Kicking With The Wind: Round 3

Anyone whinging about Nat Fyfe being out of contention for the 2014 Brownlow Medal following his suspension this week clearly had a punt on the Freo starlet to take the gong in 2014.

And as he’d started so well, said punter had probably been feeling quite good about things… right up until the moment Fyfe barrelled ‘negligently’ into Gold Coast’s Michael Rischitelli on Saturday night.

Fyfe threw his hands to his head – as did anyone with a wager on Fyfe who saw the incident – in a sure sign he (we) knew his goose was cooked.

He was never getting away with that one – especially when the cursed carryover points come into calculations.

Say what you want: ‘they should change the rules again’, ‘AFL is soft these days’, ‘he didn’t hurt anyone’ etc. etc. ad nauseum. The fact is Fyfe made ‘negligent’ contact with an opponent’s head and he’s taking a break as a result.

Even Luke Darcy can tell you: ‘the head is sacrosanct’.

In fact, there’s little doubt that’s what Luke Darcy will have said about one of the major talking points out of Round 2. Sacrosanct is one of the few multisyllabic words Darcy appears to have in his repertoire and he just loves ripping it out given the chance.

Arguments suggesting the Brownlow’s focus on rewarding the ‘fairest and best’ should be changed to account for pet players being rubbed out is ludicrous.

Every player in the league knows a suspension will see them deemed ineligible for the Brownlow Medal and to change that aspect of the award is to rob it of a significant part of its magic.

Let’s face it, Corey McKernan is as famous as a ‘non-winner’ of the medal as he would be now if he’d won it back in ’96.

Perhaps Nat Fyfe has now joined an even more elite club than the one he’ll become part of if-and-or-when he claims his very own ‘Charlie’.

 

Ban Brown, not the bump
Any suggestion the ‘bump’ should be outlawed completely in the wake of Fyfe’s suspension, and that of Geelong’s Taylor Hunt following a similar incident last weekend, is simply ludicrous.

And you can magnify that degree of lunacy when the suggestion comes from renowned bonehead Campbell Brown.

Punching young teammates on pre-season training camps should be outlawed. Bar fights in Thailand should be outlawed. Lying to the tribunal should be outlawed.

As should be the kind of sniping Brown was known for during his AFL career, a career that boasted somewhere near 30 weeks of suspension along the way. That record alone speaks volumes.

If you set out to bump as a means to knock an opponent out, sure, ban it. But if you’re using it to block or shepherd, fire away – just beware that contact with the opponents head will see you rubbed out.

Given a second chance by the Suns after declining a new contract at the Hawks in 2010, Brown is now entirely washed up and seemingly set for the commentary box.

On present form, here’s hoping it’s at the local dog track more often than the MCG, because he seems intent on making a racket – not sense – with his newfound freedom from the constraints of being an AFL employee.

By speaking his mind more often, Brown will soon help us all see he talks loads of utter bollox – ‘bumpgate’ not excluded.

 

Shit tweet of the week
As if he knew Kicking With The Wind was looking for a shit tweet to immortalise in this column, Campbell Brown really came through.

Ordinarily, limiting someone like @Browndogg_30x to 140 characters would appear to be a great idea, but with his (hopefully) rhetorical question to the Twittersphere this week, @Browndogg_30x proved you can still sound ridiculous in the space of just a few words.

‘Anyone else think they should rename MCG to Melbourne Football Ground. Let’s be honest. Much more football played there than cricket #MFG ?’

Shit tweet, @Browndogg_30x. I can hardly wait to see your next appearance on The Wankers Show, ‘cos let’s be honest… there’s way more wank than football talked on The Footy Show these days, too.

 

Dead certs
It would be easy to pick on Melbourne again this week and tip the Giants to register their second consecutive victory over the hapless Dees.

But rather than go down that line, and in the spirit of keeping things interesting, this week it’s the Bombers who look a dead cert to get over the Blues on Sunday evening.

Betting markets will reflect Carlton’s poor start and seemingly bleak outlook by installing the Bombers as favourite – and it will be a real turn-up under lights at the MCG if they don’t get the chocolates.

 

Hoffwatch
The Hoff was relatively quiet against the Crows in the first Showdown at the Adelaide Oval, but in gathering his modest 12 touches, the great man was still able to prove a point.

You don’t have to wear hobnail boots to nod to great days of yore.

The Hoff turned back time to pre-war football by notching 11 kicks and a solitary handball as the Power ran away to a convincing nine-goal win.

What’s more, he showed a mastery of the kicking skill rarely seen to this point of the new season, going at 91% efficiency to lead all players with 10+ disposals by foot on the day.

He’s an enigma, The Hoff. An enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a really smart beard.

 

The cheek of it
ABC Grandstand special comments guy Mark McClure might have made a goose of himself this week.

By blaming the AFL’s new range of start times and otherwise questionable scheduling policy for the poor crowds seen at Melbourne venues this season, McClure also made himself look rather ungrateful.

As well as working for the national broadcaster every week, the former Carlton hard man has appeared regularly on Fox Footy’s AFL360 – one of the ‘new breed’ of AFL footy shows.

And surely there’s no mistaking the link between the latest TV rights deal and the need for varied start times to ensure TV programming of every fixture is possible, is there?

McClure often provides well-considered and thought-provoking views on the game… this was not one of them.