UPS and DOWNS for Tuesday, Sept 29th, 2015

UPS to the AFL for an amazing season under some difficult conditions - dealing with the specter of racism against the aboriginal superstar Adam Goodes, who chose to retire quietly, after his final game, so as not to go through the traditional plaudits at the end of his last game that he so richly deserved and therefore avoid the possibility of negative reaction to deal with. The league can't be expected to solve a centuries-old problem singlehandedly in a few weeks, but the footy community did everything they could reasonably do for Adam and against racism. More than that, the murder of Adelaide Crows head coach Phil Walsh was handled with more aplomb and grace than could have ever been asked for - some of the most touching and beautiful moments ever seen on a sporting field took place in the aftermath. The league dealt with the after-effects of the Essendon doping scandal, the possibility of "tanking" for draft choices, and the seemingly everpresent shadow of injuries to its star players, such as Gary Ablett Jr and Nat Fyfe, the 2015 Brownlow Medal winner last night as best player in the league. Finally, as its highest paid player, Lance Franklin, admitted as the playoffs began that his injury issues were more of a mental health case than physical, the AFL and its community made great efforts to both shield him from the prying eyes of the media and to put those mental health issues in the light of day, exposing them as serious and no more or less debilitating OR worthy of embarrassment than a broken arm or an ACL. (Now, if they can get their free agency set-up to work more reasonably...)

DOWNS to the TEAMS WHO WERE EXPECTED TO DO SO WELL THIS SEASON! And yet, here we are, not even out of September, and some teams are so deep in a hole they probably can't dig themselves out of it before the season ends...

> Baltimore Ravens, 0-3, looking up at a hot Bengals team three games up and a tiebreaker, with improved wild card possibilities throughout the AFC... Is another Harbaugh going to the colleges next year?
> Saskatchewan RoughRiders, 2-11 and presumably out of the playoff picture completely, despite the ridiculously generous CFL playoff system which invites 2/3 of the league into the post-season. In theory, they are still just 3 1/2 games behind 5-7 Montreal for that last spot, but with six games remaining, the Mean Green has correctly started playing for next year already. The Riders, Grey Cup winners just three years ago, were expected to contend for the West division title this year with Edmonton and Calgary...instead, they're on coach number 2, quarterback number 3, and on to 2016...
> Oregon Ducks, 2-2 and 0-1 in conference. Still a very viable possibility of a Pac-12 North title, but that's not the OU goal - the college football playoffs are their goal, and while the 31-28 loss at Michigan State would have been survivable, the spanking they got at home last Saturday night from Utah, 62-20 (including a late gift TD by the third-teamers) was so comprehensive and so vivid that no voter will forget it. Ever.
> Many other teams who shot themselves in the foot, like Louisville (1-3), Nebraska (2-2), Texas (1-3), Texas' kicking game (0-2), Tennessee, Auburn, and South Carolina (all 2-2) and Arkansas (1-3...but hey, someone's got to lose in the SEC!); Marshall (3 bad wins and one BAD loss); the entire Mountain West (15-24 outside of conference, 11 of the wins coming against FCS schools); U Mass (1-3 and expected to contend for a MAC East title); Cal Poly SLO, Idaho State, and Montana of the Big Sky, 3-8 between them; Eastern Illinois (0-3); Stephen F Austin (0-4); the entire SWAC (3-12 outside of conference); and our #1 Bottom Team, Davidson of the Pioneer League, who plays almost equally-fruitless Valparaiso at home Saturday, in a meeting of the two last place teams in the Sagarin Ratings for the 253 Division 1 schools. Valpo is down to an amazing 6.67 rating, and yet is favored on the road at Davidson, who has set a record with their current rating of 3.08! It's conceivable that a bad Davidson loss this weekend could create a situation Sagarin's never had in D1: a negative rating.

Okay, now all the votes are in...

