• CSM

    CSM: Chapter 5.

    5. Night Robbery. People are always saying that ‘the game’s changing.’  That’s partly correct.  The game has evolved.  Players have gotten fitter, stronger; their kicking (generally) sharper, longer; their capacity to play in various positions more flexible.  So, in those ways, the game has changed. Fundamentally, though, the game itself has remained the same.  It’s still about winning the ball, about being first to it, about pressuring the opposition when they have it, about finding your way to goal, and about kicking a better score than your opposition.  None of that’s changed.  None of it ever will. Attitudes have, though.  Take State footy, for example.  There was a time that…

  • CSM

    CSM: Chapter 3.

    3. Some ruminations. I was still too young to truly appreciate where Collingwood stood in the grand scheme of things – that they were coming off another grand final loss, and what that meant, or that it was their second loss in three years (or third failure to win a grand final in three years, if you include the 1977 draw). I knew these defeats existed, but was just a stupid kid too young to understand their significance. There’s something to be said about innocence. And stupidity. If I was older, I would’ve understood that the 1970s marked a decade of the grandest failures. The 1970 grand final wasn’t just…