We’re confused

We are officially stupid. There’s no doubt.

AussieRulesBlog was somewhat confused today to read a reference to the round one pres-season competition ‘games’ being two 20-minute halves. A Herald-Sun article on the Bombers’ plans discussed a 90-minute break between ‘games’. We figured the only way there could be a 90-minute break would be for each ‘game’ to be of only 20 minutes duration. We also thought that this arrangement evened out the risk of soft tissue injury. Confused? We obviously were, so we went searching.

It took a while — the AFL website is not a friendly place to be seeking information — but we did finally turn up an AFL web page that mentioned 40-minute games and an inconspicuous link to a PDF file (undated and marked confidential, so we feel just a little less stupid for not having seen it) explaining the round one arrangements. (We should have twigged that the average footy supporter couldn’t occupy their minds for 65 minutes without some assistance.)



It’s pretty clear from this diagram that the long break for the team playing first and third is 98 minutes (two 20-minute ‘between game’ breaks, two 20-minute ‘halves’ and an eight minute ‘half time’).

The other two teams play pretty much a standard pre-season game format — four 20-minute quarters, 20-minute half-time, eight minute breaks at quarter and three-quarter time — albeit with different opponents for the third and fourth quarters.

With our confusion eliminated, the fact that two teams are playing basically a standard pre-season game and one is having a 98-minute break between halves hasn’t stopped Kangaroo skipper Brent ‘Boomer’ Harvey claiming that the team with a break is getting an unfair advantage. An advantage? Well they can use their entire list across the two ‘games’.

And how much of an advantage is this? It seems Harvey’s primary concern is that North are unlikely to give high-profile Sudanese recruit Majak Daw a run if they can only have a standard interchange bench.

For our money, the big ‘advantage’ for the break team is the possibility of soft tissue injuries only five or six weeks out from the season proper. Perhaps Boomer would be happier to run out after a 98-minute break and do a big hammy? Not bloody likely.

In this case, it doesn’t matter that Boomer is a clod. AussieRulesBlog is the Clod of the Year!