The Pulse: The Ambient Stench Of The Off-Season | Thebigtip

Ambient awareness is a concept that gurus of social networking platforms throw around these days. This is the sensation of “intimacy” with someone else by following their thoughts as expressed through their tweets and status updates.  But enough about my love-life.

Yes, this was the off-season for really getting inside the heads, hearts and pockets of the AFL players. Never have we had as much access to the unfiltered thoughts of our heroes and role models through Twitter.

Publicists and player managers are on constant edge regarding what their stable will let the world know. Enough to send them insane, or failing that, to Ireland and then rehab.

No more of these lightening premierships with indecipherable rules.

No more of witnessing Peter Costello doing what he does worst – trying to influence public opinion.

No more watching Cam White make another 17 runs from 32 deliveries!!!! Can’t we just drop this clown once and for all?!?!

Sleepers will wake this Thursday and we can restore sanity to the proceedings.

Through the mess of the past months, I’ve been able to nail down my predictions for Season 2011 proper.

Ricky Nixon has probably nailed more than that recently.

I’ll leave the double entendres and the invasion of Libya to the French. They do it justice.
1              Collingwood      = (1)       Flagpies Redux. The fact that Collingwood’s victory was followed by locust plagues, floods and earthquakes is no surprise. I believe that Nathan Buckley is the seventh son of the seventh son.

2              Geelong          + (3)       Chris Scott is a good Catholic boy and took the Cats on a pre-season trip to Lourdes. Here they bathed in the Grotto of Massabielle. You will find that their elders have recuperated from soft tissue injuries - chalk up miracle number 68 to be attributed to the waters. Seeing them at odds of $11.45 on Betfair tempts me to place the parish money on them.

3              Hawthorn         + (5)       Now that the fans have re-claimed the #1 guernsey from Max Bailey, they may forget that their games are getting sold to Tassie with no Free-To-Air TV. Also their beloved leader continues to stick his nose into of all of their football departments like they were piñatas at a Mexican Halloween. . Good team though.

4              St. Kilda        - (2)       Quiet off-season for the guys. They only got slightly more media coverage than the toppling of Mubarak and the antics of Qaddafi.  The one small thing we learned from the break was Nick Dal Santo.

5              North Melbourne  + (9)       My roughies for the year. JB may take the membership money and place it on them at the fine odds of $85.55 to win it all. Now that's how to demolish a debt. Of course if he loses I have a spare Lonely Planet guide to Majorca for him.

6              Carlton          + (8)       Have been playing Bret Thornton as a key forward target in pre-season. And they say that Brett Ratten had no plan B. Plan C is to accept and embrace Mick Malthouse as Carlton coach in 2012. It was a shame that Sam Jacobs was traded away. Now these extra football commitments are hindering Shaun Hampson’s ability to chase quality skirt.

7              Fremantle        = (7)       This is the year that Pavalicious should do it all - Win the Coleman, Win the Brownlow and captain the Dockers to the flag. Unfortunately he won't.

8              Adelaide         + (11)      Barnstorming finish last year for the Camry Birds. Their odds have shrunk like…. (Hang on… I already have used up my “Dal Santo quota” for this column). The Adelaide tap-water is never kind to the players, and they already have lost some young guns for a good portion of the year.

9              Melbourne        + (10)      Why these inept player managers totally ruin the club by not being able to get a contract signed is beyond me. Tom, all you have to do is sign and the insanity is over.

10             Sydney           - (6)       Horse Longmire promised to have a few tricks up his sleeve this year. From watching them last week, it seems that one of them is "Give the pill to Goodesy and get the hell out of his way"

11             Western Bulldogs - (4)       Watch these guys plummet like my Icelandic stock portfolio in December 2008. Already some vultures are out there munching on the carcasses of Johnno, Aka and Eagleton. It seems they have only a few Williamstown Seagulls to replace them.

12           Essendon           + (15)      As soon as Hird and Thompson wash the blood from their hands, they may be able to put together a decent side this year. I personally feel that Sheedy is pulling either strings or something else in the background.

13           Port Adelaide      - (7)       The young Cockeldivers of Alberton Oval will not enjoy immediate success this year, nor will they enjoy much success at all. However the sage punter who looks through their "no-name" list can see some great potential - expect Ebert, Boak, Pearce, Trengrove and Gray to touch up a few sides this year.

14           West Coast         + (16)      Jack Darling will fit into the culture of the Eagles just fine. 30 seconds late to arrive to the bus and he is benched. Did these guys get a six sigma consultant in over the holidays?

15           Richmond           - (12)      There is hope for the Tiger supporters. With Jack Riewoldt, they have not had such a gun full-forward since “Disco” Roach was snaring goals in the 1980’s (apologies to Jeff Hogg).  However he will need to wear the long sleeves on cold winter nights as the delivery will not be forthcoming any time soon.

16           Brisbane           - (14)      The Brisbane game plan this year will involve extensive flooding…… (too soon?)

17           Gold Coast         (NA)        The devolution of Campbell Brown into a "Poor Man's Billy Duckworth" will be complete this year as he stumbles around Carrara looking for someone to snot. Best these guys start singing the themesong before the game as I think it will be a long time before it is sung afterwards.