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STUART MAXFIELD now knows he's not in for much of an intellectual struggle this year.
His fellow captains are as dense as behind posts. At a recent photo shoot they voted the Swans out of the eight this year.
They are almost as dumb as the Melbourne media who last year voted Sydney for the wooden spoon, thicker than the wrapping around the goal posts, which is there to protect the post against headbutting by captains.
Sydney start with a coach, Paul Roos, who is one of the smartest to enter the league in years, after being one of its brainiest players. We ran Terry Wallace out of town. We didn't need no Mexican with a stinkin' badge, we had our own boy.
And Roos took his team of hornets to within one quarter of the grand final before fatigue and inexperience brought them undone against Brisbane, who would go on and, to the delight of the civilised world, thrash the impostors Collingwood, and so confuse their grey-haired weeper of a coach Mick Malthouse - who is looking more like Norman Bates' mother with each passing year - that he was recently photographed with hair on his bottom lip, trying to look more like Frank Zappa, who has been dead for 10 years. Write off Fat Eddie's lot for openers.
We get Roos a year wiser and still no sign of a grey hair, although he may be reaching for the Grecian Formula if he can't shore up his defence with a bit more beef.
Then there is the "Prince" of forwards - the player formerly known as Big Bad Bustling Biffing Blockbusting Battering Barry Hall. He didn't, like Andrew Schauble, spend the off-season in a cave in the Andes swapping epigrams over incense with gurus older and greyer than Malthouse. But Bazza may have passed through Geelong because he has returned with a new personality and possibly a new handbag.
He is now, according to glossy magazines, a big cuddly Mother Teresa, mentoring young rookies and promising his opponents neck rubs and Queer Eye grooming tips away from play instead of whacks behind the year and gobsful of the usual dialogue.
He will also be waiting by the umpires' race to embrace them like a tree-hugger in The Domain. He may actually now get a free kick when people use him for rock climbing or woodchopping practice. Neither he nor Plugger managed one in 10 years but Roos has heavied the AFL to sort it out. You want a football team in Sydney? Then give us a fair go - give our lovely Bazza a free.
It could be the start of something big. Barry Hall running amok at centre half-forward getting free kicks? Go away you rival captains, have a very large brandy, and a brain scan if you think this isn't going to make a difference. After all he got 64 goals from centre half-forward last season with the opposition hanging off him like sandbags.
And just when they are trying to come to grips with Bazza's Oprah impersonation Mick O'Loughlin will be working his bag of tricks in the goalsquare and Adam Schneider and Nick Davis performing baffling curlicues on the flanks. And now throw in my boy. Ryan O'Keefe. The word is: very big season. Solid as a rock. Big blasts from the 50m line and further.
So there is plenty for the brain rusts of the other mobs to think about in the Sydney forward line, especially as midfielders like Jude Bolton, Nic Fosdike, Maxfield and Paul Williams are expected to rocket the ball forward.
And then there is the big X factor in Stephen Doyle. For years I've been promoting this flagpole - 203cm and 105kg - as the foil for champion ruckman Jason Ball and the extra threat lurking in the forward pocket. Unfortunately he has played only 20 games since 2000. Injury prone? He can do a knee, or an ankle, or a hamstring while putting a cue-tip in his ear.
The word at the club is, however, that he is back and ready to fire after kicking five goals in a practice match last week without suffering a broken neck or poliomyelitis.
And during a total brain scan at St Vincent's in the off-season, suspecting calcium deposits on the medulla oblongata, club doctors were startled to find a deep vein of mongrel within the hypothalamus. The man is now officially certified as dangerous. This is a complexity of nuclear proportions to those boofhead captains.
Once he is ready, if he doesn't trip over his feet coming down the race and break his elbow, cork his leg running over the cheerladeers, or brain himself on the pole holding up the banner, mayhem is practically guaranteed.
And you can afford a Handbag Hall if you've got a Detonator Doyle leaving a trail of quivering human wreckage behind him, as Adam Goodes runs wild picking up 200 Brownlow votes. Be afraid ye captains, very afraid you silly boys.
