AFL Power List: Round 22 (or, ok, now it’s time to get serious)

So this is the deal:

Saints play Collingwood; the winner goes to the prelim, the loser plays the winner of the Crows and Essendon.

Geelong plays Bulldogs; the winner goes to the prelim, the loser plays the winner of Lions and Carlton.

 

To be honest no side really stands out. The Bulldogs played very well to beat Collingwood, but I can’t say they are favourites. The Saints were not great against Melbourne; Geelong was good, but it was against Fremantle so it counted for nothing. The Crows looked great, but have struggled to get the wins over the top 4 sides.

 

So it is all set up for a great finals series where anyone of five can win – Brisbane or Carlton could go either way given the few Lions’ injuries, but I can’t see either of them beating either the Bulldogs or Geelong, and for Essendon to beat the Crows would require massive changes of form by both teams.

 

When looking at the top 8, it is interesting to look at the Premiership table were it to consist only of matches played by those eight teams.

Position	Team	Played	Win	Loss	Draw	Win Percentage	For	Against	Percentage
1	St Kilda	10	9	1		90.0	1034	736	140.49
2	Geelong	11	7	4		63.6	1144	998	114.63
4	Bulldogs	10	5	5		50.0	984	982	100.20
3	Collingwood	12	6	6		50.0	1019	1050	97.05
5	Carlton	11	5	6		45.5	1043	1141	91.41
6	Crows	11	4	7		36.4	1031	1123	91.81
7	Essendon	11	4	6	1	36.4	1002	1132	88.52
8	Brisbane	11	3	7	1	27.3	957	1044	91.67

Rather interestingly the top 4 is still the same as the actual Premiership table; Carlton is above the Crows even though 2 of the Crows’ wins against top 8 sides were against Carlton. And we can see that Brisbane has been pretty woeful against the top 8 sides. 

In terms of form; the last 4 weeks are:

Position	Team	Win	Loss	Draw	For	Against	Percentage
1	Adelaide	3	1		460	308	149.35
2	Collingwood	3	1		414	283	146.29
3	Bulldogs	3	1		409	358	114.25
4	Carlton	3	1		475	401	118.45
5	Saints	2	2		355	290	122.41
6	Geelong	2	2		344	348	98.85
7	Brisbane	2	1	1	378	373	101.34
8	Essendon	2	1	1	400	435	91.95

All of which suggests it is pretty open, given the stumbles by Geelong and the Saints at the end of the season.

And while Round 22 was a good end to a very good minor season, it will be remembered for one thing – Burton’s great hanger.

 

And so to the final Power List of the year:

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
	1	2↑	St Kilda	20-2	Having commentators wondering if the Demons could still get up with 6 minutes to go in the match is not a good sign.
	2	3↑	Bulldogs	15-7	A strong win by the Bulldogs, and will think they can take the Cats down.
	3	1↓	Collingwood	15-7	So was that a hiccup, or a are the Pies not good enough?
	4	4↔	Adelaide	14-8	The Crows kicked the biggest score by any team this year, and will be thinking they can go all the way.
	5	5↔	Geelong	18-4	Very hard to gauge what the win meant, but at least they have Ottens back.
	6	7↑	Brisbane	13-1-8	The Lions just got over the line and now host a demoralized Carlton – but perhaps without Simon Black.
	7	6↓	Carlton	13-9	The Blues played very well in the first quarter, problem was they spent the whole tank doing it.
	8	9↑	Essendon	10-1-11	The Bombers did well to come back and beat the Hawks, but they don’t look like a finals team.
See	you	next	year
	9	8↓	Hawthorn	9-13	Buddy Franklin will miss Round 1 next year, but expect the Hawks to be fired up to get back into the top echelon.
	10	11↑	Sydney	8-14	A sad end to the year, and now the Swans rebuilding begins – but they don’t have to improve too much to get back in the finals.
	11	12↑	North Melbourne	7-1-14	North won against the only team less supported than they are.
	12	10↓	Port Adelaide	9-13	Bugger all people turned up to see Port lose – so much for Port fans being diehards.
	13	13↔	West Coast	7-15	The Eagles will look to next year with a fair bit of hope.
	14	14↔	Fremantle	7-15	The Dockers were never going to win and played like they knew it.
	15	15↔	Richmond	5-1-16	The Tigers were pathetic, again.
	15	15↔	Melbourne	4-18	The Demons did all they could to make it seem that the kinda, sorta wanted to win.

Coming Soon: The Boys are Back

When I did my preview of Aussie films coming out this year, one that I shamefully missed out was Scott Hick's (Shine, Snow Falling on Cedars, No Reservations) latest, The Boys are Back starring Clive Owen.

The story concerns a journalist whose wife dies and he now has to take care of their son, and he also gets back in touch with a teenage son from a previous relationship. (A much better synopsis can be found over on the SBS website, which makes it clear Owen pays an ex-pat English journo - so we will be spared any attempts at an Aussie accent). The trailer sets it up as an absolute tear-jerker, but not in a schmaltzy PS I Love You kind of way, nor in a "oh my God they are all going to die of heroin overdoses after they have destroyed the lives of everyone around them and most likely killed a family member as well" kind of way that some Australian films in the past have tended to be. In fact the trailer provides a lot of smiles as well as tears.

