I was an admirer of Shane Smeltz the player. He's a genuine goalscorer and a team player who gives his all. Unfortunately his actions and words over the last few days have led me to conclude - and this is just my opinion - that he's also a monumental hypocrite and extremely lucky.
His cynical tackle on Iain Fyfe could well have ended the defender's career. It was a simple matter of luck that it didn't. Without question it deserved a red card and - of course - it didn't get one.
Don't give me that bullshit about him being a striker and that strikers can't tackle. He's a professional player. If he can't tackle he shouldn't be playing. For years strikers have been slamming into other players, injuring them and then been given an easy ride by the rest of the world.
Even in this case I might have been willing to let it go if I hadn't read the following, which I discovered on goldcoast.com.au.
"I would never go out to deliberately hurt any opponent and that was never the case," said Smeltz, who opted for Gold Coast ahead of Adelaide when he left Wellington Phoenix last season.
Smeltz said the tackle was a ploy to lift the tempo as United chased the game after falling behind to a 20th-minute Travis Dodd strike.
"We'd been under the pump and sometimes you need to get stuck in to get your teammates fired up a bit," he added.
"It certainly gets me going when I see my teammates flying in with tackles. That was what I wanted to do but I'm not proud of the tackle and it was definitely mistimed."
So basically, Mr Smeltz, you weren't deliberately trying to hurt Iain (your friend) but you were prepared to "fly in" and risk breaking his leg to gain a small psychological advantage? You get fired up by watching other people try and hurt their opponents in a sporting match? You're not proud of it but it's exactly what you intended to do? And I guess it was mistimed. Imagine if you'd drawn blood or snapped his leg in half, eh? That would have fired your teammates up no end. Ah, timing.
But still, so much more impressive and inspiring than a genuine display of disciplined technical skill. Or not. In fact, definitely not.
Dickhead. (That's just personal opinion of course. I'm sure lots of people love you.)
I didn't love you when you popped up at the end to score a completely undeserved equalizer. But you took your chance like the fantastic striker you are - and we missed most of ours like the misfiring bunch of try-hards we are this year. Thems the breaks. We gave you the chance of that result and you took it.
Except of course that you shouldn't have been on the field.
Maybe it's just me but maybe some others have noticed that certain players don't appear to get what they deserve. Or maybe it's that some refs don't appear give what is deserved. We all know Mr Muscat has dodged more bullets than your average cowboy legend. And we all know that, if the ref has given out punishment of any kind (a free kick or a yellow card) then that's the end of that. Or it's supposed to be - yet sometimes isn't (cue loki and his personal and totally justified rage at the review system).
If we want a game that's skillful, fast and fair then we need a system that can review a player's actions and comments appropriately, especially when he admits that he went in with an intention other than to play the ball. If he admits to that and was prepared to risk serious injury to a fellow player in an attempt to "gee up" his team I think he should be banned. For a long time. I don't care if he plays for GCU or Melbourne - or Adelaide.
We don't need it in our game. We don't need little-boy hardmen who think that we still need to prove our game is for 'real' men. What we need are players who understand respect for the game and for one another.
Assuming these quotes are accurate, Shane, who's going to respect you in the morning?
Except Gaz.
(It is only fair to mention that, in the article, Mr Smeltz says he called Iain Fyfe afterwards and that Fyfe was fine about it all. That's all well and good but it doesn't excuse the callous intent - or remove the blemish from our game.)
