Comments on the local game from the armchair.
The atmosphere sounded and looked very good. Obviously no probs smuggling flares in and, though they are visually pleasing, I know from Nov 29th how dangerous they can be under your feet. Also the residual smoke is a bugger. No shortage of Hellas signs and quite a few with upside down Vs on them too :-).
Were Carlton robbed? It wasn't possible to tell whether he was pushed or was skinned, lost his footing and made a meal of it. From the way the other players on screen immediately looked at the ref or the linesman I think it was probably a foul and the winner thus should not have stood. Further, I felt sure there was a handball by a South Melbourne defender just before Jonsey elbowed the ball into the net. I think both were equally accidental; but if the goal was disallowed for handling then logically a penalty should have been awarded just prior.
Carlton were a revelation to me and played the better football. You have to hand it to the Lakers (BTW, Optus were using the word on screen - so what is the story on the threatening letter from the bouncy bouncy boys from the US of A?) because they soaked up a lot of pressure, scrambled and scratched and were able to create enough chances to win by a margin. As far as the coverage is concerned there were a few problems for me.
They could not resist using their new toy camera on the track behind the goal at the most inappropriate moments. Who wants to see a corner as if lying on the ground in the back of the net? There still seems to be a bit of an obsession for crowd shots which often lead to missing action. Ditto some of the replays - replay on, crowd noise swells - replay continues - back to live action up the other end of the field. It is usual, IMHO, to try to show the ref holding up a card. There were a few shown last night and I don't recall seeing that classic shot once. Anyone know if the production team actually contained anyone with a football background?
Blakey was almost creaming himself over the quality and pace of the game, and I thought it was a good showcase for our game for the second successive year. It was good to hear some support for Carlton (though not much visually) and Blakey opined that they now would have a good supporter base next season. We thought that a year ago, didn't we Bonnie? I hope he is right as they certainly are worth watching and will be a real handful in the future.