Michelangelo Rucci: South Australian-born players rule in our AFL super team
MICHELANGELO Rucci has taken the liberty of crunching Malcolm Blight’s all-time Crows and Power teams into one Super 22. And SA-born players dominate. See who gets a guernsey here.
Michelangelo Rucci
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IF. To quote four-time Magarey Medallist Russell Ebert from the 1970s: “Small word, but it means a helluva lot in football.”
If the ball from Lenny Hayes’ kick bounced towards — rather than away — from Stephen Milne at the end of the 2010 AFL grand final, St Kilda would have two flags, Ross Lyon would be a premiership coach and grand final replays would still be on the league’s books. If!
If the Crows did not have so many injuries this year; if (as Kane Cornes likes to remind all) Matthew Pavlich had played for either Port Adelaide or the Crows, there would have been more street parades in Adelaide to celebrate AFL premierships … If, if, if.
Hall of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight has spent the past fortnight picking for The Advertiser his all-time best Adelaide and Power line-ups since SA football was transformed with the AFL’s presence in 1991. If there could be a “Super Showdown” for the Malcolm Blight Cup between these two teams, who would win?
In an era of computer-generated games, such a fantasy derby is not too difficult to organise. Although, the “Super Showdown” could play out to a vastly different style if it was at Football Park rather than the “faster” Adelaide Oval.
But what if Blight’s two teams were to be put against one another to come up with one super team?
It is an interesting exercise. Start with the lead ruckmen — Crows premiership hero Shaun Rehn against former Port Adelaide captain Matthew Primus, who was denied the title of “premiership skipper” in 2004 by a knee injury? Primus gets the nod on Rehn’s own admission that his Power rival had his number in Showdowns.
There are some other standout selections. Hall of Famer and Power premiership captain Warren Tredrea at centre half-forward ahead of Crows premiership forward Matthew Robran. Norm Smith Medallist Andrew McLeod as the follower ahead of Port Adelaide premiership hero Peter Burgoyne.
And there are some tough calls to make. At half-forward, Brownlow Medallist Patrick Dangerfield or Brownlow Medallist Gavin Wanganeen? Both players won their Brownlows away from Adelaide. Dangerfield was at the start of his grand career as a Crow; Wanganeen closed his 300-game AFL career with the Power and was Port Adelaide’s inaugural AFL captain.
Wanganeen gets the nod … and any team that plays with Patrick Dangerfield consigned to the reserves is clearly a super line-up.
The final “super team” has 12 Crows players and 10 from Port Adelaide. It easily could have been 11-11, reflecting the 22-22 count in 44 Showdowns since 1997.
But the most striking note after almost three decades of AFL football in SA — and the national draft diluting of SA content in the two Adelaide-based teams — is the dominance of SA-born players in the super team. There are 18 of the 22 positions taken by South Australians, including all six in defence.
There are only two Victorians (Primus and Robbie Gray); one West Australian (Showdown specialist Josh Carr) and one Northern Territorian (McLeod).
If only such a line-up existed at either West Lakes or Alberton today.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
A LITTLE piece of you dies each time you say something publicly that you don’t actually believe.
BROWNLOW Medallist CHRIS JUDD.
REALITY BITES
LAST WORD
(Perhaps)
WHEN inaugural Crows coach GRAHAM CORNES declares “more please” at the end of an Adelaide Football Club press conference, the AFL club should take this plea as the ultimate example of how last Saturday’s session at West Lakes became a failure.
After months of denial, Crows football boss BRETT BURTON delivered confirmation of the contentious issues from Adelaide’s pre-season camp on the Gold Coast - and an end to the controversial use of outside agency, Collective Mind, to make the Crows players mentally stronger and better connected as a team.
The Monday footy talkfests were scathing of Adelaide presented itself as Burton and coach Don Pyke left more questions than answers from their 30-minute session.
To quote some of Australian football’s leading voices:
SYDNEY premiership coach PAUL ROOS on Fox Footy’s On The Couch: “I haven’t seen a butchered press conference like that for a long period of time. I’d heard that they were having a press conference and thought, ‘They’re going to address something’. I watched a lot of it and they addressed nothing.”
FORMER Melbourne captain GARRY LYON on the same show: “It just looked like they wanted to do the press conference while the footy was on, throw the Tom Lynch re-signing in there as a little sweetener and hopefully get the positive press. ‘Nothing to see here, we’ll move on’ - it doesn’t work that way.”
And former North Melbourne chairman JAMES BRAYSHAW on Melbourne’s TripleM: “‘Shambles’ would be the word I’d use to describe it and embarrassing - especially the line where the head of footy Brett Burton started piling into the press and saying, ‘We just find a lot of what’s been reported about what happened on the camp laughable and farcical’, and whatever the words he used were.
“The press turned around and said, ‘Alright, well tell us what did happen.’ (Burton said) ‘Oh no, I won’t be doing that.’ It was just embarrassing.
“I always said in a previous life at North Melbourne (as chairman), ‘Tell 100 per cent of the truth 100 per cent of the time’ because you’re not going to get away with any of it in 2018.
“Maybe in 1998 you might have but now there is too much reporting and the reporting is too good … it’s always going to find its way out and it will be embarrassing if you don’t tell the truth.”
It seems they still feel under siege at West Lakes with many of the club’s leaders ignoring these reviews of the press conference to believe that Saturday’s event was well handled ... and everyone can indeed move on.
Such a pity that valuable feedback hits a brick wall at the Adelaide Football Club.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Juddy, as nice as it would be if we were married, I think the only people who can comment on whether I have become a better husband or son is my wife and parents.
— Rory Sloane (@rorysloane9) June 26, 2018
“Juddy, as nice as it would be if we were married, I think the only people who can comment on whether I have become a better husband or son is my wife and parents.”
CROWS vice-captain RORY SLOANE firing back at CHRIS JUDD.
The Brownlow Medallist weighed into the Adelaide pre-season camp saga from the Gold Coast on Monday saying: “When I did hear Rory Sloane talk like that about the camp, it just reminded me of the pressures players are under for group thinking and to toe the party line - and when you do toe the party line for an extended period of time, there is a big cost to players. A little piece of you dies each time you say something publicly that you don’t actually believe.”
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
IS there at least one AFL club rethinking the money-making plan to have its matches presented on a digital stream rather than on traditional television signals?
Surely the “Floptus” moment with the World Cup from Russia is the greatest warning of following other sports to the digital world.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
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