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Americanisation

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You know, I see quite a few of these YouTube videos where Americans compare stuff to what happens in Australia. It is not these that peak my interest, but rather that the global Americanisation is so ubiquitous. Everything about modern life is largely the same in the western world. Have a think about the computer age and where that originated. The internet and social media are American inventions. Smart phones are a big part of this and they too are a US innovation. Beyond this, to more prosaic trends and think about working out, bigger muscles and tattoos. These too, are American cultural shifts, which occurred over the last couple of decades.Continue Reading

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Has Dean Cox Inherited A Damaged Team?

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Those blowhards in the AFL media, them overpaid talking heads with exaggerated reputations, will be coming for the Sydney Swans, now that they have plummeted down the ladder. Back to back 10 to 15 goal thrashings will do that. It will be ‘so-called’ incisive judgements about the lack of talent on the Sydney list and how they will have to go into rebuild mode. These ‘geniuses’ all jump on the judgemental ‘must rebuild’ media led bandwagons, which saw clubs like Melbourne and North Melbourne stuck down the bottom of the ladder for decades. Here is a Sydney Swans playing list evaluation in 2025.Continue Reading

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Football - AFL Multicultural Round Commemorative Ball, Lin Jong, 8 Aug 2015

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Gerard Healy calls for the tag and it has become a running joke. Tag every player, maybe? Could it be because nobody plays on anyone anymore in AFL? The demand for tagging is really a deeper cry for greater accountability? A bit more mano on mano? Funnily enough, ball use efficiency decreases when the tag is applied. AFL mutterings in the manosphere. No kidding, it’s not rocket science but the coaching stratagems are so far up you know where with zoning pinched from basketball that the penny aint dropped. Footy has become the unaccountable game. When I played the game we all played on someone.Continue Reading

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white swan

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Or has he made a mess of his first few months of the season, as head coach of the Swans in 2025? Tom McCartin? A failed experiment still costing the team stability and continuity. The Sydney Swans AFL  side is sliding down to the lower reaches of a long ladder. 14th place. Has Dean Cox inherited a damaged team? Did John Longmire exit a traumatised football team? Injuries to important senior players have made things worse to be sure. However if a solid system was in place, then, the thinking goes that new soldiers come in and play the roles required. This is not happening in terms of four quarter performances producing winning results.Continue Reading

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Football Record - AFL Women's (AFLW) Competition, Feb-Apr 2020

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The truth about AFL football these days is that nobody plays on each other. If you look around the ground during a game, you will see 36 players standing off from one another. Sure, the full forward and full back may be nearer to each other than most, but nobody is wearing the other, like in the old days. The modern footy game is a high possession, low contest affair that sees the ball move quickly up and down the ground. This higher scoring style of play is by design. Rule changes by those in charge of the AFL have reduced the defensive nature of the game.Continue Reading

Football - Sherrin, circa 2001

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They say that opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one. The question is whether there are some expert arseholes out there in media land. The AFL media landscape is largely populated by loud mouthed ex-footballers. These chaps have currency in the minds of the listening audience. Fans of the game want product associated with the game seven days a week it seems. These paid producers of content in the form of spurious leaked information and speculative opinion keep the home fires burning. They soon learn that the more controversial the material the more mileage they get out of it. Kane Cornes, David King and co. Therefore, much of what we hear in the footy meta sphere is pumped full of hot air. Coaches and the media: AFL sacrificial slaughter feeds the fans.Continue Reading

Football - AFL Multicultural Round Commemorative Ball, Lin Jong, 8 Aug 2015

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Following another worrying performance in front of goals, do the Swans need a head doctor? It cannot be a complete coincidence that they were playing Geelong, the team that thrashed them in the 2022 AFL grand final. Scar tissue manifests in many ways and, perhaps, the Sydney Swans are traumatised deep inside. AFL is a physical game played at breakneck speed until that moment when the forward must compose himself to take a set shot. Suddenly, the expectations of team, crowd, and self coalesce into a pressure situation inside the player with the kicking boots on standing before the goals.Continue Reading

Sydney Swans’ Serial Neglect Of Ruck Stocks

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AFL premiership sides boast first string rucks more often than not. The Sydney Swans serial neglect of ruck stocks has cost them flags, in my view. Once again, the club finds itself thin on the ground when it comes to quality big men. Watching the games this year and the season last year the Swans lack of top quality ruckmen has been apparent. This has been going on for too many years and reflects a blind spot  when it comes to recruiting and developing big men. Peter Ladhams is developing and will get better but the Swans need more depth.Continue Reading

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Funnily enough I am not a new Australian. I am not a mere visitor to these shores. I have lived and breathed the blessed air of this great southern land since Molly Meldrum was straight and Kent had it all together. Despite my many years wracked up on both the west and east coast of this island nation I still have a few head scratching moments. Trying to understand AFL footy is one of them when it comes to goal kicking players and why they take out their mouthguards and stuff them in their jocks or socks. How does a mouthguard impact upon the process of walking in and kicking at the goals? Could you get anything more unhygienic than placing an oral protective guard in a dirty sock or sweaty pair of underpants and then popping back in your gob?Continue Reading

Chris Scott - Coaches and The Media: AFL Sacrificial Slaughter Feeds The Fans

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Sport in Australia is akin to a naked fat man in a fishbowl bending over. There is way too much scrutiny of a silly game through the lenses of multiple media channels. Talk of AFL coaches and players facing unreasonable levels of stress and pressure in their jobs is all too real. In this country, we have excessive amounts of media focused on the major football codes at the elite level. It seems, we are a nation that largely ignores the important stuff involving our state leaders and politicians but sweats on sporting minutiae.Continue Reading