As pointless as it is and as minor as it is, I couldn't resist sending this email to Mr Baum, no doubt hitting his trash almost as it arrives:
I understand you have had plenty of mail re this article
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/l ... 52803.html and it's snippy, pompous dismissal of Setanta o'hAilpin's pretensions as a footballer.
You conveniently fail to analyse the performance beyond the statistics and Setanta's alleged 'faux brutality'. This involved some minor hoppo bumpo as delivered by most defenders in the League, and delivered to Setanta by Richo in the first round prior to the first bounce. But I don't expect a respected journalist to bother researching three weeks back.
Perhaps an analyst could have looked at the way the game was played, very open, no flooding and no double teaming and mused on when was the last time Jon Brown had been given that sort of space to work in, and further mused on which great defender would have been able to get near his marks on the lead in those circumstances. An analyst may have sort comparison with a similarly experienced defender on a quality forward, say Zac Dawson on Rocca et al. You could have considered the progress of a 15 game player who hadn't touched a footy by the time Jon Brown had 3 premiership medallions, but who has to take on the best forward every week with no cover and no flooding. That would have all taken time though, and after all it is much easier to be provocative than analytical.
You may have considered the strength of character required to come across the world to play a foreign game when most locals whinge if they have to move interstate. You may have been intrigued by a man who speaks 3 languages and has worked on New York building sites as well as played in an All Ireland hurling Final and been impressed with a breadth of experience virtually never found in local players.
You may have considered how difficult it would be struggling with a foreign game in a foreign land, getting hammered as a totally inexperienced forward in the VFL, getting bumped and scragged, putting up with ridicule as you slowly honed your game. Putting up with comments about the colour of your skin. ( I heard an oppo VFL player asking him about how long he'd been under a sun lamp etc. remarks that would be rightly abhored and acted upon if said to an indigenous player, but had to be endured by an Irishman with Fijian heritage).
If you could be bothered doing any research, and I am not suggesting you ever are, but if you were then you would undoubtably have viewed the enchanting Irish doco on the o'hAilpin brothers. Shown on Irish TV, it is easily available on the Internet, but it might take ten minutes or so to find and half an hour to watch and after all there is lunch to eat and more important things to worry about than being fully informed.
And you are after all provocative, and the hallmark of that approach is selective and exaggerated use of material unfettered by intelligent analysis or research. You have apparently inherited the mantle from the abysmal Patrick Smith. You write better, you probably couldn't bowl as fast, but might have had a less dodgy action. You probably don't have a chip on your shoulder about missing Victorian selection. Maybe you just don't like the Irish. Your use of the term sounds like a perjorative.
To paraphrase a poster on a Carlton website, your journalism won't improve, but Setanta surely will. So get in now and ridicule him whenever he makes an error, or whenever the best CHF of his generation beats him. When he has two years under his belt and is a star, ignore him. If he doesn't become a star, don't analyse reasons, just attack him, after all, that is easy.
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