It was filmed in South Australia, and I have to say as a someone who grew up in country SA, seeing the landscapes on film gives me a bit of a buzz - it is unmistakeably Australian, and even more unmistakeably South Australian (which is why we need to make films in this country - we need to see our places, our country). And ok, yes it stars Clive Owen, but to be honest I have never worried too much about bringing in a big name to do an Aussie film - so long as they are good and not a gimmick (like say Mick Jagger doing Ned Kelly). If we can be fine with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett playing Robin Hood and Maid Marion then we need not be so precious about getting a foreign star to help out our films if it means more films made in Australia by Australians get seen by more people. (That said, the use of "root" in place of "cheer" in the preview does grate, and I wonder if that is just for the US audience, and the Australian print will use a more Australian term).

It was made with money from (among others) the old Film Finance Corporation, and US company Miramax are also involved, so you know the marketing will be done well. It is slated for a limited release in the US at the end of September, and for release here on 12 November.

It is also one of the 13 Australian films to be shown at September's Toronto International Film Festival. Among the other Aussie films there are Mao's Last Dancer, Balibo, Bright Star, Bran Nue Dae, My Year Without Sex, Beautiful Kate and Samson and Delilah. The TIFF (as it is known) is a major festival that pretty much starts the awards campaign season in North America. A lot of smaller independent films try to use it as a launch pad to not only getting a wider release in the US, but also to generating some Oscar buzz (this is certainly the case for Bright Star).

I don't know if The Boys are Back is Oscar material (though no doubt seeing Clive Owen do something a bit different to his standard roles of late may get some notice), but I have to say I really want to see it - something I have been saying more and more about Australian film this year than I have for a long while.

(oh and if you don't break out into a big smile at 1:43 of this trailer your heart is truly of stone!)

Newspapers on the Internet: the future is now (in 1981)

This morning via the ESPN Sports Guy, I came across this news report from 1981 on newspapers being put on the internet.

It is brilliant on so many levels. There is the unintentional humour of seeing a guy decribed in a news report as "Owns Home Computer" (oh we can laugh can't we, in our 2009 world, at those poor technologically destitute folk of 1981), and also the guy from the San Francisco Examiner when talking about putting the newspaper on the internet that "we're not in it to make money"... ah how true.



And while we're travelling back in time, here's a 1981 ad from the lovely named Wang Computers that makes mention of electronic mail (like that'll ever catch on)



Of course, computers were scary back then, so to make them seem more friendly, John Cleese was brought in by Compaq to sell their latest versions:



But who owned a Compaq back then? Let's be honest, if you had a computer in the 80s most likely it was a Commondore 64 - and why wouldn't you have one if it meant for $499 you could get a data cassette and joystick plus 4 sets of software!!!

A Song a Year, 1992: Everything’s Alight

When I looked at the Top 50 songs of 1992, I realised that hardly any had any real connection with me. It was an interesting year in music:

1. ACHY BREAKY HEART – BILLY RAY CYRUS
2. NOVEMBER RAIN – GUNS N' ROSES
3. END OF THE ROAD – BOYZ II MEN
4. TO BE WITH YOU – MR. BIG
5. AMIGOS PARA SIEMPRE – JOSE CARRERAS & SARAH BRIGHTMAN
6. THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE - LUTHER VANDROSS & JANET JACKSON
7. PLEASE DON'T GO - K.W.S.
8. THE DAY YOU WENT AWAY – WENDY MATTHEWS
9. UNDER THE BRIDGE – RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
10. HAZARD – RICHARD MARX
11. SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST – VANESSA WILLIAMS
12. JUMP – KRIS KROSS
13. AS UGLY AS THEY WANNA BE (EP) – UGLY KID JOE
14. SALTWATER – JULIAN LENNON
15. RHYTHM IS A DANCER – SNAP
16. TAKE IT FROM ME – GIRLFRIEND
17. I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU – WHITNEY HOUSTON
18. DAMN, I WISH I WAS YOUR LOVER – SOPHIE B. HAWKINS
19. TOO FUNKY – GEORGE MICHAEL
20. ORDINARY ANGELS (CLUNK EP) – FRENTE

Now I am tempted to choose “Under the Bridge”, but to be honest I remember it more for the parody done of it by the D-Generation on The Late Show than the actual song. I know I would have heard it more than any other of the top 20 songs, but it doesn’t take me, like some audio madeleine cake, back to a moment in my past. Looking at this top 20, I’m quite glad that none of the other songs on the list do either. Achy Breaky Heart? My God, what was it with the 90s and gimmick songs? I recall “November Rain” was once voted the greatest song of all time on a SAFM countdown, but it did nothing for me other than make me think “Layla” did the whole coda thing much, much better.

The rest of the top 50 is not much of an improvement – “Way Out West” by James Reyne and James Blundell? “Accidentally Kelly Street” by Frente? Actually the more I look at the list, the more I am reminded of parodies done on The Late Show than the actual songs themselves.

