They’re only bowing to public pressure. Within minutes of the end of the tennis on Sunday night, Twitter was full of “bring on the footy” type tweets.
The week after the tennis is traditionally the week that the nation’s thoughts turn to football once more. The kids are back at school soon, the workplaces are back to full steam and meaningful cricket is done for the summer; so what else is there to talk about around the water-cooler?
Indeed - welcome back to football.
This week also marks the launch of Toyota AFL Dream Team and the various other fantasy AFL competitions around the land.
Vapormedia is the Australian company that has built the engine behind pretty much every AFL fantasy game and is so even-handed when it comes to its respective clients that it insists that every competition is launched on the same day, February 1.
So tomorrow (Tuesday) is day one for Dream Team and all the other games there are.
Dream Team is so huge that there are already 47,000 pre-registered participants for 2011. For them, Tuesday is Christmas Day.
This week is also game week. Scattered among the various Telstra-AFL Community Camps will be several intra-club games. Carlton already had a hit-out last Saturday morning but the footy cranks into gear a bit more seriously this week with most clubs playing a game of some description.
They’re all intra-club games, with the exception of Friday night’s clash in Alice Springs between Richmond and the Indigenous All-Stars. The Tigers are the latest club to show the top end a little bit of love, although they’re justifiably disappointed that weeks of torrential rain in Darwin rendered TIO Stadium unplayable, therefore robbing the match of the opportunity to pay tribute to Maurice Rioli, the former Tiger star and Northern Territory football icon who died of a heart attack on Christmas Day.
The Tigers will soon open the ME Bank Centre, their new training and administrative facility at Punt Road. The top floor of the swish new building will be the Korin Gamadji (‘grow and emerge’) Institute, established as a learning and skill development facility for the indigenous community, and the Tigers were looking towards the trip to Darwin for the educational opportunities it offered as much as the football match.
Don’t expect the Tigers to send their best 22 to Traeger Park Oval on Friday night. Richmond coach Damien Hardwick told Front and Square that the match will be a chance to have a strong look at his younger players, to track their development and to see whether they’ve bought in to the Tiger game-plan.
“It’s all about round one for us, but it’s time to get them up and going,” he said. “We’ll take 30 players and they’ll mainly be kids.”
Interestingly, Hardwick nominated David Gourdis and Alex Rance without prompting as two players who will be under the spotlight in Alice Springs. Both are in the mid 190cm range and should be nailing down regular senior berths, particularly Rance who is in his third season with the Tigers. The Tigers are establishing a deep and talented midfield and see the key positions as their next area of improvement.
It has been a smoother pre-season for Hardwick, who is embarking on his second season as coach. An exercise that may have taken three hours in the lead-up to last season has taken half that this time around, and the air of uncertainty and unfamiliarity that hovers over a new coach has been replaced by comfort and stability. “Training has been great because the guys understand what we want to do,” he said.
And while the squad in Alice Springs will be light on in terms of both experience and age, the expectations remain strong. “The players and coaches have worked hard so we want to see how that reflects in how that sets up in a game,” he said.
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As if the Brisbane Lions’ pre-season hadn’t had enough distractions, then came the floods.
“Just another hurdle,” Lions veteran Luke Power recalled last week as a sense of calm, and normality, finally settled over the club after a summer dominated by Brendan Fevola, but which has also included a major overhaul of the football department and more troubles for the talented, but wayward, Albert Proud.
But back to the floods. By Tuesday January 12, it became apparent that anyone living remotely close to the Brisbane River needed to batten down the hatches. So training that day was postponed, as were any club activities the day after. The river was supposed to peak at 4am on the Thursday (January 14), but the Lions were told that unless their summer training base at Coorparoo was flooded, training would take place.
Coorparoo is close to the river and has flooded before. Yet for reasons best known to Mother Nature, it remained dry this time around and in fact, according to Power, was as in as good a condition as many at the club could remember. So while the nation watched in anguish as hundreds of nearby homes and businesses were destroyed, the Lions trained.
“It was hard to get your head around it at first,” Power said. “But we’re professional footballers on the eve of the season and we weren’t doing anything. We had to train.”
But it was after the training session finished that the Lions, like all the professional sports teams through the city hit the road to help those in need. “We trained hard and then we worked hard,” Power said.
Lions players were sent off to move furniture from flood-affected homes, where their strength and fitness came to the fore. Mattresses can weigh more than 100kg once they’ve been flooded and Power said that lifting them and dumping them into garbage trucks was as gruelling as any of the weights work done during the summer.
The Lions had plenty to talk about when they shared their experiences the next time they trained. “It’s like someone ransacked your home and then sprayed it with mud,” Power said of the damage caused by the floods. “And it will take years for the smell to go away.”
Xavier Clarke was the only Brisbane player whose home was threatened by the floods. With the help of his teammates, his home was evacuated, but the floodwaters never came that close. Sadly for the luckless Clarke, he then tore his ACL training back at training and he appears set to miss a large chunk of the season.
In addition to their manpower, the Lions players also visited some of the evacuation centres in and around Brisbane, and they were at the forefront of the player-driven efforts that will ensure that several hundred thousands of dollars will be donated by players and clubs to flood victims in Queensland and Victoria.
