Like everyone else who are not recent visitors from a distant galaxy, AussieRulesBlog has been considering the ramifications of the Melbourne Storm salary cap breaches and subsequent penalties (follow this link if you’re recently arrived from Andromeda).

Our first thought is/was that the penalties are extraordinarily harsh, most especially not allowing any premiership points for the 2010 season. No doubt, one could mount an argument that the current roster is tainted by the breaches — to the tune of $700k this year according to some sources — and therefore can’t be seen as legitimate.

Our next thought was to ponder how many of the Storm’s players will jump ship at the earliest opportunity. One presumes the ‘official’ contracts, at least, will be honoured so the players will be paid. As ultra-competitive athletes, presumably there is some pride at stake. . .the coming weeks will tell.

Following on, we began ruminating on differences between the NRL and AFL worlds and wondering about loyalty. NRL players, it must be said, seem to change teams with little more thought than Giacomo Casanova gave to changing beds! Being a ‘one-club player’ still retains much cachét in AFL circles and loyalty to the playing group appears to be a strong motivator for players.

In the only vaguely similar situation in AFL, there wasn’t a mass exodus from Carlton following their penalties for salary cap breaches, even though the net effect of those penalties was to doom the club to years of, at the very best, mediocrity.

With NRL not having a squeaky clean image in general, we also found ourselves pondering whether the harshness of the penalties had an element of Sydney’s long-standing antipathy for all things ‘Mexican’. Here was a heaven-sent opportunity to rub the too-successful by half Melbourne noses in excrement in some sort of Sodom accusing Gomorrah of being Godless parody. It’s hard to imagine many in Sydney shedding even crocodile tears on Melbourne’s plight.

We find ourselves fighting an urge to find a way to offer support to the beleaguered Storm. We are of a progressive bent and supporting the downtrodden is a natural instinct — except when it’s Carlton or Collingwood, when we gloat with ill-concealed glee. We had thought about visiting the new rectangular stadium and since soccer bores us to our bootstraps, NRL seemed the next best excuse, even though we consider it a rather Neanderthal sport. That instinct might win out does not lessen our loathing for rugby league.

Finally, we find ourselves somewhat disconcerted by Andrew’s hairy-chested assertion that he would have no hesitation stripping Premierships from a miscreant AFL club if the crime was heinous enough. We’re sure there are 16 clubs anxiously awaiting a list of capital crimes from AFL House. . .

When the AFL’s staging sanctions were announced in February, AussieRulesBlog noted that:

• the co-released explanatory video was crucial in understanding the intent of the ruling; and
• slow-motion replays would be the primary source of identification, thus the match review panel would be involved rather than on-field umpires.

News that Kane Cornes has been investigated under these new staging rules confirms our interpretation of the rule and its application.

The point on which the MRP’s investigation hinged was whether contact had been made between Cornes and Corey Enright. The umpire paid a free kick to Cornes for contact being made off the ball — that is, the ball was not being contested.

If it could be proved, through the slow-motion video evidence, that Enright had made contact with Cornes, then the charge could not be sustained.

If, on the other hand, it could be proved that no contact had occurred, the charge of staging would be sustained and Cornes would face the specified sanctions.

Let us make this point very clearly: contact would mean the staging charge could not be sustained.

If Cornes had faked contact — let’s call it by the right name — and tried to milk a free kick, he would be guilty of staging.

In the event, the MRP was unable to determine from the evidence whether contact was made or not.

In an ironic coincidence (tautology?), the AFL’s explanatory video also featured Cornes doing an ‘autumn leaf’ impression.

Extrapolating from this decision, if the ball is being contested, such as in a marking contest, and there is an illegal contact which is accentuated, such as the blogosphere has been screaming about Nick Riewoldt’s ‘diving’ for weeks, the staging sanctions do not apply.

By extension, our view that video evidence would mean the MRP, not the umpires, would be the agency carrying responsibility for enforcing the rule is also confirmed.

AussieRulesBlog Rules! Yeah!

First we witnessed Nick Riewoldt clutch dramatically at his thigh in the time-honoured oh-shit-I’ve-done-my-hammy-in-a-big-way signal.

