A Taste of old Port

Let's not beat around the bush. The biggest danger to the VFL is the 'reserves' tag. It raises my ire every time I hear some young wet behind the ear AFL footballer calling it 'the reserves''. Someone should give them a DVD of the 1990 and 1994 ABC VFA grand final telecasts. Or maybe if should be compulsory for them to watch the 1976 bloodbath between Port and Dandenong, where 30 000 watched in disbelief as Fred Cook was king hit, only to rise from the turf and inspire the Boroughs to the flag. This is a competition with history.

Although the VFL is small bikkies by comparison with the AFL, the last thing I want to do when commentating on the ABC is become fixated on whether a bloke will make his way back into the AFL side or imagine it's a reserves game. I can only presume it's the same for Ross Booth, who, like me has been calling VFA/VFL football since 1987, and Peter Donegan, who has done everything from the dogs to the Olympics.

Sometimes, especially when there are too many AFL players (Nathan Buckley's famous comeback with Willi aside), the drama can be missing. That's why we need stand-alone clubs like Frankston and Port in the mix and less intrusive, shared alignments, of the kind at North Ballarat and Tasmania. Saturday's match between Port Melbourne and Tasmania was beguiling because it was an old fashioned piece of VFA footy drama.

On Saturday the Tassie Devils had only a handful of AFL players. And there was Port, on the bottom of the ladder with one victory from seven games and the wooden spoon wrapped around its proud neck. Defiant, silly some say, for breaking with the Kangaroos, Port and its president Peter Saultry had much to lose. Despite the dearth of AFL talent, it emerged as one of the best TV games for years.

Although an ABC ban (bad language in a game interstate) precluded us from hearing coaches Saade Ghazi and Matt Armstrong, our scouts Darren Boyd and the unflappable Mr. Booth were able to eavesdrop. The story they told our audience was not one of reams of statistics and convoluted strategies dressed up in polite words. Away from the cameras Ghazi and Armstrong found strong language by which to implore their players to fight. These were two coaches desperate for a win.
A brilliant start by Port, a painstaking fight back by Tasmania, driven by the Kangaroo Chad Jones, high marking and a combined total of thirty five goals; this game had it all. And when it had to be won, it was goals to VFL players David Pitt, Tim Hazell, Rob Cheevers, Sam Pleming and Stephen Henshaw that delivered Port its best last quarter in 2006 and its proudest moment in a tough season.
None of these reflections should be taken to mean I don't have the greatest respect for coaches of the ilk of Brad Gotch (Willi), Mark Williams (Sandy) and Andy Collins (Coburg). All are VFA premiership players with VFA/VFL premierships as coaches, and all want the best for the competition. I suspect that privately all would have felt for Port and understood the significance of the win, in this, an evolving VFL.

David among the Goliaths

If he's not the most exciting player in the VFL, who is? David Pitt is approaching 26-years-of-age and at the end of season 2005 had accumulated 116 VFL games and 186 goals. Many a time, when Port was aligned, I used wonder why he spent so much time on the interchange. At 188 centimetres and 82 kilos Pitt doesn't qualify as a big forward. Yet he is truly a rare talent and the kind of player people would have loved when the VFA was the king of Sunday football. The excitement is palpable whenever Pitt goes near the ball. His ability to climb through a pack and grab a mark is only matched by a kicking style that is as elegant as any going around.

And so, while David Pitt was so captivated by the moment he accumulated six match-winning goals, what would Devil's coach Matt Armstrong have made of one of his opponents, Kangaroo Jonathon Hay? A year older than Pitt and with an AFL career behind him, Hay did not put his best foot forward. A silly fifty-metre penalty in the third quarter, that would have sent Dean Laidley into apoplexy if he'd been coach, was indicative of the day. If I were a Devil I'd not take too kindly to having been dropped in favour of him. Maybe there's a moral in that little story!