It has been a trying few weeks but Power, who is also president of the AFL Players Association, could not feel more proud of his fellow players and the industry as a whole.
“It’s important for people to understand that footballers don’t live in a bubble. We’re human and we care,” he said.
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Late January is supposedly the calm before the storm in footy circles, but plenty happened last week. Geelong and West Coast reappointed Cameron Ling and Darren Glass as their respective skippers, while Brad Green is the new captain of Melbourne.
Ling was the soundest choice for the Cats, but marked the occasion by pinging a hamstring at training on Saturday morning. Joel Selwood, the new vice-captain and obvious heir apparent, can get a feel for the job during the NAB Cup.
Glass was somewhat of a surprise at West Coast because there had been talk that he would move on from the job after managing just eight games last year. Beau Waters gets the vice-captaincy, but the Eagles lack an obvious long-term option for the captaincy in the mould of a Selwood at Geelong. There’s not a lot of emerging star power at West Coast. Josh Kennedy may be the one, but he really needs to dominate this season to underline his captaincy credentials.
Green was the right choice for the Demons. There was a time when the Tasmanian was more flash than substance, useful for a goal or two and a mighty celebration afterwards. But he is significantly tougher than he used to be, can play through injury and can still find the goals as his 2010 season would attest. And he is one of the best blokes in footy you could wish to meet.
The departures over the summer of Cameron Bruce, James McDonald and Brad Miller have cost the Demons 608 games worth of experience, so much will rest on Green’s broad shoulders. What’s exciting for the Demons is the number of worthy candidates to replace Green in the next couple of years. Jack Grimes is the early favourite, but if the Dees keep trending as they are, then there might be up to half a dozen suitable candidates.
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THE TOP FIVE
1. Collingwood: Harry O’Brien signs on until the end of 2012. Nice news, but Pie fans will be happier when Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan sign the dotted line.
2. St Kilda: The Saints doubtless had other things on their mind, but the move from Moorabbin to Seaford flew well under the radar. We wonder whether the Saints boys, known for frequenting all the flash cafes in the Brighton/Sandringham area, have found any decent coffee places in Frankston. Any suggestions?
3. Hawthorn: Alastair Clarkson puts off contract talks until the end of the season, but that won’t douse the speculation, particularly if the Hawks repeat their 1-6 opening of last year.
4. Geelong: No training camps, no delayed start to the pre-season for the veterans. The Cats were back to training as soon as the Collective Bargaining Agreement allowed as part of new coach Chris Scott’s ‘one-in, all-in’ philosophy. Can’t think of a more fascinating story in 2011.
5. Fremantle: CEO Steve Rosich is carrying the can for Freo’s new jumper design, logo and quite possibly, new club song. But rest assured, this was a process started by his predecessor, Cameron Schwab, who is perhaps the most brand-conscious CEO in the AFL.
THE TWITTERATI
“Apologies 2 everyone who witnessed my batting performance today, was very disappointing! But was great to see a huge crowd turn up 4 charity.” - Essendon’s Angus Monfries (@AngusMonfries) apologises for his lamentable stint with the bat for the Bombers in a Twenty20 clash with the Victorian state team at Windy Hill last week.
“No sign of Bailey or Hale so still an issue until they can get these 2 up and running.Thought HFC paid too much for Hale.” - Former coach, now commentator, Terry Wallace (@thelistmanager) after watching the Hawks go through their paces last week.
“I'm humbled & pumped to be apart of the leadership group. along with grimesy both of us are goin to learn alot! Can't wait for the games to begin.” - Melbourne’s Nathan Jones (@nathan2jones) after being named a vice-captain of the Demons for 2011.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Given that the Blues played the only practice match of the weekend (that we know about), we’re giving it to Nick Duigan, the 26-year-old from Norwood, who reportedly impressed with his composure and skill off a half-back flank, in the 60-minute scratch match.
You may remember the Duigan story. He had his flight booked to Sudan, ready for a couple of years of volunteer work when the Blues selected him with the 70th selection at last year’s NAB AFL Draft. His house was packed up and he was days away from stepping on the plane when the Blues called out his name at the draft.
Now, he is a certainty to play in Carlton’s NAB Cup opener next week and some of the track watchers at Carlton are comparing to another mature-aged recruit who came over from South Australia and acquitted himself rather well across half-back, Andrew McKay.
Duigan will no doubt have an interesting story to tell when and if the TV networks come calling. Who knows? Harry O’Brien might have some competition in the thinking footballers department.
GAME TO WATCH
The Richmond-All Stars game gets free-to-air treatment on ABC1 on Friday night, but the most intriguing game of the weekend will take place at Campbelltown’s Macquarie Fields, in Sydney’s outer west, late on Saturday afternoon when the Greater Western Sydney Giants step out for the first time against an AFL Sydney representative team.
The match will serve two purposes. In addition to giving the Giants their first and only hit-out before their NAB Cup matches against the Suns and the Swans, there is also an opportunity for some of the better players from the representative team to then join the Giants for those NAB Cup matches. It offers a glimmer of opportunity for mature-aged players from the Sydney suburbs to get a last chance at making it in the AFL.
It’s the stuff of reality TV.
Front and Square will appear every Monday on afl.com.au. Follow Ashley Browne on Twitter at twitter.com/hashbrowne