In fact that year, my third year at uni, was one where I was listening to just about anything but songs on the radio. Perhaps the album that reminds me most of 1992 is Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack to the Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ. I had his album “Passion” on almost constantly while swotting for my mid-year exams that year. It also is special because one of the best friends I have ever had gave me the tape, so it always reminds me of her.

But that album is not a 1992 album, so it misses out.

One song from 1992 Top 50 does take me back to a particular moment of that year, in fact a particular place – the refectory of the Lutheran Seminary. The song was “Everything’s Alright” (number 40) from the soundtrack of the Australian revival of Jesus Christ Superstar that toured around that year starring John Farnham, Kate Ceberano, John Stevens and John Waters.

I have to admit to being a bit of a musicals fan. It is something that my parents can be blamed for, as my Dad seemed unable to go on a holiday without having some Rogers and Hammerstein tape playing in the car. That I can even now sing all the words to “Kansas City”, despite not having seen a performance of Oklahoma! for about 30 years, is testimony to the number of times my Dad had the choice of listening to the radio or putting in the Oklahoma! tape and chose the latter. So when this revival of Jesus Christ Superstar came out, it was something of a shock to me to discover that I really didn’t know many of the songs. I could vaguely recall seeing the movie one Easter years earlier, but it seemed to me to be the ropiest bit of post 60s hippiedom that had ever made it to the screen (it still does). So when I first heard “Everything’s Alright” sung by Ceberano, Stevens and Farnham, I have to admit to being quite pleasantly surprised by it.

But the memory it takes me back to is of mopping the floor of the refectory at the Lutheran Seminary where I was boarding. I had taken the job of kitchen-hand there the year before. There was a crew of 4 or 5 boarders who had the job, and we worked on a rotational basis cleaning the kitchen and serving the dinners to all the borders. I don’t think it paid much – beer money most likely – but it was good for the soul, as let’s face it all uni students should do some sort of menial labour. The work also gave me the advantage of knowing what meal was to be served that night, and when I took my break, my friends sitting out on the lawn would seek this knowledge from me in order to allow them to decide whether to stay for dinner, or head down to the Blue and White Cafe for a hot dog with the lot.

In between memories of the food being served out to an unappreciative audience, the dishes being washed in the industrial dish-washer, and the sweeping around the stoves with huge vats of gravy simmering away, what I recall is how we always had Adelaide’s easy-listening FM station, 102.3 5AD-FM (now Mix 102.3), playing on the radio. As an easy listening station, it was naturally pretty enamoured with “Everything's Alright” (in fact with just about anything John Farnham related), which means for what seems like half the year, without fail, every time I started mopping up the floor of the kitchen on would come this song. And, like all oft played songs on the radio, it went from “oh cool, I like this song”, to “geez, they play this a lot” till inevitably we arrived at “not this bloody song again”.

I did see the concert performance later that year, and the one thing that sticks in my mind of the night was that musicians cannot act. Farnham, Stevens, Ceberano and Angry Anderson all tried hard to convey emotion (and failed), but when John Waters walked on the stage, even without opening his mouth, you knew he was an actor (he also was a damn good singer – but then I knew that from seeing him on Play School!).

So here’s the video of the song (and I have to admit I had never seen this until I searched for it on Youtube); a song forever linked for me with mops, low quality food, dishwashers and the joys of being a uni student.

The Unfair (and Dumb) AFL Draw

With only one round remaining in the AFL we can now have a look at the draw to see the utter stupidity involved in having a competition wherein each side does not play each other twice.

It is one of the most incomprehensible aspects of sport in this country that we have uneven competitions. No football league in Europe or anywhere else would even get official sanction if each side didn’t play each other twice. Could you imagine a scenario in the English Premier League where a side didn’t have to play Manchester United, Liverpool or Chelsea twice? You think some of the teams that did have to play them twice might complain somewhat? You’d be right. And yet year in year out we continue with the furphy that the AFL draw after 22 rounds is an honest and true recorder of the relative ability of each team. It is not.

The simplest way to compare each team’s draw is to examine the teams they did not have to play twice. Each team missed out on hosting four teams that it played an away game against, and similarly there are four teams that each team hosted, but didn’t have to play away against. By using the current premiership table as a weighting measure we can assess the average toughness of those game not played – the harder those “non-played” games are, the easier that team’s draw has been.

So by giving the teams a value based on their ladder position we can get an average ladder position of the teams a side has not had to play. For example, if a team had not had to play Saints, Collingwood, Carlton, Brisbane, Port, North, Richmond and Melbourne, that teams score would be 1+3+5+7+10+13+15+16=70 for an average of 8.75. In theory each side should end up with an average non-opponent score of 8.5 – ie if you miss out on playing the Saints and Melbourne, that would give you an average of 8.5, and would be fair (because you missed out on playing the toughest and the easiest opponent)

Now admittedly there is an inherent bias in this, given the premiership table itself is biased – a team’s position may be due to the fact it has played the Saints twice, whereas the team above it on the ladder may have only played them once. But that bias aside, this formula gives us a rough guide for the relative ease and toughness of each side’s draws.

