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Forward's progress in Swans colours
Comment by Jeff Wells
April 5, 2004
PAGING Mr Hall: your bag is waiting in the goalsquare.
This is not the alligator skin St Laurent number that Big Bad Bustling Ballbreaking Bludgeoning Barking Blunderbuss Basher Boofhead Barry Hall is reported to have purchased on his last shopping spree down the Via Veneto in Rome after discovering his softer side.
We are talking a sugar bag full of pigskin. A bagful. Make up your own mind if yesterday's five goals and three behinds at the SCG against Fremantle constitutes a genuine bagful or a mere stretched satchel.
But while you are in such contemplation also tackle the issue of the fact that even though he is back Big Bad Bustling Bombchucker Bluto etc etc etc Hall not only does not exist but never did exist.
He says he never wanted to be called that and was landed with it for all the wrong reasons down at St Kilda.
The resurrection process started in the Fremantle dressing room when Dockers' coach Chris Connolly - who had to rue a loss of concentration in the third quarter that saw Ryan O'Keefe swing the game Sydney's way, to a 15.12 (102) to 10.11 (71) win - said that Hall had become an elite forward and that Sydney had a great job in developing his talent.
And then after the game intense little defender Jared Crouch had his say.
Crouch courts publicity about as often as Hall takes crochet lessons. He wears blue boots and says he doesn't give a stuff what anybody thinks about it - or if they brand him a style tragic - because that's the only colour that Asics makes them in and they have sprinter's sprigs in them that allow him to tag anybody and also kick sensational running goals, like that one in the third quarter, and he loves them.
And if you want any more information go speak to Jason Akermanis from Brisbane who will probably want to punch you in the nose.
Barry Hall, said Crouch, laser-staring his ancient interrogator, has "sensationally learned to control his anger".
Whatever the case Bazza was back.
Certainly, he said, while he is into mentoring young players, and becoming more of a renaissance person, he didn't come to Sydney for a holiday.
He kicked more than 60 goals, mostly from centre half forward, last year while careening around the ground, hammering flesh and bone, like a runaway rodeo bull with a burr in its backside. And it is on again.
But he doesn't want that nickname any more. So I put it right on him. What nickname does he want then. Everybody seems to have one. They even call O'Keefe "Pebbles", not because he is tougher than Bam Bam, but because he is a small ROK.
"Just Barry Hall," said the big man, so softly that the various rings piercing his mallee root of a head barely fluttered.
So that is it. Just Barry Hall. It might be even be shortened to JBH, like Lewis Roberts-Thomson is LRT, - although that is a little too close to his former alleged GBH persona.
Meanwhile, certain media critics actually joyfully greeted the rain which fell heavily before the game, making the ground slippery, and dictating that last week's modified netball, that cost Sydney a two-point loss in Brisbane, could not be safely played.
It was a day for long kicking - anything, mongrel punts and all - and minimal foolish handball, and once Sydney opened up their midfield, and created the loose man, they should have won by 10 goals.
Coach Paul Roos was asked whether, if the ground had been dry, the tiggy touchwood would have been on again.
He sighed and calculated that last week's criticism had come from .003 of the accredited AFL media. He sure knows how to hurt a guy.
And so what if it bored some old cuss. He'd settle for four points more than a pass on the excitement report. Or both. And there would be more free-flowing football to come.
In fact JBH's combination with O'Keefe, after full forward Michael O'Loughlin had limped off, was brilliant and local teenager Paul Bevan - mentored by Jared Crouch but no sign of blue boots yet - kicked two goals and impressed mightily.
Sydney's biggest problem was in combating 211cm ruckman Adam Sandilands - who is said to run faster than Crouch in black boots - at the throw-up. Jason Ball laboured while Adam Goodes, possibly affected by the glare coming off his white boots, went missing.
But next week, Roos promised - with fingers crossed under the table - sees the return of Sydney's own mad colossus 204cm Stephen Doyle against Geelong. After three big matches in the reserves he is finally ready to explode and, with JBH now in the Salvation Army, will probably be called Savage Scarifying Samurai Skyscraper Steve.
"I don't know what he's angry about, but he is angry about something," said Roos.
Maybe, I figured, it was because he is rarely on the football field.
I can't wait. But from the press box it does seem that Jason Saddington needs some kind of psychological boost. I hear a company in Jamaica is making rainbow coloured boots.