Less significantly, Josh Gibson also put in a bid for the best hammy grab of the year.

On Friday night, Daniel Kerr showed that big blokes weren’t the only ones playing this particular game.

With all due respect to Gibson, AussieRulesBlog reckons a couple of high-profile hammys — Riewoldt and Kerr — could well be the incentive the AFL needs to take some action on slowing the game down from ‘insane’ to ‘frenetic’.

Of course, that means there must be some compelling evidence that a squillion rotations a quarter is forcing marquee players to perform superhuman feats of physical endurance leading and re-leading, running down to the centre as a defensive forward, tearing back to the goal square as teammates try desperately to emulate ‘Pagan’s Paddock’. We don’t have that evidence, but we hope someone else does.

Not too long ago, a spate of PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) injuries to ruckmen led directly to the outer circle that now graces AFL grounds. It is not too far fetched to imagine that Riewoldt and Kerr could be the trigger for a cap on interchanges.

As exciting as the current trend for run-and-carry football is, if our star players are being cut down in their prime, action will be taken.

In a radio interview over the weekend, Tadgh Kennelly identified much increased speed as the biggest change in the game in his year away.

When will all this end? Never, really. Whenever a rule is changed or introduced or wiped from the books, coaches at every club are immediately looking to see how their team can best exploit the opportunity provided. It will ever be thus.

Rules of the Game

15.4.5 Prohibited Contact and Payment of Free Kick

A field Umpire shall award a Free Kick against a Player where he or she is satisfied that the Player has made Prohibited Contact with an opposition Player.

 

A Player makes Prohibited Contact with an opposition Player if he or she:

(b) pushes an opposition Player in the back, unless such contact is incidental to a Marking contest and the Player is legitimately Marking or attempting to Mark the football;

We reproduce part of the Rules of the Game document to remind readers of the total and complete reference within the rules to awarding a free kick for pushing in the back. Yes, that’s it. There’s nothing more.

Everything else we see on a weekly basis, such as “hands on/in the back” is someone’s interpretation of this rule. First and foremost, let’s just acknowledge that the hands in the back interpretation is a fair stretch from the rule as written. It will come as no surprise for us to inform you that there are squillions of similar examples. Some of the current interpretations would appear to actually directly contradict the rules as written.

So, what’s brought on this fever of research? We witnessed — well, we saw on television — an incident today where a player of team A deliberately dove in under two players of team B who were attempting to retrieve a loose ball on the ground. The dive caused both team B players to lose their footing and fall over the team A player. A free kick for a push in the back was paid to the team A player.

Let’s forget, just for a moment, that the television replay clearly showed that neither team B player had actually touched the team A player’s back — and that the camera angle was fairly closely aligned with the umpire’s point of view.

It seems to us that there is a substantial difference between a push — that is, an active force being applied by the offending player — and being caused to fall across the other player’s back by the other player’s own actions.

This is just one example where the application of an inflexible interpretation of a rule denies players natural justice. The team A player brought that situation upon himself by diving in where he did. Penalising the team B players makes them responsible for an action that they did not initiate.

Complex interpretations of rules and inflexible implementation of them are a blight on our game.

Release the Giesch!!

Having made the point above that the team B players did not appear to touch the team A player’s back according to the television replay, it would appear that the umpire(s) assumed that such a contact would have been made, and paid the free kick on that basis.

The free kick should only be paid when the umpire sees the infringement. Not when they imagine it, when they see it.

Following in the footsteps of a certain American golfer and his now-infamous attempt to create his own, unique 18-hole course, Brendan Fevola appears to be working his way through the seven deadly sins.

Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony are the commonly accepted list of the sins.

Let’s start with gluttony. The infamous Brownlow antics provide more than sufficient evidence of gluttony for drink, and, of course, he’s always had a gluttonous appetite for goals, which is not such a bad thing in a key forward. Addictive behaviour, be it booze or the punt, suggest gluttony too.

The picture of Lara would seem to mean that lust gets a run. That he was married at the time suggests greed gets a run as well (on the off chance that Lara might have gazed longingly at AussieRulesBlog in some weird parallel universe had Brendan not secured her attentions).