First let’s start with the home games – ie these are the teams the respective sides didn’t get to play at home (remember the higher the average number, the lower on average the opponents are on the ladder) (Top 8 sides in bold)

HOME

Adelaide – Brisbane, Essendon, Melbourne, Richmond = 46 (11.5)

Essendon – North, Port, Sydney, West Coast = 46 (11.5)

Collingwood – Geelong, North, Richmond, West Coast = 43 (10.75)

Sydney – Adelaide, Fremantle, Melbourne, Bulldogs = 40 (10)

Brisbane – Fremantle, Hawks, Richmond, Saints = 39 (9.75)

Bulldogs – Adelaide, Brisbane, Essendon, Melbourne = 37 (9.25)

Carlton – Hawks, North , Port, Bulldogs = 36 (9)

Hawks – Collingwood, Fremantle, Richmond, Bulldogs = 36 (9)

Fremantle –Collingwood, Melbourne, North, Saints = 33 (8.25)

Melbourne – Brisbane, Carlton, Essendon, Hawks = 29 (7.25)

West Coast – Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Sydney = 29 (7.25)

Richmond – Fremantle, Geelong, Port, Saints = 27 (6.75)

Saints – Carlton, Collingwood, Hawks, Port = 27 (6.75)

Geelong – Carlton, Essendon, Saints, West Coast = 26 (6.5)

North – Adelaide , Geelong, Sydney, West Coast = 23 (5.75)

Port – Collingwood, Geelong, Sydney, Bulldogs = 20 (5)

So what does this tell us? Well for one thing, Port fans can’t complain too loudly; Crows fans might wonder at the luck of being the only team not to play both Melbourne and Richmond at home (and they may wonder how that would have helped their percentage); and interestingly both Geelong and the Saints on average had pretty soft home games.

Ok, now to the away games. These are the game that each respective team played at home, but didn’t have to go through the drama of playing away:

AWAY

Sydney – Essendon, North, Port, West Coast = 43 (10.75)

Fremantle – Brisbane, Hawks, Richmond, Sydney = 42 (10.5)

Geelong – Collingwood, North, Port, Richmond = 41 (10.25)

Adelaide – North, Sydney, West Coast, Bulldogs = 40 (10)

Brisbane – Adelaide, Melbourne, West Coast, Bulldogs = 38 (9.5)

Saints – Brisbane, Fremantle, Geelong, Richmond = 38 (9.5)

Melbourne – Adelaide, Fremantle, Sydney, Bulldogs = 35 (8.75)

Bulldogs – Carlton, Hawks, Port, Sydney = 35 (8.75)

Collingwood – Fremantle, Hawks, Port, Saints = 34 (8.5)

Carlton – Geelong, Melbourne, Saints, West Coast = 31 (7.75)

North – Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle = 30 (7.5)

Hawks – Brisbane, Carlton, Melbourne, Saints = 29 (7.25)

Port – Carlton, Essendon, Richmond, Saints = 29 (7.25)

Essendon – Adelaide, Geelong, Melbourne, Bulldogs = 28 (7)

West Coast – Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong, North = 26 (6.5)

Richmond – Adelaide, Brisbane, Collingwood, Hawks = 25 (6.25)

What does this tell us? Well for starters, if Tigers’ fans think this year was bad, imagine how bad it would have been if they had had to travel to play Adelaide, Brisbane, Collingwood (and also play the Hawks twice). Sydney fans might also ponder if they would have made the finals had they been given the chance to play North, Port and West Coast twice. Would the Saints still be top if they had to play Brisbane at the Gabba and Geelong at Kadinia Park?

Ok, let’s add it all up and see which teams had the hardest draw by the average ladder position of the teams not played twice (in brackets is the number of sides in the bottom half of the ladder they missed out on playing):

TOTAL

Adelaide – 10.75 – (5)
Sydney – 10.38 – (5)
Brisbane – 9.6 – (5)
Collingwood – 9.6 – (6)
Fremantle – 9.4 – (5)
Essendon – 9.25 – (5)
Bulldogs – 9 – (4)
Carlton – 8.38 – (5)
Geelong – 8.38 – (4)
Hawks – 8.13 – (3)
Saints – 8.13 – (4)
Melbourne – 8 – (3)
West Coast – 6.88 – (2)
North – 6.63 – (3)
Richmond – 6.5 – (3)
Port – 6.13 – (2)

So first off, let’s put away any arguments that Collingwood gets given a free kick by the AFL. Yes they get given the plumb games and dates, but you can’t say they had an easy draw. Those thinking the draw is meant to reflect the previous year’s ladder positions, and give those at the top a harder draw may ponder the ease of the draw that Hawthorn has had (though to be honest it is pretty close to an average draw). But consider this – this week Carlton and Adelaide play to see who finishes 5th and gets a home final, and yet the teams Carlton has not played average over 2 positions higher on the premiership ladder than the ones Adelaide has not got to play.

