In around an hours’ time, we will embark upon the adventure that is AFL season 2010. Some questions will be answered, many more will be posed. The posturing and promises of the past months will quickly be seen to be optimistic or otherwise. The high-falutin’ speeches of season launches will be forgotten in the roar of "Ball!!!!" We see now how effective the pre-season training has been; who can meld a workable on-field combination; who has the fire in the belly and who will be left pondering what went wrong.
Regular readers will be aware that we at AussieRulesBlog watch the umpires with an eagle eye. The big point of interest for us leading into the first game is whether we see the umpiring from Round One of pre-season again, or whether the whistleblowers follow straight on from their “put the whistles away” performance of two weeks ago in the pre-season Grand Final. And will the eye tests they’ve all received subsequent to the OPSM sponsorship announcement mean they’ll be more adept at paying free kicks based on what they see rather than what they fondly imagine to have happened? If we had a pot of gold, we’d plump for an immediate return to insanely overzealous umpiring for Round one, an ensuing media furore, a tempering of interpretations by around Round eight and a continuation of umpiring based on impressions and the balance of probabilities rather than the certainty of actual vision.
We aren’t going to indulge ourselves, or waste our readers’ valuable time, in public predictions of the utterly unknowable. An AFL team will win the premiership, an AFL player will be awarded the Brownlow Medal and, most likely, a completely different player will be generally acclaimed as having been the best player for the year. OK, pretty safe with those predictions.
One prediction we CAN make with certainty is that we won’t be tuning in to Triple-M this season. Some people may think that Rex Hunt is an icon of AFL broadcasting, but we are most definitely not among that number. We will be firmly fixed to 3AW — but a pox on Neil Mitchell — and ABC 774 or occasionally SEN.
On the visual medium, Tom Harley has already gained a high distinction, while Matthew Richardson has amply demonstrated why he was unable to overcome his manifold deficiencies while playing — he’s most probably a nice bloke, but he’s not fielding recruiting calls from Mensa. We hope Matthew Lloyd can grow into his special comments role, but the early signs haven't been promising. Frankly, he’s never been a particularly convincing public performer, even at club functions. We hope he has a day job lined up for 2012. We hope — fervently — that Robert "Captain Obvious" Walls will be ahead of Lloydy in the jobs queue.
Bring it on!!!
Regular readers will be aware that we at AussieRulesBlog watch the umpires with an eagle eye. The big point of interest for us leading into the first game is whether we see the umpiring from Round One of pre-season again, or whether the whistleblowers follow straight on from their “put the whistles away” performance of two weeks ago in the pre-season Grand Final. And will the eye tests they’ve all received subsequent to the OPSM sponsorship announcement mean they’ll be more adept at paying free kicks based on what they see rather than what they fondly imagine to have happened? If we had a pot of gold, we’d plump for an immediate return to insanely overzealous umpiring for Round one, an ensuing media furore, a tempering of interpretations by around Round eight and a continuation of umpiring based on impressions and the balance of probabilities rather than the certainty of actual vision.
We aren’t going to indulge ourselves, or waste our readers’ valuable time, in public predictions of the utterly unknowable. An AFL team will win the premiership, an AFL player will be awarded the Brownlow Medal and, most likely, a completely different player will be generally acclaimed as having been the best player for the year. OK, pretty safe with those predictions.
One prediction we CAN make with certainty is that we won’t be tuning in to Triple-M this season. Some people may think that Rex Hunt is an icon of AFL broadcasting, but we are most definitely not among that number. We will be firmly fixed to 3AW — but a pox on Neil Mitchell — and ABC 774 or occasionally SEN.
On the visual medium, Tom Harley has already gained a high distinction, while Matthew Richardson has amply demonstrated why he was unable to overcome his manifold deficiencies while playing — he’s most probably a nice bloke, but he’s not fielding recruiting calls from Mensa. We hope Matthew Lloyd can grow into his special comments role, but the early signs haven't been promising. Frankly, he’s never been a particularly convincing public performer, even at club functions. We hope he has a day job lined up for 2012. We hope — fervently — that Robert "Captain Obvious" Walls will be ahead of Lloydy in the jobs queue.
Bring it on!!!
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