Blues fans would be able to recount those times when Brendan failed to chase and apply forward pressure — sloth.

Brendan has had his moments being upset at teammates’ inability to deliver the ball appropriately — although Richo remains the outright champion — and has thrown his weight around occasionally. It’s drawing a long bow, but let’s say we’ve ticked off wrath.

So, we’re left with pride and envy.

We wonder if any of our inventive readers have suggestions?

Seriously, we applaud Fevola for owning up to the gambling problem, remembering that David Schwartz deserves enormous accolades for being the first to out himself as a gambling addict. We’ve had a go at the Ox for his adventures with the English language, but in this respect he is a genuine role model.

Hallelujah!! Finally, a positive story about Ben Cousins. And this in the wake of the incident that sees him suspended for a week. (Mostly) well done, Sam Lane.

What a contrast with the despicable and unprofessional “news” report we listened to on SEN a couple of nights ago that all but had Cousins found with cocaine powder dripping from his nose in the wake of the same incident. That report, read by Dennis O’Kane, had us in such a fury that we were a danger to other road users. Whoever wrote that nonsense deserves to be pilloried in the same manner with the same lazy mix of assumption, fiction and stereotyping.

There are sections of the media (most) that seem obsessed with announcing Cousins’ recession into the drug world. Was there a media outlet that didn’t salivate upon hearing that Cousins was among the group said to have transgressed at the Intercontinental? News promotions for the next few hours universally implied some shocking revelation of Cousins’ demise.

Nothing, it seems, entitles him to expect fair treatment. Certainly not the inescapable fact that he was never charged with or convicted of a drug-related offence.

As Cousins is quoted in the Lane piece, “I'm in the situation where I just can't put myself in a situation where I'm around anything that can go wrong. I understand that. If you make your bed you've got to sleep in it. I've got to take responsibility. It is serious.”

Despite penning an overwhelmingly positive piece, Lane couldn’t avoid an oblique dig at Cousins: “the wisdom of having Cousins, a 31-year-old recovering drug addict . . . has again been brought into question. . .”

It’s about time the media, and the blogosphere, got off this man’s back and allowed him to do what he does best.

Here at AussieRulesBlog Central, we thought the status of the words role model had been brought just about as low as was possible, but we reckoned without the charm of Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse.

Frankly, what Malthouse or assistant coach Paul Licuria may or may not have said to Saint, Steven Milne — and whatever Milne may have said to them — are merely indications of relatively tiny cerebral cortexes. It’s called sledging and we Aussies are supposed to be world champions at it, although the reported exchanges are hardly championship material.

For many years, the principle that “what happens on the field stays on the field” has provided a curtain for sledging and all manner of less-savoury actions. Participants in AFL matches in 2010 can not credibly claim ignorance of a multitude of high-resolution cameras examining their every action. What happens on the field is now public property, for good or ill.

The simple fact is that Malthouse and Licuria have no place having contact of any sort with an opposition player. The principle is well-established and Malthouse has been around the game long enough to know it.

We have an old-school belief that the more senior people in an organisation provide a lead for the rest. The team captain sets a benchmark and we expect the playing group to aspire to meet that benchmark. Similarly, we expect coaches to provide a model for those they are teaching to aspire to, not to mention the thousands of club supporters who might legitimately look to them to provide a model for their behaviour.

Malthouse, it appears, has lied. After the game, when it must have been clear to him that he had been caught on camera interacting with Milne, he denied speaking to anyone other than his own players. Come Monday morning, he’s offering apologies.

If there was any wonder at the time why Heath Shaw and Alan Didak were economical with the truth after their traffic brouhaha, there can be little now.

Every week at the game — and it happened to us again last night — we are surprised to find ourselves waiting breathlessly for an umpire to award a free kick penalty for a rushed behind as an opposition player takes the ball across the goal line in general play. Of course, we can wait breathlessly until the cows come home — it’s not going to happen.

Along with the AFL’s sanctions against staging, the rushed behind rule may be the most widely misunderstood rule in the history of sport!

