Mid Season AFL Review - The Underbelly Awards (Part 2)

Posted by Jesse Penfold

June 24, 2008

Continuing on from Part 1 of the mid season AFL awards Underbelly style

You know man; I guess I just watched Reservoir Dogs too many times!

To the Sydney Swans who in round 11 could not help but put themselves in the middle of a movie drama. Despite being a probable top four side, and playing a wooden spoon contender this season in West Coast, the Swans would not let the rivalry of recent times be blown away. They fell behind big in the first half as the Eagles played some of their best football of the year, applying all sorts of pressure and looking to have the game all but wrapped up. This was until a typical Sydney never say die performance erupted and the Eagles folded quicker than the District 5 hockey team before Emilio Estevez surfaced. And in a movie like moment (that I just knew was coming), the Swans kicked ahead with a minute remaining and won the game (cue celebrations, cue credits).

(Side note – during the first half of this match I had the W locked in. I was already considering the fact that the Eagles had smashed the Crows at Subie two weeks earlier, forgotten about the dismal match against Collingwood, counting the wins, looking forward to the Bombers as easy beats the following week, thinking about a late season charge to the finals and rejoicing that at last we were playing like the team that forced Collingwood to a draw in last years finals series, and that the young players were starting to develop.

Since that moment Sydney stormed back, we lost to the Bombers and then took a record breaking hiding from the Cats. Now we are in the Naitanui sweepstakes with Melbourne. The message from this is – I hate Sydney.)

Which brings me too…

Man, Rocko, man we can do anything mate we are the kings of fucking sunshine!

To the Sydney Swans again, who have seemingly been given the confidence, from the AFL’s leniency in a bid to increase the profile of the sport in NSW, to do anything!

Where do we start?

- Well firstly they cheated with too many men, leading to no penalty for their side, but an overhaul of the interchange rules;
- Goodes continued (until this weeks 1 week ban) to get away with head hunting players despite obvious repeat offenses; and
- Barry Hall went 1983 on us and decided he could just job players for no reason when he sent Staker to the hospital, and only received 7 weeks (for a cold blooded intended act? Should have been 12 at least by today’s standards. Hell he shouldn’t have been playing in the 2005 grand final…hmmm better stop here before Demetriou contacts Mick Gatto).

Just kill him it’s easier. Kill him.
Nup, nup. I want my 80 grand; if I kill him I’m never gonna see it!

The biggest mistake of the Underbelly series was the failing to recognise the most well known strategy of war: “Destroy your enemy completely”. If you don’t they will regroup and come back.

This goes to Geelong who had the opportunity to exterminate the Pies in round 9. Collingwood came into the season as one of the hopefuls to beat the Cats, fielding a young talent laden squad that was on the rise and had managed to come within one goal of toppling the Cats the year before. As the season began, however, the Pies ran into several problems, losing games to Brisbane, Carlton, North and the Hawks, raising questions of whether they were still contenders.

The round 9 game against Geelong gave the Cats a chance to destroy their challengers, a win would have given the Pies a 4-5 record and eliminated anyone’s belief that Collingwood could really challenge Geelong this season (most likely including Collingwood themselves). What happened? Collingwood came out against a sleep walking Cats side and applied some of the best pressure seen since the Brisbane Lions era, flogging Geelong by almost 100 points, and leaving everyone (except Geelong) eagerly waiting for another finals classic at the G in 2008.

Oii!! Don’t you think you should be taking it easy while you’re pregnant?
“FUCK OFF!

To Woosha, who has learnt nothing from playing a hobbled Chris Judd for the second half of last season, as he continues to play Dean Cox and Darren Glass despite the fact they have been hampered by ongoing injuries all season. We have all heard the reasoning that they cannot get any worse, but the question remains – can the injury get any better while playing? AND considering that the Eagles have not really been in contention of anything much this season, what is the point in playing apart from trying to disguise the tanking.

Suck my fucking toe jam!

To Brendan Fevola, the man formerly known as The Urinator, and now just Fev, who has answered all his critiques from the start of the season, stopped the drinking (and the urinating), and put together one of his best seasons. This year was always gut check time for Fev with Carlton’s young talent beginning to be realized, and the acquisition of Chris Judd, the Blues finally mattered again. There would be no clinging to “rebuilding” excuses, or an insufficient mid field. Fev had to lead from the front, and become the player everyone knew he could be, which is exactly what he did, putting together a career year and going head to head with Lance BUDDY Franklin for the Coleman medal.

Oh and there is still plenty of time for classic Fevola behaviour, highlighted by his post game interview after dominating the Pies where he mentioned Collingwood players being full of themselves and how they just got put in their place.

I’ve never met anyone like you before.
That is because there is only one Benji Veniamin on the planet.

To Gary Ablett (no need for the junior no mo!). Ablett is not just the stand out player for the best team in the competition, not just the far and away the favourite for the Brownlow Medal, not just clearly the best player in the game (no matter what Hawthorn fans will tell you, that argument has been killed over the last two weeks), but having a season reaching the levels of greats such as Carey, Hird, Voss, Judd, Ablett Snr (sorry Gaz) and so on.

Not only that, but Gary has that class about him where no one hates him. He has that league wide love (not just respect) from all supporters (to the point where I think even Fremantle fans were feeling bad for him as Crowley was beating him up earlier this season). Unfortunately as everyone is finding out, that love does not stop him from killing your team week in and week out.

We are prepared to ask the parole board to allow you to leave the country, provided that you make it permanent.

Finally, one of the biggest cop outs of the Underbelly season goes to tanking in the AFL 2008 season (expect this to get a lot more attention from us as tank time heats up). The fact that this is already an issue just halfway through the year indicates a clear problem in the AFL right now. West Coast you should be ashamed, Port don’t think we aren’t talking about you either, and anyone else who joins the race to the bottom as the season progresses… hang your heads.

AND….that is it till the end of the year.