Touche' Cornsey

I always enjoy reading Graham Cornes’ weekly articles in Saturday’s Advertiser each week.

Besides being a very successful football coach, he is also a most intelligent and capable journalist. Mind you I don’t always agree with his point of view... especially on one particular subject.

However I enjoyed greatly his two items this Saturday, firstly regarding the probable compromise between the SANFL and the SACA to allow AFL Football to be played at Adelaide Oval.

It was the second and lesser of his two items on the weekend though that really made me chuckle.

Without going in to the details as to the reason for this item about the Sport of Soccer, Graham states that he was unfairly mis-quoted in the Advertiser earlier in the week about some observations he had penned about Soccer. And I quote "What I did say was Soccer was a much easier game to play than Australian Rules and if the stars of Football {AFL}, e.g. Judd, Ablett and Hird had played Soccer at an early age, they could have made it to the highest level. Given the fact that the best athletes in the country rarely have played Soccer, I stand by that claim. {and here come the punch-line}

...At least they would stand up when an opponent tackled them”.

Good one Graham... on your side with this one.

I can quite vividly remember my only senior football coach in Whyalla saying on a number of occasions, "never ever let the opposition see that you are hurt" ...an adage that many Soccer players could do well to adopt.