Or how about Essendon versus Hawks? The winner this week plays in the finals, the loser misses out; yet Essendon didn’t get to play at home to North, Port, Sydney and West Coast and away to Melbourne. The best the Hawks could say they missed out on was home games to Fremantle and Richmond and an away game to Melbourne. Even if we only give the Bombers 4 of their 5, and the Hawks all 3 of their games, this week’s match suddenly is meaningless; Essendon are already in the finals.

So what is the solution? Either it is time to split the comp into two (more likely once the Gold Coast and Western Sydney are in), or play 30 rounds. Silly you say? What about the players? Well just because you play 30 games doesn't mean the players have to play all of them. It’s called list management. When you are playing lower ranked sides you rest some players – they do it in the football leagues all the time. It means playing some of the younger players earlier, it means really having to think about holding onto older players, it means the draft really becomes important.

I doubt it will happen, and it certainly won’t until media commentators stop being dumb, and admit that the current system is unfair.

And if you think it is fair – answer me this: Collingwood played the Saints once, and Melbourne twice: the Crows played the Saints twice and Melbourne once – which team would you rather be?

AFL Power List: Round 21 (or just when you thought things would go as planned)

Well that threw everything up in the air.

The Bulldogs beat Geelong to ruin Adelaide’s and Carlton’s chances of finishing 4th. The Roos beat the Saints to give everyone in the top 8 hope.

The Saints loss to the lowly, pathetic North has caused me to drop them to second on the Power List; the Pies’ emphatic win over the Swans, vaults them into first spot. Geelong’s loss has seen them tumble down to 5th (and I have to say I probably should have put the Blues ahead of them as well). They look fragile, and when you consider the Crows should have beaten them a Kadinia Park in Round 18, they are a side sorely lacking in form.

Port blew a massive lead to make sure it won’t play in the finals, but the Bomber’s loss to Fremantle means 8th spot comes down to whoever wins out of the Hawks and Bombers – a great scenario for the AFL, that should mean a massive crowd next Saturday at the MCG.

Collingwood and the Bulldogs meet to see who finishes 3rd, though the Bulldogs will need to win by about 20-30 points (depending on the total score), to edge ahead on percentage). By my calculations, if the Bulldogs win 100-80, Collingwood will finish 3rd; if they win 100-75, the Bulldogs will finish 3rd. So if the Bulldogs are up in the last quarter expect a live ladder replace the actual match scoreboard.

Adelaide and Carlton will play to see who (most likely) finishes 5th and 7th. Assuming the Lions beat Sydney, 5th will play at home to Essendon; 7th will play Brisbane at the Gabba. If the Lions lose to Sydney, then it will finish 7th, and both Carlton and Adelaide will have a home final regardless. Theoretically as well if either Adelaide or Carlton win by heaps, and the Bulldogs lose by a hep, then the Bulldogs could drop to fifth. Unlike, but it just shows how tight thing can get.

The crucial aspect of finishing 5th is it means you avoid playing the Saints till the Grand Final (assuming they win the preliminary final). Though that possibly doesn't mean as much as it did two weeks ago.

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
Safe
	1	3↑	Collingwood	15-6	The Pies look the goods, and are the form team at the moment.
	2	1↓	St Kilda	19-2	How quickly it can all go south, even when playing North.
	3	5↑	Bulldogs	14-7	The Bulldogs let the Cats back in the game, but showed grit to hold on for the win. Can still finish third.
	4	4↔	Adelaide	13-8	The Crows put the Eagles to the sword, now for the Blues to see which team will still have a chance in the finals.
	5	2↓	Geelong	17-4	No team in the top 8 would fear Geelong at the moment.
	6	6↔	Carlton	13-8	The Blues beat a Melbourne team that wasn’t all that interested in winning
	7	7↔	Brisbane	12-1-8	The Lions had no right to win; and still need to beat Sydney at the SCG to keep a home final.
Need	a	win
	8	9↑	Hawthorn	9-12	The Hawks beat the Tigers, and were given a huge life-line by the Bombers' inept work in Perth.
	9	8↓	Essendon	9-1-11	All they had to do was beat Fremantle. Not good enough, and will be lucky to make the finals.
No	chance
	10	10↔	Port Adelaide	9-12	Port shows that it is capable of doing the impossible… though not quite the way they wanted it.
	11	11↔	Sydney	8-13	The Swans stayed with the Pies for 2 quarters, but then the lack of class showed out.
	12	13↑	North Melbourne	6-1-14	The Roos upset of the Saints gave seven other teams a great feeling.
	13	14↑	West Coast	6-15	An excellent win for Freo – gives them some hope for next year.
	14	12↓	Fremantle	7-14	The Eagles only lacked skill, fitness and a game plan against the Crows.
	15	14↓	Richmond	5-1-15	The Tigers were no good; so at least they’re gaining some degree of consistency.
	15	14↓	Melbourne	4-17	Let’s be honest, the Demons were happy to lose.

Bolt becomes the world's fastest metaphor

The guy's last name is Bolt; how could he not be the fastest ever?