...from The Age, Sports Fan Australia, Following Football, and AFL.com.au, and here's your All-AFL 2015 team at mid-season:

Behind the 50:
Alex Rance (Rich) - the outstanding on-ball defender in the game today.
Sam Mitchell (Haw)
Michael Hurley (Ess)
Jarred McVeigh (Syd)
Tom McDonald (Mel)
Matt Boyd (Western)

Between the 50s: 
Nat Fyfe (Fre) - Polled 6+ points voting EVERY round Freo's played (no one else has polled in more than 10 of their games)
Matt Priddis (WCE)
David Armitage (StK)
Todd Goldstein (NMK)
Dan Hannebury (Syd)
Dylan Shiel (GWS)

Forward of 50:
Lance Franklin (Syd) - it's rare that the highest paid player's also the best, but Buddy is...
Scott Pendelbury (Col)
Luke Parker (Syd)
Jamie Elliot (Col)
Josh Kennedy (WCE)
Eddie Betts (Ade)

Interchange:
Aaron Sandilands (Fre) - the premier ruckman in the game today. 
Andrew Gaff (WCE)
Corey Enright (Geel)
Patrick Dangerfield (Ade)

And, on my personal wish list to watch play any day of the week:
Cyril Rioli (Haw) - Along with Betts, the most exciting player in the game!
Jeremy Cameron (GWS) - the top goal scorer of 2017 and beyond...
Adam Goodes (Syd) - enjoying a fantastic resurgence since May!
Nic Natainui (WCE) - the most athletic player in footy
Rob Murphy (WB) - always on the ball, literally
Marcus Bontempelli (WB) - 2019 Brownlow medalist
Chad Wingard (PA) - a down year for him and Port; still a phenomenal player
Jack Riewoldt (Rich) - Jack would have been player 23 on the All-Aussie list
Jesse Hogan (Melb) - rookie of the year, possibly
Gary Ablett, Jr. (GC) - it took just one game to remind us why he's the greatest player of his generation and the Brownlow favorite any year he's healthy (and some he's not, like 2014!).

(And, by the way, here are our top 22 point getters in voting for Player of the Year so far:)
NAME                           TEAM               POINTS

Fyfe, Nat	F	221
Hannebury, Dan	SY	124
Armitage, David	SK	112
Pendlebury, Scott	CO	106
Cotchin, Trent	R	101
Shiel, Dylan	GW	100
Mitchell, Sam	H	92
Priddis, Matt	WC	91
Goldstein, Todd	NM	88
Steven, Jack	SK	83
Gray, Robbie	PA	81
Murphy, Marc	CA	80
Beams, Dayne	B	80
Franklin, Lance	SY	79
Kennedy, Josh	SY	75
Martin, Dustin	R	74
Dangerfield, Patrick	A	73
Gaff, Andrew	WC	73
Hurley, Michael	E	70
Parker, Luke	SY	70
Murphy, Robert	WB	69
Neale, Lachie	F	68

 

I may have to renege on my Gold Coast fandom...

As more and more stories emerge on the AFL's Gold Coast Suns, their alleged drug culture, the seedy "double-agent player" Karmichael Hunt (who has since gone back to rugby after a seven million dollar venture into footy over the last four years), the cocaine parties at the end-of-season gatherings, and the 1-11 disaster on the field (stretching back to superstar Gary Ablett's shoulder injury last season, the Suns are actually 2-18 over their last twenty games), including the mysterious firing of coach Guy McKenna at the end of last season...I've decided to pull my allegiance from the Suns as my club of choice when rooting from afar. 

It was easy to root for the Suns... new, exciting, young and talented players, the glittering Gold Coast of Australia's touristy southeastern seaside, topped off by the decision of the greatest player in the game: Geelong's Gary Ablett, Jr., chose to make his move from the south coast of Victoria to become the "founding mentor captain" of this new, fledgling club, the seventeenth AFL member (GWS joined the following year, rescuing the Suns from a second "wooden spoon" in 2012).

