THAT Shakespeare fella knew his stuff. Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing. We have it on good authority that they were just some of the ingredients piped into Mark Coughlan’s bloodstream to try to cure his dodgy hammy.
Coughlan’s been off in the Bavarian Alps with the highly hyphenated Dr Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfarth having “animal substances” injected into him. The sort of stuff you get in sausages. Dr H-W M-W studied at the Dr Heimlich-Manoeuvre Trabant-Potsdam Clinic (an offshoot of the Ponds Institute) and knows his ant duodenums from his aardvark toenails.
Richmond’s rehabilitation and conditioning coach Warren Kofoed trotted off in a Teutonic direction with Coughlan, but assures wiccaphobes that “these substances are widely used so it is not as if it is any form of witchcraft”. You’re not fooling us. Shakespeare has spoken.
2: Heading into trouble
ADELAIDE’S Brett 'Yossarian' Burton makes some good points on the thorny issue of head-high contact. And he’s got another couple of weeks to think even more deeply on the subject courtesy of the Match Review Panel after Essendon’s Henry Slattery callously thrust his head into the Bird Man’s unprotected torso.
You thought it was the other way round? Possibly not, as Burton hints. “What happens now is that players lead with their head a bit more because they know they’ll get a free kick. That’s kind of an art in itself.” A martial art, we’d have thought.
3: Spinning like a top (team)
SYDNEY Swans coach Paul Roos is the kind of spruiker you’d want when you’ve got a few barrels of snake oil in the shed you’re keen to get rid of. Roosy, on the back of his team thumping Richmond by 82 points, reckons that West Coast, on the back of a 100-point shellacking from Collingwood, is “our biggest challenge and our biggest test”.
We know he’s talking historical context here – 43 games in a row between the two teams decided by one point or less* – but having held the Eagles to just five goals in round four and sitting on a percentage of 136 compared to 71, Roos’ is applying more spin than Stuart McGill in the days before he decided half way through a test match that he was crap.
*Figure may have been rounded up and may contain traces of nuts
4: In their own right
DON’T be surprised if Anthony Hudson calls Shanthakumaran Sreesanth lining up on the half-forward flank for the Pies this weekend, because Huddo admits he’s suffering from code-confusion, jetlag, sleep-deprivation and Delhi belly after hosting all-night TV coverage of the Indian slather-and-whack cricket fest.
We note that some of the IPL teams have got cashed-up and hyped-up Bollywood stars as owners and South Sydney in the NRL has got Russell Crowe, so maybe the AFL needs celebrity team owners. Moonee Ponds is just next to Essendon, so Dame Edna could buy out the Bombers for a start. And if Rolf Harris took over one of the Perth teams those plonkers who hang over the fence behind the goals waving advertising placards could brandish wobble-boards instead.
What to look for on afl.com.au this Wednesday
It was only a Dream
Brent Harvey went into the Land of Nod early in his 250th match for North when they faced the Doggies recently, so who better to join Dream TV. Huh? Who better? Name someone!
Stuff from the clubs
There are 16 AFL teams, right? Well, 10 of them are holding media conferences today. Ten! Don’t say you don’t get good value here.
