The scientifically gifted amongst you will know what happens if a vacuum gets created. Those of us without those gifts need only know that when you get a vacuum, stuff happens to fill it. And the footy off-season simply doesn't have enough stuff of any value to fill the vacuum that is created when there are no games. And so silliness festers in us all.
All we have to subsist on are the Mock Drafts of someone called Boogertron or those from self-appointed guru's who believe seeing an odd U/18 game makes them an expert. But the real fun starts when the draft happens and there is the subsequent hand-wringing from supporters if we got someone the Mockers thought would go at a lower pick. Or, as happened this year, all the bleatings about picking up Mark Johnson &/or Big Kepler.
Now both these moves were entirely defensible, perhaps even shrewd, but even if they were blunders (and they weren't), the absence of anything else to talk about means they came under much more scrutiny than was warranted. These were picks 56 and 72 in the weakest draft in memory if you listen to any of the pundits. Freo knows what we got with both of them, and if they don't work out, they're gone. No mess, no fuss, just "Seeya", and we get to use 2 new picks next year when some of the later kids may even know how to play.
I think everyone at the Draft this year just stopped concentrating once the Hawks took a bloke who hadn't played for 12 months and whose only achievement in that period was destroying the inventory of the local pie shop and delicatessen. Hell, after Dew was drafted didn't that just scream "you know what, there's nothing left, let's just pick a number and see who we get". 12 or so picks AFTER that, we get a guy who can actually play, and some people went mental.
Now it's not their fault, there just isn't enough other stuff to talk about. Even bagging our fowl friends has had some of the fun taken away in the ease of it.
Although here I will pause for a side bar about 1 issue that is Budgie related. It's one that seems to have gotten little focus but made me throw up in my mouth when I read it. Good old Woosha and the "hard stand" he took with the players after they lost to the Pies.
Well excuse me, but if that isn't the lowest act in his history of low acts then I'll wear Mal Brown's bikini down Hay St this Friday night. For 2 seasons or so he turned a blind eye to it, molly coddled the miscreants and did everything possible to keep it out of the way - because they were winning. But once a season ended without a tainted cup, whoh-hoh - LOOK OUT!!!! No flag so now is the time to take a stand? And this is leadership?
Does anything say more clearly to anyone at that club that anything goes as long as you win?
Could you get any further away from integrity and strength by those actions? Of course not.
Now no one of any consequence in WA would take him to task on it obviously but I thought it warranted much more attention than what we did with picks 56 & 72 in a draft that even I obviously would've had a shot at being picked. As long as I live I doubt I will see a bigger act of hypocrisy and repugnance go unchallenged. But there you go...pause completed...back to the blog.
Anyway, I was saying that the off-season is tough for us supporters. I for one think something should be done about it. I don't want a break. I want all-footy, all the time. I needs me fix. What can be done? I don't have all the answers but a rare mammal sighting did give me 1 idea.
Apparently a manatee was seen inland this summer. In fact, that manatee was playing football in the Territory. Now surely if Fatty Whitnall can last a game of footy in the NT at this time of year, then some sort of decent summer league could be worked out couldn't it? Couldn't the new draftees and those from the previous year(s) who are remain your "project or fringe" types (eg O'Brien, Smith and the like)be trotted out for an NT team to have a run around?
Now I know injuries and proper breaks as designated under the CBA and all those things would be against this, but surely something like this could happen without too much hassle. Limit the minutes they play or the even the number of games. AFL clubs could join up with NTFL clubs, even expand their competition perhaps. Give us something tangible to discuss over this wasteland of summer. Let us watch the new kids and the developing kids in real games. If other clubs don't want to do it - fine, then kets just do it on our own then.
Either that or invent some short term cryogenic thingo that wakes me up when the intra-club stuff starts.