And they made progress! After three-win seasons in 2011 and 2012, they moved up to 8-14 in 2013, and competitive enough  (92%) to make people see the potential for this young team to make finals soon and compete for championships in the not-so-distant future. Last year, after round 9, they were in third place at 7-2, and even after a tough stretch against some top competition, they entered round 15 with an 8-6 record, ready to tackle Collingwood on an even basis for the first time.

The game was a two-faced milestone for the team.

On the negative side, Ablett was tackled and slammed to the ground in the early third quarter, damaging his shoulder to the point where he wouldn't play again the rest of the season. On the positive end, his teammates rallied (with no exchange players on the bench in the fourth quarter due to multiple injuries) and beat Collingwood heroically by five points to move to 9-6, safely in the top eight, a game clear. 

Then the wheels not only fell off: they flew across the highway and wrecked three cars, flipped the car over and set it on fire.

The Suns won only one more game all season, barely beating lowly St. Kilda and losing to everyone else, to fall to twelfth at 10-12, still their best season ever. At this moment, this is where Karmichael Hunt admitted yesterday to Queensland police that he brought huge amounts of cocaine to share with his teammates at a weekend party following the Manic Monday season-ending bash. 

These accusations came up months ago, as reported by Damian Barrett. and were conveniently swept under the counter. As Barrett notes in that video clip, the essence of the message (then AND now) from both the Suns administration and the AFL, was "Nothing to see here, move along, guys..." , when it seems clear to all that indeed there was and IS something to see and hear. 

As a Christian, I forgive mistakes with ease, as Christ does. But what gets people in trouble with not only God but society as a whole? Hypocrisy. LIE about what you did and didn't do, and get caught lying about it, and you've joined the "Barry Bonds/Lance Armstrong/Alex Rodriguez" school of ruining your life.

That appears to be exactly what the Suns have done, are doing, and will continue to try to o for as long as they can get away with it. They've nailed a number of their players for minor drinking violations - a glass of wine with family the weekend after a game? - to bend over backwards to prove they don't have a drug culture, forgetting that the first rule of spotting a liar is to watch them exaggerate in the other direction. Now that Hunt has apparently sung to the cops about what his part in the game was, here's hoping the Suns players AND management finally come clean about this. (But I doubt this will happen.)

Meanwhile...anyone got a team to suggest? My late wife always favored Geelong, as she loved Cats. I've liked the team cultures there and at Fremantle and Hawthorn, for example, beyond their recent success on the field. When they're playing well, I love watching Sydney, Port, or Brisbane. Hmmmm.... I might need to stay neutral for the season...

An interesting perspective on football injuries, from a guy who should know

While this is an AFL article, it applies to ALL sports: American football, futbol, basketball, you name it. When you're injured, take care of it.

Gary Ablett Jr, the consensus best player in footy, had a season-ending shoulder injury in round 15 last year, went through surgery and rehab, and pronounced himself ready to start the season. But in rounds one and two, he was mugged mercilessly by the opposition "taggers" (defenders assigned to cover him) and it was clear that the shoulder still wasn't "right". Rather than play half-strength, he's chosen to sit out for at least two weeks and try to put it back into the shape it needs to be to play a roughhouse game like footy. 

Retired AFL legend Wayne Carey writes a thoughtful article on the topic in The Age, and it's worth a read no matter what sport you follow - are short-term on-field endeavors worth long-term physical damage? It relates back to the concussion conversations in American football, and to the knee damage that so many basketball players suffer as well. In short, Carey says he's changed his mind and now agrees with Ablett's decision, because of the difficulty Carey now has trying to pick up his infant daughter.

This is an AMAZING video!

Peter Dickson created an amazing view of the 2014 AFL Grand Final through the eyes of two random fans, good friends, one who roots for Hawthorn and one for Sydney. 

If you like the work NFL Films does, you'll LOVE this one!

Also, the AFL film folks premiered a piece on the world as seen through the eyes of footy superstar Gary Ablett Jr of the Gold Coast Suns - not having Australian television, I haven't seen it yet, but a short version was posted on the AFL website that looks like they did a remarkable job putting it together!