“Get up you weak dog” or words to that
effect, with some expletives thrown in, caught the headlines from the
Sydney clash with Essendon on Saturday night. Over in Perth last
weekend Fremantle reminded Collingwood of its new place in the AFL
scheme of things with a record belting. For the two biggest clubs in
Victoria, while their 2005 demise was hardly unexpected, it’s time to
face up to a harsh new reality.

Essendon can’t win a final
quarter of football to save them and look reasonable odds to miss the
finals; while for the rest of the competition the interest isn’t
whether the Magpies will be around in September, so much as can they
finish bottom? For Eddie McGuire who humiliatingly oversaw the club’s
last wooden spoon in his first year as president in 1999, history now
threatens to repeat.

Read more on the Crikey website here.