Comment by Jeff Wells
April 5, 2004
PAGING Mr Hall: your bag is waiting in the goalsquare.
This is not the alligator skin St Laurent number that Big Bad Bustling Ballbreaking Bludgeoning Barking Blunderbuss Basher Boofhead Barry Hall is reported to have purchased on his last shopping spree down the Via Veneto in Rome after discovering his softer side.
We are talking a sugar bag full of pigskin. A bagful. Make up your own mind if yesterday's five goals and three behinds at the SCG against Fremantle constitutes a genuine bagful or a mere stretched satchel.
But while you are in such contemplation also tackle the issue of the fact that even though he is back Big Bad Bustling Bombchucker Bluto etc etc etc Hall not only does not exist but never did exist.
He says he never wanted to be called that and was landed with it for all the wrong reasons down at St Kilda.
The resurrection process started in the Fremantle dressing room when Dockers' coach Chris Connolly - who had to rue a loss of concentration in the third quarter that saw Ryan O'Keefe swing the game Sydney's way, to a 15.12 (102) to 10.11 (71) win - said that Hall had become an elite forward and that Sydney had a great job in developing his talent.
And then after the game intense little defender Jared Crouch had his say.
Crouch courts publicity about as often as Hall takes crochet lessons. He wears blue boots and says he doesn't give a stuff what anybody thinks about it - or if they brand him a style tragic - because that's the only colour that Asics makes them in and they have sprinter's sprigs in them that allow him to tag anybody and also kick sensational running goals, like that one in the third quarter, and he loves them.
And if you want any more information go speak to Jason Akermanis from Brisbane who will probably want to punch you in the nose.
Barry Hall, said Crouch, laser-staring his ancient interrogator, has "sensationally learned to control his anger".
Whatever the case Bazza was back.
Certainly, he said, while he is into mentoring young players, and becoming more of a renaissance person, he didn't come to Sydney for a holiday.
He kicked more than 60 goals, mostly from centre half forward, last year while careening around the ground, hammering flesh and bone, like a runaway rodeo bull with a burr in its backside. And it is on again.
But he doesn't want that nickname any more. So I put it right on him. What nickname does he want then. Everybody seems to have one. They even call O'Keefe "Pebbles", not because he is tougher than Bam Bam, but because he is a small ROK.
"Just Barry Hall," said the big man, so softly that the various rings piercing his mallee root of a head barely fluttered.
So that is it. Just Barry Hall. It might be even be shortened to JBH, like Lewis Roberts-Thomson is LRT, - although that is a little too close to his former alleged GBH persona.
Meanwhile, certain media critics actually joyfully greeted the rain which fell heavily before the game, making the ground slippery, and dictating that last week's modified netball, that cost Sydney a two-point loss in Brisbane, could not be safely played.
It was a day for long kicking - anything, mongrel punts and all - and minimal foolish handball, and once Sydney opened up their midfield, and created the loose man, they should have won by 10 goals.
Coach Paul Roos was asked whether, if the ground had been dry, the tiggy touchwood would have been on again.
He sighed and calculated that last week's criticism had come from .003 of the accredited AFL media. He sure knows how to hurt a guy.
And so what if it bored some old cuss. He'd settle for four points more than a pass on the excitement report. Or both. And there would be more free-flowing football to come.
In fact JBH's combination with O'Keefe, after full forward Michael O'Loughlin had limped off, was brilliant and local teenager Paul Bevan - mentored by Jared Crouch but no sign of blue boots yet - kicked two goals and impressed mightily.
Sydney's biggest problem was in combating 211cm ruckman Adam Sandilands - who is said to run faster than Crouch in black boots - at the throw-up. Jason Ball laboured while Adam Goodes, possibly affected by the glare coming off his white boots, went missing.
But next week, Roos promised - with fingers crossed under the table - sees the return of Sydney's own mad colossus 204cm Stephen Doyle against Geelong. After three big matches in the reserves he is finally ready to explode and, with JBH now in the Salvation Army, will probably be called Savage Scarifying Samurai Skyscraper Steve.
"I don't know what he's angry about, but he is angry about something," said Roos.
Maybe, I figured, it was because he is rarely on the football field.
I can't wait. But from the press box it does seem that Jason Saddington needs some kind of psychological boost. I hear a company in Jamaica is making rainbow coloured boots.
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