The AFL Rover's rant: 'Best Grand Final in history'? Let's just hope it's a decent game

The Rover

•
The AFL Rover's rant: 'Best Grand Final in history'? Let's just hope it's a decent game image

I love the Collingwood story as much as anyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love Collingwood, but the Magpies’ 2018 AFL rags-to-riches tale, struggling against injuries and everything else the world can throw at them, all the while with a freakishly tall American in the team – wow! 

Buy the movie rights now ‘coz you’ll make millions.

But just quietly, it’s all starting to wear a bit thin.

MORE: Sam Jacobs tells the Grand Final loser's story | Six players that matter in the Grand Final

The catalyst for my annoyance is an article veteran football journalist Jon Anderson wrote in The Age on Thursday, claiming a Collingwood win on Saturday may make it “the best grand final in history”.

“When you think about the subplots… there’s probably five players out of their best 22 on Saturday due to injury,” Anderson writes.

“Then there’s Tyson Goldsack coming back so quickly from a knee reconstruction.

“You’ve got Travis Varcoe and the tragic situation with his sister.

“Josh Thomas coming back (from a drug ban).

“Jordan De Goey was banished from the club.

“Then there’s Mason Cox.

“There’s so many stories.”

Spare us!

To say there’s five players missing from Collingwood’s best 22 is easy and something that’s been thrown around by anyone interested in building up the romance of the moment. 

I’m presuming those five are Lynden Dunn, Jamie Elliott, Darcy Moore, Daniel Wells and Matt Scharenberg.

So let’s have a look at them.

When fit, Elliott is one of the best small forwards in the game, no doubt about it – top 22.

 

Daniel Wells played 19 games in 2016 but hasn’t notched more than 10 in any of the other past five seasons. His four games this year saw an average of 12.5 disposals. He’s 33-years-old and will turn 34 before round one next year.

To put it bluntly; he’s old, he’s a crock, and he’s not in the Magpies’ best 22.

There’s been a lot made of Lynden Dunn’s rebirth since crossing from Melbourne, but his numbers in the 14 games he notched up this year are his worst since 2011.

OK, he’s a mid-sized defender and it’s not all about numbers.

Scharenberg’s also a mid-sized defender. 

So are Goldsack and Jack Crisp and Jeremy Howe and Tom Langdon.

Hang on, how many defenders are we slotting into a best 22?

However many it is, there isn’t room for Darcy Moore down back, and there isn’t room for him up forward.

No way is Darcy kicking Mason Cox out of the side and, to be perfectly honest, Brody Mihocek has been a much better second key forward in his debut season than Moore has managed in his career to date.

Find the players in the current Collingwood line-up that Ando’s fabulous five are going to replace and we’ll let him keep the claim, but it ain’t happening. 

We’ll take Elliott for James Aish or Josh Thomas, and maybe one of Scharenberg or Dunn for … Goldsack.

Yeah, Goldy’s come back early from a knee, but he’s not any bloody good.

Josh Kennedy got off the leash and won the qualifying final for West Coast, Jack Riewoldt was the only Tiger threatening to do the same last week.

Goldsack’s opponents.

Goldy is the donkey that lives in the thoroughbred’s stables to keep the horses happy – great for morale, not so good at racing.

As for Josh Thomas coming back from a drug ban and Jordan De Goey being banished from the club? 

It’s a bit like celebrating Rolf Harris’ comeback tour as 'a sparkling return to top form after a time of terrible adversity.

“And then there’s Mason Cox”.

Speaking about donkeys! And yes. I’m sure the metaphor works on various levels.

The guy’s a radio tower with hands which, more often than not, he forgets how to use.

Outside of his five-minute, three-goal burst last week Cox had three effective disposals for the rest of the game and made some howling errors by foot. 

If he was a six-foot eleven forward from Subiaco he would be nicknamed ‘Spider’ and lambasted for his goofy clumsiness and occasional involvement in proceedings, but a six-foot eleven god-knows-what from Texas who had his parents in the crowd – dad looking bemused and mum looking, let’s face it, pretty good – what a story!

But that’s all it is, a story.

It might be a pretty good one come 5pm Saturday, and we’ll say Goldy was great and De Goey’s the new Gary Ablett senior, warts and all, and we’ll find out about Cox’s nieces and nephews and hopefully see more of his mum.

But the best Grand Final story in history?

Wasn’t that last year when the Tigers came from nowhere on the back of Brandon Ellis’ life story?

Wasn’t it the year before when the Bulldogs and Boydy did it for Bob?

I don’t need it to be the best Grand Final in history, I’d just like it to be the best game in September which, at the moment, won’t be hard to beat.

 

The Rover

The Rover Photo