The long throw. Is it worth it?

There used to be a fella get in a pub I ran years back, Geoff his name was. Once when we rang the time at the bar bell he leapt off his chair and started shadow boxing, the whole place fell about laughing. Timing is everything in comedy as it is in life, Geoff nailed it.

The unfortunate thing was, from that day on he did it every single night he was in. We went full circle in terms of audience reaction. From polite smiles, to total silence, to "sit down silly bollocks" and finishing with people laughing AT him as opposed to with him. I had to have a quiet word with him in the end to save his embarrassment. I definitely don't think I nailed it even though my intentions were good, he stopped coming in.

As I often say, football reflects real life. I don't know if Ronnie Radford tried hitting it from 35 yards every time it rolled near him after his screamer against Newcastle, but I'm pretty sure that if he did he'd have quickly been told to give it a rest.

So what of our throw in? Well after Saturdays winning goal, it's caused two goals to be scored so far (that one plus the og versus Notts County). Given that, am I completely bonkers to be even talking about it? Let's have a look.

The first thing to point out is that Kofi Balmer obviously isn't a right back. He CAN play there, he is good defender who rarely gets embarrassed (if he does it's more of the him failing to control it rather than him getting skinned), and he lets nobody down. But he definitely isn't a right back. I'm going to be so bold as to suggest that if he couldn't throw the football like Captain Caveman hurling a boulder, we would play Ogs or Huss at right back. The impact on us as an attacking unit of having "Not a right back" playing there is quite profound. It isn't the ONLY reason that we have become so bereft of inspiration going forward, but like a boxer with a broken right hand, it is chief amongst the causes.

Then there is the question of the element of surprise. Much of the magic in sport is when someone does the unexpected. Nine times out of ten, it isn't the bouncer which gets the Test cricketer out, it's the yorker when the batter is EXPECTING the short one. We never seem to take the opportunity to throw a quick short one in, to perhaps vary it so the long throw is loopier, hits the edge of the box, even is thrown backwards so we can build the play while they have ten men in their own penalty area.

Like Geoff with his shadow boxing routine, we are in danger of becoming one trick ponies. If the throw in doesn't work (and it normally doesn't) we are seemingly at a loss to come up with an alternative.

So I ask the question. Are we getting it right already and I'm just talking bollocks again? Do we need to mix it up more, or should we play a right back at right back?