They Might Be Giants

GWS star Tom Scully and coach Kevin Sheedy

I’ve been thinking about writing a piece on this subject for much of the 2013 AFL season and finally got around to it now. We are currently entering Round 19 of the season and the GWS Giants are still yet to win a game this season, after winning two games in the 2012 season. Now it is not a surprise to anyone that the Giants have struggled dramatically on the field in their first two seasons. The way the AFL expansion was set up, it has the new teams be awful early on, but with a dearth of young talent and draft picks to develop and be great by year four or five, as we are just starting to see the signs of with the Gold Coast Suns in their third season.

The problem isn’t the lack of success on the field for the Giants, but rather the lack of success off it. Whilst obviously if the Giants were doing better on the field it would then be easier to grow their fan base, the fact that it was made clear to everyone that the on field results wouldn’t be there should have allowed them to establish a decent core base of fans from which to grow. Unfortunately, that core base to get involved from the jump didn’t materialise in large enough numbers.

Now it may sound like it is purely a moment of ‘Captain Hindsight’ but I and pretty much every AFL fan from Sydney I know saw this coming. The fact is, the AFL never should have expanded and created the GWS Giants in the first place, or at least not for several more years. Whilst Western Sydney is a heavily populated area and is filled with sports fans, there was no evidence that the people in that region wanted their own AFL team. The truly hardcore AFL fans were already Swans fans or fans of Victorian teams and there weren’t many casual fans just waiting to get a team based closer to their home, like there was with the A-League.

Be that as it may, there is a very specific reason the AFL expanded into Western Sydney as early as it did and it isn’t about losing ground to NRL and the Western Sydney Wanderers. The AFL expanded into Western Sydney because they were negotiating a new TV deal and being able to say they had a second team in the biggest TV market, specifically in the most densely populated area of that market, was a huge bargaining chip for the AFL to use to increase the value of the deal. Whether the people in that market actually tune in won’t impact this TV deal, but it might impact the next one if they can’t right the ship.

The idea of having a team in Western Sydney is so much more appealing than the reality of it. But once they made that decision to expand into the market, they needed to execute it correctly to make it at least have a chance.

Unfortunately they seemed to have missed the mark in that way too. In terms of players, whilst their young draft picks are coming along nicely, their recruiting of marquee names was poor. Tom Scully, whilst a young talent, is not nearly the name nor the player that Gary Ablett is or was. Paying Scully to be the face of the organisation from Day One only made sense if he was going to be at All-Australian level from the beginning; otherwise he was just an overpaid and slightly more advanced version of all the kids they were drafting to play with him. If they believed Scully was a star already, they were badly mistaken and if they believed it was wiser to spend the money on a player still developing, it is yet to be proven and seems headed in the wrong direction.

Then they also signed an NRL convert to attract the NRL fans, much like the Gold Coast already did. However the difference is that Folau was never a beloved figure in Western Sydney even though he was born there, plus unlike Karmichael Hunt, he had never played a junior game of AFL. Not to mention the fact that learning a key position is significantly harder than Hunt learning to just attack the ball and his opponent around the ground. The Folau experiment was doomed to fail and whilst he earned good money, he wasted a couple of years of his career that he could have used to dominate the NRL or Super Rugby, as he has done since he switched to play for the Waratahs this year.

Off the field, their promotions failed just as badly. Unlike the Western Sydney Wanderers, the Giants did an awful job endearing themselves to the local community of Western Sydney. I don’t live in that area but I’ve spoken to several sports fans that do and none had any knowledge or relationship with the Giants beyond the standard advertising we saw around the city. If anything, the Giants publically seemed to completely misunderstand the culture of the various people in the area and Kevin Sheedy as coach and figurehead did a truly awful job by being arrogant, dismissing the NRL culture of the area and of course the ethnic background of many in the area. The Giants needed to tap into the community at a grass roots level and if anything they went the other way and alienated many people that could have been won over eventually.

The other problem with the Giants from an AFL standpoint is that the manner in which they did the expansion ended up retarding the ability for struggling, existing clubs like the Melbourne Demons to rebuild. The AFL draft is the main way clubs can rebuild and the Demons have been left in purgatory waiting for the chance to get the draft picks their lack of success has earned them. Sure they made bad decisions along the way, but in the two years they had the number one pick, they selected one bust and one prospect that ditched them for the GWS anyway. If the AFL ever expands again, I think they need to reconsider the way the expansion team builds their squad.