The rushed behind rule (click the link in the tag cloud for more on this) should be renamed the Joel Bowden Timewasting Rule. That scenario, of stepping back over the goal line at a kick-in after a behind (the Bowden Manoeuvre), is the only scenario where a free kick will be awarded.

Likewise, people are desperately waiting for an umpire to report a player — Riewoldt has been the target of choice — for accentuating contact in a contested ball scenario, especially marking, under the AFL’s staging sanctions.

It was clear from the video distributed by the AFL at the time that the sanctions did not apply to players accentuating illegal contact in contested situations. Perhaps Riewoldt’s enforced lay-off will allow the more zealous of these critics to take a breath and recompose themselves.

These two examples are but the most recent. Even the most common of umpiring decisions are misunderstood by most of the crowd going by the regular (and obviously ill-informed) roars from crowds. Ask a hundred people near you at a game and you’ll get a hundred different versions of “holding the ball”, “holding the man”, “prior opportunity”, and so on — not to mention the large number of superhumans within the crowd who can spot the tiniest infringement a hundred and more metres away on the other side of the ground completely unaided by any sight improvement technology.

We can’t figure out why, but the AFL clearly hasn’t communicated these rules or interpretations effectively to the vast majority of the football-watching population.

There is some ‘education’ via the umpires’ mikes during games on television, but this is hardly a seriously designed communication campaign to improve fans’ understanding of the rules.

If the administrators of the game are really serious about improving general attitudes toward umpires, the best thing they could do would be to institute a planned and comprehensive communication campaign to educate the football world — it might take longer with Carlton supporters as their natural assumption of privileged treatment would need to be overcome first.

Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse’s assertions that he was speaking to his own players at quarter time of the Saints-Collingwood clash last night aren’t supported by the video footage. Assistant coach Paul Licuria also pretty clearly had a crack.

It brings to mind Kevin Sheedy’s antics a few years ago at the same ground in a clash against the Weagles. Sheedy’s throat-cutting gesture to a Weagles player was obviously more over-the-top than Malthouse and Licuria exchanging pleasantries, yet the similarities remain.

In round 22, 2009, Alastair Clarkson crossed the line to hurl invective at Matthew Lloyd after Lloyd had put the one of the Hawks’ key midfielders out of the game.

We can hardly criticise coaches for being emotionally involved in the games they coach or for being emotionally-connected to their players, but there must be a firm line established by the AFL on this issue.

Watching the footage and taking note of body language, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Malthouse and Licuria were inflaming the situation.

As we observed in our previous post, we watched the television transfixed as the Magpies appeared to target the Saints’ tagger Clint Jones before the opening bounce. It’s now a matter of record that the Saints not only withstood those unsavoury tactics, but went on to a famous victory after losing their captain to a severe hamstring injury and a key defender to a sickening collision. But what is the take out message?

The Saints are good enough to win without Riewoldt? For one game, yes. We’ll see how long the hamstring keeps him out and see how the team performs over a number of weeks before we pronounce them not a one-man team.

Bad kicking is bad football? Clearly the Magpies had many opportunities in front of goal that they squandered, but we felt, watching the television broadcast, that the Saints held an ascendency all game in general play. We think there’s something more than just ‘bad kicking’.

Going out with the right attitude translates to how the team plays? Collingwood began the game with an essentially negative mindset — they were going to nullify Jones’ tag right from the first moment on the ground. In the ensuing scuffles, Collingwood emerged with key free kick opportunities, but never appeared to have the composure to look like winners.

Even when the hapless Zac Dawson had done his best rabbit in the headlights stare for the third time early in the second quarter, the Saints looked more composed.

We are convinced that elite-level AFL is so even in standard that it is only miniscule differences that generate even 100-point-plus losses.

Whether pre-planned or not, and it certainly looked to be a planned action, Collingwood entered the arena with a negative mindset, focussing on a player rather than winning each and every contest for the ball.

The Saints are no angels. Baker, in particular, plays on the knife edge in his own negative, run-with roles. Nevertheless, the Saints seemed to win crucial contests for the ball and to make the most of their opportunities where Collingwood squandered theirs.

