Axis of Bob

Hilfenhaus has been a good bowler for Australia in the past. He lacked penetration against England last series, but before then he has been very good. His series breakdown has been as follows: vs South Africa (away) 2008/09 - 7 wickets at 52.28. vs England (away) 2009 - 22 wickets @ 27.45 vs West Indies (home) 2009/10 - 5 wickets @ 14.00 vs Pakistan (neutral) 2010 - 8 wickets @ 23.75 vs India (away) 2010/11 - 6 wickets @ 43.50 vs England (home) 2010/11 - 7 wickets @ 59.28 Firstly, it shows that he has been a successful bowler for us in the past. In the final series against England, he had an economy rate of 2.62. This was by far the best of the Australian bowlers, with Siddle being next best of the main bowlers at 3.28 rpo. It wasn't that he was bowling badly, he just wasn't penetrating. If he was bowling badly then he would have dumped much earlier. This is reinforced by the fact that he bowled the most overs of any Australian bowler, despite only playing 4 tests. He also had the lowest (behind George who only played one test) economy rate in the Indian tour, bowling the second most overs (82 overs, behind Hauritz's 90 overs). Before these series he has been a very good bowler. But in these two series he lacked penetration, which is what Chris Rogers has been saying about him. He also says that this season he has recovered that pace and penetration, making him a very good bowler. He bowling well in the Shield and, if he's bowling well, then he has demonstrated that he is a capable international bowler. He's a proven bowler who is emerging from a lean patch. He has a massive tank (I hear he runs a 15+ beep) and can bowl many overs a day. Against the top batsmen in the world, we can rely on him to perform a role for our attack and not let the captain down. That's what you want and that's why he's there. Conversely, Starc has shown that he's not yet capable of maintaining pressure for long periods of time. I'd be surprised if Starc played on Boxing Day.

Just a slight correction, I believe that the empty cliche you were looking for was 'accept mediocrity', not 'tolerate mediocrity'. It is an easy mistake to make, but it pays to be accurate when expressing yourself through the majesty of rant.

I wonder how many would call Usain Bolt 'a disgrace' if he struggled to keep up with endurance athletes during repeat sprints. Sure, he can run 100m in 9 and a half seconds but if he can't keep up with a 200 cm ruckman like Dean Cox in repeat 2 km time trials then he is 'a disgrace'. After all, Bolt is shorter and an Olympic champion. Worst. Olympic. Champion. Ever.

Surely Taggert has to be 'Sergeant', as in Sgt Taggert from Beverley Hills Cop. Either that or 'Rosewood'. But I like Sarge.

My sister was going to Canada on exchange (via LAX) the next day. Fair to say that she wasn't exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of flying to the US!

Should have picked Fev.

The theory behind winning is the toss is that you compare the score you think you'd make in the 1st innings and compare it to what you think you'd make batting 4th. If you think you'd make more in the 1st innings than the 4th, then you bat. If you think you'd make more in the 4th innings then you'd bowl. You very rarely have a pitch where it's easier to bat in the 4th innings than it is in the first innings. This was one of those rare occasions.

One thing that was interesting was the number of big bodied and mature players selected by AFL clubs in the Rookie Draft this year.

I was worried that it had been nearly 2 hours and nobody had made a post like that. I was having withdrawals.

Thanks Nash. I was beginning to worry that I was the problem. At least it made sense outside the bubble.

But we're always drafting for the future. Fev has proven that he's a super-mega-champion. Imagine a forward line of Fev, Clark and Watts, with Howe and Jurrah. Fev is a goalsquare full forward, so we'll just empty out the forward 50 and kick it to him, while we get our other 4 tall forwards to play outside 50. Then we can kick it to Fev who will kick 100 goals. Every idiot knows that Fevola is amazing, but he's been kept out of it by the AFL elite. They just can't stand that someone from a humble background like Fev can become such a superstar while private schoolboys like Watts still haven't kicked 100 goals after 3 years. Fev is a real man. The AFL just can't accept that. And Vlad is just covering for his love children because Brisbane, one of his interstate clubs, were too stupid to keep him. When Fev walked out on Brisbane the AFL made shady deals with clubs to make sure that he wouldn't play again because Brisbane were embarrassed. I'm losing faith in Neeld already.

What a disgrace that nobody picked up Fevola in the draft today. This guy has played 10 years at the highest level, won Coleman medals and would be worth 3 goals a game to our club. That he likes a few drinks and a bit of a gamble doesn't mean anything because we are drafting him to kick goals, not be a nun. This pathetic attitude of only drafting choirboys is exactly why we haven't won a flag in over 45 years, and we'll continue to fail forever until we draft Fev. If Jai Sheahan doesn't ever kick 100 goals in a season then I'm going to be calling for Prendergast, Neeld and Schwab's heads. Even if he does, we should have drafted Fev too and then we'd have two players that kick 100 goals in a season!

Big bodied 24 year old clearance specialist, according to the official site.

From the early 90s.

How is it a difficult concept to grasp? For the past 5 years we have had a certain balance to our batting lineup since Johnson has been in the side. It has meant that we have, in the past, fielded a stronger batting lineup than we have at the moment. I could easily have not mentioned Johnson at all and, instead, simply said that our bowlers in this test are weaker as a collective than they have been for some time. This was exposed during that run chase. I think people are looking for an anti-Johnson angle on this one when it was simply a comment about the batting strength of our bowlers. It was not a comment about selection and it certainly wasn't a comment with any particular agenda behind it. I'll try to remove the subtlety from my posts in the future, but doing so certainly takes a lot of the fun out of posting.

