I posted this on BigFooty.com in response to a question on ranking teams by their 'effort' for Season 2007. It's an interesting exercise where the teams are ranked by effort and not games won
1. Cats – Tried hard and were well rewarded if an Premiership, 9 All-Australian's, the Brownlow medal, Norm Smith medal, Rookie of the Year, VFL Premiership are any indication!
2. Kangaroos – How the hell did this team finish top 4?? How did they beat the Hawks to get into Prelim final?? Great coach, great team work ethic. The Shinboner Spirit isn’t a myth under Laidley
3. Eagles - Fought it out to the end in a tough season on and off field
4. Pies - Bit up and down during year but September proved they are tough
5. Swans – Gutsy team. They try hard but will struggle in the new era with their current players and game plan
6. Crows - They put in every game and try all season but they don't have the forwards. Bizarre pre-season trading and season ending injury to Rutten will see them into the bottom 4 this year
7. Hawthorn – they do try hard, but there wasn’t evidence of that by falling out of the Top 4 in the final weeks of the regular season, and then following that up in the finals with a poor win over the Crows and awful loss to Roos the next week
8. Brisbane – Lethal Leigh Matthews' teams are nothing if not committed
9. Bulldogs – They do try pretty hard. Imagine Rocket Eade yelling at you if you were soft! You wouldn't do it to yourself
10. Carlton – I thought they fought hard in a lot of their games last year. Be interesting to see if Ratten can keep that up. Pagan was pretty harshly treated in my view. He might have been a bit out of the times, but in watching the games it was skill errors killing Carlton and not tactics. Kouta is now on Aussie Gladiator. Say no more
11. Fremantle – they’re not the worst tryers but they sure ain’t the best
12. Saints – I reckon they expect a lot to happen for them after reading too many Mike Sheahan pieces and Summers camps with Grant Thomas
13. Essendon – I think the last game of the season against the Eagles with a near incredible come from behind win said it all. When they want to, they can turn it on. The problem is they just don’t want to. Slim chance of still making the 8, Kevin Sheedy and James Hird’s last game at the MCG, and they lose to Richmond?? Come on
14. Port Power – I don’t know how they finished 2nd. Their effort in the GF lacked a lot of fight. New soft AFL rule interpretations allow light, tall and speedy sides like this to flourish. But they suck when it is either wet or tough or, perish the thought for them, BOTH
15. Richmond – With Wallace as your coach, dumping someone like Gaspar a couple of games into the season, why would you even want to try? More drink cards at Metro, please
16. Melbourne – They dropped their bundle after early losses
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
10 Things I Hate about "3:10 to Yuma"
I thought I’d put a few thoughts down about the western '3.10 to Yuma', starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Apart from some exceptional acting by the pair as the bounce their contrasting styles off each other, the camera work is quite average and the pace of the film is disjointed. In fact, the acting is so good that for most of the film you forget how silly the story is until you get to the final scene where it all becomes too much.
Having watched a lot of TV as a child and teenager, I recall there are some cardinal rules in westerns that might have been forgotten when writing the script for this picture
1. Don’t light fires at night if you have a posse of bad guys chasing you.
2. Don’t light fires at night in Apache territory.
3. Don’t sit by the fire while aforementioned angry Apache’s are firing rifles at you.
4. It is standard practice to tie bad-guys hands behind their back so they can’t punch, strangle, knife you, or grab your gun.
5. It is also standard practice to tie bad-guys to a tree or some immovable object while you’re sleeping so they can’t kill you, get away or, heaven forbid, maybe even both.