Last year at the Beijing Olympics, Usain Bolt took the 100m and 200m World Records away from the rest of the world for a decade. This week in Berlin at the World Championships he took them away for a generation.

I will not be surprised if they stand for 30 years. Unless, of course, he breaks them.

His 100m run of 9.58 sec was amazing. Never in my dreams had I thought we would be that close to 9 1/2 seconds. Consider - his run has suddenly made running the 100 in 10 secs common place; dull if you will. But as great as that was, his 200m run in 19.19 sec was something else completely. It was scary. He destroyed the field, and destroyed history.

He also destroys logic. It doesn't seem possible that anyone can be that good, and so your mind searches for an answer, and because this is athletics you find one in drugs. Now, I have to say I don't think he is on anything except incredible genes. Bolt, like Thorpe, Tiger Woods, Federer and Phelps had been seen from a young age as something special. When he was 15 he won the World Junior 200m (for those 19 and under), so it's not like he came from nowhere. But where he has gone is nowhere anyone else has been or will be going any time soon.

For athletics fans, watching him run is spine tingling stuff. You know watching him you will be telling your grandkids that there was never anyone as fast as Bolt.

He will now likely give the 400m a go. Currently his best is 45.28 sec. No person has ever broken 45 secs for the 400m, 20 secs for the 200m and 10 secs for the 100m. (Michael Johnson's best 100m was 10.09 secs). Bolt would be short odds to not only do that, but also most likely break 44 secs for the 400m (if not Johnson's WR). What is more scary however, is the thought that he might also break 9.5 secs for the 100m and 19 secs for the 200m.

If he were to do that, he would not so much have changed his sport as created a new one.

Were I a 20 year old sprinter, I'd probably think about becoming a long jumper, and pray Bolt doesn't start paying attention to the sand pit.

Below is his 200m final (with German commentary). It is the sporting moment of the year - a man touching the extremes which humans can achieve, and leaving a void behind him.

Film Review: Balibo – A Great Australian Film

Robert Connolly’s latest film Balibo aims to be placed alongside such important films about events during war as The Killing Fields and Hotel Rwanda. It well and truly earns its place.

The story of the murder of three Channel 7 journalists (reporter Greg Shackleton, sound recordist Tony Stewart, and cameraman Gary Cunningham) and two from Channel 9 (reporter Malcolm Rennie, and cameraman Brian Peters) – known as the Balibo Five – in October 1975 at Balibo during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, and the subsequent murder in December of journalist Roger East is one that has long been demanding a telling on film. We are lucky that it fell to Connolly and screenwriter David Williamson to do the telling.

The film focuses mostly of the story of Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia) as he travels to East Timor at the behest of a young Jose Ramos Horte (Oscar Isaac) – at the time the Fretlin Foreign Minister – to try and discover the fate of the five young journalists. Intercut with scenes of East and Horte are flashbacks to the five journalists as they travel to Balibo to film the invasion. The intercutting of stories and chronology could have been confusing, however Connolly uses the clever device of filming the scenes of the Balibo Five with lenses from the period – giving those scenes a distinct news footage appearance, thus not only allowing the viewer to differentiate between the two narratives, but also heightening the sense of realism – we are in effect seeing the footage of the journalists that they would be murdered for taking.

The film’s attention is thus on the small picture of the fates of the six men, rather than looking at the broader political events going on in the background. Some critics have suggested this is to the detriment of the film, and I must admit that I had wished the film could have been 30 minutes longer if only to flesh out the context of the events; however in some ways that is a story to be told in another film. Sure we could have seen shots of the Australian embassy in Jakarta and officials in Canberra looking at cables and musing about what to tell the Prime Minister and so on; but Connolly puts his all into showing us the journey of the six men, and in doing so he has crafted a tense political thriller that exists independently to an extent of the border context. These journalists were all murdered – would knowing what those in Canberra knew make their deaths any more wrong? It certainly didn't make the story any less tense – much of the film is white knuckle stuff.

Any telling of the events of Balibo, will always create some controversy; but in all honesty, the film is not controversial. Connolly lets Gough Whitlam off pretty lightly (rightly or wrongly), and he shows (whether this was intended or not) that the journalists all knew the risks of staying and through inexperience, naivety, desire for the story, sense of justice, and perhaps just being dumb they stayed. Far from blaming the Australian Government, the film makes it obvious that having two competing teams of reporters made it unlikely either was going to be the first to leave, unlike ABC journalist Tony Maniaty (played by Samuel Johnson) who writing of the events in June this year said:

What happened in Balibo may have been avoided if the news safety strategies employed by major TV networks today had been applied back then. But they weren't, and the result was that five young men exposed themselves to a near-certain death scenario….

Correspondents in war zones are always confronted by a single, hammering anxiety: when to stay, and when to go? This was the core issue facing the Balibo Five, and, in misjudging the timing and scope of the risks involved, they exposed themselves to a ruthless enemy.

He also makes the important point that:

Of course none of this excuses the brutal fact of their murders.