All is not yet lost for the Giants. If they can land a legitimate star like Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin as rumoured to go along with the development of their young players, their on field performances will clearly improve and give the franchise some star power to try to reach the market again. But they need to throw out everything they have done to this point, all but apologise to the people of the area and start from scratch, building relationships within the communities they are trying to reach.

The on field success will come within the next few years and by default that will increase their fan base, but will it be increasing from abysmal to mediocre, or will it be increasing from mediocre to decent? That will come down to how they go about fixing what is clearly a broken model right now.

But if they can get it right, well then they might be Giants.

As Bill Lawry Would Say: ‘It’s All Happening’

Ashton Agar after getting out for 98 in the First Test

So for once, instead of struggling to come up with a topic to write about, this week there has been so much going on that I couldn’t decide which topic to pick. Therefore, as the fence sitter than I am, I figured I’ll just touch on a bit of everything and then reward myself with a weekend away.

To start, let’s talk about the Origin decider. The Queensland streak remains alive after they hung on to win by two and NSW have to wait another year to try to end the drought. Those who follow me on Twitter or Facebook know that I, like many others, think the biggest issue for NSW was halfback Mitchell Pearce.

The only people I have seen defending Pearce have been Roosters fans and even Roosters fans have been divided on it. I am not questioning Pearce’s heart or effort levels. I think he desperately wants to be the best player he can and gave it his all yet again, but he quite simply isn’t good enough. He is a good defender for his position but NSW need a halfback that can create points and that is something Pearce has not done in five years playing for NSW.

His kicking game is below par and he doesn’t have the dynamic passing or running game. He also didn’t take control of the direction of the team, which lead to many plays that looked like they had no plan.

The argument that a halfback needs a forward pack going forward to be able to perform doesn’t hold water here either as the NSW pack won the arm wrestle. NSW had every opportunity to win game 3 as well as getting the better of the forward back for the last two years in general. Pearce may well be a great guy, but he has had more than enough chances and it’s time NSW make the move they should have made before this series. It’s certainly a popular opinion and I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said elsewhere over and over, but enough is enough and it’s time the Pearce experiment ends. He just isn’t that good.

Onto the Ashes, where Australia lost the First Test but there were certainly a number of positives to take out of it. From a neutral standpoint it was one of the most entertaining and gripping Tests I have ever watched and whilst Australia ended up on the losing end, it gave me belief that we can absolutely make this a competitive series.

Darren Lehmann’s decision to play Ashton Agar instantly paid off with one of the greatest moments in Test history, with a 19 year old Agar, batting 11 and with Australia in dire straits, getting to 98 (alongside a tremendous knock by Phil Hughes) before holing out trying to get his century.

There is clearly a concern with the top order, which hopefully will be rectified as the series moves forward, but I can’t remember a tail that so consistently wags. Our bowlers are honestly not that much worse at batting than our specialist batsmen are. Which isn’t really a compliment to our batsmen, but is still praise for our bowlers.

As I write this the team for the Second Test was announced and so I had to quickly rewrite this bit about selections for the match. Cowan was axed as expected and replaced by Usman Khawaja, who was the likely replacement. Mitchell Starc also makes way with Ryan Harris getting the nod over Jackson Bird as the replacement fast bowler. Cowan had to go and Starc has been a bit down on form so neither was unexpected. I wasn’t sure whether Harris, Bird or a second spinner would come in depending on the conditions and it’s hard to argue with Ryan Harris getting the nod.

But either way, I’m no longer feeling as down about our chances for the series as I was before the First Test, which is saying something considering we are now officially trailing in the series.

Also a quick point on the whole DRS and Stuart Broad saga. First of all, I think we need to be a bit careful to put all the blame on England, when we got a bit lucky ourselves in the first innings with Agar and the fact that Clarke continues to misuse the review system. That said, Broad should have walked and the fact that he didn’t absolutely makes him a dirty cheat.  Also, the on field umpires were atrocious for both sides and this wouldn’t be an issue if they actually did their job at a level even near competent. Aleem Dar is one of the worst umpires I can remember and it baffles me how he continues to get such big matches. He is like cricket’s Jason Robinson.