6. People with wooden legs usually walk with a limp. Usually.
7. People with wooden legs can’t run that well. Most of the time.
8. People with wooden legs definitely can’t run over the tops of buildings and jump of roofs. Ever.
9. Bad guys really don’t care if your 14 year old son likes you
10. Bad guys really don’t want to get on a train to prison when they can be riding high to the border with $10 grand in stolen railway money. Even if they do care about your son’s need for a respectable male role model
Having watched a lot of TV as a child and teenager, I recall there are some cardinal rules in westerns that might have been forgotten when writing the script for this picture
1. Don’t light fires at night if you have a posse of bad guys chasing you.
2. Don’t light fires at night in Apache territory.
3. Don’t sit by the fire while aforementioned angry Apache’s are firing rifles at you.
4. It is standard practice to tie bad-guys hands behind their back so they can’t punch, strangle, knife you, or grab your gun.
5. It is also standard practice to tie bad-guys to a tree or some immovable object while you’re sleeping so they can’t kill you, get away or, heaven forbid, maybe even both.
6. People with wooden legs usually walk with a limp. Usually.
7. People with wooden legs can’t run that well. Most of the time.
8. People with wooden legs definitely can’t run over the tops of buildings and jump of roofs. Ever.
9. Bad guys really don’t care if your 14 year old son likes you
10. Bad guys really don’t want to get on a train to prison when they can be riding high to the border with $10 grand in stolen railway money. Even if they do care about your son’s need for a respectable male role model
Sunday, February 3, 2008
What Happened to Daniel Johns?
Somewhere along the line, something has gone very, very wrong with our Daniel
He's lost his hot wife and seems to have replaced her with the disastrously untalented Paul Mac.
I was checking them out at the Gold Coast Big Day Out, and the band that once toured with the Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam now have backing singers, a wind section and 2 guys on keyboards. Somebody hold my hair while I WRETCH!
And I don't know if this tops it off because I haven't ranked all the bad things that happened during the short time I was taking this little horror in but he was addressing the crowd in an American accent. Unbelievable. It's not like he even lives in LA or has an American wife or anything you could thing of that would make this type of thing semi-understandable. An American accent, I mean come on
And he introduced Paul Mac twice!
I can only imagine how the other 2 feel every time John’s tows in Paul Mac to the studio and lisps “Hi guysth, Paulth justh come in to help usth out tooodayyyy…” There’d definitely be some wincing going on. The drummer would probably think about impaling himself through the eye with his sticks, but then think twice after realising his own private bogan paradise in the backblocks of Newcastle is nearly complete with replica Playboy pool grotto and motorcross circuit. Sweeeeeeeet
A disturbing fact is that ‘young modern’ is Paul Mac’s nickname for young Daniel. And that is what they called the last album………….
He needs to get rid of that guy and start listening to Muse and Karnivool for some well needed inspiration. I can't imagine his Aussie fan base staying with him too much longer if he keeps Paul Mac around
He's lost his hot wife and seems to have replaced her with the disastrously untalented Paul Mac.
I was checking them out at the Gold Coast Big Day Out, and the band that once toured with the Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam now have backing singers, a wind section and 2 guys on keyboards. Somebody hold my hair while I WRETCH!
And I don't know if this tops it off because I haven't ranked all the bad things that happened during the short time I was taking this little horror in but he was addressing the crowd in an American accent. Unbelievable. It's not like he even lives in LA or has an American wife or anything you could thing of that would make this type of thing semi-understandable. An American accent, I mean come on
And he introduced Paul Mac twice!
I can only imagine how the other 2 feel every time John’s tows in Paul Mac to the studio and lisps “Hi guysth, Paulth justh come in to help usth out tooodayyyy…” There’d definitely be some wincing going on. The drummer would probably think about impaling himself through the eye with his sticks, but then think twice after realising his own private bogan paradise in the backblocks of Newcastle is nearly complete with replica Playboy pool grotto and motorcross circuit. Sweeeeeeeet
A disturbing fact is that ‘young modern’ is Paul Mac’s nickname for young Daniel. And that is what they called the last album………….
He needs to get rid of that guy and start listening to Muse and Karnivool for some well needed inspiration. I can't imagine his Aussie fan base staying with him too much longer if he keeps Paul Mac around
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