There’s a football truism — ninety per cent of the game is played above the shoulders. We think it might be even more important than that.

Tonight’s St Kilda-Collingwood game was notable for the grit and determination of the Saints’ win, but also for the less than sporting way that Collingwood sought to influence Clint Jones’ performance before the game had begun.

In our previous post, we agreed with Bob Murphy that a respectful handshake before the game would be more appropriate than the rutting rites that seem to be fashionable.

It’s hard relying on TV, because we see so little of what’s happening on the ground, however it appeared that Collingwood targeted Jones for extreme physical attention at every opportunity. We at AussieRulesBlog are not fans of a win at all costs mentality. Aussie rules is not, contrary to the attitudes of many, a life and death struggle. It is a competitive game, but losing doesn’t cost your life. The threat of being beaten in a game of aussie rules does not justify thuggery.

We might also mention that the Saints have indulged in the same sort of tactics themselves on occasion.

The game was redeemed by the Saints’ courageous second half. We’re often not overly impressed with the Saints, but they won respect for tonight’s against-the-odds performance.

It’s such a shame that all those first-round Collingwood Premiership celebrations will have to be put on hold too!

Also worth noting, with the benefit of listening to their audio feed, that the umpires did a pretty good job of taking control of a high-pressure situation and calming it down. Their performance tonight was firm, but restrained. An over-officious attitude could easily have exacerbated the tensions, but, fortunately, Steve McBurney is otherwise engaged this weekend.

Writing for The Age, Bulldog’s star Bob Murphy bemoans the failure of many of his opponents (and teammates) to shake hands before the game begins.

Here at AussieRulesBlog, we’ve searched the cerebral memory banks and we’re quite sure we recall a respectful handshake before the game being very much the rule going back to the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Of course, in those  far-off and less-competitive times, players did not play at something akin to the rutting rites of mountain rams before a game. They simply shook hands respectfully, may even have wished each other good luck, and then waited for the game to commence.

Such is the modern manifestation of AFL that, before the game commences, players engage in violent confrontations immediately upon approaching each other. No doubt there are mental battles being waged and physical dominance being established, but it all seems pretty petty to we old timers.

Players being interviewed are quick to give credit to their opponents, often even when not warranted, yet go through these troglodyte rites to establish superiority before the bounce.

We think respect for one’s opponents is a crucial aspect of modern sport. It marks us out as a more-tolerant, more-civilised society that our AFL crowds are not segregated according to allegiance, but mix freely around the ground. The players should take a lead in emphasising this feature of our sport.

Occasionally we see a player demonstrate respect by showing concern for the welfare of an opponent, as David Hille did in 2008 after a clash with Jamie Charman. Charman was not demeaned by Hille showing concern, and Hille demonstrated a chivalry too little seen in modern AFL.

At AussieRulesBlog, we would prefer to see our heroes demonstrating the chivalric values of the mythical Round Table — accord one’s opponent appropriate respect, but give no quarter, nor expect any, once battle is engaged.

The AFL’s Mick Malthouse-inspired directive that coaches shake hands with umpires preceding the game to show respect to the officials, is a similar acknowledgement and expression of an expectation that the officials will truly and disinterestedly discharge their duties in the coming game. We may not always agree with them, but we respect their efforts and their independence from the contest.

Good on you Bob. We support you wholeheartedly.

It’s early days yet, but observers at AussieRulesBlog Central are noticing an increasing occurrence of huge packs of players fumbling the ball around like a cake of soap. No player, it seems, wants to determinedly take possession for fear of being free kicked for holding the ball. Instead the ball canons from player to player like some sort of pinball.

Is this spectacle any more attractive than the ‘stacks on the mill’ collapse of players falling on a ball carrier that was seen as so unattractive a few years ago? We don’t think so.

In the current tactical fashion, ultra-quick movement of the ball down the field is the best method to defeat rolling defensive zones. The resulting fast-moving game is exciting and attractive — until there’s no room for a fast break.

We don’t proffer a solution at this point. We merely observe that this is an unattractive feature of elite AFL in the current environment.