There has been a bit of fuss on social media in the last week or two about QLD sprinting sensation Gout Gout. It's a bit surprising because the clips of Gout doing the rounds are from back in March..
I guess a bit of the interest is the fact that the World U/20 championships are on at the moment in Peru. Gout is still only around 16. Well about an hour or two ago Gout completely missed the start of the 200 metre final and was well down going into the bend. He's come over the top of all the others, just failing to catch the 100 meter champion Walaza who was an Olympic relay medallist with the South African team a few weeks ago.
If you get a chance to have a look at it...this kid looks like being something special at the next Olympics and probably at his peak in Brisbane.
Love them or hate them...a lot of them are mostly nonsense (with some basis in fact ) What's your favourite? Which ones do you hate? Got anymore that grate?
"We're just taking it one week at a time."
"They need to lower their eyes"
"Injuries are no excuse."
"I wouldn't kick the goals if it wasn't for the blokes in front of me"
"Every team gets injuries"
"We need to learn to play four quarters."
"We knew they'd come hard at us"
"They're a better team than their ladder position"
"Big men don't get smaller as the game goes on."
"He's been training the house down (usually every player pre-season)"
"There's still time" (CH 7 commentators when a side is 50 points down half way through the last quarter.)
"The next goal is important."
"It is what it is"
"Don't blame the umpires" (when it's clearly the umpires fault)
"You know nothing about football" (usually said by someone who knows nothing about football...it's not that simple or predictable and is changing all the time)
There was a moment in the game yesterday when Weitering had a knock. He seemed to recover fairly quickly.
I was also thinking that Kennedy was having a good game...next minute.
We watched as several players rolled ankles at various stages.
We've built a strong team. "Soldier out, soldier in" seems to be the ethos. But obviously some players are more important in terms of structure.
Who do folks think are our 5 most valuable heading into what looks like a real premiership opportunity It's not necsessarily the best players, but those who perform a role that would be hard to fill if we needed to replace them.
Obviously, at the top of the list we'll get some consensus but around 4 and 5 we may get some differing views.
Just as an example... We have McKay- Curnow and DeKoning- Pittonet. If one player is unavailable in either of those combinations we still have the other that can fill that role. But that doesn't mean don't choose one or more of those players if you think they are essential and among our top 5 most valuable.
Do we have anyone who can provide what Cripps does to the same extent. (It's OK...I know the answer .)
And in the depth area....players like Fogarty, Saad, Cincotta give us elements that are hard to replace.
For the last few years we've been discussing the merits of our ruck combinations. It's been a strong debate and like similar strong discussions it has drifted into, and somtimes derailed, other threads.
Just to give things a bit of order let's confine ourselves to discussion of our individual ruckmen and the various combinations, and support players to this thread
Well the next 3-4 years. That's our permiership window. Our side are mostly in their prime in terms of age and experience. In 4 years just about all our best will be the wrong side of 30 With Tasmania coming into the competition, the draft will be compromised, so given we'll probably be in the top half of the comp, our draft picks will be well down the list in that period. Some of the Northern academies also seem well set up to siphon off more talent.
You look around at other sides and see young gun midfielders like Reid, Rowell, Horne-Francis, Daicos. We will have Walsh, but he's not the 'power-impact player' that some of these other guys are, and we have no-one in the Cripps style of player coming through.
As well as that, there is nothing like Curnow, McKay, Weitering already on our list and developing.
There is time for our next generation to be sought out and secured but it needs to happen now. Does that mean trading to secure some better draft picks? We do currently have plenty of currency. The balance is keeping what we need, and letting go some, who may be very good, in the interests of 'sustained success. We have a side that can win a flag on its day. What will that side look like in five years time.
I was listening to the news on the radio this morning and heard a story that former Australian swimmer James Magnussen is returning to swimming in the ‘Enhanced games’
Basically, it is an anything goes competition. Drugs, Supersuits….whatever aid you can get. Big prizemoney for breaking world bests. I checked the date. It’s not April 1st. My first reaction was WTF. Stupid idiots.
But then I had a think about it. Was Lance Armstrong the only cyclist using performance enhancers? Of course, he wasn’t and many of those who finished close behind him were probably similarly doped up. Yet his name is ‘shame’ and others not so much. I had a look at a ‘shame’ file of track and field athletes who were denied records because of doping infringements. The thing that struck me was that list contained a number of athletes who still hold ‘legitimate’ world records. So, they were caught on some occasions, got away with it on others. Marita Koch (400 metres) Jarmila Kratochvilova ( 800 metres) hold records that date back to the 1980’s. Both athletes were part of Eastern European regimes where doping was well documented. Florence Griffith Joyner set records that women are still not within ‘cooee’ of achieving. Some of the men’s throwing records also date back over 40 years So the whole world record thing in many sports is a farce and not worth a pinch of salt.
The reality is the only true measure of ultimate human ‘achievement’ that can be taken as reliable is, very sadly , the records set by the druggies.
"I think his role's really important," Cripps told reporters on Monday.
"He plays that hybrid forward; he can play tall and play small with his pressure. His biggest one-wood is the competitive energy he has.
"(There's) that second ruck role that he can play as well as an undersized player with a bit more mobility around the ground.
"It's all up to the coaching staff in terms of if we play two rucks or go the hybrid role, but you know what you're going to get when SOS (Silvagni) plays.
"The boys love playing with him."
One of the problems (a good one we have) is how we set up our forward line next year. No doubt there will be a element of 'horses for courses'. It will be interesting to see how they use Jack next season and how many games he plays. He'd be in my team simply because of his versatility, but he does face some competition.
"We’ve had two years now of everything stable off-field: the coaching group has been really stable, so we’re coming into an environment that on day one of pre-season, it’s not like the first day of school,” he said.
“You just know what to expect, the standards have been set and we feel like it’s flowed on from last season.”
While senior players weren’t expected back as early as the younger ones, Cripps said it was an unspoken commitment to come back and train as soon as possible.
“Stability has been great – last year we showed resilience and I think having the same coaches and same playing group staying together helps us through the ups and downs of the season.
“We feel like we’re a really resilient group because of it. We’re trying to continue to build that connection and get stronger.”
Energy Stability Resilience Connection Motivated ...seem to be the buzz words.
Of course the real test is still to come but there seems to be a real positivity about the place and a sense of unity and common purpose and message.
I’m not sure how fair dinkum this is. Maybe some of the more technical of us can verify it, but if it’s true you can understand the concerns of folks like scriptwriters, actors and musicians over the impact of AI on their intellectual property.
There’s often a debate over the best lead singer of some of the big power ballad groups of the 70s and 80s. Often the popular choice is Freddie Mercury. My personal favourite is Steve Perry of Journey.
Has AI made it possible for a more direct comparison. The Mercury clip is still a little ‘tinny’ but time will only improve the quality as the technology improves.
One of the best criteria for judging the quality and character of a player is how they stand up under finals pressure.
We have at least two games this year to make the call. There's probably no need to call out those who didn't quite rise to the occasion. If you don't get mentioned then you have some work to do, and a game to do it in.
I'll start with two and we can add names as we go.
)
, the records set by the druggies.