AFL Supremo, Andrew Demetriou, held discussions with Saigon Supremo, Nick Shiells during the week regarding tomorrow’s two blockbusters. See footnote at bottom of post for related Swannies’ auction news.

We’re just one week away from the Swannies’ AFL Grand Final Parties in both Hanoi and Saigon. Remarkably, not even the awesomeness of these two events is enough to distract the indomitable, irrepressible, indefatigable poster boy from Saigon, Dave O’Shea, from producing another piece of literary brilliance. The subject? Tomorrow’s all important domestic derby between the Reds and the Whites.

The Scratch Match between the Saigon Whites and the Saigon Reds has been forced to move venue and time due to scheduling rights with the AFL. Andrew Demetriou (AFL CEO) has been in contact with Nick Shiells (Saigon President) and asked if the Swans would be able to reschedule their fortnightly Saigon match to avoid any loss of viewing interest in the Hawks Vs Crows preliminary final which is scheduled to be played at 2:15pm Saigon time. In order to keep good relations with the AFL, Nick has kindly agreed to move the match from 2pm to the special earlier time of 11am Saigon time. Nick has also agreed to shift the match from our usual ground at RMIT to Thu Duc Sporting University. These slight changes will no doubt make for some great viewing pleasure all day Saturday. What a great lead up to the Crows-Hawks match.

• Where: Thu Duc Sporting University
• When: 21 September, 2012 – 11am
• What: Saigon Reds V Saigon Whites
• Series: Whites 4 lead Reds 2

Last Time They Met

Last time the teams met, it was a one sided affair in favour of the Mighty White team. The Whites established themselves as the dominant Saigon team with constant and hard running pressure all day as they took a comfortable 4 games to 2 lead in the series.

How will the change in venue affect both teams? The Whites will be looking to continue their dominance and build on their overall lead, whereas the Reds will be hoping for a turn in the tides as they look to bounce back with a win and close the gap between the two teams.

The Four Points

Reds

In order for the Reds’ team to turn things around, they simply need more from their star players such as Dukesy, Nat Payne, Billy Crang, Ryan ‘Revo’ Evans and Damo Judd. All these huge signings have been quiet in recent matches and the Reds’ supporters are very concerned.

One player that can hold his head high, based on his last performance, is Irish Brian. Brian was hard at the ball all day in the midfield along with Nathan Milner, however, they had little support from their teammates and this saw the Whites’ midfield get on top easily throughout the match.

Phil Jordan was also solid down back picking up a best on ground Chicken Parma at the Booma. However, he simply saw too much of the ball in the backline. The Reds will be hoping that the pill spends less time in their backline and more time in their forward line on Saturday.

Is that you, Symmo?

Billy Crang was dropped from the Reds lineup last match and was sent to Pattaya for a high altitude training camp. It seems that Billy has come back from Pattaya with a whole new lease on life – or maybe that is all speculation. The Reds will be hoping for a big performance from their most controversial star.

Whites

It’s no coincidence that since the inclusion of Mega Bretta Jotta to the Whites’ line up, they have simply been unstoppable. Last match Mega was everywhere. He booted 5 goals and picked up 40 disposals amassing huge supercoach points. He needs to be stopped this match or he will continue to destroy the scoreboard in the favour of the Whites.

Similarly to Irish Brian, Irish John also played a huge role in the victory to the Whites in the last match. Coming from a Gaelic background, John has now picked up the game of Aussie Rules and is dominating. Look out for another big performance from him this week.

New Saigon Pres, Nick Shiells is loving his new role as president and also his new role on the field where he has moved into the midfield. Last match Nick was hard at the ball all day and kicked a couple of goals. The question for the Reds will be which midfielder to tag.

The backline of the Whites has been very solid all year but especially so last week. When the ball went into the Whites’ backline, which was rare, it simply came straight back out. Phil Ghasseb, Heath Ellis and Travy simply mopped everything up and rebounded the ball to the midfield with ease. The Reds will need to apply a bit more forward pressure to stop this from happening next match.

I know this section is called the four points but due to the form of the White, I felt they needed five points. Who could forget the dominant display of full forward Adam Corrall last match? Sometimes, when Adam says he is going to footy, what he means is that he is going to watch footy at the Spotted Cow. When he said he was going to footy last week, what he meant was that he was going to play a Plugger Locket type match and boot goals when he felt like it. When he wasn’t kicking goals he was handing them off and for this standout performance he won the HOS (Heart of a Swannie) award where he picked up a parma, a pint and plonk at the Booma. BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

Sentimental Value

It’s not often that you have a welcome back, farewell and birthday celebration all on the one day, but James “Symmo” Symons (I think that’s his full name), will manage to have all three celebrations this Saturday. He requested permission to start in his favourite position in the forward pocket. Perhaps he is looking to go out with a “bag”. As a going away gift for Symmo, we have included a lookalike where you can vote on who or what he most looks like below.

After Match Function (AMF)

The “AMF” will be held at one of our sponsors, the Spotted Cow, where we will have these three celebrations mentioned above for Symmo and we will get to watch the prelim final between the Crows and Hawks. There will also be a presentation for BOG and HOS. Thanks to the ever generous Cow, the HOS n HOG will both receive a parma ‘n’ pitcher (jug of beer). Thank you very much to the Spotted Cow!

Footnote:

In the photo at beginning of this post, Andrew Demetriou is standing in front of a mural of “150 years of Football”. The massive painting hangs in the foyer of AFL House in Melbourne. One of the items to be auctioned at this year’s Swannies’ AFL Grand Final Party in Saigon is a print of this amazing painting. The print, donated by Kenny Earney, has been signed by Kevin Sheedy. (Click here to see Tony Woods standing in front of the same painting, wearing a Swannies hat back in January 2012. Tony Woods is the AFL’s Manager for International Development and ios a former player at Collingwood and Hawthorn.)

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