Round One: Like Poochie The Ill-Conceived Cartoon Dog

There's a great moment in the Simpsons from a few years ago starring the legendary Krusty the Clown. Unusually attired in a dinner suit, he stands before a microphone and solemnly intones, "Once in a great while, we are privileged to experience a television event so extraordinary, it becomes part of our shared heritage. 1969: Man walks on the moon. 1971: Man walks on the moon...again. Then for a long time nothing happened. Until tonight". Krusty was talking about the introduction of poorly conceived cartoon dog character Poochie onto the longrunning psychotic children's cartoon Itchie and Scratchie. But the general overblown sentiment fitted perfectly with the buildup in Melbourne to the season opener between Carlton and Richmond and, more specifically, the rematch between ex-Eagles premiership teammates and Brownlow Medallists Ben Cousins and Chris Judd. Nobody reading a Victorian newspaper or watching Channel Ten's prematch leadup could possibly doubt that this match was indeed the biggest television event in human history. And the sense of anticipation among fans of the two clubs involved, cellar-dwellers both in recent years, was at fever pitch. Richmond fans in particular were at last daring to dream that finally, finally, their three decades of mediocrity were about to come to an end. Surely this was to be the beginning of something wonderful.

Of course, much like Poochie the dog's ill-fated venture onto the small screen, it all ended in tears for the Tiger faithful. What a horrendous night it turned out to be for the Richmond Football Club, basically everything that could have gone wrong went right ahead and did so. It really wouldn't have surprised at all if at the end of the game one of the MCG light towers had slowly toppled over and hammered Richo into the ground like a tent peg, Wile E. Coyote style. Of all the nights for the Tiger playing group to lose their collective minds and nerve, the season opener in front of a full MCG and massive television audience just wasn't the night to do it. With Canberra receiving its customary excellent free to air television service (an 11.15PM delayed telecast), myself and some others gathered at our local venue, Eastlakes Football Club, along with a throng including, to our horror, the Canberra Carlton Supporters Club. Without wanting to be needlessly cruel about their appearance or mannerisms, I would suggest that if Peter Jackson is short of a few blokes to play orcs in the upcoming movie version of The Hobbit, he might want to give the CCSC a call. The expatriate bluebaggers took up location right in front of the main screen, then proceeded to hurl seven shades of abuse at every Tiger player from the moment they set foot on the arena. The Tigers weren't doing anything much to provoke their anger though, they opened with a Richo poster from a kickable distance, then dropped an easy mark in the back line (which led to a goal), then disintegrated completely. Their skills were absolutely deplorable. Carlton by contrast looked like a Lambourghini competing in a street race against a Lada-like vehicle from a country which no longer exists ("Put it in 'H'"!). Cousins was doing his best but his ex-teammate Judd was winning the duel (such as it was) on points easily. The points margin grew wider and wider the longer the game went off, and the screen started to show Richmond supporters trickling out of the stadium (sent on their way with many a bronx cheer from the CCSC mob). Then, as if things hadn't gone quite badly enough for the Tiges, who had been completely humiliated on the field, it all got a lot worse. With the game long since lost, Cousins embarked on one final stretching effort which resulted in his dodgy hamstring giving up the ghost. As he limped off the field the heads of Richmond fans nationwide collapsed into their collective hands, another forgettable season looks to be on the cards. But there was much whooping and hollering from the CCSC boys and their brethren across the planet, Carlton do indeed appear to be coming back after a very dark decade or so.

After such a massive promotional buildup for the Carlton/ Richmond game, the Grand Final rematch the next night between Hawthorn and Geelong came as almost an anti-climax. The Cats have had a long dark summer to reflect on their 2008 Grand Final disaster, and one gets the impression that they are a team on a mission this year. They certainly swept all before them in the Preseason Let's Give The Kids A Run Cup which, for the first time in years, I actually got to see some of on television. It should be noted I was in a bar on Kuta Beach in Bali at the time, probably in direct contravention of the government's travel warnings (which are surely best treated as a serving suggestion). I was not at all surprised that there was better AFL coverage available in a foreign country than in the national capital. The Hawthorn-Geelong rematch was won narrowly by the Cats, small revenge for last year's defeat. Both teams look to remain at a standard well above that of the chasing pack.

One team who do fancy themselves as a potential challenger to the Cats and Hawks is Collingwood, who surprised everybody by declaring at the start of the year that they were aiming for a premiership in 2009. This was a most unusual statement for a club to make. Normally clubs stick to the "one game at a time" line right up until actual Grand Final Day, when they might admit that they do indeed hope to be premiers come 5PM or so. The Pies' quest for glory got off to a sticky start though, with a narrow defeat at the hands of the visiting Adelaide Crows. President Eddie McGuire reacted furiously to the defeat, pointing to the free kick count which showed Adelaide four ahead of Collingwood. Presumably all of the four frees resulted in Crow behinds, as four points was indeed the final margin.

Two Saturday night fixtures in Round One: oop north it was the coaching debut of Michael Voss, the man who stood up Essendon, Carlton, Gold Coast and West Coast to take over his old team. And he got off to a winning start against the Eagles, who would have been watching the Carlton-Richmond game and drooling over their two lost champions. Down south it was the Saints against the Swans, a fixture that in years past has guaranteed an absolute stinkfest of low scoring and dismal football. This year it was by all accounts a bit better than that (I didn't bother tuning in), the Saints prevailed fairly comfortably. It looks like the Swans might finally be on the slide after umpteen years up around the top, but they've shown before that it's a mistake to write them off prematurely.

Last year the Melbourne Demons had a fairly abysmal season to mark their 150th anniversary, it started with a 100 point shellacking in Round One and never really improved. This year the Dees were determined to avoid the same fate and were more than competitive against the Kangaroos. North prevailed in the end, but it was a performance which will give Dees fans hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. For supporters of Essendon and Fremantle, however, the tunnel looks to be fairly long indeed. Essendon have a shocking record against Port Adelaide, and the Power had little trouble in racking up another win to the lopsided bilateral ledger. The Bombers now acknowledge that they followed a foolish recruiting path in the years 2002-5, picking up dodgy bitplayers and journeymen from other clubs at the expense of youth. Nice of them to finally admit it, but a tad frustrating to many Bombers fans who were saying that at the time! We feel a bit like the rest of the world (and residents of the blue states) pointing out to the Americans that, yes, it's great that you can now acknowledge that GWB shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the White House (or indeed a pair of sharp scissors) but most of us were saying that back in 1999! That felt really good. The Dockers got soundly smashed by the Western Bulldogs over in the west. It doesn't look like Freo is going to threaten this season or any time soon. We'll have to wait to see whether the Dogs are genuine contenders or merely another Poochie.

That's it for this week, let's hope that this weekend serves up another spectacular round of the great game. Hope your team's a winner, see you back here for the Round Two wrap.