Buddy…a celestial phenomenon
In his budget reply speech on Thursday, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott accused the Prime Minister of waging class warfare on the Australian people. In declaring this, it is likely he also had in mind the following night’s Melbourne v Hawthorn duel, as these two teams have long represented the classic class warfare clash between old money and new; establishment versus nouveau–riche, post-war boom versus 80s boom.
As has been the case in recent times, the nouveau-riche of Hawthorn won the night with its abundant wealth of possession, its brash displays of showy ball use, its dare and dash, its excess, which cruelly exposed the decay of Melbourne’s old world establishment structures.
It had rained in Melbourne during the day, but not too much, and certainly not enough to explain the slipping over and fumbling ball use that afflicted both sides in the first quarter. The match began as it meant to go on, with Hawthorn controlling possession and kicking waywardly at goal. Melbourne seized on Hawthorn’s wasted opportunities midway through the first quarter and began to play some strong, direct football, playing through James Magner, who was too quick for Guerra, and kicking high to Mitch Clark who without Gibson on hand to spoil, was pulling down some big marks over Schoenmakers and Gillham – a welcome ‘in’ for the Hawks.
Melbourne took a 9 point lead at one stage: 3.3.21 – with Clark contributing 3.2 of that – while Hawthorn sat on 1.6.12. Then Buddy marked strongly on the outer wing and swung a 60 metre pass onto the chest of The Poo, (or Pup as one of my friends prefers to call him), who had drifted forward to be the only player in the Hawks forward 50 and then strolling in to kick his second for the quarter.
The Hawks trailed narrowly at quarter time but the signs were there; for Melbourne to win, Clark was going to have to threaten Fred Fanning’s long standing record of 18 goals.
Really, all Hawthorn had to do was organise itself defensively and from quarter time Grant Birchall pretty much controlled every ball that went into that region, and Clark didn’t kick another all night. In fact Melbourne only added three more goals over the remaining three quarters. As Hawthorn controlled the ball through Sewell, Hale, Shiels and Lewis, the main interest in the match became whether Buddy could kick a set shot. He did in the end, but it was a banana from a very tight angle.
As always Buddy was the biggest presence on the ground, constantly threatening, constantly brilliant, but consistently missing shots at goal. He ended with 3.7 for the night and has kicked 9.22 in the past four matches. Sure, some of his attempts are speculative at best, and you can forgive him for missing shots other players wouldn’t even get off. Likewise, the set shot from 35 metres out directly in front has never been his strong suit, but he’s even missing them from 55 out on the boundary, on the less favourable side for a left-footer – normally his bread and butter shot!
Fans worrying that Buddy’s bad kicking is endemic and may hinder our progress this year can rest easy, because it can all be explained by astronomy. And the good news is; it’s going to get better. Observers of celestial and lunar phenomena will have noted, if not marvelled, at the ‘supermoon’ that hovered over us this week. The ‘supermoon’ or ‘perigee-syzygy’ (keep that word in mind for Scrabble) as those without a sense of a snappy headline refer to it, describes the period when a full Moon coincides with the closest approach of the Moon to Earth in its elliptical orbit, making the Moon appear bigger in the sky than normal.
It’s well known that the Moon affects the natural world on Earth, or ‘impacts the contest’ as we might say in footy-speak. The ebb and flow of the tides, or rise and fall of sea levels, changes according to the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. And this force is stronger when the Moon is closer to Earth. Imagine then what it’s doing to Buddy’s natural arc and the flight of the ball – itself a celestial object once it’s been launched from Buddy’s boot! So with the Moon now waning, and moving further away, its gravitational pull on the Sherrin in flight will lessen and we can expect Buddy’s kicking accuracy to improve.
Irrespective of accuracy, sheer weight of possession and the difference in skill level and desperation meant that Hawthorn was always going to win quite easily. Melbourne is barely competitive at the moment and don’t look like getting better any time soon. This blog is really about Hawthorn, but it’s the Mother’s day round and my mum supports Melbourne, so I feel I need to query where the Dees are going, which at present is nowhere. Their performance was lacklustre; at times woeful. In the final quarter a Melbourne player had possession on the boundary at half back. He looked inboard and kicked it directly to Mat Suckling who was standing by himself about 25 metres out, directly in front, with no Melbourne player anywhere near him. The player kicking the ball was under no pressure and it’s unclear who he was even aiming for.
One of the Melbourne fans I sat with raised the spectre of the Gold Coast and the Giants playing a draw the following day, giving both of them 2 points and leaving Melbourne on the bottom on zero. As it turned out, the Giants won and given the Suns already have a superior percentage to Melbourne, that’s where they’ve ended up anyway.
When I eventually got home around midnight (it’s a long trawl from the MCG to Essendon by public transport) I flicked around the channels and started watching Rebekah Brooks giving evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, which for some reason was being broadcast live on ABC24. The rather unflappable Robert Jay, QC, subjected Ms Brooks to a series of questions that she was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to answer – certainly she wasn’t accepting any blame or responsibility, or even conceding that there was much wrong. I hope Mark Neeld watched her performance because he might find himself facing similar scrutiny over the coming weeks and he would do well to copy her technique. Of course answers of the “I don’t recall” and “I don’t remember if he was present” variety are even less convincing at a post-match news conference than at an Inquiry of this nature, but then he won’t be locking horns with anyone equal to Mr Jay in the inquisitor stakes. Even our footy scribes, however, should be able to out to him some straight-forward simple questions such as: “How is it that Melbourne is so underprepared for matches?”, “What do you actually do at training?”, “Did you have lunch with David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch in Santorini?”
Mark Neeld might find himself in Santorini soon. We’re accustomed to clubs sacking coaches mid-season when performance is below par, but I suspect Mark Neeld might sack Melbourne first and move to Europe. As he contemplates a 0-7 win loss ratio, with games against Sydney, Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood to come, expect to hear him quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” when referring to playing at the G:
A savage place! As holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
It may be hard to pick exactly where the Hawks are placed after this performance, but you suspect the wailing will continue for a while yet at Melbourne.
Final scores: Hawthorn 15 25 115 d Melbourne 6 13 49
Buddy goal tally – 3, total = 19
Buddy behind tally – 7, total = 31
What went wrong: Our misuse of the sub rule. Firstly subbing out Cyril, not that much had worked for him all night, and bringing on Osborne, whose only action was to sustain a knee injury within 3 minutes, ending his night and possibly the season.
What we loved: Roughy – he may just be our best player, and the return of Gillham.
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