good idea to watch freo v adelaide. nat fyfe is the prohibitive brownlow (=mvp) favourite at the moment (other candidate for best player itl is currently injured), and dangerfield is a great player in his own right. dangerfield is a free agent and will probably move clubs at the end of the year too, or so the rumor mill says
the betts kick is hard, the technique is called 'checkside' or 'banana' and betts is one of the dudes who habitually kicks really tough goals
on the goodes thing, your first impression would be right. history is that basically aboriginals have been getting ****ed pretty hard since the moment whitey landed on shore. there are a bunch of really depressing stats about their current status in society (life expectancy way lower, super high incarceration rate, high alcoholism rate, high domestic violence rates the list goes on), and as a personal anecdote, 90%+ of the aboriginals i've seen in person have been homeless / v poor. as a comparison, americans i've spoken to said aboriginals seem quite a lot worse off than native americans
this post from the biggest afl forum sums up the worst side of the negative reactions to it pretty well, the rest of the negative reactions are anti-goodes because of a general ethos in afl of team>self, and goodes remarks/actions over the years have often caused a lot of 'disruptive' media coverage:
Quote:
Personally I found the dance quite terrifying. Don't get me wrong, I am a big supporter of the indigenous round and Aborigines in general. I adore the native styled guernsey, and the pretty dot things. I even collect Aboriginal art from charming artists in remote localities (which I donate to the National Gallery for tax purposes). I like "Adam", though I don't know him personally and think he was a servicible Australian of the year (but not as deserving as Rosie Battie). But when he reacted to someone likening him to an animal I started to doubt whether he was, as his name might suggest, good at all. How would a 13 year old girl even know that it is wrong to be racist? I didn't know until an incident at a party when I was 35. And now the dance. Well, it was just...so...Aboriginal. I mean did he have to do something so cultural? It scared me because I thought I was just watching Australian football, you know, listening to Bruce and Wayne, having a cup of tea, feeling quite safe, and then, all of a sudden there was a real Aboriginal person expressing cultural pride right there in front of me. I thought they were just down and out but good at art and football? It frightens me to think they might actually be proud of their heritage. What does this mean for me?
Last edited by mcb33f; 05-31-2015 at 05:45 AM.