Onto Le Tour. Whilst some of the individual stages have been exciting, is it just me or is the fact that Chris Froome is so dominant making the race kind of boring. It’s hard to stay up at night knowing the result is already over barring injury. That’s not to take anything away from Froome himself. He was expected to do this and he is delivering in spades and proving that he probably would have won Le Tour last year as well if his team had let him.

I also think raising speculation of him cheating as the media have been doing is ridiculous. It’s an unfortunately side effect of the sport’s history, but Froome has done nothing to suggest he is cheating besides being really, really good. I’d like to think he isn’t cheating because neither are his competitors anymore. However, should he end up in a doping scandal at any stage, it would be tragic and would be another nail into the coffin of the sport for many people.

We also are currently being graced with the presence of English Premier League champions Manchester United, who are here to play an A-League All Stars team this weekend. Then next Wednesday, my beloved Liverpool will be taking on the Melbourne Victory and I am fortunate enough to be traveling to Melbourne to watch the game. I’ve never seen Liverpool play and I’ve never been to a sporting event at the MCG, so to say I’m excited would be an understatement.

I hope to write about the experience next week, so stay tuned for that and remember, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

Turning Blue

Greg Bird applauds the fans after Game 1

So Origin 1 is behind us and finally NSW will play the series from in front. It was a fascinating game, which had incidents, some brilliance and a potential sign of a change of fortunes.

Overall New South Wales were fantastic and it was exactly the sort of win they needed to allow them to play with confidence for the rest of the series to try and end the Queensland streak. Going into the game, most people seemed to believe that NSW held the edge in the forward pack whilst Queensland had a more dangerous backline and of course held the edge in the all-important spine of 1, 6, 7 and 9.

New South Wales built their foundation on that forward pack and overall they destroyed the Maroon’s forwards, forcing Thurston and Cronk to play on the back foot for most of the game. Guys like Gallen, Watmough and Greg Bird are built to play Origin and didn’t disappoint.

However the standout was clearly Luke Lewis, who had one of the great individual Origin performances. No he didn’t score a try or have that many highlight plays, but his hit ups, tackles and passes were extraordinary and he never stopped. He rightfully won the Man of the Match award and it was well deserved for a player who often doesn’t get the plaudits of some of his more flashy or exciting colleagues.

On the other hand, I thought Mitchell Pearce had a very mediocre game for a victorious NSW side. Before I get accused of Rooster hating, I thought James Maloney was superb on debut and Michael Jennings was brilliant too. Pearce however, was non-existent. The guy is playing halfback, which if you don’t know, is supposed to be a pretty important position in a football team and yet he seemed to barely touch the ball. When he did he mostly just dropped it off for a forward to take a hit up and my only memory of him throwing a longer ball was when he underthrew a pass to Lewis, which Lewis unfortunately couldn’t reel in.

Pearce is a solid defender and he wasn’t poor there, but he certainly was no halfback either. In such a great team performance his individual effort won’t cop much criticism and I know he won’t be dropped, but it still should be pointed out that we won in spite of him and not because of him. Oh, I also thought Ryan Hoffman had a surprisingly poor game with some bad drops and not much impact.

The standouts for NSW in my eyes were the aforementioned Lewis, the always awesome at Origin level despite his club form Jarryd Hayne, Maloney on debut, the ever reliable Robbie Farah and the “Bash Brothers” Bird and Gallen.

This brings me to the Paul Gallen punching Nate Myles incident. Yes, I understand that Origin has a different atmosphere and level of leniency, but in my eyes Gallen was very lucky to stay on the field. It doesn’t matter if Nate Myles is a dirty player or if he plays for Queensland, Gallen put a deliberate high shot on him and then when Myles got up unhappy about it, Gallen rocked him with two punches.

Would Myles have punched Gal if Gal didn’t do it first? Maybe. But that incident was all Gallen and regardless of what game it happened in, in my eyes it is not on. Had a Queenslander done it to a Blue, all of NSW would be crying foul and especially if it happened to a player from the individual club you support. So the idea of “that’s Origin” is bullshit in my eyes. Rugby league is a contact sport but it is not a combat sport, even at Origin. That wasn’t a fight; it was one player deciding to punch another.

