The Twenty3 All-Australian team

Mitchell looks on as All-Australian team is named

You’ll have seen the scenes of Muslim unrest around the globe in protest over a short film that is said to mock the prophet Muhammad. So imagine how Hawks fans are reacting to the fact that Sam Mitchell and Josh Gibson have not been selected in the AFL All-Australian team.

At Twenty3 we’re seeking redress through whichever means will bring about apology and change. We were going to take it to the streets and burn effigies of Gerard Healy and Andrew Demetriou, but we don’t want to risk being arrested and denied bail, and missing out on Saturday evening’s big clash. Besides, it’s raining out.

So while we stop short of calling for beheadings, we’re protesting in the best way we know – by posting an angry blog.

The quickest way to select our all-Australian team would be to simply name all the number 23s – there’s 18 of them after all. You’d have Buddy at full forward and Darren Glass at full back and just slot the rest in around them. Then we realised that one of the 23s is Daniel Jackson of Richmond, so even though it’s just a fantasy team, we still didn’t want it to be to the discredit of the other players selected.

So we’ll work through the official AFL side and make our own minor changes where we see fit. Really, you’ll barely notice the difference.


Back: Sean Dempster, Luke McPharlin, Darren Glass

Who is Sean Dempster?  I’m not even sure Saints fans know who he is. Can we trust him down back? I think for the good of the team we need to replace him with Josh Gibson – you need someone to pull the chicks at Boutique after the match and Gibbo’s the man. Luke McPharlin – you’ve got to be joking. As someone who left Hawthorn, he can’t use this team as a Trojan horse to sneak back into a rep team and play alongside Buddy. Glass can stay, after all, he wears number 23, and he can move to full back so that we can pop Gibson in the other back pocket as well – hey it’s a fantasy team and Goo is still injured!

Half-back: Beau Waters, Ted Richards, Grant Birchall

Beau Waters has a broken foot so he’s not much good to anyone, in which case we’ll slot Silk Burgoyne into the half back flank, just to add a touch of poise and composure.


Centre: Trent Cotchin, Jobe Watson, Dayne Beams

Cotchin’s quite good; I like how his hair stays in place like a figurine, but clearly Sammy has to replace Watson. Sure Watson’s a good player, but he's from Essendon, and he led his side to eight, or was it nine successive defeats? During the same period, Sammy got the ball out to our runners leading to eight wins out of nine. Admittedly Watson had to get the ball out to himself as he has no one half decent to feed it to, but that shouldn’t count against Sam.  And if you want to compare their effectiveness against each other – well, Hawthorn smashed the Bombers by 94 points…without Buddy! 'Nuff said. On the other wing, I think we need a dasher with a long left foot, and no bogan tatts…out Beams; in Clinton Young.


Half-forward: Patrick Dangerfield, Lance Franklin, Cyril Rioli 

Can’t argue with this line really, and it’s just a shame that Dangerfield can’t play on the same side as Buddy and Cyril this weekend.  He can stay - he wears number 32, which is 23 backwards.


Forward: Stephen Milne, Tom Hawkins, Dean Cox 

Are they taking the piss with this forward line? Even though this is a fantasy team, no one wants to share a dressing room with Milne, and certainly no one wants to be in the same fantasy as him. If we need a small forward, why not young Breust, who can at least perform in the big games. Tom Hawkins has 'Hawk' in his name, and despite kicking the winning goal against us this year, his foppish coiffure at least looks the part. And Cox can go in the ruck – what’s he doing in a pocket? Clearly The Rough is our forward/second ruck.


Followers:  Nic Natanui, Scott Thompson, Gary Ablett Jnr. 

Look, Natanui has a good leap, but that’s about it at this stage. Both Collingwood and Hawthorn have beaten him soundly in the past few weeks, so we’ll put Dean Cox first ruck, Ablett can stay for the simple reason that he’s been the best player in the AFL for about six consecutive years and his dad and uncles all played for Hawthorn. And while Scott Thompson is good, I think we need Jordan Lewis’ midfield grunt at the opening bounce, to say nothing of his Wolverine beard.


Interchange: Dayne Swan, Scott Pendlebury, Josh Kennedy, Brett Delidio 

This is the miscellaneous section where they chuck all the players they couldn’t fit anywhere else. This quartet are certainly all good players, but we’re going to have to replace a couple so that Sewell and Hodge can get in. I mean it’s hardly fair that Hodge missed out just because he was injured for most of the season; he’s still one of the best. Kennedy can stay because of his Hawthorn heritage, and Pendlebury can stay because he’s a fantastic player, but Deledio will have to go – I mean we’ve already got Cotchin and there's never room for two Richmond players in a representative side. And Swan can’t stay purely from an aesthetic perspective – those tatts! He can be emergency.

So here’s the Twenty3 all-Australian side for 2012…

B: Gibson, Glass, Gibson

HB: Burgoyne, Richards, Birchall

C: Cotchin, Mitchell, Young

HF: Dangerfield, Franklin, Rioli

F: Breust, Hawkins, Roughead

Followers: Cox, Lewis, Ablett

Int: Kennedy, Hodge, Sewell, Pendlebury

There, that’s better. Only 12 Hawthorn players in the line-up which I think illustrates the impartial and objective way we approached selection. We couldn't even find room for Schoenmakers.