MadBlue wrote:
Yes loving the style and unpedictability of our forward line but why couldn't we have played that way with Fevola in the team ? Maybe Ratts should answer that ? Other teams do it with a key forward so why couldn't we ? It certainly wasn't Fevola's fault that we went to him too often !
He wouldn't have allowed an ensemble cast to develop. Reminds me of the Star Trek saga. William Shatner apparently made sure that the storylines revolved around him. In one of the movies, Sulu was supposed to have a big scene when he became captain of his own ship, and Captain Kirk and he were supposed to share an emotional scene in which Kirk congratulated him. But Shatner walked through that scene, forcing the director to leave it on the cutting-room floor. It's totally naive to say that someone who insists on being the focal point could have done well as a team player. We know just how well Fev did with following through on promises to be better off-field, and any promises he might have given to Ratts to play team-oriented footy by playing decoy and sharing the I50 entries with the other forwards would have been broken just as quickly and comprehensively.
I'm still amazed at his behaviour in the 2nd Essendon*/Carlton match last year. Santy had a spectacular start to the match, taking a couple of contested marks against NLM. There were signs that he might be the hot forward as he was a week later against Freo where he kicked 4 to be the leading goalkicker on the ground in a winning side. So what did bad Fev do? He decided to knee him in the kidneys as Santy had all but taken the mark backing back, beating NLM cold. He managed to spoil the mark and it went up the other end for a goal, and Santy lost his spark and conditioning. Just to make sure he wasn't going to get any ideas above his station, Fev led his opponent up to where Santy was attempting another mark and gave his opponent the opportunity to put his knees into Santy as well. Apparently, the conditioning guys said that it was about the largest bruise that they'd ever seen by the end of the game, and that was a diabolical situation for a guy who was susceptible to blood clots in the legs.
I seriously believe that Fev meant to put Santy out of action as he realised at that early stage of the game that Santy would become the focal point in attack. Better for Fev to be the focal point in a losing team than a decoy in a winning one. The sight of him standing near Santy lying on the ground in pain while waving his arm along a line from the goalsquare to where he was standing as if to say that it was Santy's fault for getting in his way on the lead was sickening. And I wasn't alone in that dismay. Sellers said he thought that Santy should have knocked Fev out in the locker rooms at half time because that hit was a total outrage, and that was what he would have done in a similar situation. He said that as a CHF he expected that his team mates would call him back and protect him rather than sticking the knees into him, and if that had happened to him, he would have reacted physically.
And there are still people who think he could have been "Caring and Sharing Fev" in a versatile forward-line? Get a grip.
Santy's good form this year really brings that incident into sharp relief. Last year, Fev got away with it as there were quite a few supporters who couldn't see Santy's value and probably felt Fev was doing the team a favour by putting him out of the game. But how short-sighted was Fev? He could have had a good working relationship with Santy as Santy wouldn't have expected to be the dominant partner. Instead, Fev's now expected to be the junior partner to Brown and has to get out of Brown's way a lot because Brown loves to run back towards goal and they contest the same marks. He's made his bed now, and he has to lie in it.
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