That Rhino is a moderator has nothing to do with you being wrong.

Has played one final in the last 10 years. That was in a loss to Brisbane. Was he unlucky, or were his team mates?

I didn't say anything about Johnson's bowling, since we didn't bowl today. I simply made the point that our tail is much longer now that we don't have him at number 8. If he was batting at 8 today (ignoring bowling) then we probably would have won. It is a genuine issue.

No, because you'll get the "I can't believe nobody picked him up" for a little while. Then it will end. Thankfully.

The point I'm making is that our tail is very fragile without Johnson. Siddle is an honest batsmen for a bowler, Pattinson and Starc may become that in time and Lyon is a number 11. When you have a 6 and 7 that are struggling then the tail looks exceptionally long. I worry about it for the future, when our bowling line up starts looking like: Pattinson, Cummins, Hazelwood, Lyon. England had the '6 out = all out' problem in the 5-0 Ashes here, and it meant that they played Ashley Giles instead of Panesar. We now have a very long tail. It's an issue without Johnson because he has done well at number 8 for us. He's bowling rubbish, but his absence has resulted in us losing lance in the lower half of our batting order. 15 runs from him today would have won us the match.

Mitchell Johnson would have been very handy today.

This is racism. Or is it? The Oxford Dictionary defines racism as "the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race , especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races". The important parts of that definition are that races are believed to be different, and that these result in superiority/inferiority. I also believe that we confuse 'race', as a race is group of shared genetic background (not, say, muslims or christians); as the Oxford Dictionary would say "having distinct physical characteristics". I, personally, believe that it is correct to consider cultural issues. For instance, Manson is a massive risk because he would struggle to fit into a modern football environment. He is not a risk because he is indigenous, but rather because he has very different values (as an individual) to what would help him succeed in the MFC environment. What's the difference, you say? The difference is that we could have someone from a town similar to Manson's home town who has all of Manson's talent, but with a stronger dedication to succeeding in an AFL environment. Liam Jurrah is an example, because he has talent but also the drive to succeed. Manson and Jurrah are different people, which is why you treat them differently. If you were being racist then you would say that Manson = Jurrah because they are from similar racial background, therefore he can/can't make it. Humans naturally stereotype races, sexes, occupations, religions etc because that's how we have evolved to survive. When people were tribal then it was important to be able to make quick judgements on people as to whether they were friend or foe. But with globalisation this way of thinking is no longer as useful as it once was. So natural instinct means that many people have to try to overcome this urge. Some people don't understand why they have to. There is also a large generational divide in racial stereotyping. I am not old enough to know the White Australia policy or other types of explicit government sanctioned racism. I have grown up with friends from many racial backgrounds through primary school, secondary school, university and now the workforce. I often find it difficult to understand people's racism, but it is all too obvious to notice it is there when I turn on the TV and see an ad for A Current Affair or read the Herald Sun pandering to these insecurities. I can only imagine that living through the 'Two Wongs don't make a white' era and the stolen generation means that those people have grown up with different values. My grandmother is a wonderful, kind, gentle woman. During the 2001 Grand Final she noted Dean Rioli and said "Geez, those aborigines are wonderful footballers. An aboriginal team would be exceptionally good ...... they just need a good white captain." Now she didn't mean this in a bad way at all, she was simply telling me how good indigenous footballers were. But it shows thinking of a different generation. My jaw nearly hit the ground when she said it, but that was the world she grew up in where she felt that white Australia had a paternal obligation to look after these 'backward' people. I think that we are getting much better at combating racism in Australia. This, unfortunately, is not happening everywhere in the world and in many cases these places are not the first ones you'd expect. Australia is multicultural now and almost all children growing up now have a range of cultures present at school. It's not 'us vs them' because there are so many different cultures that there isn't really a 'them'. The question of whether quotas/preferential selection for minorities (be they Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islanders, or simply rural or female) is racist .... I'm not sure. Is a wealthy indigenous child more worthy of a tertiary place than a wealthy white child? Is an indigenous child from a desert community more worthy? I understand why the preferential selection exists, and I support it because of the broader benefits that it brings, but technically there is discrimination based upon race exclusively rather than simply to even up an uneven playing field. Racism is a really complex and interesting issue. There's little wonder that there are many confused and intimidated by it.

I thought both Warner and Hughes batted exceptionally well today. Hughes looked really solid from the get go, even against Martin. I think the main reason for this was because he left the ball much better, so he didn't reach for the ball and defended in a far more compact way. Warner showed his worth in being able to shift the game momentum, as the bowlers were not able to completely dictate and instead were forced to employ more defensive fields. And Clarke's captaincy was again excellent and shows great faith in Lyon. I also thought Starc was much better in his pre lunch spell. Didn't get rewarded, but bowled with very good pace.

He played at a ball that was just too wide to play at. That wasn't a technique thing, but rather it was just a bad ball to play at on a seaming deck.

Yes the pitch is green, but we did bowl well, especially Siddle and Pattinson early on. Starc was erratic, but bowled some corkers in between. It will be interesting to see how we bat on this pitch, especially against the new ball.