble on for hours about what went wrong, but seriously.... I'm over it. So the Tassie Devils, who play in the next comp down from the AFL, the VFL, will be getting my money next year. Sure, their season wasn't much better.. but at least I can go to the football with my 5 year old son and have a kick on the ground during the breaks.

Jacko's Turn

Beyond Disappointing

I would like to offer my congratulations to the player group of the Geelong Football Club for achieving a new all time low. Saturday nights loss to Collingwood was the most heartless, gutless, spineless, insipid display I have seen from this club in the 26 years I have supported Geelong. Apart from Corey Enright, James Kelly and Darren Milburn, I could've found 19 strangers in the Elizabeth St Mall in Hobart who would've played with more passion than this group displayed. How I ever though we would be a premiership contender after Rd 2, with the current forward line we have, is totally beyond me. As good as Paul Chapman, Gary Ablett and Steve Johnson are, we can't keep relying on these guys and our midfield to keep kicking a winning score week in, week out. Why we still have Kent Kingsley is beyond me. If it's not placed lace out on the chest, Kent can't seem to mark it. He seems to kick one decent bag a year and thinks his job is done. I'm not expecting 6-8 goals every week, but surely 2-3 from our "key forward"isn't too much to ask. Last night Kent managed one goal... his first in about 3 weeks. Need I say more. I am also disappointed in the display of Brad Ottens. He has done a decent job in the ruck whilst Steven King has been out injured, but Cam Mooney did a similar job a few years ago. When Brad goes forward, he seems to go missing. I want Brent Moloney back.

Mick Malthouse described this game as an heavy-weight title fight. From what I saw it was Mike Tyson v Krusty the Clown. I said to a mate after we won the NAB Cup that it was a "premiership"and we'll take it. The way we're going we may have to take it cause it looks like it's all we're going to get. I'll be mighty pissed and shattered if we go through 6+ years of re-building, to win nothing more than a Mickey Mouse pre-season comp. I live in Tassie and have had an Interstate membership since 2000. In that time I have seen two games... not really getting my money's worth in live games, but I have stuck with the club during this time on the hope my loyalty would be rewarded eventually. After 2004 and 2005, I thought it might pay off. I think I'm wrong. Taking a bath with the toaster would be less painful than having to sit through what happened last night

Why They Get No Respect

This is in response to the Blog posted by Moose last week. The "Mighty"Kangaroos came more than a little unstuck a week after their first up win over a Port Adelaide side that is coming off the biggest Priemership hangover I've ever seen in the 26 seasons I've been watching VFL/AFL. I thought following the Cats was frustrating, but man, how can one team go from a 41pt win to a 69 pt loss. That is a 110pt turn around in 7 days. Granted they were playing at Kardinia Park and against a Cats side that thumped Brisbane the week before...but fair dinkum, I think a few hard decisions need to be made regarding their playing list.... and quickly. Glen Archer, one of the toughest backman going around....10 years ago, is past it. Nathan Thompson, apart from an absolute screamer he took at the Telstra Dome, while playing for Hawthorn...never had it and the same goes for Jade Rawlings. Shannon Grant had 35 possessions, Adam Simpson 33, but the obvious question is, if these two midfielders had 68 touches between them, who were they kicking it too?? It's the same old story for the boys from Arden St. They rely on too few to do the hard work each week and have way too many passengers. Until they start to spread the work load evenly and maybe even get back to their surburban roots and start calling themselves Nth Melbourne again, then maybe... just maybe the respect they so badly crave may come their way.

You Little Beauty

Well, I never thought it would happen..... but after spending 25 years supporting the Cats, I finally had something to get excited about. After 43 years of Grand Final heartache, the boys from Sleepy Hollow roared to life at AAMI Stadium and as the late Ted Whitten would say....."we stuck it right up ém". OK, I hear the other 15 teams supporters say, you won a pre-season comp...big deal!!! Carlton did it last year and finished dead last. St Kilda the year before and they have choked in the last two Prelim Finals, so what makes this any different?? It's a valid argument. I mean you only have to win 4 games in this comp and you've got a "Priemership". But the exciting part of this is two fold. One - we beat Adealaide....IN ADELAIDE. No mean feat, that even the best teams in the comp have struggled to do over the past 20 years and lets be honest...our record at AAMI has been worse than Perth, Sydney and Brisbane combined. The second is the fact that the AFL tried their hardest to shaft us, by having it played interstate, thinking it would guarentee the Crows a flag and a shit load more supporters than they need. So to Andrew D.... sucked in. I bet London to a brick, that if we had kicked more goals in the 3 qualifing games it would not have been played at Kardinia Park, but rather Telstra Dome, which is pretty much a neutral venue. Hence the reason why the Sevens Rugby in the Commonwealth Games was all finished by the Friday night prior to free up the ground. Added to this, we rolled the highly fancied Crows with 8 of our starting 22 sidelined due to off season surgery and rehab. We had to rely on 1-2 year players, to make up the difference...and what a difference they made. To Mark Thompson and the boys congratulations, keep up the great work....and bring on Round 1.

Reality TV

What is with all the reality TV over the past few years??? Just when you think it can't get any worse, along comes another piece of crap about normal, every day losers either losing weight...or being stuck in an house or on a remote island for 12 weeks, while the world watches their every move. Please...have we become so lame as a nation, that we actually reckon this is decent television?? What happened to the great drama's...or more importantly, the great comedies. For those of us old enough, half hour episode's of Kingswood Country or A Country Practice, shits all over Big Brother and any other piece of shit on tele at the minute. My wife and 2 children gave me for Father's Day last year, the first series of Home Improvement on DVD. It is brilliant. A mate of mine has every episode of Seinfeld. It is brilliant. You can't get classic comedies on television anymore...unless it's insomniacs TV at 3.30am. Thank God the ABC still has some integrity and balls to still show decent British comedy and drama. The Bill has been going forever and Little Britain is the funniest show on TV at the minute. My wife actually has a theory on this....and being a sports nut, unfortuneatly I don't think she is too far off the mark. Due to the fact that Channel's 9, 10 and 7 are so hung up on broadcasting either the NRL, AFL, cricket, Commonwealth, Winter and Olympic Games, they throw huge and ridiculous amounts of money for the broadcast rights, that there is no money left in the coffers to pay half decent actors to make a 1/2 hr sitcom or drama. As a result, they sent a camera man and sound guy out into the street to film everyday wankers, for nothing, because it's cheaper. Sad, but true and I don't think it's going to change in a hurry. Thank God for DVD box sets.

Why Change The Rules

With the start of the AFL season upon us, I have one question. Why must the league insist on stuffing up our great game, by constantly changing the rules?? It survived for 100+ years working beautifully, as it was and yet some clown who either has never played the game...or at least only a handful of games, insists that he/she knows best and that we need to "tweak" the rule book. Surely the best people to consult on rule changes are the real experts... the players and the coaches. These are the people who's livelyhood hinges on the results each week and season. Not the bloke who sits in the plush office at AFL House, behind the big mahongony desk, looking pretty swish in his new Armani suit.

With the game's pace on the increase, and this is mainly due to the ever increasing professionalism and training methods, the chances of injury is more a risk now than it has ever been. Added to this, the pressure being placed on players and coaches to keep their jobs is enormous. The natural progression of the game is enough, without the added stresses placed on the players by "tweaking"a rule or two. Lets hope common sense prevails... and quickly.