JUBJUB said:
Turbo
Did someone ring in and say this crap or was it just the usual dribble from Dwayne Russell ?
I doubt Gerard Healy would've said it.
Jub , the first mention of it apparently was on the "rumour file" ,the title does speak for itself. Ross Stevenson stated something like that he believed that NA had a contract that would guarantee that he would not play a senior game this year. A morning or two after that when talking to that solid "Geelong Supporter", Jon Anderson RS repeated the same but Anderson disagreed and said he thought that NA would play a senior game at some time this year.
Well , I thought not much more than the usual bulltish coming from a radio show until listening to the Sports tonight prog when Russell,Heally and Dr Turf were talking amongst themselves. Eg.(parphrase , not the excact quote) "Dwayne, Ive heard that young Nathan has a special clause that enables him to specify when he plays seniors, have you heard anything etc"."Ive also heard that he has apparently been asking scorers to change the record of him kicking 5 goals into 2".It was more Turf and Healy than Russell but of course they might just be starting so he can talk without it looking like he brought it up.
The reason I started this thread was only that in a way NA is obviously far more like his father than GAJ. He seems to effortlessly draw attention but also he seems complex and may well be the toughest man management task Thompson and the rest of them have had in their time. I hope lessons from the past have been learnt and although some players are special , there are some lines no players should be allowed to cross for the greater good of our club. Has this started to happen, Ive got no idea but I hope not.
These days it must be dammed hard to accept the scrutany on them. Everytime they go to the shop,fill up the car,go for for a meal in a pub, they are under the gaze of the public. As much as Id like to sit down and have beer and talk footy to a player, I could just imagine how totally boring it would be for them to talk footy with Joe public.Id suspect the last thing they want to do is talk footy to somebody outside their inner core that has has inane comments like "Why dont you just kick it".
To help them put up with this attention, most player burn to play AFL.They want it bad,they dream it, they taste it, they are preocupied with it.They do the hard yards,play the state comps, put their name in the raffle that is draft day because they are focused and want it beyond all else.When picked and finally get on a list they usually have a fair period of VFL obsucirty before they start to get noticed.Someone like Sanderson whos been through the ringer would welcome attention,recognise it part of the"job" but also be mature enough to handle it,not letting it effect the private him.
This is why I worry about somone who we had to talk into playing for us, who was more than happy playing social footy.Does he want it bad enough to play by the rules , put up with crap? I really hope so but as I said I think we, "GFC", might be in for some challenges