I realise that in reviewing this film I have probably spent as much time discussing the events depicted, as their depiction. But that is what is so great about Balibo; it is a film well told of events that are not black or white, that has you afterwards chatting with others about the events, and wondering what you would have done, what the men should have done, and the horror that was actually done.

And when it comes to the horror of the murders, the film reaches great heights. The actors portraying the five are in superb form, and all convey with sharp intensity the moment when they realise they are going to be killed. The facade of professional journalists disappears, replaced by that of young men not wanting to die, but knowing there is no way out. It is a shattering scene, made all the more so by Connolly’s camera work and lack of music. The sound of the bullets is distinctly un-Hollywood; their deaths shot without glamour.

LaPaglia as East is as good as he ever has been – perhaps only his role in Lantana comes close, and Isaac as Horte is a revelation. If there is justice, he would be nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, but that will of course depend on the film getting a release in America. Which it certainly does deserve.

I do have some criticisms of the film. Until the end, I had little sense of the horror for the East Timorese people of the invasion – even a scene of East and Horte discovering dozens of murdered villages lacks a real punch. The scene of Horte leaving East in Dili is also one that could have done with a re-write. Horte gives a nice little speech that is a bit overwrought, but when he leaves the sense that East has chosen death is not as intense as it could be – the scene in The Killing Fields of Sydney Shanberg leaving Dith Pran at Phnom Penh airport was must more intense. Admittedly those two were much closer than East and Horte, but I feel it all happened a bit too quickly, and a bit too matter of factly. Maybe that is how is was in reality, but given the license Connolly did take with some parts of the story (such as a fight between East and Horte), it would have been advisable for some more emotion to be wrung out of this moment.

But these are minor quibbles. Balibo is not the greatest Australian film ever made (as some have suggested), but it sure as hell is a great Australian film, and of a standard that we can only pray more of will be made by Australian film makers.Shamefully it is only showing on 23 screens (GI Joe: Rise of Cobra by comparison is on 223), and it made only $282,ooo in its first week. But its screen average is a whopping $12,268 (GI Joe’s average is 8,500). Hopefully more distributers will take note of the screen average and put it on in a few more screens and this film can make some decent money.

Go see it.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Missed today’s Question Time? Don’t worry if you saw yesterday’s, you saw today’s (minus two sprigs of wattle worn by Rudd and Turnbull).

Yesterday the opposition asked about the Henry Tax Review recommending to the Government bringing in a tax on houses over $2m on the basis of a report in The Australian. They did it again today. Yesterday the Government said the article was fiction; they did again today.

Yesterday the opposition then asked about the Henry Review recommending tax increases on any old tax they could think of; they did it again today. Yesterday the Government ruled nothing in or out, but instead said Australia needed a “root and branch” tax review; they did again today.

Yesterday the opposition quoted something Lindsay Tanner had said about negative gearing 15 years ago; he laughed at them. Today they asked Swan about something Tanner had said 15 years ago on negative gearing; today Swan laughed at them.

It was a dumb day really. The opposition asked its first eight questions to Swan, but it was actually the same questions asked eight times. But it wasn’t a case of Swan squirming away; in fact his first response to Turnbull was pretty strong. By the end Swan could hardly be bothered and he gave Truss a one sentence response to a question on if the Government would rule out an increase on fuel excise. I guess the Liberal Party will now put out a string of media releases claiming the Government is secretly planning to raise every tax in the land and invent some new ones as well. Sigh. It’s all so old and dull. The Liberal Party has been trying to scare the voters about ALP taxes since Menzies’ day. It’s an old dodge that doesn’t work very well when the ALP is in power, because it is hard to scare the voters about a Government that is already the Government. The public has seen Rudd for nearly three years now; they may think many things about him, but scary is not one of them.

The Government as well kept to a pretty straight theme – attacking Turnbull’s judgement. Expect this to be the case from now till election day – when you’ve got around 60% of the voters thinking Turnbull is doing a bad job, it’s obvious the ALP will continue to keep pointing out his perceived faults. And it’ll probably work – people generally agree with their own opinions, the trouble with the Opposition is they have to convince the voters that what they think about Rudd is wrong; a much tougher ask.

The one interesting question of the day was from Julie Bishop who was trying to get Stephen Smith to admit that China is annoyed with Australia granting a visa to Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. Smith got up and pretty much admitted that China is well and truly pissed off with Australia; and yet Bishop – dopey as it gets – kept trying to make a point of order. Did she listen to what he was saying? Did she understand it?

Bizarrely the next question from the Liberals was to Peter Garrett arguing that the Government's policy on ceiling insulation was encouraging the importation of inferior “cheap, Chinese pink bats”. Just how that was supposed to help the Sino-Aussie relationship, I’m not sure.

And just how the whole China kerfuffle fits in with the story that China has just agreed to buy $50b worth of liquefied natural gas is also something I’m not sure of. Perhaps it seems that foreign affairs is a bit more complicated than Julie Bishop would like.