[email protected]
The Daily Telegraph
His fellow captains are as dense as behind posts. At a recent photo shoot they voted the Swans out of the eight this year.
They are almost as dumb as the Melbourne media who last year voted Sydney for the wooden spoon, thicker than the wrapping around the goal posts, which is there to protect the post against headbutting by captains.
Sydney start with a coach, Paul Roos, who is one of the smartest to enter the league in years, after being one of its brainiest players. We ran Terry Wallace out of town. We didn't need no Mexican with a stinkin' badge, we had our own boy.
And Roos took his team of hornets to within one quarter of the grand final before fatigue and inexperience brought them undone against Brisbane, who would go on and, to the delight of the civilised world, thrash the impostors Collingwood, and so confuse their grey-haired weeper of a coach Mick Malthouse - who is looking more like Norman Bates' mother with each passing year - that he was recently photographed with hair on his bottom lip, trying to look more like Frank Zappa, who has been dead for 10 years. Write off Fat Eddie's lot for openers.
We get Roos a year wiser and still no sign of a grey hair, although he may be reaching for the Grecian Formula if he can't shore up his defence with a bit more beef.
Then there is the "Prince" of forwards - the player formerly known as Big Bad Bustling Biffing Blockbusting Battering Barry Hall. He didn't, like Andrew Schauble, spend the off-season in a cave in the Andes swapping epigrams over incense with gurus older and greyer than Malthouse. But Bazza may have passed through Geelong because he has returned with a new personality and possibly a new handbag.
He is now, according to glossy magazines, a big cuddly Mother Teresa, mentoring young rookies and promising his opponents neck rubs and Queer Eye grooming tips away from play instead of whacks behind the year and gobsful of the usual dialogue.
He will also be waiting by the umpires' race to embrace them like a tree-hugger in The Domain. He may actually now get a free kick when people use him for rock climbing or woodchopping practice. Neither he nor Plugger managed one in 10 years but Roos has heavied the AFL to sort it out. You want a football team in Sydney? Then give us a fair go - give our lovely Bazza a free.
It could be the start of something big. Barry Hall running amok at centre half-forward getting free kicks? Go away you rival captains, have a very large brandy, and a brain scan if you think this isn't going to make a difference. After all he got 64 goals from centre half-forward last season with the opposition hanging off him like sandbags.
And just when they are trying to come to grips with Bazza's Oprah impersonation Mick O'Loughlin will be working his bag of tricks in the goalsquare and Adam Schneider and Nick Davis performing baffling curlicues on the flanks. And now throw in my boy. Ryan O'Keefe. The word is: very big season. Solid as a rock. Big blasts from the 50m line and further.
So there is plenty for the brain rusts of the other mobs to think about in the Sydney forward line, especially as midfielders like Jude Bolton, Nic Fosdike, Maxfield and Paul Williams are expected to rocket the ball forward.
And then there is the big X factor in Stephen Doyle. For years I've been promoting this flagpole - 203cm and 105kg - as the foil for champion ruckman Jason Ball and the extra threat lurking in the forward pocket. Unfortunately he has played only 20 games since 2000. Injury prone? He can do a knee, or an ankle, or a hamstring while putting a cue-tip in his ear.
The word at the club is, however, that he is back and ready to fire after kicking five goals in a practice match last week without suffering a broken neck or poliomyelitis.
And during a total brain scan at St Vincent's in the off-season, suspecting calcium deposits on the medulla oblongata, club doctors were startled to find a deep vein of mongrel within the hypothalamus. The man is now officially certified as dangerous. This is a complexity of nuclear proportions to those boofhead captains.
Once he is ready, if he doesn't trip over his feet coming down the race and break his elbow, cork his leg running over the cheerladeers, or brain himself on the pole holding up the banner, mayhem is practically guaranteed.
And you can afford a Handbag Hall if you've got a Detonator Doyle leaving a trail of quivering human wreckage behind him, as Adam Goodes runs wild picking up 200 Brownlow votes. Be afraid ye captains, very afraid you silly boys.
[email protected]
The Daily Telegraph
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