So those fans who genuinely think it was awesome, or if you think it’s great because it happened to Nate Myles, I think you watch football for the wrong reasons and need to reconsider your values. I like a bit of Origin biffo as much as the next guy, but last night was not that. Anyway, NSW got a lucky break, but Queensland have had numerous breaks over the last few years so it was bound to even out and I don’t feel too bad.

Meanwhile, what about on the Maroon side of things? They finally looked old after a near decade of dominating the Origin arena. Their forwards were dominated, Thurston was completely out of sorts and even the Storm ‘Big Three’ struggled to impact the game.

Greg Inglis barely touched the ball and the one time he finally got decent possession he created Queensland’s only try. I doubt they will do it, but I think they need to switch Inglis and Slater in Game 2, at least at various points during the game to get Inglis involved. He is simply too important and valuable to them to not utilise more. Plus he is one of the few Queensland playmakers that can create without the forwards getting momentum first.

As a biased Souths and NSW fan however, I hope he stays at centre, barely touches the ball and simply gets through the game unscathed.

Another takeaway from the game last night is that we have all still played as much State of Origin as Josh Reynolds. I like Josh Reynolds and think he will play plenty of Origin in his career. It is not his fault he didn’t play, nor is it his fault he was selected at all. But this idea of selection a utility player for purely backup reasons and not even using him is insane to me. Origin is the hardest, fastest, most tiring form of footy and NSW are giving up one of their bench spots as a ‘break glass in case of injury’ backup plan.

It is no coincidence that as NSW forwards got tired in the second half; Queensland scored their try and came close to scoring more. Yes we won anyway, but it damn sure would have been a lot more comfortable if we had another player with fresh legs out there. I don’t care if it’s a prop like Tim Grant or a bigger utility that can cover halves like John Sutton, but all 17 positions should be utilised.

A win should never cloud over things that weren’t good just because the overall result was.

Finally, it is being reported that Robbie Farah may have a broken eye socket and is in doubt for Origin 2. That is a nightmare for NSW as Farah is probably the hardest player to replace in the entire team. Go on, name his direct replacement if he can’t play, I’ll wait….

…

Exactly.

Who are our options at 9 without Farah?

Michael Ennis? He’s a mediocre footballer and failed at Origin level already

Josh Reynolds? A good player and would have replaced Farah if Farah came off in Game 1, but he isn’t a hooker.

Mitch Rein and Nathan Peats? Like them both as youngsters but nowhere near Origin level right now and I don’t think either would argue that.

Ryan Hinchcliffe? To be honest I feel like I’d pick Hinchy out of these names even though he is mostly playing lock, but I wouldn’t be happy about it. At least I trust him as a player and feel like he’d handle the Origin cauldron, but the gap from Farah down to the other options is troubling to say the least.

If I’m forgetting anyone please let me know.

Anyway, NSW got a fantastic result in Game 1 and look like a great chance to finally reclaim the Origin crown. I’ll just spend the next three weeks praying to the great cockroach in the sky that Robbie Farah is back in time for the next instalment.

Everyday Racism: Eddie, Goodesy and a 13 Year Old Girl

Adam Goodes points out the fan who called him an 'ape'

Racism is both awful and unfortunately all too common. There are some people in society who think it isn’t particularly common anymore and that it is a relic of the past, but those tend to be the people who aren’t on the receiving end.

This past week’s incident where a 13 year old female Collingwood fan called Sydney Swans’ Indigenous star Adam Goodes  an ‘ape’ (during Indigenous Round no less) was an unfortunate reminder of this. The fact Collingwood president and media personality Eddie McGuire went and made it worse on radio only makes it harder for Collingwood’s message to reach their fans to improve their conduct.

To be clear, the blame in this unfortunate incident does not lie with a 13 year old. I think overall the media has done a pretty good job of not making her the villain in all of this, although if you do internet or twitter searches on it, some folks are.

