Geelong whomped Carlton from the opening bounce Friday night (again, that's already happened in Australia) 140-63, increasing the pressure on the Blues to do something dramatic when, truthfully, no quick fix is going to change the fact that they simply don't have enough AFL talent on their roster. Firing legendary coach Mick Malthouse, now the winningest coach in history, in mid-season is cruel and would do no good; the calls from the sensible folks to announce that Malthouse will coach out the season and a new coach (and lots of new players!) would join the Blues for 2016 makes more sense at this point. (A story on afl.com.au's "Pick A Winner" show listed only SEVEN players who should by consensus in the Carlton ranks, and another half-dozen who might; the others aren't really qualified to play at the highest level yet. Legendary player Garry Lyon said Monday that only THREE players "deserved to wear their jumpers" (which are uniform jerseys, statesiders). THAT makes it tough to win when you have a 22-man roster of grown men AFL players on the other side of the pitch!)
Meanwhile, the AFL has revised the system for two draft day peculiarities that Americans aren't familiar with: the father-son connection and the academy priority pick. This year, for example, Isaac Heeney, easily one of the two or three best players in the draft, went to Sydney at choice number 18 because he had been "raised" and trained in the Sydney Swan Training Academy. There should certainly be some credit given to a club for doing the work which made the player great, but Melbourne was willing to draft him at 2 and never had the chance. Similarly, Joe Daniher went to Essendon a few years ago at pick 10, even though he was arguably the best player in the draft and would have gone #1 in the open market - however, since his dad played for Essendon, he had the right to declare himself a Bomber, and being highly rated that required the Dons to spend whatever their highest draft choice was on him. The new system is extremely complicated, but computer apps can handle those details and level out the playing field without depriving clubs of those advantages. (Wonder how long it'll be for a Giant or Sun to be drafted as a father-son!)
One of the funny occurrences in the Geelong game, especially for an AFL regular season game, was the request on the field after the game from winning team member Cam Guthrie, 23 years of age, to veteran two-time Brownlow Medal winner Chris Judd of Carlton for his jumper, ideally signed! The speculation, well-founded, is that Guthrie had grown up as a footy player idolizing Judd (a good choice, as footy role models go), and although Guthrie frankly had a better performance than Judd Friday night, he's simply "that kind of dude", as they called him in the radio booth! Judd obliged, but hesitated about taking Guthrie's Geelong jersey in return...
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