Maybe - wait I am - incredibly biased... but HOW THE HELL DID BRAD JOHNSON BEAT BUDDY FRANKLIN INTO THE FORWARD LINE????
Cannot complain about other selections so far.... but thats ridiculous...
Add to that that Neither Franklin nor Mitchell made the bench - OMG thats INCREDIBLY F***ED UP!!!!
Firstly, the All Australian team should be IMO done without the squad of 40 players, and they should also have a state for WA, SA, VIC and the Allies as well.
I would think that Brad Johnson is in the team as a smallish marking forward, as Franklin would be considered as a tall forward.
While the All Australian team is a award team it still needs to make a sense; you can have a front line of Franklin, Pavlich and Mooney, but you wouldnt do it in a game, unless you have a stream of midfielders following the ball in to crumb the dropped marks.
Franklin also doesnt have the years of form behind him that Johnson does; I know the team is picked purely on this year and this year only, but in all honestly, it happens, and it happens in the NBA too (the all star team benches and the all nba teams) and probably every 'all star' team in team sport.
Honestly, with the midfielders in the All Australian team you pick about 10 names and from that you could put them in bucket and pick 6 random names out and you would be right; there is always going to players who fully deserve to be picked (Mitchell and Foley come to mind as does Nigel Lappin), but while that is the case can you honestly say Ablett, Kerr, Bartel and the Cornes Bros. dont deserve their spots.?
Also IMO players who have shown the ability to move to the forward or defense from the midfield (ie Harvey, Ling, Corey, even Lade) will probably win over players such Mitchell, Nigel Lappin and Foley who are solely on ballers.
9 players from Geelong is pretty rich (and im a Geelong supporter) but who do you take out? Mooney with Franklin coming in? Ling (who i think is in the team as the no.1 tagger, although Kane Cornes could be) /Corey for Mitchell and Foley? Ablett, Bartel and Johnson all deserve their spots and nobody can honestly say they don't, and Scarlett, Milburn (an example of a player who has earned his possie in this team with a few years of great play) and Egan all deserve their respective spot as well.
In regard to Collingwood not having any players, Eddie has whinged enough for everyone on the planet who feels that they were robbed, but they only nominated 2 players; Travis Cloke and Tarkyn Lockyer from memory and who do you take to slot them in?
Carrazzo played pretty well, but honestly, and this applies to Foley as well, your always going to take a player who has played in a top 4 team (such as Ling, Kerr or Corey) over a player who has done similiar things for a team who struggled to win a game.
As for Geelong 'always' choking, to make a Grand Final, you have to win at least 2 finals and that includes Prem Finals, which are pretty big days.
The talk that Geelong always chokes doesnt really apply to these guys; sure they sucked last year, but so did Port, Hawthorn and the Kangas and the last 2 finals they lost by a total of 2 goals, and in close games that would only give them experience.