It is entirely possible that the girl used the word ‘ape’ without even understanding the racial undertones of it. If she had called him another name that didn’t have a history as a racist word, none of this would be an issue as name calling from the stands is standard sporting protocol. But even if she didn’t know what the word actually meant, she clearly had picked it up from somewhere. You don’t just happen to choose such a specific name to call someone at that age if you haven’t heard it used elsewhere. So whether or not she meant it in a racist way, I think it is a fair assumption that the original user of the word that she heard it from did use it in that context.

Collingwood famously has a history with racist abuse coming from the stands. 20 years ago St Kilda star Nicky Winmar was a victim of such abuse and in a wonderful act of defiance and pride he lifted his shirt and pointed to his skin colour on his body. Since those dark days, Collingwood has tried very hard to distance itself from racial abuse, as well as taking a hard stand against any fan caught doing so. They are at the forefront of the discussion of eradicating racism from football and society in general.

Unfortunately, either their fans seem to have a higher propensity to resort to this behaviour, or perhaps they are just the ones getting caught doing so. I’m sure it happens at other games and I myself have heard racist terms used by fans at numerous sporting events.

People like to make jokes about the intelligence of Collingwood fans, but that’s mostly because they are the team we all love to hate. However, incidents like this one do nothing to squash that stereotype.

The girl in question from this incident however is a product of the society she came from. That starts at home with her parents and includes her extended family, her school and her neighbourhood. Whilst it is possible she didn’t know what she was saying, the fact of the matter is, she SHOULD have known what she was saying because education on such matters should be taught to kids from a young age.

This is not a subject to wait until a child is in the last few years of high school to discuss. Kids need to grow up with it imprinted into their brain that people are all created equal and they need to understand that certain words mean certain things. I’m not saying they need to learn the specifics of some of the awful things that have been done in the past by racists at such a tender age, but they should certainly be learning about equality as well as what is offensive.

Most importantly, this education shouldn’t have to be coming from a bloody football team. It is admirable and important for sporting bodies to take a stand on these issues and influence the conversation in society. However, it is not the job of sporting bodies to actually be the ones teaching people not to be assholes. It starts at home and at school and the fact I even feel the need to write that makes me sad.

To make matters worse, after the way Collingwood did a good job directly after the incident, Eddie McGuire then went and undid a lot of that good work on his radio show by suggesting Adam Goodes come to the opening of the King Kong musical in Melbourne (it was actually hard to even follow what he was suggesting). I don’t believe Eddie McGuire is a racist person. He has done plenty of good work in that field, so I’m not saying he is racist. However, the thinking process it takes to get from King Kong musical to Adam Goodes has an inherent racism to it.

It may have been “the opposite of what he was trying to say” as he claimed, but even still, somehow his brain went from King Kong to Adam Goodes and making a joke about it. Even if he was claiming that back in the day when racism was more tolerated they would use situations like this to capitalise, it’s still a thought predicated on race.

Whilst it was good that he called a press conference and apologised and admitted his mistake, he got a bit defensive when he was asked questions. Only once the fallout to that wasn’t ideal did he become more contrite and now might offer his resignation pending the AFL investigation into the matter.

The main problem with Eddie’s gaffe is that Collingwood are trying to educate fans and discipline those who don’t comply, but their credibility on the matter is now compromised because even their boss has fallen into it. You will now see uneducated fans thinking that if Eddie can do it, they can too, even if he did apologise.

This is why it shouldn’t even be falling on Collingwood to educate their fans at all. Yes they should throw out the bad ones, but the issue of education should be done well before someone enters a football stadium.

Some think this entire story has been blown out of proportion and that everyone is getting too touchy, but those people miss the big picture. This isn’t about individual incidents of racism in a public forum. This is about the society in which we live and the fact that this is still happening every day.

As a member of a minority that has been the subject of so much horror for such a long time, I always have my ears pricked up when I hear things that are racist. I am fortunate to only have experienced direct racism a couple of times in my life, however because I am white, the fact I am part of a minority is not so externally obviously. That fact has probably enabled me to avoid being a target more often.

Racism at the footy is not the story and nor should it be. A 13 year old girl making a racist comment isn’t the story either. What people need to focus on is trying to be part of a society where we eradicate this thinking entirely, much like we did with polio and smallpox. But remember, the only vaccination for racism is education.