My four year old told me last night that she loves watching the Bombers with Daddy, and doesn't like Mummies TV shows.
#winning
Pretty sure it was Cummings who had kicked 0.7 in one game, the week before he kicked 8.1.
Whaddya know. I was wrong. Looks like Salmon got 1.3 and one out on the full.
LOOK THE POINT IS HE WAS SHIT ALL DAY UNTIL THAT MOMENT, ALRIGHT?!
:)
IIRC, Salmon was on 4 points. Certainly not 0.7
I was going to use that game as an example.While I supported Essendon, The game that won me over to football as a child was the Salmon vs Ablett game.
Open, free flowing, genuine contests, tough, and there weren't 30 players at every stoppage or flooding just to stop God or Salmon getting a run at the ball.
A free kick I often think about is the Ess v WCE game in 1993, the jacket waving game.
Salmon had 0.7 for the day and as he leads to mark in the last 90 seconds, Jakovich CLEARLY holds his jumper. The umpire rightly pays the free and commentator Ross Glendening I think it was says "the free was there". Salmon kicks the goal, we go four points up and win, Sheeds waves his jacket. We finish on top of the ladder and win the prem.
If that game was played today, do you think the free would be paid? Or would the umpire swallow the whistle, scared commentators would complain the game had been decided by a free if the umpire had done his job and paid it?
Would Salmon have even been able to make a lead with Ess 2 points down with 90 seconds to go, or would 18 Eagles players have flooded the backline to make sure the spectacle was reduced to a farce?
I think he had 3 points and a few out on the full and/or didn't make the distance.
I would know, I was there.
The fact that I was 10 at the time isn't relevant.
EDIT - footage from 6:40. Still my all time favorite game that I've attended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO4ivcNtNIE
Yes, I definitely remember that game. 1993 was the year I first started following the Bombers and that kick for goal by Salmon made me realize how emotionally invested I was in the Bombers by that stage.... the tension of knowing that Salmon needs to kick the goal to win after all the misses he has had before that.... then the exhilaration when he puts it through!!
From then on, I knew I was a Bombers fan for life :D
I've been watching the game since the mid sixties and these days my enjoyment level is largely proportional to the success rate of the Essendon Football Club.
The game has constantly evolved throughout that period of time and will continue to do so.
The problem with today's game (if you think there is one) is that all the teams try to play a highly skilled brand of football and clearly a lot of the teams are not capable of doing so.
Watch a Hawthorn v Geelong game of recent years and you will come away smiling.....watch Richmond v Brisbane last week and you would have been pulling your hair out in frustration.
Essendon's first half against Hawthorn & Geelong this year....deplorable
BUT
The third quarters in both games were awesome.
So all we need is 18 super talented teams and all will be well
(and that ain't gonna happen anytime soon)
I’d still love footy but would I Barack for essendon? I wonder…
I had a VFL game on while I was home on the weekend (I think it was Williamstown versus someone) and even though it was a cold wet day, it was really good to watch.
More open, more long kicking to a contest, and tougher than AFL. Less staging. Also at that level, the umps seem more willing to say "you ducked into the tackle, play on". In the AFL, any player who falls or dives into high contact gets paid the free even though they instigated the contact, and in lots of cases the contact was minimal or non existent...
You stated in your OP that umpires don't pay enough free kicks - Now at this VFL game the umpires let the game go. Which one is it ?
I grew up in the 70's where umpires routinely paid 80+ free kicks and sometimes a hundred - It was hard to watch because the game was stop/start - less free kicks the better.
No I didn't. You distorted what I said.
It's not a matter of numbers. The frees that are there should be paid.
I did not say the umpires at the VFL let the game go. I said they were rightly telling players who had ducked into tackles that they wouldn't receive a free for that.
I think it's silly to generalise. If you say "Less free kicks the better", then you're effectively saying don't enforce the rules of the game.
Conversely if you said "the more free kicks the better" that would also be silly, to illustrate your argument in the reverse.
What umpires should do is pay the free kicks that are there, across all areas of the ground and at all times in the game. No more and no less. It's that simple.
Once the players get the message, they'll infringe less. It's the inconsistency which results in the rules being broken more, because players know some days they get away with it. Consistent application will mean the players will naturally begin infringing less, because they know what the consequence will be.
I am in the corner of less free kicks the better - What people fail to realise is that free kicks actually cause breaks in play - Umpires paying so many free kicks in the 70's,made footy to be frustrating at times - It was when Harry Beitzel became umpires Director in the late 70's with his edict ' less than 50 free kicks per game' that footy in that era became more free flowing.
No real issue with the game - There have been plenty of 8 goals vs 7 goal games in the history of the VFL/AFL - There have always been attacking teams and defensive teams, though we think footy has only got defensive in the last 10 years - There has always been versions of zones/floods/loose man in defence etc ( though not done as professionally as now ) People rave about defensive pressure But I remember the Carlton mosquitp fleet of the 70's and 80's placed lots of pressure on defenders, though not necessarily for a full game like today - All the defensive tactics of 2014 are themes from the past.
In the past though, any 8 vs 7 goal games were the result of muddy conditions and pouring rain, not having rolling rubgy scrums on near perfect surface (often indoors) with taggers scragging the hell out of the ball winners.
I'd argue there weren't anywhere near as many low scoring games back then. There were far more high scoring games.
Go back to the 50's and 60's in more recent times, and they were low scoring decades - You argue correctly that the prevailing weather condtions and the state of grounds played their part, but at the same time, play was less congested, and there were more one-on-one contests in the forward line. And of course the kicking on the full rule wasn't impemented to 1967 or 1968.
It's easy to think that grass is greener on the other side, but often this isn't the case.
YT wins the thread. Hutchy Barrett and Wilson are what's ruining AFL.
And I don't get what's wrong with the tactics of pissant clubs. If we were ■■■■, and led Hawthorn by 8 points with 3 minutes to go, this whole place would explode with people whinging about how we should flood the backline etc???
I don't think the game itself has dropped as much as most people's nostalgia likes to claim.
But if I was born in 2004, it would be tough to be this passionate about the EFC. Certainly not as passionate as I was at the age of ten anyway.
I've always said there is a strong correlation between how much you love football, and how successful your team has been in recent years.
Well honestly I was born in 96, first season I properly followed was 2005. so fair to say I have never seen a great Essendon team, but I could not be any more passionate and I really don't think success has much to do with passion - how many richmond and carlton supporters are there who couldn't be any more passionate
I reckon the ten-year-olds would have loved today.