And the sprigs of wattle? They were worn by Rudd and Turnbull (and oddly only Rudd and Turnbull) to commemorate Vietnam Veterans' Day. Turnbull’s was a particularly large sprig that gave him the edge over Rudd in the fauna stakes; though perhaps sprigs of wattle are like some men's cars, the size of which is an attempt to make up for things lacking elsewhere… perhaps when Turnbull actually comes up with a policy he'll be less worried about the size of his wattle.

On the QT: Billy Brownless and bad draft picks

Last night I was chatting with my Dad about various things AFL, and we cast our minds to some horror draft picks made by the Crows. For any Crows’ fan, when you think bad draft picks you think Laurence Angwin who in 2000 was drafted at Number 7 (still the highest pick the Crows have ever had). He arrived with much fanfare, and then he went on to play a total of zero games for the Crows. He then was picked up by Carlton where he played 4 games before being sacked after turning up to training stoned.

All fans of any footy club would be able to mention at least one “Laurence Angwin” for their club, and yet despite the lottery that is the AFL Draft, each year teams near the bottom of the table will be accused of tanking for priority draft picks. So bad has the Liberal Party been this year that one would be led to believe they are tanking in the interests of getting some priority picks for the next election…. except I’m not sure if that’s how the system works.

Either way, I think in their current leader Malcolm Turnbull, they may have an Angwin. Ok, I don’t expect Turnbull to front up to Question Time having dropped a few tabs of ecstasy beforehand, but he certainly has not lived up to all the fanfare he had when he was drafted from Goldman Sachs. He was put straight into the first 22, and after the Liberals lost the 2007 Grand Final he was thought a chance of being made captain despite his inexperience. After Nelson was found wanting, Turnbull was duly made captain, and the Liberal Party fans thought they had done well with their draft pick – more Chris Judd than Angwin.

Alas, since he has been asked to play in the centre of the park, he has been found rather less talented than what the recruiters thought when he was picked up in the 2004 Draft.

Take today’s Question Time. He had the first question and he asked Rudd about news reports from Saturday’s The Australian that the Henry Tax Review was considering putting a “wealth tax” on homes over $2 million (why this would concern anyone living outside of Point Piper, I’m not sure). Now by Saturday late morning Swan had put out a media release denying the story:

The story published on the front page of today’s Weekend Australian in relation to capital gains tax on family homes is factually incorrect.

There has been no request from the Government to the Australia’s Future Tax System review to model such proposals, we are advised that no such modelling is being carried out by the review, and therefore no recommendation of this sort will be made to us by the panel.

The Government is not considering and will not consider the policy outlined in that article today.

And if that wasn’t enough, Ken Henry, the Secretary of the Treasury, this morning (before Question Time) in a speech to the Australian Industry Group said:

"There's a reference there to us possibly considering applying capital gains tax to the owner occupied house, well, I don't think there was anybody in the country was more shocked to learn about that on Saturday morning than me. It was pure fiction."

So the story had been denied completely by all involved, and yet Turnbull asks a question on it. All it did was allow Rudd to note that Turnbull has been known to have some “historic connections” with people in Treasury, and then repeat the denials. It was the ultimate free kick for Rudd, who doesn’t need any help at the moment.

Later, Turnbull obviously thought the ALP wasn’t in front by enough, and decided to ask Rudd a virtual Dorothy Dixer on prices and interest rates. Now given that since the 07 election, interest rates have gone through the floor, and inflation has gone down due to the global financial crisis, it was an amazingly asinine question, that pretty much let Rudd talk about everything and anything he wanted to on the economy – cue “10 interest rate rises under Howard” etc etc etc (you know the script). In footy terms it was like Turnbull had kicked across his own goal and found the opposition full forward 10 metres out, straight in front.

The Government had a pretty fun day – Garrett was looking pretty loose and came up with a nice line about the current Liberal Party going so far to the right on environmental issues that they were making John Howard look like Al Gore; Kate Ellis, in one of her few non-Dorothy Dix moments at the dispatch box, slapped down Sophie Mirabella so nicely that Bronwyn Bishop felt the need to make a pointless point of order just to give some relief.

Lindsay Tanner had the most fun (as he often does) when Joe Hockey asked him a question based on something he had previously said about negative gearing. Tanner pointed out what Hockey had failed to mention, namely that he was quoting something Tanner had said 15 years ago. Tanner had no problems in saying he no longer stood by those statements, and added for good measure that if that was the best the Liberal Party had, then he would be sleeping very well tonight. He also decided that it was as good a time as any to put the knife into Hockey’s future leadership ambitions by referring to him as the Billy Brownless of the Liberal Party – a jovial type, but not one who you would trust with the leadership.

At this point I’m not sure who comes off worst by the comparison – Billy or Joe – Brownless played some good games for Geelong and certainly was no mug as a player, much as is the case with Hockey. But there is one fact that as a mad AFL fan Tanner would be aware – Brownless played in four grand finals with Geelong and never won any of them. At the rate this Liberal Party is going, losing four elections is not out of the question – and you can bet Rudd, Tanner, Gillard and co are already thinking in such terms – after all Rudd is a Brisbane Lions supporter so he knows about stringing a few Premierships in a row.